I'd never heard of the "sophomore slump" before this article, but it does resonate somewhat with my own experience. I've been reorganizing and trimming the fat from my bloated music library (~30k songs), mostly by listening to albums one-by-one and adding each song to a playlist of stuff I like.
I wouldn't say second albums are universally bad, but many artists seem to have only a limited amount of inspiration in them. Some have just one song, some an album or two, and some just never seem to run out. Also, when a "perfect" or near-perfect album is followed by a less exceptional performance it makes the second look bad even though it might be pretty good on it's own. I've definitely been more disappointed by mediocre output from artists that I expect great things from than I would be otherwise.
> Also, when a "perfect" or near-perfect album is followed by a less exceptional performance it makes the second look bad even though it might be pretty good on it's own.
If you only went by King Crimson's first two albums, you'd think they'd run out of ideas. The second album, while actually a decent album, just seems like a copy of the first one down to the ordering and the vibe of the songs. There's only maybe one original idea on it (Cat Food).
Then from the third album on, KC pivots into entirely new directions and goes on to release a string of absolute prog rock classics. So I guess they escaped that second album curse.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the curse, but it sounds like they hit it exactly. A second album that was overshadowed by their first, but they went on to create better music that differentiated itself after.
> when a "perfect" or near-perfect album is followed by a less exceptional performance it makes the second look bad even though it might be pretty good on it's own
The Cars, Boston, and Van Halen come to mind (though as somebody born in the early 90s I would argue that VH II is _superior_ to their debut even if saying so is heretical).
>but many artists seem to have only a limited amount of inspiration in them. Some have just one song, some an album or two, and some just never seem to run out.
Some artists change their style over time, and the alignment between their style and your appreciation of certain styles only holds up for one or two albums. This has been the case with me for several bands.
I wouldn't say second albums are universally bad, but many artists seem to have only a limited amount of inspiration in them. Some have just one song, some an album or two, and some just never seem to run out. Also, when a "perfect" or near-perfect album is followed by a less exceptional performance it makes the second look bad even though it might be pretty good on it's own. I've definitely been more disappointed by mediocre output from artists that I expect great things from than I would be otherwise.