Effortless second albums you love

[thraxx]

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

Oh fucking hell yes I'd forgotten about that one.

[wosl]

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

Agreed; they substantially disentangled themselves from the general goth thicket and broke into a sound world of their own with this one.  Meanwhile, two second albums that are still among the best ever put out by those responsible for them:

 

'Splendour.. perfects the chiming, spectral style of the first Felt album, while LC sees Vini, with the key addition of Bruce Mitchell, moving into airier, more expansive terrain.  The sleeve designs for both (in their original versions, with the lovely respective card stocks) are qualitatively of a piece with the albums they house - the one for TSOF being among the greatest sleeve designs you'll find, full stop.  That Lawrence chose not to replicate the original artwork for the CD version of this year's reissue, and didn't go the full distance in replicating it for the vinyl version, is a scandal).

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

An amazing album, but Tigermilk is almost as good.

Stuart Murdoch was on such a songwriting roll in those days. I know he'd been stockpiling some of the Tigermilk tunes for several years, but he basically wrote and recorded two classic albums in six months. The following year, the band released three classic EPs. Astonishing really.

[studpuppet]

[RenegadeScrew]

I've always thought of this as their debut.  Do you consider Come on Pilgrim as the debut album?

[Sebastian Cobb]

[Gradual Decline]

[Maurice Yeatman]

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.

Just came across this image of Karen Carpenter inspecting the original gatefold LP. Nice.



How about Scritti's second?


Their first was good, and this was now effectively a different band, but it definitely satisfies the OP's "operating on a whole new level".

[Dr Syntax Head]

Antics-Interpol and Take them on on your own-BRMC are both second albums that completely lived up to my expectations. I listen to both as much as the respective debuts.

Vs-Pearl Jam (here we go) surpasses Ten in so many ways.

[Kane Jones]

Vs-Pearl Jam (here we go) surpasses Ten in so many ways.

I agree with this. Vs still sounds good whereas Ten is a murky over-produced mess. The only songs from Ten worth a squirt of piss now are Once, Jeremy, Oceans and Garden. Vs has Animal, Glorified G, W.M.A, Blood, Rearviewmirror, Rats, Leash and (their best song) Indifference. A far better album.

Everything else they've released since has been pish, mind. Better Man from Vitalogy is one of the worst songs I've ever heard.

[Dr Syntax Head]

I agree with this. Vs still sounds good whereas Ten is a murky over-produced mess. The only songs from Ten worth a squirt of piss now are Once, Jeremy, Oceans and Garden. Vs has Animal, Glorified G, W.M.A, Blood, Rearviewmirror, Rats, Leash and (their best song) Indifference. A far better album.

Everything else they've released since has been pish, mind. Better Man from Vitalogy is one of the worst songs I've ever heard.

I'm a lifelong fan of the band and still love them a lot but yeah now as someone older with a far wider taste in music than I did back in  the 90s I don't get the same feeling from songs I used to love a lot anymore. I absolutely loved better man but yeah it just sounds a bit crap now. It was actually a song Vedder wrote long before joining Pearl Jam (I have a recording of his previous band somewhere) so it's pretty naive sounding now.

[Dr Syntax Head]

Why haven't I mentioned Paul's Boutique yet?

Ice Cube's Death Certificate was way better than AMW too.

Pretty Hate Machine is a classic but both Broken and Downward Spiral are something else. Just pure.

[Dr Syntax Head]

I love the Manic's second album even though it's nowhere near as good either the album that preceded it or the one that followed.

[lazyhour]

[boki]

The only songs from Ten worth a squirt of piss now are Once, Jeremy, Oceans and Garden.

Wot no Porch?!

[Dr Syntax Head]

Wot no Porch?!

Good point. Every song is great on Ten. When you're 17 and tortured and hate the cult of Nirvana but love guitars and it's 1992. I adore Ten but it's pure nostalgia now. And a cultural artefact.

Couple posts up. Crooked Rain was very very important to me. Heard Cut your hair on John peel and thus my introduction to messy gen x alt rock was born. Range Life. Going to listen to that right now.

[DukeDeMondo]

These all followed incredible debut albums, though. They didn't come out of nowhere.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I think my choice of thread title was misleading. The idea was for albums that significantly improved on their predecessors, rather than just second albums that are good.

Ho hum. I'll try to be more clear next time.

I hold their first three records in equally high regard, but this does feel to me like the point at which the band really came into their own. Possibly because they were actually a band at this point, instead of basically being Homme's solo project, as on the first one. There's a confidence and playfulness to the sound here that sets it apart from the first album and from other bands I would hear at the time.

[thecuriousorange]

Ride the Lightning is Metallica's best album. You could say they spent the rest of the decade copying it like a recipe.