One man band albums

[hypehat]

There's a certain aesthetic which comes from the dude, lonesome, driven and knowing he's right crafting guitar pop in his house that appeals to me. let's have them. stuff like....

Todd Rundgren - Something/Anything (well, the first three sides)

Jason Falkner - Presents Author Unknown (he's even better than Todd in one man bandmanship - he sounds like four different dudes on bass, guitars and drums! It sounds like a band!)

Paul McCartney - Mcartney I & II

Got anymore?

[Dead Parrot]

Skip Spence - Oar
Nick Drake - Pink Moon
Foo Fighters - S/T
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells (well most of it)

[Aum Bop Diddit]

John Fogerty -- "Blue Ridge Rangers," "John Fogerty," "Centerfield," -- I'm guessing "Eye of the Zombie" as well.
Pete Townshend -- "Who Came First."

[Christian]

Emitt Rhodes: "Emitt Rhodes", "Mirror", "Farewell To Paradise"
Phil Collins: "Both Sides"
Roy Wood: "Boulders"

[Amy B.]

I like Grant-Lee Phillips-- Ladies' Love Oracle
Already mentioned, but also...McCartney
How about parts of the White Album?  I think those guys were working for themselves at that point.

And I really enjoy Ben Folds-- Rockin the Suburbs--even though it's really poppy, produced, and commercial sounding. I think he played everything on it.

[Myk Luhv]

Not pop music but there are also some fine one-man blues "bands" too: Abner Jay, Dr. Ross, Juke Boy Bonner, and Jesse Fuller come to mind. I do believe the first two (at least) do the traditional one-man-band thing too, strapping a drum, harmonica, guitar, and other instruments to their body, all of which are played at the same time or when needed!

[ghost]

Charles Manson - every prison release.  The master. Respekt.  

[pixletwin]

IIRC the debut Foo Fighters album is all Dave Grohl.

[?]

Any room for one woman bands in this thread?  'Cause I've really been digging Zola Jesus lately.  Not guitar pop though. 

[hypehat]

I was gonna ask whether there were any! It definitely seems less common.

I also had no idea Oar was played entirely by Skip! that makes a lot more sense than him managing to find a band as insane as he was.

A lot of early 70's Stevie Wonder tunes are played entirely by himself, which pretty much makes the bedroom musician in me want to give up  wiki tells me everything on Music of My Mind is played by him, bar one guitar and one trombone overdub. I mean, what the hell.

Thinkk the only guy who makes full tracks by himself on the White Album is McCartney, unsurprisingly. I Will and Why Don't We Do It In The Road? are all him. As is Come & Get It on the anthology, the demo he made for Badfinger. Where John was sitting in the booth....



Another modern bluesman who does that is some guy called Lewis Floyd Henry who i saw supporting The Fugs. Ferocious guitar tone and slide playing. Amplified up to nines.

[Jason]

Dreamies by Bill Holt.

[SMiLE Brian]

Dreamies by Bill Holt.

A movie or documentary should be made on that album because Bill Holt's backstory in making it is so amazing.

[hypehat]

Would watch.

Also, every Daniel Johnston record up to Continued Story is all him.

Prince not only recorded the entire Black Album by himself, he also apparently recorded it in ONE NIGHT. ON DRUGS. Or so the story goes....  
His early stuff is also one man band nirvana. I know For You, his debut, is completely him. Apparently Dirty Mind and 1999 are all him too, but I haven't listened in a while. Like Stevie and Songs in the Key Of Life, stuff like Sign O' The Times or Lovesexy features tracks played entirely by the purple wonder, but not the entire record.

I was all set to call Wonder (Stevie, not Purple) the greatest musician on the planet when I heard that he played EVERYTHING on Songs.... but it's not true. He plays A LOT, though. If he'd played I Wish by himself they would have had to have made him the President or something.

Also forgot Todd Rundgren's Acapella, in which Todd not only plays everything himself, everything is HIS OWN VOICE. That's insanity.

[Jason]

Dreamies by Bill Holt.

A movie or documentary should be made on that album because Bill Holt's backstory in making it is so amazing.

Not that I've had a personal interest in the guy, but he recorded Dreamies in his home in a part of Philadelphia about 10 minutes from where I was born. So he's sort of a local treasure, but not many Philadelphians know about him!

[hypehat]

Him and Todd - do the natives of Philadelphia hate bands? 

[Jason]

Hey, we Philly folks had Mandrake Memorial back in the late 60s! They were pretty damn good.

[RONDEMON]

Oranjuly



http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/oranjuly/id378029266
http://www.amazon.com/Oranjuly/dp/B003ZQVCIK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1313348815&sr=8-2

[Dead Parrot]

I also had no idea Oar was played entirely by Skip! that makes a lot more sense than him managing to find a band as insane as he was.

It really is another album for which a facinating documentary could be made. IIRC, at the time Skippy considered the tracks recorded for Oar as demos, and he was quite surprised when the album came out. As for his mental health, judging from what i've read online, that didn't get start to get really bad until after he suffered a heroin overdose around 1973. But it's fair to say that he was never the same after the fireaxe incident in June of 1968.

Thinkk the only guy who makes full tracks by himself on the White Album is McCartney, unsurprisingly. I Will and Why Don't We Do It In The Road? are all him. As is Come & Get It on the anthology, the demo he made for Badfinger. Where John was sitting in the booth....

I'm pretty sure "Julia" is John on his own, and Ringo's on "Why Don't We Do It In The Road".

[warnakey]

All my albums are a one man band, with the exception of backing vocals, does that count?

well anyway, this album is completely me without anyone else playing on it http://www.last.fm/music/The+Lexingtons/Choose+Choice

[hypehat]

That's a fairly neat record, it's a shame about the slightly synthetic production at times, but hey. It comes with the territory.

Wiki tells me you're right, Dead Parrot. Although I'm not counting 'acoustic tracks' like Julia or Blackbird, or anything. Those aren't 'bands', those be dudes with guitars and nothing but guitars.

Speaking of Macca, apparently the majority of his Chaos and Creation in the Backyard is played by him.

In an interesting cross-pollination of one man bands, Daniel Johnston, who used to play everything on his own records, now tends to work with dudes who produce all his sounds for him. For example, Fun is mostly played by Paul Leary of The Butthole Surfers. Mark Linkous plays the majority of stuff on Fear Yourself. His latest, Is And Always Was, is bar drums on three tracks played entirely by Jason Falkner!

[dmcguire70]

That's a fairly neat record, it's a shame about the slightly synthetic production at times, but hey. It comes with the territory.

Wiki tells me you're right, Dead Parrot. Although I'm not counting 'acoustic tracks' like Julia or Blackbird, or anything. Those aren't 'bands', those be dudes with guitars and nothing but guitars.

Speaking of Macca, apparently the majority of his Chaos and Creation in the Backyard is played by him.

In an interesting cross-pollination of one man bands, Daniel Johnston, who used to play everything on his own records, now tends to work with dudes who produce all his sounds for him. For example, Fun is mostly played by Paul Leary of The Butthole Surfers. Mark Linkous plays the majority of stuff on Fear Yourself. His latest, Is And Always Was, is bar drums on three tracks played entirely by Jason Falkner!

Most of Prince's albums had him playing most if not all instruments.

[hypehat]

Yeah, I mentioned that upthread - I think he abandoned the practise on his classic run after Lovesexy/The Black Album.

[Mike's Beard]

Charles Manson - every prison release.  The master. Respekt.  

If you discount the big, black 230 gorillia who plays Charlie's skin flute every night.

[hypehat]

I think you've just found your latest alter-ego, Mike's Beard