We’ve already posted our thoughts on the greatest second albums ever.. But for every Favourite Worst Nightmare, there’s a Second Coming. So what are the most underwhelming follow-ups ever?
It’s a tricky one. The albums below aren’t bad, necessarily (indeed Q awarded five stars to The Strokes’ Room On Fire), but they all, to some degree, failed to live up to the pulse-quickening excitement summoned by their predecessors. Who have we left out?
1. The Stone Roses - Second Coming
John Squire’s Led-Zep style riffs and mazy solos were a poor substitute for the sky-scraping choruses of the first album.
2. Elastica – The Menace
Out went whipsmart hooks and a sense of fun. In came paper-thin melodies and a pompous dirge called My Sex. Oh dear.
3. The Darkness – One Way Ticket
Recorded in a blizzard of cocaine, and released to a resounding collective shrug, One Way Ticket sold barely a tenth as many copies as its predecessor Permission To Land.
4. The Clash – Give Em Enough Rope
Upon its 1978 release one critic wrote that Give Em Enough Rope surpassed “anything ever recorded.” Most, however, thought it an underwhelming sequel to the band’s era-defining, self-titled debut.
5. Black Grape – Stupid Stupid Stupid
Everyone remembers Kelly’s Heroes and Reverend Black Grape, from their debut. Does anyone remember the wretched likes of Dadi Waz A Badi?
6. The Strokes - Room On Fire
Reptilia might be one of their best songs, but Room On Fire was hardly a wall-to-wall tune-fest to match Is This It.
7. The Jam - This Is The Modern World
There’s precious little on 1977’s The Modern World that would make its way on to a Jam mix CD. Thankfully they followed it up with the infinitely better All Mod Cons.
8. Rage Against The Machine – Evil Empire
RATM’s debut was a 14-million selling firestorm of polemical rhetoric and sledgehammer riffs. Evil Empire… wasn’t.
9. Jeff Buckley – Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk
Had he finished it, this might have been a worthy successor to Grace. As it is, much of Sketches… is strangely passionless and, well, sketchy.
10. Tricky – Pre Millennium Tension
1995’s Maxinquaye defined trip-hop. The follow-up was a scowling, humourless dirge. And shouldn’t it be “millennial”?
12:09 PM | 11/05/2007
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Did anyone else in the world (apart from me) buy Hurricane #1's "Only The Strongest Will Survive"?
Posted by Expensesclaimform at 10:59 AM | 14/05/2007 | Report Abuse
On 'Room On Fire' -
1) 'What Ever Happened?' is the best opener The Strokes ever wrote.
2) 'Reptilia' is their best song, no less.
3) '12:51' and 'The End Has No End' are classics already.
4) 'The Way It is' is their roughest tune - just great.
5) 'I Can't Win' is their 'strokiest' track.
Is(n't) This It? MaMo
Posted by massimiliano morelli at 6:33 PM | 14/05/2007 | Report Abuse
do
Posted by badger legs at 11:32 PM | 14/05/2007 | Report Abuse
Give 'em enough rope is genius and contains some of joe strummers finest moments like safe europeon home, english civil war, tommy gun and all the young punks. Lyrically and musically it is immense
Posted by Danny at 9:47 AM | 15/05/2007 | Report Abuse
U2's October is greatly dismissed by the Fans, more so then "Pop" but it has quite a few good Melodies:
Gloria (A Hit never-The-Less)
Fire (Their First "Top Of the Pops" Hit)
Is that All? (Which would become the song "Cry" in Live Performances, notice the beginning sound the same?)
Posted by Adrian Carttridge at 1:50 PM | 15/05/2007 | Report Abuse
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