Bob Dylan's latest album, Shadows In The Night, is a 10-song covers album with Dylan wading through tunes made famous by Frank Sinatra. It is Dylan's 36th studio album, which means at 73, he's released an LP for every two years of his life. That's some haul, but Dylan (right) is still trailing behind modern music's most prolific.
When it comes to kicking out the jams at a frightening rate, it’s hard to beat jazz musicians. Alabama jazz composer Sun Ra recorded 71 studio albums and released 46 live albums before his death aged 79 in 1993.
Duke Ellington pips him in the jazzer stakes though, with 171 album releases. John Coltrane deserves a shoutout for condensed productivity for releasing 25 albums in the 10 years between 1957 and 1967. Ella Fizgerald put out 79 albums between 1950 and 2001.
Moving into the offbeat sphere, outsiders can be quite prolific. The German electronic group Tangerine Dream have released 99 albums, a mix of studio and live recordings, the latest being last year's Supernormal. Their line-up changes put Sugababes in the shade, with 20 past members. Twenty former bandmates is plenty, but not when you compare it with the prolific revolving door that is The Fall, with 34 past members, a figure larger than their 29 studio albums. Mind you, The Fall pushes up the numbers when the rest of their recorded releases come in to play; five live-studio combination albums, and 32 live albums. Frank Zappa released 61 albums before he died in 1993, a year that saw an album release in March and October. And following his death, 37 Zappa albums were released, including two last year.
How about contemporary pop music? Madonna put her eponymous debut record out in 1983 when she was 25. By the time Rihanna was 25, she had released her entire discography to date including seven studio albums, two compilation albums, two remix albums, and 40 singles. Her new album is due this year, marking her longest break between album releases as Unapologetic was released in 2012.
