Rock music is the bomb track, right? You know it and you love it. What better way to end a frustrating day than to crank up the speakers to 11 and just, well...rock out?
You might even have an album by one of the five following bands on your turntable. If you do, that is a smart move. You won't be disappointed. That is because none of the bands that follow has ever produced a bad record.
In a couple of cases, that could turn out not to be true. The groups are still together. In the other three cases, sadly, the bands are no more. Sort of. In one case it kind of is but isn't really. You will see what I mean.
Five rock bands that have yet to produce a band album
Nirvana
There is a line from the film High Fidelity that says a band will never remember the night they opened for Nirvana. The honor of sharing the stage with one of the icons of rock is more than enough of a story to tell one's grandkids. But that isn't only because Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, and Krist Novoselic were always a bit of a wild card, but because the music they created was undeniably great.
The question isn't whether there was a bad Nirvana album, but if they ever had a bad song. The answer to both is no. Even before the world was forever changed by the excellence of Nevermind, the band produced Bleach for under a thousand dollars. The best hundreds of dollars ever spent, most likely, as the album churned out gems such as "About a Girl" and "Negative Creep."
The shame is that Cobain passed away before the group could release many more records. The potential of watching as Nirvana expanded their sound and risked itself to experiments would have been fantastic to observe. Instead, the group produced three studio albums with In Utero being the last. Every album was perfect and left music fans wanting so much more.
Mastodon
Unlike most other bands on this list, Mastodon has released a bunch of records. One throughline of their work is the lack of throughline. The band is a metal group, sure, but what kind of metal they want to be from album to album differs. Few groups have so cerebrally approached each record with a certain theme and then the ability to create such wonder based off the original idea.
Their second album, 2004's Leviathan, is based on the novel Moby Dick. The album was featured on several best-of lists from albums released in the 2000s. The record represents what Mastodon does best, though, in that they produced full works of art instead of going for random singles of success.
The other wonder is that the band isn't afraid to have guest singers take lead vocals at times. Mastodon is focused on how the overall music sounds and the vocal performance is simply another instrument. So when Queen of the Stone Age's Josh Homme sings on "Colony of Birchmen" it's all just part of the arch of perfection which the band has maintained over eight albums.
The Smiths
The Smiths only produced four studio albums from 1984 through 1987. Morrissey did not like the record company and the rest of the band mostly did not care for him. Even nearly forty years after the final record, all that remains true. What is also true is that the Smiths produced some of the greatest records of the 1980s and influenced a multitude of bands, and their absence from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is criminal.
There are simply too many singles from the band's four albums to list here. In fact, there are zero bad songs, even on the many versions of B-Side releases. Each features the biting lyrical poetry of Morrissey and the guitar brilliance of Johnny Marr. That these two cannot get along and make new music now is a shame.
The group's masterpiece is their third album, The Queen is Dead. The record features one of the greatest tracks humankind is capable of producing, "There is a Light That Never Goes Out" but also features "Cemetry Gates." The album is the best example of how the Smiths could never quite be equaled by any band that wanted to be like them: The craftsmanship is simply too high.
White Stripes
To be fair, and no offense to Meg, but the White Stripes was really just the work of Jack White, his guitar, and a drummer. Meg White, Jack's ex-wife, banged the drum decently, but there was not a lot of imagination. That lay in the work of White with his vocals and guitar. The negative feedback when the White Stripes began releasing albums - what little there was - was that people did not understand why there was no bass.
We soon learned that Jack White needed no bass. He could create that on his own with a bit of pedal work. There is no bass on "Seven Nation Army," for instance, but White makes it appear as if there is.
From the beginning, the White Stripes could create adrenaline rushes like "The Big Three Killed My Baby" but six albums later, even with the same base of music, the group had evolved to make tracks such as "Icky Thump." There will probably not be another White Stripes album, but at least we still have new Jack White records to look forward to.
Tool
Perhaps all the time that Tool takes to create records is a good thing. Since 1993's Undertow, the band has released only four more full-length studio albums. Each has been met as a new work from a deity by the band's adoring fans, though pop music has not ever embraced Tool's music. To be fair, if pop fans liked the band, it would be weird.
Tool creates dense, loud, aggressive, and, at times, atmospheric works. There is not the slightest bit of pop to the songs. Like Mastodon, the albums are not meant to be a few singles and a handful of other drivel. Each track is selected carefully - and painstakingly made - to be on an album. There is zero fluff.
The impressive part is that the group can turn the songs into concert anthems and fill stadiums with fans. The records themselves are worth listening to over and over. The songs are worth rocking out to live in concert.