Can You Spark Your Own Hot Streak?
Elton John hit a hot streak early in his prodigious musical career. Of the thirty studio albums John has released so far, the five or six most commonly cited as his best were released across the four-year period from 1970 through 1973. This streak ran from his eponymous second album to his magnum opus, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. It would be safe even to extend this hot streak into 1975, really. Because John had six consecutive albums hit number one on Billboard’s US album charts, from 1972’s Honky Chateau to 1975’s Rock of the Westies.
Jackson Pollock hit a hot streak, too, but his was more mid-career than John’s. Although Pollock created many major works from the early 1940s to the mid-1950s, his most famous paintings were made during his four-year “drip period,” from 1947 to 1950. Pollock was catapulted to fame during this period by a four-page feature in Life magazine, and he had many important exhibitions during this time, including three at The Betty Parsons Gallery. Pollock would abruptly abandon his drip style at the height of his fame.