Sometimes you wait with bated breath for a new release from a favourite artist. And then you, and wait and wait. Then you give up.
Have they given up on music, are the ill or is there some other reason for their lack of new stuff:
Tom Waits -Is he going to write any new stuff? Last album Bad as me was in 2011.
Guillemots/Fyfe Dangerfield – Hello Land their last album was in 2012 and was supposed to be the first
of 4 albums that year.Have they fallen out? New solo album from Fyfe
Dangerfield would be nice if they are never going to reform.
Tom Russell – Really prolific. Nothing released since 2019 – October in the railroad Earth.
This might be health related but total silence on his website and from his label.
And while we are at it I know we won’t be getting any new Green on Red but I would really like to see the long awaited boxset anthology that we have been promised.
New Order. It’s been 10 years now since Music Complete.
I know someone close to the Bernard/Stephen camp who’s mentioned that the fallout with Hook over his post-2008 NO royalties (Hooky lost his claim for higher rate at the High Court) means Bernard is less inclined to write and record new music now.
Hopefully Bernard can spend his royalties on singing lessons.
ah well, compare the weedy shifty mumbling of ‘Movement’ to the soaring (relatively speaking) assurance of ‘Technique’ and the lad didn’t do so bad.
Movement – still my favourite NO album…
Ceremony is one of the best things they ever did. I know it’s not on the album but is from the same time. Beats anything on Technique. They play it on season 2 of series The Gold. Stunning.
Agreed – I still have the 45 in the shiny coppery sleeve.
Ceremony is kind of the last Joy Division single They were playing it about 18 months before Movement came out.
I don’t really give a toss.
Good to know. Happy to be of any help
That would certainly explain why it was the best thing NO ever did.
Gerry Rafferty makes Kate Bush look like a workaholic.
She may or may not be working on new material, there has been a hint or two. So expect something later this year (or maybe in 2035)
…and Gerry?
The last I heard he was having a little lie down.
Kate Bush is the usual answer.
A couple I was thinking of recently – Agnes Obel seems to have gone quiet (last album 5 years ago ?) and Joanna Newsom’s last was 10 years ago (I know, she’s not everyone’s cup of tea)
On a more positive note, there seem to be a few rumours surfacing of Radiohead activity – it’s almost 10 years since Moon Shaped Pool.
Agnes indeed! Too long. And what has happened to Melanie de Biasio and to Melanie Gardot, altho’ discogs surprises me that each have had albums out post Covid.
Yes something new from Ms. Obel would be most welcome. I can’t speak for Melody Gardot’s most recent output as I’ve paid it too scant attention but the last release from Melanie de Biasio was a seriously disappointing album of self indulgent new age inflected twaddle.
Oh come now @pencilsqueezer, tell us what you really think!
Zara McFarlane could do with upping her game after the last two and Shabaka should pick up his saxophone again.
Daevid Allen-era Gong. Allen is no longer with us and the revamped version of Gong still plays (there is a UK tour in November), but for some time now there has been talk of a 30-CD boxset covering the early years. The latest rumours suggest the boxset is almost complete and will come out next year. But I’ve heard that before. Here’s hoping.
Neil Young hasn’t released an album in 5 weeks + 4 days
@Pyramid
That’s an Archive boxset worth of unreleased albums right there
Beatles?
Don’t speak too soon. There’ll be an AI-remixed outtake of Don’t Pass Me By or something out next week probably.
Anthology IV due later this year or it may be a comp of Anthologies I, II and III with an unreleased track.
Gretchen Peters. I know she’s stopped touring and just does the odd show, mainly in the US but her last couple of releases have been a live album and one of Mickey Newbury covers. Her last album of original material came out in 2018.
Yes I was thinking the other day that Gretchen Peters has been very quiet by her standards.
At one time I was getting posts from her every month.
I had a look at her website, she seems to like doing songwriting workshops but her last blog entry was August 2022 where she wrote about stopping touring but still making music. Maybe she’s quietly decided to pack that in as well.
She’s retired from touring and I think her hubby/pianist was quite ill but I saw they did the Bluebird quite recently on Facebook. I answered that I saw her there in 1996 and got a ❤️ back!
It’s been 21 years since “High”, and I don’t suppose there’ll be another Blue Nile album, but I’d love to be proved wrong.
Paul Buchanan doesn’t exactly overexert himself on the solo front either though does he?
The PJ Moore album of a couple of years ago was a pretty good substitute for a new Blue Nile album.
I have everything he’s sung on, in some form or other. His last released work was one track on the Ewan MacColl tribut album a decade ago in 2015.
TBN managed a whole album every 8 years, so he’s getting even slower.
Do you have the 2023 re-release of Capacities, by Up Dharma Down?https://www.discogs.com/release/28080373-Up-Dharma-Down-Capacities
I have the 2012 original in Flac I think. Possibly 320k mp3
Okay, it’s a bit niche, but Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter…. Cracking band, still touring, but it’s 14 years since the last album.
@Boneshaker Are you aware that Jesse has been working with Dave Alvin in side project of his called The Third Mind?
But I too would welcome a new album from her with The Sweet Hereafter.
I was vaguely aware that she was involved in other projects, but also recall an interview from ages ago in which she talked about a fifth album with the Sweet Hereafter. Seems like it never came to anything.
The Dawn Chorus. Three rehearsals and one gig is 13 years, so surely a new album can’t be far behind?
Stiff Little Fingers – 10 years since last album, still regularly touring, and each year introducing a new song, teasing the fact there might be an album to be had. 6 years, 6 new tracks, maybe only another 6 years to wait.
John Otway – 8 years since last album, but always out on the road (and still playing the same set (with minor adjustments))
Then again this is John Otway – expect either a 25 CD Box Set or a CD single for his next major release.
Henry Priestman – 2 solo albums between 2008 and 2014. One collaboration with Loved Up Les Glover in 2017, many Folk Festival appearances and Living Room Gigs, but no new material.
What do each of these have in common?
There is no money to be had in releasing your own music, but a living to be made touring.
There was a female singer, Australian but London-based for some years, well-established on the circuit, who guested at a pub jazz gig I attended some months back and went down really well with the punters.
Afterwards someone asked if she had any albums available. She said she’d never done any recording of her own, though she’d occasionally thought about it.
She said she gets a fair bit of session work and as many gigs as she cares to do, as a solo artist and with a few other projects. But making a good recording, getting it mastered and all the other stuff needed to get it released, is expensive and her kind of music generally doesn’t sell particularly well, so she’s probably not going to bother.
I think this was asked a couple of years ago and the answer for me was Doves, especially when Jimi’s mental health issues led to the tour in support of the last album being cancelled. However delighted that 2025 has seen a new album, Constellations for the Lonely, and a triumphant tour which i witnessed in April with the rest of the band filling in for Jimi.
So now yes, New Order.
Well it’s difficult to beat The Sisters of Mercy, 35 years since their last album, Vision Thing. They’re still active, tour most years and have performed about 30 new songs over that period (current stage set is about 50% unreleased songs).
No money for new rope, according to Andrew Eldritch:
A new record is highly unlikely though “because making records is a great way to lose a lot of money”
“We are an excellent live band, so we sell enough tickets to comfortably support ourselves. So we don’t have to make records.”
https://www.side-line.com/sisters-of-mercy-have-30-new-songs-ready/
Curses and drat! I’ve long hoped that Eldritch might finally get around his apparent dislike of big music companies and maybe embrace self-releasing, Bandcamp, etc., like so many acts nowadays.
While I understand the idea that if you make a good living doing something, why do a different thing that costs you money, I would have liked to hear some of those new songs on CD at home, and not in a gig (especially given some of the reviews I’ve seen of the Sisters’ live turns).
Ah well, I’ll just have to keep pining for the special deluxe, surround-sound, all-bells-and-whistles version of Floodland that in my dreams will be released one day.
Randy Newman hasn’t exactly been prolific with album releases, his last was Dark Matter in 2017 and Bad Love was 9 years before that in 2008. So by that reckoning we should get a new one next year but I’m not holding my breath. He’s 82 and I gather not in the best of health.
I had tickets to see Randy Newman in Edinburgh I would say three maybe four years ago. He broke his neck and surgery necessitated a cancellation. The intimation was that it would be rescheduled but I suspect not.
As you both probably know, he’s spent the last 20 years or so making music for the movies. Also, as you know, he’s had multiple issues with his health. eg 3 knee operations. Has he got 3 knees?
I finished his biography recently. Enjoyed it very much, but it was almost all about the music, and very little personal stuff. eg when he got married the first time there was one line in the book about it. His first child got 3 lines. I’m nosey and wanted to know about his personal life, but it seems he’s just a workaholic.
He used to live in Pacific Palisades. That was one of the areas in LA that was hit by the forest fires earlier this year. I wonder if they affected him?
This is what Randy Newman’s been doing.
Billy Joel is another one who stopped recording and made a very nice living from touring his impressive back catalogue
Two power pop greats haven’t released anything new for years because they make more money working for others. Jason Falkner’s last album was in 2009. In interviews he apologises for lack of new material and says he hopes there’ll be an album at the end of the year. He’s been saying this for about ten years. He clearly does well enough playing for Beck and St Vincent.
Meanwhile, Farrah released their last album in 2010. Since then, a track has appeared on a Lojinx sampler (that came free with the Farrah odds and sods box set), ‘from a forthcoming album’. However, frontman and songwriter Jez Ashurst has had great success as a writer for hire, being one of the many names you see in the brackets of shiny pop hits.
From a financial perspective, Falkner and Farrah have nothing to gain from releasing new material. But I still wish they would.
Aki Streeter..?
Apart from a brief flurry of reissues, the last activity on the Prefab Sprout front was Crimson/Red in 2013.
Prefab Paddy posted this on YT in 2017.
He’s a youngster, a mere 68 years old.
Perhaps he could do something with ZZ Topp? From Langley Park to Texas!
I’d love to hear some new songs but he has health problems so I fear it’s wishful thinking.
The La’s?
It’s been more than 16 years since Lee Mavers ‘sensibly turned to Pete Doherty for help’ with the second album follow-up to The La’s 1990 debut album.
What could possibly have gone wrong?
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/apr/23/las-babyshambles-new-album
I’m absolutely convinced Lee Mavers has no new songs at all, and that he hasn’t written anything since about 1988. There’s always a ‘second album coming soon!’ story, which never turns out to be true. It’s a bit like those ‘cure for baldness just around the corner!’ stories that appear in the press every six months.
Yes, me too. I bet he tried, but nothing as good as anything on the first album ever happened. Maybe there’s a lot in the rumour that band co-founder/early member Mike Badger wrote most of the really good stuff. (Ever heard the Badger track Callin’ All? Absolutely brilliant.)
Surprised no one has mentioned Mary Margaret O’Hara
Currently recording an album with The La’s,I am told.
Apparently walked out of the sessions leaving an exasperated lee Mavers to say “there she goes again…”
Or indeed Mary O’Hara – nothing new since 1986, ‘Live at Carnegie Hall’, as far as I can see…
Here she is in 1957.
Roddy Frame released Seven Dials in 2014 and last toured in 2018, its been radio silence since then.
I’d love to hear some new stuff from both Portishead and Massive Attack. Portishead released three albums between 1994 and 2008 and nothing since. Massive Attack have been rather busy in comparison releasing five albums between 1991 and 2010.
Yes please, they’re in my ‘never split up, could make something just as good as what’s gone before’ box, perhaps foolishly.
To an extent I give Portishead a “pass” because coming up with something as genre/era defining as “Dummy” was always going to be effectively impossible to follow up, though I’ve enjoyed all the various spin-off & solo projects…
On the other hand, as the only person who thinks “Heligoland” is their best album, I’d love to hear more from Massive Attack…
Beth Gibbons was one of the main attractions at Roskilde this year. She had a superb band and they played a blinder of a set which included one Portishead song. She also played Glasto.
It would be very churlish to describe this as a side project. She is a major league artist in her own right.
Poor old Morrissey would apparently love to release an album
Indeed, “Bonfire Of Teenagers” even has its own Wikipedia page…https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonfire_of_Teenagers
Bowie went ten years between studio albums and the timely release of his last.
10 years between Reality and his penultimate album (The Next Day). Blackstar followed less than 3 years later.
Daniel Tashian – i don’t think there’s been anything since the Blue Umbrella collab with Burt Bacharach in 2021. Too busy producing, I imagine.
Mary Hampton, once lead singer with Stereolab offshoot Imitation Electric Piano (another band on hiatus), released a good solo album, “My Mother’s Children” in 2008, but seems to have quit music-making since then. (I had hoped she might have had an under-the-radar career like Jane Weaver, but no.)
David Pearce of Bristol cosmonauts Flying Saucer Attack has not released an album for 10 years now.
David Thomas Broughton channelled Jake Thackray in the 2000s but has not to my knowledge produced much for a while.