Captain Beefheart Discography: 13 Studio Albums in Order

Captain Beefheart made 13 studio albums between 1967 and 1982 and then left music to paint. Here they are with release date, label and chart peaks (Wikipedia, Captain Beefheart discography):

• Safe as Milk — 1967, Buddah (US), Pye (UK)
• Strictly Personal — October 1968, Blue Thumb (US), Liberty (UK)
• Trout Mask Replica — 16 June 1969, Straight, UK No. 21
• Lick My Decals Off, Baby — December 1970, Straight, US No. 203, UK No. 20
• Mirror Man — April 1971, Buddah, UK No. 49
• The Spotlight Kid — January 1972, Reprise, US No. 131, UK No. 44
• Clear Spot — October 1972, Reprise, US No. 191
• Unconditionally Guaranteed — April 1974, Mercury (US), Virgin (UK), US No. 192
• Bluejeans & Moonbeams — November 1974, Mercury (US), Virgin (UK)
• Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) — October 1978, Warner (US), Virgin (UK)
• Doc at the Radar Station — August 1980, Virgin, US No. 203
• Ice Cream for Crow — September 1982, Virgin, UK No. 90
• Bat Chain Puller — recorded 1976, released 2012 on Zappa Records

The official site, beefheart.com, lists the albums by recording date instead, which moves two of them. Mirror Man was recorded in 1967 and 1968 at the sessions it calls the Plain Brown Wrapper sessions, years before its 1971 release. The Legendary A&M Sessions, an EP of 1965 recordings, did not come out until 1984.

Beefheart was never a singles artist. Of the singles in Wikipedia's table, only two charted, both in the UK and both low: Yellow Brick Road (1967, No. 57) and a 1968 release of Moonchild (No. 61). The first single, Diddy Wah Diddy in 1966, later collected on The Legendary A&M Sessions, did not chart.

Most of what has come out since the 1990s is archive material (Wikipedia):

• Grow Fins: Rarities 1965–1982 — 1999
• The Dust Blows Forward: An Anthology — 1999
• I'm Going to Do What I Wanna Do: Live at My Father's Place 1978 — 2000
• Live London '74 and Amsterdam '80 — 2006
• An Ashtray Heart — live, 2011
• Bat Chain Puller — 2012
• Sun Zoom Spark: 1970 to 1972 — 2014

If you are sorting a collection, check the release year printed on the sleeve or label: it separates these archive releases from records issued at the time.

Trout Mask Replica was released on 16 June 1969 on Straight Records as a double album: 28 tracks over four sides, 78 minutes 51 seconds. Frank Zappa produced it. The band rehearsed for eight months in a communal house in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles; recording ran from August 1968 to March 1969, mainly at Whitney Studios in Glendale, with sessions at Sunset Sound and on portable equipment at the house. Cal Schenkel designed the cover (Wikipedia, Trout Mask Replica).

It did not chart in the US and spent one week at No. 21 in the UK. Its reputation grew later: Rolling Stone ranked it No. 59 in its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums and No. 60 in 2012, and the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry in 2010.

For identification, the label is the first check. Trout Mask Replica and Lick My Decals Off, Baby are the two Straight albums; a copy on another label is a later reissue. Copy the catalogue number and the runout codes on all four sides before you compare copies.

Safe as Milk came out on Buddah in the US in 1967, with Pye International handling the UK. Ry Cooder, then 20, played guitar and wrote some of the arrangements. The UK album was later reissued in Polydor's budget 99 series under the title Dropout Boogie, so a copy with that name is a reissue, not a different album (Wikipedia, Safe as Milk).

The album came with promotional bumper stickers; John Lennon had two of them on cupboard doors at his home. Singles from it were Yellow Brick Road backed with Abba Zaba (17 August 1967) and Plastic Factory backed with Where There's Woman (March 1969).

Once you have the label and catalogue number, grade the disc and sleeve on the vinyl grading scale. A photo of the label in the app identifies the pressing.