It’s one thing for a band to explode from nowhere with a classic debut album. Following it up is a far greater challenge.
The second album, traditionally, is a band’s opportunity to transcend their original fanbase, infiltrate the mainstream. A great sophomore effort can catapult a band into the superleague – take Coldplay’s A Rush Of Blood To The Head. Equally, it can kill the buzz stone dead. Remember how the lustre of unassailable cool surrounding The Strokes evaporated in the wake of Room Of Fire?
Recently, Arctic Monkeys have negotiated the Tricky Second Album syndrome with consummate ease on Favourite Worst Nightmare. But the best second albums ever made? Q would make a case for the following. But what do you think?
1. Nirvana - Nevermind
From the sludgy, dissonant punk-metal of Bleach to the gleaming hooks of Nevermind: a creative quantum leap few could have predicted.
2. Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
His 1962 self-titled debut was a competent collection of folk and blues standards (plus two originals). A year later, Dylan was penning jaw-dropping lyrical masterpieces such as A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.
3. Oasis - (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?
Interesting fact: the two men pictured on the sleeve (shot on Soho’s Berwick Street) are Owen Morris, who produced the album, and DJ Sean Rowley, later of Guilty Pleasures fame.
4. Led Zeppelin – II
Singer Robert Plant was unable to write songs for Led Zep’s debut for contractual reasons. His input on the follow-up, notably on tracks such as Ramble On, helped define the band’s trademark, Tolkien-esque aesthetic.
5. Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
One of the first hip-hop albums to penetrate the mainstream, the synapse-frying sonic onslaught of It Takes A Nation… established Chuck D and Flavor Flav as the most potent dissident voices in music.
6. Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat
If their 1967 debut contained moments of chiming prettiness, the follow-up was dense, overloaded, and, in John Cale’s words, “consciously anti-beauty.”
7. Eminem - The Marshall Mathers Album
On this staggeringly successful album (1.76 million copies sold in the first week alone) Eminem transcended the juvenile braggadocio of his debut and entered darker, more thoughtful territory, best evidenced on mega-hit Stan.
8. Ramones - Leave Home
Their debut was recorded on a budget of just $6,200. Leave Home was a slicker, more accomplished affair, establishing them as punk’s first hitmakers.
9. The Beatles - With The Beatles
Many of the key tracks, such as I Wanna Hold Your Hand, were Lennon/McCartney co-writes in the purest sense – in Lennon’s words, “we wrote together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball.”
10. Radiohead – The Bends
1993’s Pablo Honey found Thom Yorke adopting a strained, grunge-influenced sneer. By the time of The Bends he’d found his own voice - a far more delicate instrument. It enabled him to write acoustic ballads as heartrending as Fake Plastic Trees.
4:38 PM | 09/05/2007
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Kasabian, Empire... took the sound of their debut, made it bigger and better.
And since when is The Second Coming a bad album? Ten Story Love Song. Driving South. Love Spreads. All classics!
Posted by funnelspider at 6:01 PM | 09/05/2007 | Report Abuse
I think Eminem and the Ramones are misplaced here. I would add two of these few to the mix instead:
Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
Cream - Disraeli Gears
David Bowie - Space Oddity
Green Day - Dookie
Happy Mondays - Bummed
Joy Division - Closer
The Police - Regatta de Blanc
The Smiths - Meat is Murder
I would also love to see a list of the 10 worst sophomore efforts by bands that are now good
Posted by Taylor Shull at 6:53 PM | 09/05/2007 | Report Abuse
I DO think 'Room On Fire' is just a great 2nd album. But it would have been a great album as well, whether it had been a debut-one or anything else. People is simply scared to say what they really think at times,
that's why hype and common rules mostly... rule! I just don't mind and keep on being what i am... whatever... !!!
Posted by massimiliano morelli at 11:25 AM | 13/05/2007 | Report Abuse
I think they should put down Oasis's "What's teh Story? (Morning Glory) down. As that is the BEST 2nd Albm EVER!
Posted by Adrian Cartridge at 12:58 PM | 15/05/2007 | Report Abuse
My Mistake! :$
Posted by Adrian Cartridge at 12:58 PM | 15/05/2007 | Report Abuse
Neil Young's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is the best second album ever. It would have been the best album of all time had it not been for Tonite's the Nite and On The Beach. So long suckers.
Posted by Pippylongstocking at 8:48 PM | 18/05/2007 | Report Abuse
no complaints about the list but i'd have to have stereophonics' 'performance &cocktails' in mine.'i've been expecting you'by robbie williams was also a very good effort
Posted by scott at 1:37 AM | 27/05/2007 | Report Abuse
You may think my choices are a bit dated, but New Model Army released 'No Rest for the Wicked', surpassing their stunning debut and anything they have released since. The same can be said for Spear of Destiny's 'One-Eyed Jacks'.
Posted by Simon Godden at 11:34 AM | 19/10/2007 | Report Abuse
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