Editor’s Note: From Albumism’s inception back in 2016, we’ve remained unabashedly and unequivocally passionate about our mission of celebrating the world's love affairs with albums past, present and future.
But while our devotion to the album as an art form has remained steadfast, as evidenced by our deepening repository of individual album tributes and reviews, we’ve admittedly seldom taken the opportunity to explicitly articulate our reverence for the virtues of artists’ complete album repertoires as a whole.
Hence why we’ve decided to showcase what we believe to be the most dynamic discographies of all time in this recurring series. In doing so, we hope to better understand the broader creative context within which our most beloved individual albums exist, while acknowledging the full breadth of their creators’ artistry, career arcs, and overall contributions to the ever-evolving musical landscape.
We hope you enjoy this series and be sure to check here periodically for the latest installments.
SANANDA MAITREYA
Studio Albums: Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby (1987) | Neither Fish nor Flesh (1989) | Symphony or Damn (1993) | Vibrator (1995) | Wildcard (2001) | Angels & Vampires – Volume I (2005) | Angels & Vampires – Volume II (2006) | Nigor Mortis (2009) | The Sphinx (2011) | Return to Zooathalon (2013) | The Rise of the Zugebrian Time Lords (2015) | Prometheus & Pandora (2017) | Pandora's Playhouse (2021)
Terence Trent D’Arby’s career (or Sananda Maitreya as he has been known since 2001) is a tangled web of stubborn artistry, industry ignorance and left-field choices. Having blazed into the world’s consciousness with his impeccable debut Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D’Arby, he then made the brave/strange decision to completely obliterate the adoring public’s image of him and produce the willfully weird (but fiercely loved by some) Neither Fish nor Flesh.
Unwilling to be pigeonholed or betray his artistic essence, his sophomore effort did a fine job of shedding the fans that couldn’t connect with it, but the next two albums in particular were incredible. As well as fans, he shed the more soul-oriented sound that had marked his debut and embraced his rock god—a role he says the industry was/is unwilling to accept. Symphony or Damn and Vibrator deserved those fans to rediscover his genius.
An extended break of six years ended with him abandoning his name and being reborn as Sananda Maitreya and releasing another gem in the form of Wildcard in 2001. Since then, he has churned out material at a rate of knots, often offering double albums up via an online portal of his own. Occasionally he re-enters the fray and plays the interview game (as he did for the release of Prometheus and Pandora with me here at Albumism), but mainly he is a contentedly independent artist unbothered by the game.
What remains constant with Maitreya is his amazing voice. Equally capable of ripping a hole in the fabric of funk rock and serenading his love on his impeccably bittersweet piano ballads, his voice is seemingly untouched by the years that have passed. Mixed in with his songwriting craft is a love of wordplay and pun that is equal part distraction and calling card. But that’s the joy of Sananda Maitreya—he is who he is. I love him.
Patrick’s 3 Favorite Sananda Maitreya Albums of All Time:
1. Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby (1987)
2. Vibrator (1995)
3. Symphony or Damn (1993)
VISIT Sananda Maitreya’s Official Store
LISTEN & WATCH: