[idlewords]

The Beatles at the height of their fame put out two albums a year, while making a bunch of movies on top of it. That pace is inconceivable in 2020, but I've never understood why.

[asdff]

It was inconceivable even back then, and probably had a lot to do with the Beatles burning out and parting ways after a few years in the U.S.

[idlewords]

It was the norm.

[Marazan]

The current streaming renumeration system favours solo singer-songwriters to an almost unfathomable degree.

Multi writer bands (what you need for high output) are fucked by the revenue share model.

[tchaffee]

It's inconceivable because the Beatles were hugely talented with two and a half very prolific song writers all playing off each other, they had enough money to stop touring and to live in the music studio, and they hired outside talent considered the "fifth Beatle". Not to mention that experiment along with the pace did not last.

[idlewords]

They weren't unusual in how often they put out albums, it was the music industry norm at the time, and had been for years.

[tchaffee]

Source? I think you'd also need to account for how many big acts had song writing factories working for them back then. Lou Reed for example worked as an in house song writer for Pickwick Records before he went on to form the Velvet Underground.