It comes as no surprise that artists reached their peak more often than not towards the start of their career. However it is quite widespread as for the majority of artists in the study the most successful album was the fourth or later release.
What is interesting to notice is that the two points with the most artists are the first and third albums. Either the artist hits his peak straight away, or it takes him some time to get there. The latter is most noticeable for bands started in the 60s where bands were constantly setting new boundaries for pop music and therefore new peaks for themselves.
In the above the most succesful album was determined as the one with the highest number of releases. The analysis took into account 70 bands or artists that released 7 albums or more, and whose first release was prior to 2000.