Seconds Of Pleasure

I came across an old thread here from 2006 regarding Uncut's 100 Greatest Debut Albums which subsequently morphed into a discussion pertaining to the greatest third albums at which time Diskojoe wrote:

"On that note I wonder if someone will do a list of the 50-100 best second albums ever (it seems very hard for acts to do a good second album; it's very easy to do a list of crappy second albums)."

I don't think I've seen anyone else undertake such a task here so I started to compile some of the better second albums in an effort to determine if sophomore releases are indeed as bad as their reputation. For the most part, I tried to include exceptional albums that are also generally regarded as either an artist's best work or nearly as good as anything that particular artist released. What I found was that in many instances an artist's second album actually wound up being their best work either critically or from a fan perspective.

This started out as a list of 100 but grew to around 140 or so. For the most part, I tried to be objective but there are a few subjective choices here that may not align with the general consensus. I believe these are all second full length releases although there may be an inaccuracy here or there (EPs were not factored in).

To that end, what outstanding second albums have I omitted in the list below that represents an artist's peak or near peak material? Also, what sophomore albums marked a precipitous drop from their debuts, to the extent as say, the Dead Boys' We Have Come For Your Children or The Selecter's Celebrate The Bullet?

A Tonic For The Troops - Boomtown Rats
Alternative Chartbusters - The Boys
Alternative Hits - Chelsea
American Whip - Joy Zipper
Approved By The Motors - Motors
Astral Weeks - Van Morrison
Back In The USA - MC5
Back To Black - Amy Winehouse
Bandwagonesque - Teenage Fanclub
Being There - Wilco
Beneath The Shadows - TSOL
Big Plans For Everybody - Let's Active
Birth School Work Death - Godfathers
Brand New Age - UK Subs
Bryter Layter - Nick Drake
Buffalo Springfield Again - Buffalo Springfield
Candy-O - The Cars
Catch A Fire - Bob Marley
Cheap Thrills - Big Brother & The Holding Company
Closer - Joy Division
Collision Drive - Alan Vega
Cool For Cats - Squeeze
Crooked Rain Crooked Rain - Pavement
Da Capo - Love
Dawn Of The Dickies - Dickies
December - For Against
Dear 23 - Posies
Dig Me Out - Sleater Kinney
Doll Hut - Pontiac Brothers
Dub Housing - Pere Ubu
Electric Version - New Pornographers
Electro Shock Blues - Eels
Eternally Yours - Saints
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere - Neil Young
Flamingo - Flamin' Groovies
Fresh Fruit In Foreign Places - Kid Creole & The
Coconuts
Fun House - The Stooges
Gideon Gaye - High Llamas
Give 'Em Enough Rope - The Clash
Goodbye And Hello - Tim Buckley
Grevious Angel - Gram Parsons
Gypsy Blood - Doll By Doll
Happiness - Lisa Germano
Hatful Of Hollow - The Smiths
Head Over Heels - Cocteau Twins
Horsedrawn Wishes - Rollerskate Skinny
I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got - Sinead
O'Connor
In Color - Cheap Trick
In Style - David Johansen
In The Aeroplane Over The Sea - Neutral Milk
Hotel
Joy 1967/1990 - Ultra Vivid Scene
Kala - MIA
Katrina And The Waves 2 - Katrina And The Waves
Kite - Kirsty MacColl
L'eau Rouge - Young Gods
Leave Home - Ramones
Led Zeppelin II - Led Zeppelin
Let The Four Winds Blow - Tenpole Tudor
Let's Go - Rancid
Lets Go! - Reducers
Love - The Cult
Love Songs For The Retarded - Queers
Loveless - My Bloody Valentine
Lust For Life - Iggy Pop
Lysergic Emanations - Fuzztones
Manifest Destiny - Dictators
Meat Puppets II - Meat Puppets
Milo Goes To College - Descendents
Neurotica - Redd Kross
Nevermind - Nirvana
Night Falls Over Kortedala - Jens Lekman
99 Luft Balloons - Nena
No More Heroes - Stranglers
No Time Like Now - Translator
On Fire - Galaxie 500
One Dozen Berrys - Chuck Berry
Open Season - British Sea Power
Organisation - OMD
Palomine - Bettie Seveert
Paranoid - Black Sabbath
Paul's Boutique - Beastie Boys
Please Panic - Vulgar Boatmen
Power, Corruption And Lies - New Order
Primal Dream - Richard Barone
Radio City - Big Star
Reality Of My Surroundings - Fishbone
Rebel Yell - Billy Idol
Red House Painters (Rollercoaster) - Red House
Painters
Reckoning - REM
Regatta De Blanc - The Police
Replicas - Tubeway Army
Return To Magenta - Mink Deville
Rid Of Me - PJ Harvey
Rock For Light - Bad Brains
Roman Gods - Fleshtones
Room On Fire - Strokes
Second Edition - P.I.L.
Simpatico - Velocity Girl
Sleep No More - Comsat Angels
Soulvaki - Slowdive
Sparkle In The Finish - Ike Reilly
Spiderland - Slint
Still Standing - Jason & The Scorchers
Spilt Milk - Jellyfish
Strange Free World - Kitchens Of Distinction
Sunshine On Leith - Proclaimers
Surfer Rosa - Pixies
Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy - Brian Eno
Talk Talk Talk - Psychedelic Furs
Teenager Of The Year - Frank Black
That Stubborn Kinda Fellow - Marvin Gaye
The Band - The Band
The Bends - Radiohead
The Bible Belt - Nikki Sudden
The Blasters - The Blasters
The Doughnut In Granny's Greenhouse - Bonzo Dog
Band
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan
The Southern Harmony & Musical Companion - Black
Crowes
This Is The Day, This Is The Hour, This Is This
- Pop Will Eat Itself
This Year's Model - Elvis Costello
Time Bomb High School - Reigning Sound
Tindersticks II - Tindersticks
Too Much Too Soon - New York Dolls
Transformer - Lou Reed
Two Wheels Good/Steve McQueen - Prefab Sprout
Tyranny And Mutation - Blue Oyster Cult
Underwater Moonlight - Soft Boys
Utopia Parkway - Fountains Of Wayne
What Does Anything Mean Basically? - Chameleons
When Your Heartstrings Break - Beulah
Whisper Tames The Lion - Drivin N' Cryin
White Light/White Heat - Velvet Underground
You're Living All Over Me - Dinosaur Jr.
Wild Gift - X

motherfucker of a list shazzle.

Heaven Up Here

Too Rye Ay

Eternally Yours

the clean 'don't point that thing at me'

Worthy :

Favourite Worst Nightmare - Arctic Monkeys

Even Serpents Shine - Only Ones

Heat Treatment - Graham Parker

Labour of Lust - Nick Lowe

Long Player - Faces

Vee Vee - Archers of Loaf


Precipitous Drop- Off :

Second Coming - Stone Roses (though it has its defenders)



Post Edited (03-25-08 21:27)

Don't know why but for some reason I always think Too-Rye-Ay is Dexy's debut so I glossed over it.

Labour Of Lust - don't know how I missed that one.

Had Eternally Yours on the list.

I bow to Shizzle. Excellently done.

Great!

Hunky Dory?
Axis as Bold as Love
I Don't Wanna Grow Up
Funkadelic or Free your... (which ever came first)
What's the Story Morning Glory
Vintage Violence
Electric Warrior (T. Rex's second)
Anthem of the Sun
Gold (Ryan Adams)
Trials of Van Occupanther
Idlewild South (Allman Bros.)
Meat is Murder

The Boys Next Door - The Birthday Party
Bit of a lost classic.

Totaji listed "Vintage Violence". I don't know of any previous Cale album.

Therefore, "Church of Anthrax" should make the list as Cale's second album. (I'm not sure in what order Riley's were issued, but "In C" and "Rainbow in Curved Air" both preceded "Church, I think.)



Post Edited (03-27-08 09:38)

Some really really great sophmore efforts in this list. However, many of the above would have to be disqualified if EPs were accepted. Crooked Rain as Pavement's second album? More like the fourth or fifth. Vee Vee as AOL's second album? Here are some all-time classics:


Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions
Drive Like Jehu - Yank Crime
A Tribe Called Quest - Low End Theory
Idlewild - Hope is Important
Sugar - Beaster
Freedy Johnston - Can You Fly

...and some B-list entries:

Jawbreaker - Bivouac
Superchunk - No Pocky For Kitty
Jungle Brothers - Done By The Forces Of Nature
Gang of Four - Solid Gold
The Hold Steady - Seperation Sunday

Now that is quite a list. I'd add:

You've Come a Long Way, Baby - Fatboy Slim
Illiterature - Adam Schmitt
Songs from the Big Chair - Tears for Fears
Late Registration - Kanye West
Wonderland - Big Country
Goodbye Jumbo - World Party
Straight Outta Compton - NWA
Heart - Stars
Rough Night in Jericho - Dreams So Real
The Circus - Erasure
Kerosene Hat - Cracker
Absolutely - Madness
By All Means Necessary - Boogie Down Productions
Folk of the 80's (Part III) - Men Without Hats
Waking Hours - del Amitri
Derelicts of Dialect - 3rd Bass
Whatever and Ever Amen - Ben Folds Five (although I prefer the debut, I think I'm in the minority)

Usually considered a drop-off, but I think it's an improvement:
De La Soul is Dead - De La Soul

Precipitous Drop-off:
Hallowed Ground - Violent Femmes

Everthing Falls Apart - Husker Du
Up the Downstair - Porcupine Tree
The Brooklyn Side - the Bottle Rockets
Made to Be Broken - Soul Asylum
Overkill - Motorhead
Grievous Angel - Gram Parsons



Post Edited (03-26-08 11:08)

The Reality of My Surroundings is Fishbone's third album. If we're not counting EPs (and we seem not to be), then it's Truth and Soul, which was indeed a great leap forward over the debut full-length In Your Face.

Made To Be Broken and Goodbye Jumbo are a couple more glaring omissions. My excuse for Jumbo is that I must have gotten tired when I got to the W's. I have no excuse for the Soul Asylum.

You're right about the Fishbone. I had Truth And Soul listed the whole time but removed it in favor of Reality thinking it was second after the EP.

Grievous is on the list, albeit mispelled.

Whoops, sorry, I overlooked Grievous. Serves me right as it's the one I didn't doublecheck the list for...oh well.

Better than the first...

A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing -- Sparks
Babble -- That Petrol Emotion
Hootenanny -- The Replacements (if Stink is an EP)
Absolutely Free - Mothers Of Invention
Like A Virgin -- Madonna
No. 10 Upping Street -- B.A.D.
The Man With the Blue Post-Modern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar -- Peter Case

Just a hair off the first album...
Reckoning -- R.E.M.
Beauty Stab -- ABC
For Your Pleasure -- Roxy Music
Lincoln -- They Might Be Giants

Here's some not bad second albums from the mid-60s:

1. Get the Picture- The Pretty Things

2. The Beatles Second Album-by some group whose name I forgot

3. 12x5-The Rolling Stones

4. Happy Jack-The Who

present the paisley reich - times new viking
the law of things - bats
wonder wonderful wonderland - plasticland
everywhere at once - plimsouls
deceit - this heat
trotsky icepick - poison summer

Considered a precipitous drop-off at the time, more fondly thought of now but still conceded to be not quite as good as the debut:
Field Day - Marshall Crenshaw
Plastic Letters - Blondie

Considered an improvement at the time, but actually a drop-off:
Proof Through the Night - T Bone Burnett

Barely noticed at the time (in the US, anyhow), but a great second album:
Born Sandy Devotional - The Triffids

the irony of the title seconds of pleasure is rockpile only put out one album.
how many bands only put out one album
blind faith, the monroes?

Favorite one album bands besides Rockpile :

Heartbreakers

The La's

Modern Lovers (or are they a 0 album band?)

In addition to the Bats and Triffids second albums as well as all the other good ones mentioned by everyone, I should have also had these two on the list in retrospect:

Moonhead - Thin White Rope
Changing Hearts - Polyrock

More superior second albums:
Benefactor - Romeo Void
Furnace Room Lullaby - Neko Case
Distinguishing Marks - Fingerprintz
Love Not Money - Everything But the Girl

Such an orange to the debut's apple that comparison is pointless, but given my mood on any given day, I might prefer it:
The Garden - John Foxx



Post Edited (03-28-08 16:29)

bodeans- first album love n hope sex n dreams which i thought was a great album. second one was more polished and strayed from their everly brothers rootsy kind of sound/




bands that had such great first albums that were 5 star albums and had 4 star or 3.5 star second albums

1. the clash
2. pretenders
3. michael penn
4. willie nile
5 u2

here is something i noticed of really huge mainstream artists from the 70s n 80s they seem to hit it big with their third album although the first 2 albums do have classic rock staples they initially didnt sell that well.
examples springsteen- born to run 3rd album
billy joel- the stranger, u2-war

Did anyone have Giant Steps by The Boo Radleys?

Bridge of Sighs - Robin Trower

Hallowed Ground - Violent Femmes

So that I don't add to the disrespect already incurred by "the greatest rock band you never heard of" Embarrassment's second LP, The Embarrassment is certainly good enough to be on any list of great sophomore efforts, unless of course, it doesn't qualify because half the material was released as an EP before their first proper album.

thanks for the list.
i'm still hooked on the neats lp (lived in boston in the mid 80's) which ace of hearts is planning to release on cd.

And I go on record (ha!) again to say that the Ebarrassment is a boy band.

But 'Sex Drive' IS pure gold girls.

I am just surprised no one mentioned Little Earthquakes, which is in a sad way Tori Amos' second record.

But no way is Night Falls over Kortedala only Jens Lekman's second.... he released a lot of stuff in Sweden.

According to the parameters of what's listed in Jens' discography it is his second LP. What else is one to go by?

However, it appears that I listed Roman Gods erroneously as the Fleshtones' second LP when it's their debut. I think I listed it when I was initially including EPs until I changed the criteria.

Actually wasn't "Blast Off" the first (recorded) Fleshtones LP, it just got released after "Roman Gods" for whatever reason? (I remember it being plugged as the "first" Fleshtones "album" in ads Back In The Day).

I guess it all depends in one includes or doesn't include EPs.

On the other hand, your list has Sugar's
Beaster as a highlight, which was their second release - but was an EP. So, it all depends on parameters.

Blast Off is listed as after Roman Gods in the discographies I've seen. TP has it listed second after Roman Gods as well. I don't know which was recorded first.

I don't think I had that Sugar album on my list but I did ultimately decide to leave EPs out of the equation for this exercise.



Post Edited (04-27-08 10:16)