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Effortless second albums you love

Started by Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth, September 09, 2018, 11:57:28 PM

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Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

A counterpart to the Rugged debut albums thread (obviously). Everyone always talks about the difficult second album, but what about those ones that buck the trend? Those second albums (or any subsequent ones, for that matter) that follow an undistinguished debut, and see a band or artist operating on a whole new level, blasting your expectations to smithereens.
To whit*:


Electric Wizard's third album, Dopethrone, is commonly held as their masterpiece and a landmark for stoner/doom metal as a whole, but it's essentially a refinement of what the band had already achieved with its predecessor, Come My Fanatics. Their  self titled debut is a perfectly solid, workmanlike effort, but it doesn't remotely prepare you for the giant leap (or descent) heard on this. Just the opening few seconds of the lead track should be enough to tell you all you need to know about their sound, as it smothers you in an ocean of sludge.



* To whoo

Absorb the anus burn



Rizla

I love Duty Now For The Future. Devo were very smart. Didn't spunk all their best songs on the first one. Imagine having "Smart Patrol" or "Blockhead" written and not putting it on your debut.

In fact the title encapsulates the very thing in a way. Fuck me.

Rizla


Rich Uncle Skeleton

Quote from: Rizla on September 10, 2018, 12:05:11 AM
I love Duty Now For The Future. Devo were very smart. Didn't spunk all their best songs on the first one. Imagine having "Smart Patrol" or "Blockhead" written and not putting it on your debut.

In fact the title encapsulates the very thing in a way. Fuck me.

Was thinking exactly that when listening to the Q: Are We Not Men? earlier doing the washing up. Like you were talking about its mad they were just sat on a bunch of great songs from the few years before. Especially Smart Patrol/Mr DNA, which is far and away my favourite Devo song..

Amazing they could just sit on that and save it for the next album, especially since it was already an absolute monster live.
I've no real knowledge of the sessions for Q: Are We Not Men? but read once Brian Eno got a bit exasperated with them spending so much time trying to recreate certain sounds just as they had been on the demos.
So perhaps they attempted Smart Patrol/Mr DNA and abandoned it for a while, who knows?

Only track id love them to have done for Duty Now For The Future is Fountain Of Filth, could have sounded great on that album.

Maurice Yeatman

Quote from: Rizla on September 10, 2018, 12:10:27 AM
Sod Runtwhistle's number 2 is another I love https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQ2FVvo1jfE&list=PL94gOvpr5yt2ZmdQ3OV6GkmAVElLFLzCj

Ha. That's exactly the album I was going to suggest.

Wailing Wall is such a beautiful ballad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhWnYKRNn34 . Wrote it, sang and played all parts, and he was just 21.

chveik

Cluster II
Mobb Deep - The Infamous
Nico - The Marble Index
Lightning Bolt - Ride the Skies


Ambient Sheep

Maybe an obvious choice but the one that sprang first to my mind was The Bends by Radiohead.

There's a good case for the Cocteau's Head Over Heels too, much as I love Garlands.

Lordofthefiles

The Gun Club - Miami


Including "Mother of Earth" one of my favourite songs ever:

https://youtu.be/hvvGM3QhtOg

a duncandisorderly

any patto is good.... almost anything that ollie halsall was involved with, but this is a corker of a second album.



I mean, the guitar solo in this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fF1OKCyAcY

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: Ambient Sheep on September 10, 2018, 04:30:08 AM
Maybe an obvious choice but the one that sprang first to my mind was The Bends by Radiohead.
Funnily enough, Pablo Honey was the first thing I thought of for the Rugged Albums thread. I decided it probably wasn't rugged enough for that though.


jobotic

Big Black - okay The Hammer Party was strictly two EPs stuck together, but great as it is, what a leap to Atomizer.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

The Doors - Strange Days. Released a mere eight months after their debut album, and every bit as good.



EDIT: Hang on, I've misunderstood the point of this thread. Oh well.

The Culture Bunker

The first Tubeway Army album is OK, I guess, but "Replicas" is on a whole different level.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

" Dragnet " by The Fall, of course. In many ways, much more the first " proper " album by The Fall, what with it being the debut long- playing performance of yer men Scanlon and Hanley. None of that way too showy drumming from Karl Burns either ( due to him not being on that album, having been replaced by Mike Leigh and his dramatic descending drums at that point ), and some top typical Fall lo- fi and typical Smith lyrics in the form of " Spectre Vs. Rector ", too.

Totally agree about " Duty Now For The Future " too,  *the* archetypal Devo album.

dex



Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Dog Man Star by Suede. The first album isn't bad, of course, but Dog Man Star is a towering masterpiece.

DukeDeMondo

Take Offs And Landings is pretty charming, an' all, but the following year's...



...is something else altogether. The songs are vastly superior, the arrangements are infinitely more compelling (if a bit fucking twee here and there, like) in the way that a lot of Saddle Creek stuff was compelling (if a bit fucking twee here and there, like) for a few years in the 2000s, Mike Mogis's production is Mike Mogis's production, it's got Tim Kasher playing accordion on...   

It's all a bit MySpace, maybe, these days, and the likes of "With Arms Outstretched" inadvertently birthed a whole, whole bunch of Really Fucking Awful, but I still throw it on from time to time and it still stirs me up and across the rooftops to the devil.

thraxx

I think you'll find it's this.



And if not that, then this:



Though this gets an honorable mention:



RenegadeScrew

Quote from: Ambient Sheep on September 10, 2018, 04:30:08 AM
Maybe an obvious choice but the one that sprang first to my mind was The Bends by Radiohead.

Sprang to my mind second, but the first (northern soul) wasn't valid due to me misunderstanding the point of the thread.

Neil Young (Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere), Lou Reed (Transformer) and The Beta Band (Hot Shots II) after terrible debuts.

Brundle-Fly



Hannon and most fans consider Liberation the 'first proper album' by The Divine Comedy but the dreary debut, Fanfare For The Comic Muse was actually my introduction to him. Bought on the strength of the poncy album art.

Liberation was lemony head and shoulders above Fanfare... and forged the rich, melodic sound and witty lyrics that people adore or either completely despise from then on. I still think it's my favourite album from TDC's nineties imperial phase*. Takes me right back to Camden Town, summer of 1993: earworms all....Bernice Bobs Her Hair, Your Daddy's Car, Queen Of The South...,




(and of course the other second album gem of that year, M****n L**e I* R*****h by B**r)

Oo, I like this alternate train art





*I've just discovered it was Pet Shop Boys who coined that phrase, 'imperial phase' in pop. 'f**k me, I did not know that'

Z

Quote from: Absorb the anus burn on September 10, 2018, 12:02:06 AM

Effortless in that it's literally an album of leftovers from before the first album?



dex

Orange Goblin's time travelling blues.

buzby


After the unhappy experience of making Movement (where both the band and Hannett were struggling to cope with the void left by Curtis' death without knowing what direction they wanted to go in), their exposure to the New York club scene combined with Bernard's exposure to LSD and parting of the ways with Hannett led first to Temptation and then Power, Corruption & Lies, their second album but arguably the first real 'New Order' album.

Phil_A

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on September 10, 2018, 06:23:54 PM
Dog Man Star by Suede. The first album isn't bad, of course, but Dog Man Star is a towering masterpiece.

Oof, hardly effortless though, what with all the animosity between Bernard and the rest of the band and Brett lost in a druggy haze. It could very easily have been a complete disaster.