It’s a question guaranteed to start arguments among music lovers – of all the classic three-album runs in pop and rock, which is the best? It’s a tough call, but here are the 15 purple patches to end them all.
The best three-album runs in rock history
15. The Replacements – Let It Be (1983), Tim (1985) and Pleased To Meet Me (1987)
Let It Be, the cheekily-titled third album by Minnesota punk reprobates The Replacements, was their first masterpiece.
Frontman Paul Westerberg’s songs were his strongest yet – the shimmering ennui of ‘Sixteen Blue’, the cathartic ‘Unsatisfied’, the sublime, ahead-of-its-time piano ballad ‘Androgynous’ – and the recordings captured the crackling intensity and ramshackle spontaneity of the band’s live shows.
Two years later, Tim kept up the standard, an album loaded with outsider anthems (‘Swingin’ Party’, ‘Bastard Of Young’), raucous rock’n’roll (‘Hold My Life’, ‘Dose Of Thunder’) and desolate beauty (‘Here Comes A Regular’). Though the mix was a little flat, Ed Stasium’s 2023 remix brought it snarling into life.
And Pleased To Meet Me completed the glorious run – doubling down on the rambunctious thrills of the previous pair with the ragged power-pop of ‘Alex Chilton’ and ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’, while the bittersweet ‘Skyway’ and half-cut jazz cabaret of ‘Nightclub Jitters’ showed their increasing range.
14. Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath (1970), Paranoid (1970) and Master Of Reality (1971)
The first three albums by Black Sabbath are the foundational texts of heavy metal.
Their self-titled debut takes late-’60s psych, slows it to a crawl and drains the colour from it, leaving a sombre and unsettling soundscape populated by Tony Iommi’s colossal riffs, Ozzy Osbourne’s eerie cries and Bill Ward’s lightly swinging, jazz-inspired drums.
Follow-up Paranoid set their sound in stone – hulking great boulders, naturally – with the pummelling title track, the righteous rage of ‘War Pigs’ and the supremely sludgy ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Electric Funeral’. And their third, Master Of Reality, somehow ups the doom factor, with the fantastically lugubrious ‘Lord Of This World’ and ‘Into The Void’ effectively inventing stoner rock.
13. Can – Tago Mago (1971), Ege Bamyasi (1972) and Future Days (1973)
While all of German avant-groovers Can’s catalogue is worth investigating, the three studio albums they made with wildcard Japanese vocalist Damo Suzuki are a cut above.
The modus operandi for Tago Mago was ‘freaking out, with subtle mixing later’: basically, three months of intense jams – all radical rhythms, trance-inducing grooves and wild vocals – in a baroque 15th century castle, later assembled into an audio collage by the band’s tape-manipulator-in-residence Holger Czukay.
New working method established, the band moved into their own studio – a converted cinema named Inner Space – and had an unlikely German Top 10 single with the pensive groove of ‘Spoon’. Ege Bamyasi added new dimensions to their sound, including the floating melancholia of ‘Sing Swan Song’ and the twitching funk of ‘Vitamin C’.
And Future Days completed the hot streak, a mellow counterpart to the intensity of previous albums with expansive, balmy soundscapes and cosmic jams.
12. Radiohead – The Bends (1995), OK Computer (1997) and Kid A (2000)
A lot can happen in five years. Were it not for the unmistakable vocals of Thom Yorke, The Bends and Kid A could be mistaken as the work of two totally different bands.
The Bends flits between spiky, shoegaze-meets-grunge rockers (‘The Bends’, ‘Just’, ‘My Iron Lung’) and alienated anthems (‘High And Dry’, ‘Fake Plastic Trees’, ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’), with Yorke’s introspective and enigmatic lyrics and extraordinary vocals – one minute soaring, the next vitriolic – setting them apart from their contemporaries.
Two years later, OK Computer distilled Yorke’s pre-millennial dread into muscular, prog-inflected arena rock (‘Airbag’, ‘Let Down’, ‘Karma Police’) and beautifully bruised ballads (‘Exit Music (For A Film)’, ‘No Surprises’, ‘The Tourist’), while the proggy madness of ‘Paranoid Android’ was ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ for Infinite Jest fans (this is a good thing).
When OK Computer, quite rightly, made them stars, Radiohead reacted in the most Radiohead way imaginable and retreated into a world of jazz, dub, krautrock and the entire Warp back catalogue to make Kid A – a shift into a cocoon of warm-yet-slightly-unsettling layers of synth (‘Everything In Its Right Place’), frenzied funk-rock-free-jazz (‘The National Anthem’), glitchy electronica (‘Idioteque’) and haunting splendour (‘How To Disappear Completely’).
Kid A completely rewrote the rulebook for rock bands – from this point, Radiohead could, and did, do anything.
11. The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), White Light/White Heat (1968) and The Velvet Underground (1969)
The Velvet Underground burnt fast and bright, starting with three albums in as many years that pushed rock’n’roll into bold, shocking, unhinged, and unimpeachably cool new places.
Their debut album, 1967's The Velvet Underground & Nico, sets the blueprint for indie-pop (‘Sunday Morning’, ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’) and attitude-filled punk (‘I’m Waiting For The Man’), while the droning and imperious ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ and ‘Venus In Furs’ was a very New York take on psychedelia.
White Light/White Heat was more potent still, with the incendiary rock’n’roll of the title track and ‘I Heard Her Call My Name’, the spoken word weirdness of ‘The Gift and the monolithic jam ‘Sister Ray’ among the highlights.
And 1969’s self-titled album emphasised Lou Reed’s gift for spare, moving ballads with a twist (‘Candy Says’, ‘Pale Blue Eyes’, ‘Jesus’).
10. Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run (1975), Darkness On The Edge Of Town (1978) and The River (1980)
While his first two albums showed massive promise, Bruce Springsteen truly arrived with Born To Run.
From the devastatingly romantic, cinematic sweep of the title track to the edge-of-your-seat drama of ‘Jungleland’, this was where Springsteen found his groove, with lyrics that told of the joys and struggles of everyday people set to the soul-soaring sound of the E Street Band.
Darkness On The Edge Of Town is a tougher, angrier and sadder record – see the rabble-rousing ‘Badlands’, the ferocious ‘Adam Raised A Cain’ and the melancholy triumph of ‘Racing In The Street’.
Two years later, his first double-album The River is a concept-album-in-all-but-name about the passage of time, with sad bangers galore (‘The Ties That Bind’, ‘Hungry Heart’ and ‘I Wanna Marry You’), as well as fraught reflections on American life (‘The River’, ‘Drive All Night’) and a handful of excellent straight-down-the-line rockers (‘Out On The Street’, ‘Crush On You’).
Coming a close second, the amazing run of Nebraska, Born In The USA and Tunnel Of Love followed.
9. Talking Heads – Fear Of Music (1979), Remain In Light (1980) and Speaking In Tongues (1983)
While it’s a wrench to leave out 1978’s fantastic More Songs About Buildings And Food, the three albums that followed are Talking Heads at their cleverest, funkiest, most innovative and weirdest.
If a song typifies the boldness and invention of 1979’s Fear Of Music, it’s the opening track, the Afrofunk-inspired heavy groove of ‘I Zimbra’.
That pointed the way forward for the following year’s Remain In Light, with songs worked up from long jam sessions, including the jerky brilliance of ‘Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)’, the floor-filling existential dread of ‘Once In A Lifetime’ and the funk-punk groove of ‘Crosseyed And Painless’.
Following a break to pursue solo projects, they returned with Speaking In Tongues, with the funk inferno ‘Burning Down The House’, gospel barnstormer ‘Slippery People’ and the blissed-out warmth of ‘This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody)’ among the highlights.
8. David Bowie – Station To Station (1976), Low (1977) and 'Heroes' (1977)
Yes, yes, we know – starting our Bowie run with Station To Station means we break up the so-called ‘Berlin trilogy’, but as he only put the finishing touches to Low in the Berlin capital (the majority of it was recorded in France), we can live with that.
This trio finds Bowie at his most daring, unhinged and experimental, as emphasised by the deranged brilliance of Station To Station’s opening title track, on which Bowie introduces the sinister figure of the ‘Thin White Duke’ over stomping, glam-gone-krautrock chords before it takes off on a prog-disco caper.
Elsewhere, ‘Golden Years’ is sublime soul-funk, while ‘Word On A Wing’ and ‘Stay’ are magical show-stoppers. Bowie’s best album? Perhaps, but the following year’s Low is also a strong contender.
A stunning mix of jagged art rock (‘Breaking Glass’, ‘Be My Wife’) and krautrock-inspired synth genius (‘A New Career In A New Town’, ‘Art Decade’). And despite being Bowie’s most experimental album, it includes one of his greatest singles, ‘Sound And Vision’.
‘Heroes’ came next, Bowie’s only album to be completely recorded in Berlin and bristling with the danger, juxtapositions and paranoia of the city at the time.
7. Prince – 1999 (1982), Purple Rain (1984) and Around The World In A Day (1985)
Prince was on fire in the 1980s, to the point where you could say that every album from 1980’s Dirty Mind to 1987’s Sign O’ The Times has a good shout of being included in any three-album run.
We’re starting with the sprawling 1982 double-album 1999, which takes its title track – the greatest song ever about partying in the face of the apocalypse – as its starting point and runs with it. ‘Little Red Corvette’ could make a nun blush, ‘Delirious’ is an aptly titled dancefloor-filler, and that’s just the first side. Elsewhere, ‘DSMR’ is superior robo-funk and ‘Lady Cab Driver’ is a lusty tour de force.
For his next trick, he made one of the era’s defining albums in Purple Rain, from the ecstatic release of ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ to the power-ballad-to-end-them-all title track, it’s all killer no filler.
Around The World in a Day followed, putting a purple spin on ’60s psych pop with the swoonworthy ‘Paisley Park’, ‘Raspberry Beret’ and ‘Pop Life’.
6. Led Zeppelin – II (1969), III (1970) and IV (1971)
Apologies to Physical Graffiti fans, our pick of Led Zep’s three-album runs begins with one of heavy rock’s defining albums, the unabashed riff fest of Led Zeppelin II, takes in the meandering folky textures of Led Zeppelin III, and ends with the epic Led Zeppelin IV.
Along the way, some of the greatest rock music ever made can be found: the elemental ‘Whole Lotta Love’, the swaggering ‘Heartbreaker’ and ‘Immigrant Song’, the mellow pleasures of ‘Tangerine’, ‘Black Dog’’s colossal growl of a riff, the colossal thump of ‘When The Levee Breaks’. And we don’t care what you say, ‘Misty Mountain Hop’ is an absolute delight.
5. The Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed (1969), Sticky Fingers (1970) and Exile On Main St. (1972)
While the Stones’ evolution in the ’60s is best represented by their singles, this three-album run cemented what they’re all about.
Let It Bleed begins with the doomy glory of ‘Gimme Shelter’ and ends with one of the brilliant karmic shrug of ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, with raw and beautifully loose excursions into country blues (‘Love In Vain’, ‘You Got The Silver’) and menacing boogie (‘Live With Me’, ‘Midnight Rambler’) along the way.
Sticky Fingers turned up the heat and may be the Stones’ best album, tune-for-tune – with the unbeatable 1-2-3 of ‘Sway’, ‘Wild Horses’ and ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking’ at its heart.
And Exile On Main St. is unfiltered essence of Stones, a double-album that veers magnificently between wild rave-ups (‘Rocks Off’, ‘Rip This Joint’, ‘Happy’), unsteady-on-its-feet country (‘Sweet Virginia’, ‘Sweet Black Angel’), gnarly blues (‘Stop Breaking Down’, ‘Ventilator Blues’), spooked voodoo (‘I Just Want To See His Face’) and wasted-and-wounded elegiac splendour (‘Tumbling Dice’, ‘Loving Cup’, ‘Soul Survivor’).
4. Joni Mitchell – Court And Spark (1974), The Hissing Of Summer Lawns (1975) and Hejira (1976)
What, a best Joni Mitchell three-album run that doesn’t include Blue? It’s certainly a close-run thing, with Ladies Of The Canyon (1970), Blue (1971) and For The Roses (1972) representing the best of Joni the acoustic troubadour.
But we’ve gone for the sophistication of Court And Spark, the experimental textures and wildness of The Hissing Of Summer Lawns and – perhaps her masterpiece – the restless travelogue of Hejira.
These are the albums that best show the range and musicality of Mitchell’s songwriting, from the gorgeous Laurel Canyon rock of ‘Help Me’ and ‘Free Man In Paris’ (Court And Spark) to the jazz-rock cool of ‘In France They Kiss On The Main Street’ and ‘Don’t Interrupt The Sorrow’ (The Hissing Of Summer Lawns) and peerless evocations of wanderlust ‘Hejira’ and ‘Coyote’ (Hejira).
3. Stevie Wonder – Music Of My Mind (1972), Talking Book (1972) and Innervisions (1973)
Motown’s boy genius had spent the late ’60s and early ’70s biding his time, soaking up influences beyond the blues and R&B that had shaped him and honing his production skills. On turning 21, his contract with Motown was up, and he was free to explore new musical horizons.
His interest piqued by the cosmic synth playground of the 1971 album Zero Time by Tonto’s Expanding Head Band, he tracked down the men behind it, Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff (also known as Tonto’s Expanding Head Band). With Cecil and Margouleff by his side (not to mention TONTO, the cutting-edge synthesizer they’d built), Stevie Wonder experienced a remarkable outpouring of creativity.
Over roughly a year, Wonder revolutionised soul music with three albums – Music Of My Mind, Talking Book and Innervisions – full of funked-up party-starters (‘Love Having You Around’, ‘Maybe Your Baby’, ‘Higher Ground’…), staggeringly beautiful ballads (‘You And I’, ‘Visions’ ) and politically conscious soul (‘Big Brother’, ‘Living For The City’, ‘He’s Misttra Know It All’).
Wonder didn’t release a bad album in the ’70s, but these are the sets where his star burned brightest.
2. Bob Dylan – Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and Blonde On Blonde (1966)
In just three years – and three albums – Bob Dylan changed the parameters of songwriting forever.
While the previous album, 1964’s Another Side Of, hinted at the mischief to come, Bringing It All Back Home's opener ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, was a joyful cutting of ties with the folk world, Dylan’s sneering stream-of-consciousness wit over quicksilver rock’n’roll.
He didn’t look back – even the acoustic tracks on the album’s second side suggested a mind expanded far beyond the parameters of traditional song.
Later that same miraculous year of 1965, Highway 61 Revisited was tougher, more cutting, richer in sound – its bookends ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ and ‘Desolation Row’ are masterpieces of 21st century writing.
Next up, Blonde On Blonde saw Dylan work with Nashville session aces for his richest-sounding album yet; he called it the "thin wild mercury sound" he’d always been searching for.
The songs lived up to it. ‘Visions Of Johanna’ is among his greatest, ‘Stuck Inside Of Mobile…’ the shaggy dog story to end them all and ‘Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands’ is a medicated hymn of devotion unlike any other.
1. The Beatles – Revolver (1966), Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and 'The White Album' (1968)
While it’s entirely possible to make a case for any run of three Beatles albums, Revolver to ‘The White Album’ is a staggering and transformative run.
Revolver (1966) feels utterly alive – to love (‘Here There And Everywhere’), consciousness expansion (‘Got To Get You Into My Life’, ‘She Said, She Said’), sonic experimentation (‘Tomorrow Never Knows’) and psychedelic lullabies (‘Yellow Submarine’).
The central concept of Sgt Pepper’s did what The Beatles always did – took arty concepts, in this case postmodernism, and made them pop.
The storyline might not hold up, but it’s terrific fun and contains some of their greatest songs, from ‘She’s Leaving Home’ (has there ever been a more thoughtful and nuanced song about the generation gap?) and the lysergic masterpiece ‘A Day In The Life’.
And they went further out still on ‘The White Album’, a glorious jumble that took in rock’n’roll pastiches (‘Back In The USSR’, ‘Revolution 1’), woozy psychedelic ballads (‘Dear Prudence’, Cry Baby Cry’), the birth of heavy rock (‘Helter Skelter’), jaunty music hall about a sheepdog (‘Martha My Dear’), musique concrete (‘Revolution No 9’) and frontier ballads about murderous love triangles (‘Rocky Raccoon’).
"Why don’t we do it in the road" they asked – and that’s the key thing. On these albums, The Beatles are always asking questions: Why are things done that way? Why shouldn’t we do them our way? What happens when we do this?
They got one thing wrong, though. "No one will be watching us"? Fat chance...
All pics Getty Images
Top image The Beatles at the press launch for their new album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, held at Brian Epstein's house at 24 Chapel Street, London, 19th May 1967
