Ooh, I like this question: “What is the best album released by a music act at least 15 years after its debut album?” Any ideas?
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Different Class by Pulp (formed 1978, album 1995).
"State of Confusion" by The Kinks (released 1983, founded 1963)
Probably succumbing to recency bias here, but both The Cure's latest album Songs of a Lost World and Depeche Mode's Memento Mori have to be in the conversation.
The Cure's latest - Song Of A Lost World - is a perfect record. I love how they leaned into being The Cure HARD. Only they could make a record anything like this. Robert Smith still in top form.
OK, this is going to be my next listen. I was a huge Cure fan in the 80's and have tons of their old music in my library however I haven't heard much until their recent single getting "airplay". The new single sounds very much "on brand", sort of like their music is circling back around little.
Yeah totally agree this is an old-school Cure record thru and thru. And I think that the over-the-top melodramatic sound really fits well with the current moment. Endsong especially, love it. I saw an awesome livestream of theirs on YT which had a really moving rendition.
+1 for the Cure. Was not a big fan in their heyday but Songs of a Lost World blew me away
90125 by Yes (1985/1968) -- whoops, no, first album was 1969
Thrak by King Crimson (1995/1969)
Fantastic choice!! Thrak is an amazing album.
90125 does not have a single weak song. It’s a complete (and perfect, IMO) album. GREAT choice here.
Aerosmith Pump
Aerosmith 1973
Pump 1989
mbv by My Bloody Valentine (1988/2013) or We Got It from Here... Thank You 4 Your Service by A Tribe Called Quest (1990/2016)
"Bad", by Michael Jackson.
Released August 31st, 1987. Just over 15 years after his debut solo album, "Got to Be There", released on January 24th, 1972.
"Thriller" just misses the cut, but "Bad" might be the most impactful album of any of the ones I've seen so far.
Low's Double Negative (2018) or Hey What (2021), 24/27 years after I Could Live In Hope (1994).
Appeal to authority: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/alan-sparhawk-the-heart-of-low
Johnny Cash American IV (2002) (first album 1957)
Neil Young Harvest Moon (1992) (first album 1968)
Beyonce Cowboy Carter (2024) (first album 2003)
Middle to late period Bob Dylan is littered with excellent albums that all could be infinitely debated. By the letter of the law Desire is the first that qualifies but I really wanted the answer to be Blood On The Tracks. Alas on 12 years after his debut. But Desire is absolutely a banger; my personal picks would be Street Legal, Infidels and Oh Mercy.
Maybe Traveling Willburys?
Lots of good ones in the replies of that Bluesky post! I'll second Fiona Apple's Fetch the Bolt Cutters, Paul Simon's Graceland, and Paramore's This Is Why.
Multiple people have mentioned Miles Davis, who continued to put out some of his best work more than 15 years after his 1951 debut, namely Bitches Brew, In A Silent Way, Miles Smiles, Nefertiti, and On the Corner.
But I'll throw out an artist I haven't seen anyone else say: XTC's Apple Venus Volume 1 (1999) is probably my favorite album of theirs, released 21 years after their 1978 debut.
I love that XTC record and Nonsuch from ‘92 (which sadly just misses the 15 year cut)
Paul Simon: Graceland
Rolling Stones: Tattoo You
Santana: Supernatural
Not major fan of the latter two, and only a passing fan of Paul Simon, but Graceland was a phenomenal release!
I've seen Graceland mentioned a few times but I think Rhythm of the Saints surpassed Graceland. It might not have been the commercial success Graceland was but it is one of the most beautiful albums ever made and absolutely unique.
David Bowie, Blackstar (2016/1969)
The Unutterable by The Fall, 2000. (First album 1979.)
Can't believe I'm the first to mention U2 - maybe I'm a little older than the average Kottke commenter....(?).
Anyway:
Boy - 1980
All That You Can't Leave Behind - 2000 (includes Beautiful Day, Stuck in a Moment, Elevation, and probably one or two others that a radio listener in the early '00s would recognize.
I’ve for a soft spot for Pop, 1997.
Well damn. I was gonna put In Rainbows and Blur's Think Tank, but neither makes the cutoff. Neither does DOOM's '03-'04 hot streak: only 12 years after KMD's first release, which I think breaks the rule anyway as a different act.
Definitely Aphex Twin's Syro at 22 years. Low's Double Negative at 24.
Edit: Oops, someone already got Low on here.
Leonard Cohen, Prince, Jay Z, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, Bill Callahan, Lou Reed, Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple all have strong contenders
ah, Lou Reed. Start the clock with his 1972 solo debut and you get New York and Magic and Loss, very different records (with the amazing Warhol tribute with John Cale, Songs For Drella, sandwiched in between).
But if you start counting down the years with the Velvets debut you get the completely different, sensational 1982/83/84 trilogy of The Blue Mask, Legendary Hearts, and New Sensations.
Red Hot Chili Peppers took a long while to hone their sound after their 1984 debut. Californication came out in 1999, By The Way in 2002, Stadium Arcadium in 2006...
Different question, but a friend asked who the “greatest American rock band” is (not best!) and made everyone really mad by correctly pointing out it’s rhcp. Hits in five decades!
That's crazy when you put it that way. In1985 (if memory serves me), as a 15 year old living in Wisconsin, a girlfriend of my best friend returned from a California vacation with RHCP's first release on cassette and we played that thing over and over. Police Helicopter, Baby Appeal, Get Up and Jump, etc. It never made the radio here, not even the college stations.
We couldn't wait for their next album... and it mostly sucked. George Clinton produced it and did not understand RHCP's strength and originality. It wasn't until Mother's Milk that they got rolling.
Reminds me of the fun fact that The Smiths debut album was released the same year as the Red Hot Chili Peppers debut album.
I'll throw in "Memory Almost Full" from Paul McCartney
Definitely Beyoncé's Renaissance. 19 years after her debut.
Stevie Wonder gets so close, with his early Tamla releases in Sept 1962 and Songs in the Key of Life, considered the last in his classic period, released in Sept 1976. The Jungle Fever soundtrack (1991) is pretty tight though.
Hotter than July is 18 years on, from 1980
Oh man my first thought is Double Negative and/or HEY WHAT by Low. Not a bad record in their entire discography but those two records coming out a quarter century after their debut is truly mind blowing.
Just saw there's already some Low love on here! That just makes my day.
My favorite Low record, C'Mon (2011), also fits the brief. "Nothing But Heart," seventeen years in... wow.
Wildflowers by Tom Petty, hands down if you count all his work.
Honorable mentions:
Sex, Love and Rock ‘N’ Roll by Social Distortion
Peace and Love by the Swingin’ Utters
Sleater-Kinney: 20 years from the self titled debut, 1995--> No Cities to Love, 2015.
After their nearly decade long haitus that album felt like rekindling a youthful love affair and rediscovering your past self along the way.
This is a fabulous one. It really felt like they were called out of retirement (they weren’t retired) because the era needed them and thus they came back and absolutely cooked.
Any Miles Davis record after, what, 1964? Let’s say In a Silent Way.
Three come to mind for me:
I'll Be Your Girl by The Decemberists
Most Messed Up by Old 97's
Pollinator by Blondie
Pollinator, for sure. Every other Blondie album has weaknesses, but that one's great from start to finish.
Björk, Neko Case, Kraftwerk, Peter Gabriel (b/c I think Us just makes the cut).
Yes, Us does. Car was in ‘77, Us was in ‘92.
Green Day, American Idiot
Was looking for this one. Loved it so much when it came out and happy (but also very not happy) to see it still hitting hard these days.
I came here to second (and now third this), and note that this record is perhaps unique in this thread in that it turned them into generational band. I'm not sure any other record on this list does that. There are records here that are good extensions of careers that were already Hall of Fame artists (Bad, Wildflowers), and records that are under-the-mainstream-radar good but didn't have popular impact (Sleater-Kinney, Aphex Twin, Low), but there's really nothing else here that changed the conversation about the artist in question so radically.
Before Idiot, Green Day was a bratty punk band, known for their killer hooks and kinetic live shows. After, they became a politically-charged global force, headlined stadiums for decades, put a long-running show on Broadway... They had two definitively seminal records, and did 20th anniversary full play-throughs of both. I'm not sure anyone else has put out a 15-year-on record that was as impactful to the career of the artist in question.
Also notable for sourcing the mashup album American Edit, by Dean Gray. I swear, I remember the mashups better than the sources.
American Idiot unfortunately doesn’t quite qualify, because it was released only 14 years and 5 months after their debut album, 39/Smooth.
Their debut EP (1000 Hours) squeaks em in - came out in April 1989, 15 years and 6 months before Idiot.
Elvis Costello! I didn't even realize how many albums he released 15 years after his debut, but of the ones I know, I'd say that All This Useless Beauty (19 years later) and When I Was Cruel (25 years later) are stellar. Momofoku (31 years later) doesn't make the cut, but has one of his very best songs, American Gangster Time.
A very near miss: Portishead. Dummy was in 1994. Third was 14 years later (2008) and is awesome. It has so many good songs, but I must mention Rip, which is one of their best, AND it is accompanied by one of the greatest music videos ever made.
Masta Ace's "A Breukelen Story" was 28 years after his debut. It's really good!
The Soft Bulletin by Flaming Lips hasn't aged well with me (Clouds Taste Metallic was a foundational text and falls below the fold with Zaireeka) but was huge for them
Black Messiah by D'Angelo, c'mon
Wildflowers by The Avalanches was joy
+1 for Black Messiah. My favorite Flaming Lips album is Embryonic from 2009. I'll also add My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross by Anohni and the Johnsons, and anything released by Robyn since 2010 (Body Talk! Do It Again! Honey!!!)
Some that I haven't seen mentioned in here: Yo La Tengo has a lot of great albums > 15 years after they formed. Sonic Youth's Rather Ripped or Murray St is up there. And just cause I have a 4.5 year old, Randy Newman has had some fantastic songs well after 15 years, and Trouble In Paradise, which includes "I Love L.A." is 15 years after his debut.
Yeah, I like Trouble In Paradise a lot. I was in LA at the time, and even though we knew Newman meant “I Love LA” ironically, we’d blast it in the car. And “Mikey’s” is good for its synth weirdness mixed with nostalgia. “Where are we, on the Moon?”
Yo La Tengo have released a ton of great stuff 15 years into their nearly 40(!) year career! Ride the Tiger came out in 1986, and 2023's This Stupid World is one of their best.
Great list!
Tears for Fears, "The Tipping Point" from 2022 (debut "The Hurting" in 1983) is quite good and feels like both a return to, and a maturing from, their early hits and albums.
2004's "Everybody Loves a Happy Ending" is my favorite TFF record.
Peter Gabriel, Us & Up
Warren Zevon, Sentimental Hygiene & My Ride’s Here
Kate Bush, Before the Dawn
Rickie Lee Jones, It’s Like This
The Who, It’s Hard
Rubén Blades, Nothing But the Truth
Dexter Gordon, Go!
Värttinä, Iki
Before This World (2015) by James Taylor reached #1 on the Billboard 200, more than 46 years after his 1968 eponymous debut album. His next album, American Standard (2020) won the Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.
Carrie and Lowell was released exactly 15 years (2015) after A Sun Came, Sufjan Stevens's first album (2000). It's a masterpiece.
It will be whatever new album Joanna Newsom releases when she’s ready, 1,000 years after The Milk Eyed Mender
Crowded House's "Intriguer" from 2010.
The Grass Is Blue by Dolly Parton, released in 1999, thirty-two years after her first solo album in 1967. The two later albums in her bluegrass trilogy, Little Sparrow and Halos & Horns, are also fabulous.
Belle and Sebastian:
1996: recorded Tigermilk as a project for an unemployed musicians program in Glasgow
2015: Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance
Cranking out sensitive albums for careful parkers my whole adult life.
I think I'm going to wait to add a comment (if ever) because I see so many good albums (or long lists) but the question is "best" album. I only see three or four in the comments that stand above the rest of the list out of so many good choices (and a few personal favorites that don't qualify for "best").
I'm hard pressed to find a better answer than James Brown Sex Machine, which I took from the original Bluesky thread.
The National - The National (2001)
The National - I Am Easy to Find (2019)
Three other magnificent studio LP’s qualify (Sleep Well Beast, First Two Pages of Frankenstein, Laughed Track), but their 2019 album astonishes for incorporating women’s vocals into their historically bass-baritone oeuvre.
Great shout. Consistently brilliant.
Lots of good answers, tried to find some new answers:
Beyoncé’s Lemonade (2016, debut 1998)
Bob Dylan Oh Mercy (1989, debut 1962)
Wire Object 47 (2008, debut 1977)
D’Angelo Black Messiah (2014, debut 1995)
Dr. Dre 2001 (2001, debut 1992)
Guided By Voices Earthquake Glue (2003, debut 1983)
Gillian Welch All The Good Times (2020, debut 1996)
John Lennon Double Fantasy (1980, debut 1963)
I like your taste in music Terence!
One of my favourites is This Packed Funeral (2014) by The World/Inferno Friendship Society (formed 1994ish).
Stardust (1978) by Willie Nelson. Not a bad cut on this one, and a real demonstration of versatility. Red Headed Stranger (1975) just misses the cut by a couple of years.
Stardust is astonishing in its way - a country outlaw just leaning into his idiosyncratic voice and phrasing to tackle (brilliantly) the great American songbook.
Speaking of, Linda Ronstadt needs to be mentioned. Canciones de mi padre was decades after her debut with the Stone Poneys and went double platinum, and remains the biggest selling non-English language album in US history. It also won her a Grammy.
It's rare for musicians to have a 15 year career. Rarer still is creative output that gets better and better with time.
LOW has been mentioned a few times. I do think their last 2 albums were their best. Their first album was in 1994 and their last was in 2021. That's 27 years of life and experience in that last album.
It's so sad that Mimi Parker died shortly after their last album from ovarian cancer. RIP and thank you for such beauty.
Slightly less well known than some of the other artists here, but my favorite indie rock band Wussy debuted with Funeral Dress in 2005, and released the incredible Cincinnati Ohio in 2024. They've never had huge success, but they're still making great music nearly 20 years into their career.
A few more for consideration:
PJ Harvey
Dry (1992) --> I Inside the Old World Dying (2023)
Richard Thompson (solo)
Henry the Human Fly (1972) --> Rumor & Sigh (1991)
Pere Ubu
The Modern Dance (1978) --> The Long Goodbye (2019)
Marianne Faithfull
s/t (1965) --> Blazing Away (1990), a live album so a bit of a cheat but it includes searing versions of tunes from the barely ineligible Broken English (1979) and other LPs. She released so many good records after 1980 that it is hard to choose just one.
Lucinda Williams
Ramblin' On My Mind (1979) --> Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (1998)
Robert Ashley (composer and performer)
recorded debut in 1967 or 1974, depending on how you count --> Improvement (Don Leaves Linda) from 1992, which is an "opera for television" about, umm, many things, including left-handed golf, spying, cocktail party conversation, and odd encounters at airline ticket counters
A Girl Called Eddy
s/t (2003) --> Been Around (2020), my fave record of the Lockdown Year
and how did I forget the Mekons
1978 debut single, reborn in 1985 on the unstoppable Fear & Whiskey
--> Me (1998) or the millenialist (?) Journey To The End Of Night (2000) or the just-released Horror (2025)
Slowdive’s self titled album (2017) founded in 1991
Can’t believe I almost forgot Low’s Double Negative (2018) founded in 1994
Such a great thread! I’m on the road tomorrow and am going to download a few of these suggestions to help pass the time, so thanks everyone.
My contribution would be Springsteen’s The Rising (1973/2005), which I don’t believe has been mentioned yet (?)
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