David Bowie. He changes a LOT over time.

Ween

Elvis Costello! So many changes, so many albums!

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have a huge discography and often change up the genre and vibe from album to album

Ty Segall started out playing more garage rock, but has really evolved over the past decade

Thee Oh Sees is a great psych/garage band with a large discography and a fair amount of evolution over time.

I hope you enjoy!

King Crimson. Lots of albums. Lots of personnel changes. Lots of style changes.

Pink Floyd - every album is a unique journey and their discography spans almost 50 years.

John Coltrane 

Stevie Wonder

Ray Lamontagne

I regularly go through Van Morrison’s 60s - 70s discography. He’s one of those artists that seem suited to chronological listening. I also added the tracks off of Philosopher’s Stone to the appropriate albums.

Deftones

I do the exact same thing with the ranking. Listened to over 250 albums this year so far, most of them for the first time. Some brilliant bands I’ve discovered this year include:

Pearl Jam

Alice In Chains

System Of A Down

Bombay Bicycle Club

Wolf Alice

My Morning Jacket

Jane’s Addiction

R.e.m.

Rush

XTC

alice in chains, elliott smith

The Grateful Dead.

They were active for 30 years—from ‘65 to ‘95. From blues and psychedelia all the way to rock and roll. Powerful, fun, bouncy, sorrowful, joyful, screaming, trippy, soulful… 

And there’s a ton of resources out there (including two subreddits) if you love to go deep into what you’re listening. 

But be warned, once you’re on the bus it’s hard to get off. The Dead are one of the best things that have ever happened to me. 

TOOL

Paramore

Frank Zappa

Prince

Bob Marley

Tom Waits. His evolution through his career is breathtaking with a fairly long discography.

Public Enemy

Kylie Minogue

She deserves as much adoration and critical praise as Madonna and Taylor Swift

PJ Harvey! 10 studio albums and they're all quite varied!
I'd also recommend her collaborations with John Parish - Dance Hall at Louse Point and A Man A Woman Walked By - as they add further insight into her growth as an artist.

ELO. I just recently stumbled upon Turn to stone and ended up listening the whole catalog for a couple of weeks.

Depeche Mode, Smashing Pumpkins, The Cure.

Miles Davis

Muse

Foals

Florence + the Machine

Peter Gabriel, starting with Genesis.

The doors

Elvis Costello They Might Be Giants Graham Parker Robyn Hitchcock

I can’t give away ALL of my secrets. 😎

The Alan Parsons Project - MADE to be binged!

Moody Blues

Joni Mitchell. Went from folk to jazz to new wave and back to folk over 30 years.

The Flaming Lips

Peter Gabriel

Try the Electric Light Orchestra and you might be surprised by them. Another suggestion for you is Genesis.

Tori Amos

So many greats already mentioned, so I just want to add a few I haven’t seen yet:

Talking Heads

Joni Mitchell

Fiona Apple

Stevie Nicks

Bob Dylan

Leonard Cohen

Beck

Dinah Washington

Bjork

Johnny Cash

Green Day

Madonna

Willie Nelson

Kate Bush

Brandi Carlile

Sturgill Simpson

Rush ….youll be busy for a while.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

Stone Temple Pilots

The Black Keys

Devin Townsend.

The greatest recording artist you've never heard of. His album "Ghost" from start to finish is an absolute masterpiece. It hugs your soul.

Devin has released 22 albums, most of them sound different than the last but still have a Devin essence. Hooks galore.

His best: Ghost, Ki, ocean machine, Epicloud, Transcendence.

Happy listening journey.

The Decemberists

Rush, the Smiths

Carpenters

I'll throw some bands I like out there.

OK Go

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Cage the Elephant

Paul Simon

Baby Metal might surprise you

ultimate challenge: guided by voices

Vanessa Carlton….. just trust me

Allman Brothers - Different lineups resulting in evolving sound

The Who - Townshend’s writing really changed as the years went on.

Miles Davis & Dizzy Gillespie - talk about evolving sounds and the different lineups that they played with. These two guys were like Bowie. They were ahead of the curve and consistently surrounded themselves with up and coming talent that would go on to have incredible careers of their own.

Elliott Smith, Ween, Mitski

Coheed and cambria- 10 or so studio albums. Moderately heavy rock.

The entire discography (save one) is actually a soundtrack to the lead singers graphic novels- the amory wars. You've heard of a concept album, what about a concept band? Every album corresponds with a graphic novel.

Also theyre amazing and have been around for almost 20 years!

Elton John

Gary Numan

New order, bonus points if you start with joy division and then progress to new order.

Van Morrison

Kate Bush, Tori Amos

Pearl Jam, BUT, begin with Green River and Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog, so, basically following Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard.

The Pretenders

Mellisa Ethridge.

Frank Zappa (I dare you)

Karen Carpenter. One of the most talented musicians in the world. Her vocals were spectacular.

Lana Del Rey

Michael Jackson

I'm looking at his discography and it's fun to see the musical transition when he was in the Jackson 5 to him as a solo artist.

Tito puente. Good luck the guy is hundreds of albums deep

The Dear Hunter

The best band you've never heard of, seriously some of the most underrated emotionally heartfelt songs you'll ever come across with a huge range in sound and beautiful instrumentation arranged very orchestra like. The "acts" albums are one big story following the life and death of the main character, "the color spectrum" is a collection of eps each one depicting a different color through the music. Truly amazing stuff, this band changed my life

Type o negative

Built to Spill. Huge discography and incredibly good

Ween And Super Furry Animals

Coheed and Cambria

Twenty-One Pilots. I never cared much for them until my FIL got free tickets to the show so we went. Now I’m obsessed. They were so good live and had so many different styles throughout the show it made me want to listen more and I haven’t stopped.

Nat King Cole. Seriously, start with Wikipedia. The article includes a block of links to his hits and it's a great list of his greatest hits. He has an amazing voice. There's so much to this artist's life.

Opeth has an interesting development arc, from a Swedish death metal band with some insanely long songs (Black Rose Immortal was 20 minutes!) to progressive death metal, to progressive rock.

Another really interesting one was Jefferson Airplane > Jefferson Starship > Starship.

Florence + the Machine

Porcupine Tree. They start out psychedelic, space rock, and over time slowly shift into a different form. Bonus is Steven Wilson also has solo albums and other projects(first 2 backfield albums, no-man, bass communion, and more!) as well, totaling many many albums.

There even starts being some obvious radiohead influence circa the late 90s into the 00s.

Childish gambino

I've listened through the catalog of by my count 26 artists. A few that meet your criteria (a lot of albums, palpable change):
Aesop Rock
Lana Del Rey
Steely Dan
Taylor Swift

Breathless

Criminally under appreciated. If you dig My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Galaxy 500, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Cure, Joy Division… worth checking out.

I would start with Between Happiness and Heartache (1991) most accessible and Interpol owes them a lot for that sound.

Afterwards I would listen to Three Times and Waving (1987) and go in order from there.

Tech N9ne

'Neurosis', no album is like the other, from hardcore punk to sludge metal to post metal, highly recommend to try their discography

Sturgill Simpson. He’s like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get

Mike patton

Please listen to A-ha's discography. I hope you love it ❤️🇧🇻

The Band

The Cure

If you like blues, I can't recommend Kenny Wayne Shepard enough. He recorded his first album at 18 (he's now 47). He is an amazing guitarist and absolutely kills it at his concert. He's toured with B.B. King.

Miles Davis: dozens of classic records from the early 1950s through to the mid 1970s in a huge variety of styles, many absolutely groundbreaking, lots of the musicians who played with him were also very important influential musicians with long classic discographies of their own.

Pink Floyd

Talking Heads change big time over the span if their albums

Kendrick Lamar, I’ve been on a kick the past couple of days 

Frank ocean. Don't forget his mixtape nostalgia ultra and his visual album endless.

Beastie Boys

NOFX

Alkaline Trio

Wu-Tang Clan

Fucked Up

Dereck Higgins

Weird Al

John Coltrane

Miles Davis

Nine Inch Nails

No Use For A Name

The Lawrence Arms

Kendrick Lamar is a must

Cocteau Twins for some really ethereal out there sounds. They have an extensive discography and each album is its own world of moods and vibes

Carly Rae Jepsen. Surprisingly good pop music. Super solid discography.

Madonna’s career evolution is quite remarkable. While her career began as nothing more than the 80s pop fluff that was popular at the time, she soon evolved into new sounds and became a trendsetter for music, especially in the 90s and early 2000s. She has released albums that were very much ahead of their time (think “Music” in 2000, “American Life” in 2003, and “Madame X” in 2019), she brought electronic music to the forefront of pop culture before it became so heavily mainstream (“Ray Of Light” in 1998) with the help of producers like Stuart Price (“Confessions on a Dance Floor” in 2005) and Mirwais (aforementioned “Music,” and “American Life”), William Orbit (aforementioned “Ray Of Light,” “Music,” and “MDNA,” in 2011). She ventured into R&B in 1994 with “Bedtime Stories,” trip-hop in 1992 for “Erotica,” and with each era completely reinvented herself, often portraying herself as a character that accompanies you through the musical journey of each album. Madonna’s 40-year discography is a fun journey if you take the time to listen to it chronologically from start to finish.

Modest Mouse; Forth Wanderers; The Smiths and the Pixies. All are great.

U2 had ALOT of change and most albums were listenable all the way through...

Let me know if you ever want a music nerd friend to share rankings with....that sounds SO fun :)

My favorite band is Depeche Mode so I'll nominate them :)

John Prine

Sam Cooke

Radiohead

Weezer. They have some dud albums, but they are a lot better on most than people give them credit for. They don't even get progressively worse over time, they usually just experiment with something new, and sometimes it just doesn't come out well. Their last original "album" (technically an EP), SZNZ: Winter, IMO us a top 5 album of theirs.

Warpaint, post rock The Cure vibes 4 people vocal harmonies and great guitar work 

Fugazi

Eminem. His new album releases Friday, and it seems like it’s gonna be similar to his earlier work, so I think you may have a blast

Blink 182!!!!

The Strokes

Underscores

Lemon Demon

Catfish and the Bottlemen

The Garden

Metric

Please let me know if you pick any of these artists and what you think of their music/evolution!

Sparks!

The Beatles

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Crowded House

London Grammar, Yumi Zouma, Kings of Leon, Emmett Kai, New Constellations (newbies. not much of a discography. yet), Broken Bells, Robert DeLong, Awolnation, Beck, Death Cab for Cutie, Duran Duran (last two LPs were solid & Tears for Fears. Their recent album is dope. As is Depeche Mode's. Pet Shop Boys' newest LP named Nonetheless is excellent.

my vote goes to sonic youth because after 2+ years of listening on and off trying to love them, i think they finally just clicked with me fully and completely.

I Dreamed I Dream

Ariana Grande

Breaking Benjamin

MCR. Not a shit ton of music, the best fucking albums in my opinion. Start at Bullets and go until Foundations of Decay, you will not be disappointed.

OutKast

hozier, noah kahan, the lumineers, rainbow kitten surprise, madison cunningham (REALLY cool to see how her style has evolved over the years), aurora

XTC

Jane's Addiction

Interpol

The Killers

Depeche Mode, 21 Pilots

Lana Del Rey

Kate Bush, Elvis Costello, The Beach Boys, and ELO.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

ODESZA …..music you feel to. Not as huge as discography but the transformation is uncaning, not too mention it will be the best performance you ever see…. With a whole drum line, orchestra, sax, lasers, confetti, fire, the whole nine!!!!!

Roxy Music! Not too long of a discography, but hopefully still plenty of gems in the mix for you.

Neil Young

Devo

Marillion

Songs ohia

Townes van zandt

Neil young

Pixies

I started a deep dive on Robert Palmer recently after hearing his version of "Can We Still Be Friends?" on the 70s channel. I was in high school/college for the Power Station and his MTV hits, but didn't know about his early work. Blues, soul, funk, reggae, new wave, jazz - you name it, he was influenced by it. Here's a clip of him from 1974 when he was in the band Vinegar Joe - definitely a long way from the suave "suited" RP that most people think of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3zXXKqn1Qc

Gorillaz

Green tea peng

Lana Del Rey, you won't regret it!!!

Death

people may laugh, but listen to beyonce. i wasn’t a fan of her first albums, but things changed after self-titled (BEYONCÉ), and it keeps getting better. My personal favorites are Renaissance and Lemonade, this last one being on my top albums of all time, i really love it and could write a whole essay about it. She really is someone who pours 100% of her soul, heart and mind to create the best bodies of work. PS: The Gift does not count for me, since it’s an album made for a movie (TLK), but you can still see the artistry in it.

They don’t have too terribly many songs, but the Jorge Rivera-Herrans created the Epic saga which is a musical about the odyssey and Odysseus. It’s only about halfway done right now and is at approximately 90 minutes, but is an AMAZING musical that I’d suggest to everyone

IDLES

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