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The album after major commercial success


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On 27/05/2020 at 16:20, PaulWarning said:

trouble is a band has years to come up with the debut, or successful album then it's a case of "where's the next one' they're either rushed or an inferior copy of the first one...

Back in the day the inferiority of the sophomore album was generally known as the difficult second album syndrome.

I'm very much from a rock/punk background and could, given the time for recall, cite dozens of second albums that fell well short of the debut releases by the same band.  Off the top of my head, second albums by Van Halen and Living Colour were awful.

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14 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

Back in the day the inferiority of the sophomore album was generally known as the difficult second album syndrome.

I'm very much from a rock/punk background and could, given the time for recall, cite dozens of second albums that fell well short of the debut releases by the same band.  Off the top of my head, second albums by Van Halen and Living Colour were awful.

Living Colour? Time's Up is excellent. 

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I would guess that these albums are most likely to:

  • Have been recorded using way more expensive gear than the previous album, as the band all went out and bought their dream guitars/amps/etc.
  • Contain songs about:
    • How hard it is being famous
    • How lonely it is being on tour/away from home
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'Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness' was an absolute slam dunk for the Smashing Pumpkins, around '95 I think. A huge double-disc concept album - but with massive hits on it too.  

The follow up, 'Adore', was an entirely different piece of work. Virtually no commercial appeal at all. 

Was an extremely emotional and atmospheric piece of work though. Beautiful in places, and sad. 

Although I guess you could argue that 'Mellon Collie...' was itself the follow-up to the rather successful 'Siamese Dream' 

If hadn't noticed, I've been reliving my youth during lockdown 🙂

Edited by Pete Bish
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