bands that improved significantly between their first and second albums

Dead Can Dance

Cowboy Junkies
Al Stewart

Do you mean My War > Damaged or Damaged > First Four Years?

The former.

Beastie Boys
Talking Heads
The Horrors.

caught The Horrors around summer 06 and then again supporting Placebo in late 09 and it was scarcely believable this was the same set of people. one minute they're a bunch of jokers larking about having a blast making an awful racket, next they're stood stock still looking incredibly serious and.. oh my.

Midlake

Wilco

Talking Heads

No.

The Cure
Hawkwind
Aerosmith

Husker Du's big leap was from second (LP) to third (EP), but even first to second was a dramatic improvement.

Janet Jackson
Television On The Radio

TV on the Radio great example of a band that drastically improved from first to second album and then got even worse

I really like the first Janet Jackson album, especially Young Love and Don't Mess Up This Good Thing

is there really a big jump in quality between her debut and Dream Street? or did Old Lunch mean that Control was where there a big improvement, because that was her third album

Nobody is going to know who this is, but (Belgian band) Thou went from "Hello in This Sun" which was a mildly interesting mix of Sonic Youth and electronica to the totally wonderful "Put Us In Tune." The latter uses extra Portishead backing tracks, and was a fairly great release on a label that soon failed, folding before Enon, who might have saved them, hit their stride.

xpost I think Dream Street is much better than her debut, and Control is even better still.

have a listicle: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/20-terrible-debut-albums-by-great-artists-20151118

I reject the notion that From Genesis to Revelation is terrible.

Alice in Chains.

Nirvana

― flappy bird

They certianly got slicker and poppier, but I prefer Bleach to Nevermind.

I'm not saying the Red Hot Chili Peppers are a good band, but I think Freaky Styley was a significant improvement.

Til Tuesday
Miguel

the gossip

second to third:

http://cdn.albumoftheyear.org/album/12837-change-the-weather.jpg

http://hellbound.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/619XoeOU9hL.jpg

Spacemen 3
Aerosmith
Meat Puppets
The Church
The Triffids
Kinski
Ivy

joni

I only just heard some of that early Underworld stuff recently and was surprised how much I liked it. I mean, I liked it in a completely different way than I like their more well-known stuff but it was pretty decent pop music for that era.

electrelane

Germany

with the addition of Hitler to the German line-up, their 2nd album (literally) blew millions away for several years straight!!!

an Imperial Phase like none other!

Birthday Party if you count Door, Dor as the first. Though that one is even better RSH side over preRSH side innit?

Grateful Dead? Though s/t may be the 1lp the more garage focused can palate. I think Anthem heads off in a load of new directions.

Trying to think how far into the lp sequence Magma become themselves.

Fairport Convention? Though I do love s/t. But Sandy Denny don't arrive before Holidays.

Surrealistic Pillow is an album that ought to belong--quantum leap in visibility, two signature hits, new singer--but I love the first Airplane LP.

Dinosaur You're Living All Over Me

^ only because it's true

don't know much about bands that improved significantly between their first and second albums, but if you're talking people who improved significantly between their first and second sexual encounters with me, i know the answer, which is your mom.

Tortoise

Definitely Fairport Convention.

Talk Talk is another one I don't think has been mentioned yet.

but if you're talking people who improved significantly between their first and second sexual encounters with me

tough call between your mom and hitler. perhaps we should poll it

oh I've polled both of them already, plenty of times

lana del rey

Steely Dan

Rainbow

Duncan Browne

second to third:

the first Underworld album was great though

(obv no dub nob ass, but I caned that cassette)

Lady Gaga, assuming The Fame Monster counts as her second album.

funny that nobody has mentioned PRINCE here

(a one-man band)

The Genius/GZA
The Coup

Blur for sure: reports of how bad they were on their first US tour are not exaggerated.

tim buckley

hall & oates?

andrew jackson jihad

Chrome

Scritti Pollitti

No.

Pussy Galore. Right Now! is great 'n' all, but Dial 'M' for Motherfucker is amazing.

Teenage Fanclub.

xpost. Dial 'M' is still after all these years pretty underrated. One of the few albums where I have no idea how the people involved managed to create what they created. I don't think it's ever really going to get its due; maybe when Jon Spencer dies.

Feel like an argument could be made to include Husker Du and The Replacements here.

Talk Talk

Possibly a lot of bands who found their own way after passing through a hardcore phase, note found their own way rather than moving into anything else generic.
Or that could be expanded to a number of different genres. Where first lp is band following rules of genre to a large extent followed by them finding out what works for them.

But that probably goes without saying.

Just noticed it being said or paraphrased concerning 2 different generations music.
But probably happened 60s -beat/r'n'b into individual sound via psychedelia.
70s punk
80s hardcore,
not sure what it would be in 90s baggy or Britpop or something?

Another solo artist rather than band: Lou Reed

Oh!

At the Drive-In

Sarah McLachlan.

Feel like an argument could be made to include Husker Du and The Replacements here.

the replacements' first two albums are both fantastic, just in different ways. everything that was ever great about them is evident on that debut. and is evident again on album #2, with a twist or two here and there.

Agreed

Indigo Girls
Neutral Milk Hotel

Built To Spill

Humble Pie

^ good one!

Actually, Small Faces count in a way don't they? I mean, their Decca singles still hold up fairly well, but the leap from the debut LP on Decca to their first LP for Immediate is quite something.

Yeah, I wasn't sure about Small Faces since (iirc) the Decca record was compiled/released without their input/permission.

I wasn't completely sure about Humble Pie either, but I just gave the first two a spin, and as admirably heavy as the first one is, Town & Country is so impossibly gorgeous. It's my favorite UK response to the Band's Music From Big Pink (and it's a crowded field).

I like that Immediate years 2cd Humble Pie set. But thought I listened to the 1st disc a lot.

Isn't the cobbled together Small Faces Decca set the From The Beginning one? I thought the Decca s/t was recorded as an lp.

Yes, you are correct! I had been mixing those two (From the Beginning and the Decca thing) up in my head.

The Time
D'angelo
Hot Chip
LCD Soundsystem
Girls Aloud
Spoon
St. Vincent
Cut Copy
The Juan Maclean
The Divine Comedy
Outkast
Slowdive
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Big Star

GVSB

OutKast is another, like Prince, where I think of the jump between albums #1 and #2 as being less dramatic as those between #2 and #3.

I'd put ATLiens ahead of Aquemini these days.

ATLiens is and always has been their best work.

Hot Chip

I like most of Hot Chip, but as a whole album, I like the first one best.

Girls Aloud

Undoubtedly, but the stuff on the first album by the lineup that did the second album pointed clearly that way.

Cut Copy

If you mean from I Thought Of Numbers to Bright Like Neon Love, sure. If you mean from Bright Like to Ghost Colours, nah. They just learnt how to sound a bit more like '90s New Order.

Outkast

The first four Outkast albums feel more like a group wanting to do different things each time out, and getting more skilled as they leave their teens, than any significant leap in quality overall from any one album to another. (Underscored by the shift from the first album being all Organized Noize, and the second one being nearly half-and-half.)

Neutral Milk Hotel

― nicky lo-fi, Friday, June 3, 2016 4:28 PM (6 hours ago)

horse hockey