FEATURE:
Second Best
IN THIS PHOTO: Björk captured by Enver Hirsch in 1995
Ten Brilliant Sophomore Albums
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ALTHOUGH I looked at sophomore albums…
IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna shot by Helmut Werb in 1984
a while back, I want to revisit the subject. The second album is that tricky thing. If you have a masterful debut, it is inevitable there is pressure to follow it with an even better sophomore effort. If you start off quite weak, there is a different pressure: in order to keep people interested, that second record has to be something special! Everyone has their views regarding the best sophomore albums and what defines a true classic. Whether it is an artist who vastly improved from a weak debut, or someone who topped an amazing first effort, there are some truly wonderful second albums. I have collected together what I think are the best sophomore albums ever. Here is a rundown of some albums that are definitely…
IN THIS PHOTO: Radiohead circa 1995
NOT second best!
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Beastie Boys - Paul’s Boutique
Release Date: 25th July, 1989
Producers: Beastie Boys/The Dust Brothers/Mario Caldato Jr.
Label: Capitol
The Debut: Licensed to Ill (1986)
Standout Tracks: To All the Girls/Hey Ladies/Shadrach
Key Cut: Shake Your Rump
Sample Review:
“While each member has their spotlight moments—MCA’s pedal-down tour de force fast-rap exhibition in “Year and a Day,” Mike D having too much to drink at the Red Lobster on “Mike on the Mic,” and Ad-Rock’s charmingly venomous tirade against coke-snorting Hollywood faux-ingénues in “3-Minute Rule”—Paul's Boutique is where their back-and-forth patter really reached its peak. At the start of their career, they built off the tag-team style popularized by Run-DMC, but by ’89 they'd developed it to such an extent and to such manic, screwball ends that they might as well have been drawing off the Marx Brothers as well. It’s impossible to hear the vast majority of this album as anything other than a locked-tight group effort, with its overlapping lyrics and shouted three-man one-liners, and it’s maybe best displayed in the classic single “Shadrach.” After years of post-Def Jam limbo and attempts to escape out from under the weight of a fratboy parody that got out of hand, they put together a defiant, iconographic statement of purpose that combined giddy braggadocio with weeded-out soul-searching. It’s the tightest highlight on an album full of them, a quick-volleying, line-swapping 100-yard dash capped off with the most confident possible delivery of the line “They tell us what to do? Hell no!” – Pitchfork
Radiohead – The Bends
Release Date: 13th March, 1995
Producer: John Leckie
Labels: Parlophone/Capitol
The Debut: Pablo Honey (1993)
Standout Tracks: The Bends/Fake Plastic Trees/Just
Key Cut: Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Sample Review:
“Pablo Honey in no way was adequate preparation for its epic, sprawling follow-up, The Bends. Building from the sweeping, three-guitar attack that punctuated the best moments of Pablo Honey, Radiohead create a grand and forceful sound that nevertheless resonates with anguish and despair -- it's cerebral anthemic rock. Occasionally, the album displays its influences, whether it's U2, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., or the Pixies, but Radiohead turn clichés inside out, making each song sound bracingly fresh. Thom Yorke's tortured lyrics give the album a melancholy undercurrent, as does the surging, textured music. But what makes The Bends so remarkable is that it marries such ambitious, and often challenging, instrumental soundscapes to songs that are at their cores hauntingly melodic and accessible. It makes the record compelling upon first listen, but it reveals new details with each listen, and soon it becomes apparent that with The Bends, Radiohead have reinvented anthemic rock” – AllMusic
Carole King - Tapestry
Release Date: 10th February, 1971
Producer: Lou Adler
Labels: Ode/A&M
The Debut: Writer (1970)
Standout Tracks: I Feel the Earth Move/Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?/(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman
Key Cut: It’s Too Late
Sample Review:
“Two of the album’s pleasantest moments are hearing Carole sing “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and “Natural Woman.” She makes no effort to compete with the standard versions but instead gives each an entirely fresh and original interpretation. The next to the last song on the album is the lovely title song and Miss King performs it as a solo. For the last song. “Natural Woman,” she is joined only by her husband, Charlie Larkey, on bass. It sounds like something out of one of her songs…
Conviction and commitment are the life blood of Tapestry and are precisely what make it so fine. Of course, commitment alone means nothing; but commitment coupled with the musical talents of a genuine pop artist mean everything. To paraphrase Pauline Kael, writing about director Jean Renoir, Carole King is thoroughly involved with her music; she reaches out towards us and gives everything she has. And this generosity is so extraordinary that perhaps we can give it another name: passion.
Curtis Mayfield, in a song written at just about the same time Carole was writing “The Locomotion” put it another way: “The woman’s got soul” – Rolling Stone
Amy Winehouse – Back to Black
Release Date: 27th October, 2006
Producers: Mark Ronson/Salaam Remi
Label: Island
The Debut: Frank (2003)
Standout Tracks: Rehab/You Know I’m No Good/Love Is a Losing Game
Key Cut: Back to Black
Sample Review:
“What was particularly intriguing about the 22-year-old was how she managed to sound like a Fifties jazz club singer while singing outre lyrics about life in contemporary London. This compelling duality is continued with a deft change of backdrop on Back to Black, wherein she assumes the role of an Aretha Franklin-style soul singer complete with doo-wop backing groups while again singing of her contemporary urban experiences. It should keep popular culture students busy for the next 20 years in the way that Mick Jagger in the mid-Sixties prompted countless theses on the subliminal black person within. None the less it works - even though this area of pop culture has been mined remorselessly for the past 50 years - by dint of its clever melody lines and smart lyrics.
As if to emphasise just how wise she is, Winehouse has kept each track to around the length of a 45 (remember those?), enabling her to make her point and move on without running the risk of outstaying her welcome. So whether it's the rousing, churchy 'Rehab', in which Winehouse describes how her father tries to wean her off alcohol ('Try to make me go to rehab/ I say no, no, no'), or the serious soul of 'Love is a Losing Game', Back to Black isn't shy of betraying its debt to pop” – The Observer
The Beatles - With the Beatles
Release Date: 22 November, 1963
Producer: George Martin
Label: Paralophone
The Debut: Please Please Me (1963)
Standout Tracks: It Won’t Be Long/Don’t Bother Me/I Wanna Be Your Man
Key Cut: All My Loving
Sample Review:
“Things get more interesting on With The Beatles, particularly for audiences who feel the hi-hat should be the dominant musical instrument on all musical recordings. Only one track lasts longer than three minutes, but structurally, it would appear that the Beatles were more musical than any songwriters who had ever come before them, even when performing material that had been conceived for The Music Man. It’s hard to understand why the rock press wasn’t covering the Beatles during this stretch of their career; one can only assume that the band members’ lack of charisma and uneasy rapport made them unappealing to the mainstream media. Still, the music itself has verve—With The Beatles earns another” – The A.V. Club
Nirvana - Nevermind
Release Date: 24th September, 1991
Producer: Butch Vig
Label: DGC
The Debut: Bleach (1989)
Standout Tracks: Smells Like Teen Spirit/Breed/Something in the Way
Key Cut: Come as You Are
Sample Review:
“‘Come As You Are' has something eerie about it, while opening track (and forthcoming single) 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' has a 'Goo'ey feeling inherent in its lurching structure. At other times, the threesome lean into thrashier territory with the berserk 'Territorial Pissings' and screaming-pop of 'Breed'.
This is the natural progression from their debut LP 'Bleach', exploring different avenues. They are less specific lyrically than SY, sometimes annoyingly so, but yet they still produce these vivid moods with 'Drain You', 'Polly' and the closing, quieter 'Something In The Way'.
'Nevermind' is the big American alternative record of the autumn. But better still, it'll last well into next year” – NME
Madonna – Like a Virgin
Release Date: 12th November, 1984
Producer: Nile Rodgers
Labels: Sire/Warner Bros.
The Debut: Madonna (1983)
Standout Tracks: Angel/Like a Virgin/Dress You Are
Key Cut: Material Girl
Sample Review:
“Madonna had hits with her first album, even reaching the Top Ten twice with "Borderline" and "Lucky Star," but she didn't become a superstar, an icon, until her second album, Like a Virgin. She saw the opening for this kind of explosion and seized it, bringing in former Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers in as a producer, to help her expand her sound, and then carefully constructed her image as an ironic, ferociously sexy Boy Toy; the Steven Meisel-shot cover, capturing her as a buxom bride with a Boy Toy belt buckle on the front, and dressing after a night of passion, was as key to her reinvention as the music itself. Yet, there's no discounting the best songs on the record, the moments when her grand concepts are married to music that transcends the mere classification of dance-pop. These, of course, are "Material Girl" and "Like a Virgin," the two songs that made her an icon, and the two songs that remain definitive statements. They overshadow the rest of the record, not just because they are a perfect match of theme and sound, but because the rest of the album vacillates wildly in terms of quality. The other two singles, "Angel" and "Dress You Up," are excellent standard-issue dance-pop, and there are other moments that work well ("Over and Over," "Stay," the earnest cover of Rose Royce's "Love Don't Live Here"), but overall, it adds up to less than the sum of its parts -- partially because the singles are so good, but also because on the first album, she stunned with style and a certain joy. Here, the calculation is apparent, and while that's part of Madonna's essence -- even something that makes her fun -- it throws the record's balance off a little too much for it to be consistent, even if it justifiably made her a star” – AllMusic
Björk – Post
Release Date: 13th June, 1995
Producers: Björk/Nellee Hooper/Graham Massey/Tricky/Howie B
Labels: One Little Indian/Elektra
The Debut: Debut (1993)
Standout Tracks: Army of Me/Hyperballad/It’s Oh So Quiet
Key Cut: Isobel
Sample Review:
“On Björk second solo album, Post, the ex-Sugarcube finds a bizarre and irresistible connecting point between industrial-disco, ambient-trance, and catchy synth pop. She even shoehorns in a big-band number, though few will confuse the Icelandic pixie — with her otherworldly lyrics and supernatural pipes — with Peggy Lee. Luckily, there’s a conviction to Björk’s delivery and an assurance to her hooks that make her most surreal passages as relatable as moon-June standards. Ultimately, she reinvents that tradition, constructing standards for the cyber age” – Entertainment Weekly
Blur – Modern Life Is Rubbish
Release Date: 10th May, 1993
Producers: Blur/John Smith/Steve Lovell/Stephen Street
Labels: Food (U.K.)/SBK (U.S.)
The Debut: Leisure (1991)
Standout Tracks: Blue Jeans/Chemical World/Sunday Sunday
Key Cut: For Tomorrow
Sample Review:
“Further in there’s a very intriguing mix of obscurities that clearly indicate a band entering their stride as musicians, if not entirely sure of their identity: you would never in a million years pick out the reverb-heavy blues of the excellent ‘Pop Scene’ b-side ‘Garden City’ out as Blur; by the October 1993 ‘Sunday Sunday’ single their infatuation with Englishness had reached something like self-parody, with punk rock covers of ‘Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Made for Two)’ and ‘Let’s All Go Down the Strand’.
There’s none of the romance or cohesiveness of the album proper, but – on the original compositions - the songcraft is almost faultless, from the clean new wave guitars of ‘Mace’ to the weirdly successful Krautrock experiment of ‘Es Schmecht’. If the Modern Life Is Rubbish b-sides are the sound of a band coming into peak form as musicians, then Modern Life Is Rubbish is them deciding what to do with that form. Reputedly the band – after their pissiness over ‘Popscene’ – were unfazed that neither their second album nor its singles sold particular well: they knew how good it was, they knew it was only a matter of time before they hit the big time… and they were right” – Drowned in Sound
Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Release Date: 2nd February, 1994
Producers: Pavement
Label: Matador
The Debut: Slanted and Enchanted (1992)
Standout Tracks: Elevate Me Later/Gold Soundz/Range Life
Key Cut: Cut Your Hair
Sample Review:
“Pavement may still be messy, but it's a meaningful, musical messiness from the performance to the production: listen to how "Silence Kit" begins by falling into place with its layers of fuzz guitars, wah wahs, cowbells, thumping bass, and drum fills, how what initially seems random gives way into a lush Californian pop song. That's Crooked Rain a nutshell -- what initially seems chaotic has purpose, leading listeners into the bittersweet heart and impish humor at the core of the album. Many bands attempted to replicate the sound or the vibe of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, but they never came close to the quicksilver shifts in music and emotion that give this album such lasting appeal. Here, Pavement follow the heartbroken ballad "Stop Breathin'" with the wry, hooky alt-rock hit "Cut Your Hair" without missing a beat. They throw out a jazzy Dave Brubeck tribute in "5-4=Unity" as easily as they mimic the Fall and mock the Happy Mondays on "Hit the Plane Down." By drawing on so many different influences, Pavement discovered its own distinctive voice as a band on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, creating a vibrant, dynamic, emotionally resonant album that stands as a touchstone of underground rock in the '90s and one of the great albums of its decade” – AllMusic