What acts have had a huge selling album and the follow up sells far less yet is critically favoured by fans and music critics? (Every Huge Artist Has A Tusk)

was just thinking it reminded me of spirits having flown where the album was a hit and had hit songs but still managed to be a big sales disappointment, retail complaint about overstock.

― balls, Saturday, 5 September 2015 20:31 (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's closer to the Tusk Clause.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 5 September 2015 21:01 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if you were to have a what artists have a huge event album following a big selling album but sells far less BUT is far more loved critically what else would there be apart from In Utero ?
Actually save your answers for a thread on it

― Cosmic Slop, Saturday, 5 September 2015 21:03 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Basically this is an "every band has a Tusk thread"

PINKERTON

Dog Man Star

Beastie Boys are among the epitome of this, of course.

Homogenic

Zooropa?

Don't Stand Me Down. Think that has slightly more critical appeal than Too-Rye-Ay these days.

Not sure I'd say The Colour Of Spring was a huge album but it was Talk Talk's biggest selling album. Spirit Of Eden might count.

Quadrophenia.

Sold (or, more likely, shipped) 500,000 on release day, but didn't go platinum until 20 years later.

Not necessarily more critically favored, though people are surely less sick of it/less familiar with it than Who's Next.

Dazzle Ships? It followed Architecture & Morality which gave OMD three top five singles. Not sure I'd say it's more critically acclaimed than Architecture though, it's probably about equal as it's grown a lot in popularity over the years.

lulu part II

Pauls Boutique is exactly what I'm looking for (though I dont mind the niche entries either)

Not sure it's true that In Utero is far more critically loved than Nevermind. The earlier album was #1 on Pazz & Jop by a wide margin and reached the top 20 of RS's 'greatest albums of all time' list.

its still a fan favourite and at the time people did prefer it.

Before people ruin this thread:

Faith No More, Angel Dust

Well, I do/did. I don't know if we can say that critics did, as a general rule.
xp
Oh, FNM is a good one.

Scott 3 got to number 3 in the UK charts, Scott 4 didn't even place

Angel Dust in the UK was by far their biggest album though Whiney. Possibly in all of Europe. (i dont disagree with you tho as im guessing by counting us sales TRT may have outsold AD worldwide due to it)

SIX by Mansun.

I bet that's what whiney meant lol

No Doubt, Return of Saturn

I like the 1st 2 Mansun albums but the first one was hardly a rumours blockbuster

Well, if it counts, New Adventures in Hi-Fi pretty much owns this - but, it seems sorta implied that the big selling predecessor is itself well-liked, maybe even their breakout/blockbuster/signature album... in which case, not so much.

Haven't checked the numbers but I'm pretty sure that in the US at least Revolver is one of these.

Return of Saturn is otm.

There's no reason Whiney or most of us benighted Americans would have known Angel Dust was a big hit elsewhere - U.S.-wise, it's the best answer in the thread so far besides maybe Pinkerton. How about Neil's Ditch Trilogy? Most of the critics I trust seem to prefer those to Harvest, which was the best selling album of 1972.

My December

Exile on Main Street was a comparatively low-selling Stones record in between two blockbusters, and today of course it's widely regarded as their best, though its rep as their magnum opus took years to emerge and plenty of crits put Sticky Fingers on the same par.

i think its a decent shout tho

Hey thx

UK wise Oasis is a curious one as Definitely Maybe sold over a million but the follow up sold 4 million but the public votes in polls always have whats the story ahead of definitely maybe but not critically and you certainly cant call it a Tusk
Then Be Here Now came out as a huge event album sold a million the first full week but is seen as a let down a New Jersey

When the Pawn...

cheers mods!

?

I reject the premise that Tusk is in any way superior to Rumours.

How about "De La Soul is dead" ?

Also "The Low End Theory" Tribe Called Quest?

Sly and the Family Stone "Stand!" --> "There's a Riot Goin' On"

if ILM consensus = critical consensus, then madonna erotica.

maybe neil young - if time fades away counts as the followup to harvest, then probably not, but if on the beach counts as the followup, then definitely.

David Bowie - Low (Possibly--Young Americans & Station To Station both went Gold in the US, while none of the "Berlin Trilogy" did, But I get the feeling an audit would be needed to pin down the true figures as it seems nuts to me that added CD sales wouldn't have goosed those albums past certification.)

Kate Bush, The Dreaming

which album did that follow?

REM New Adventures in HIfi, after Monster

Peter Frampton "I'm In You."

I don't think any critics or fans prefer I'm In You to Frampton Comes Alive!.

Pretty sure Low End Theory was more successful than the debut.

I don't think any critics or fans prefer I'm In You to Frampton Comes Alive!.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Sunday, September 6, 2015 2:34 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

psych!

The Dreaming yeah that's a winner for this.

maybe Macca's 'RAM' too but fuck knows what 'McCartney' did sales-wise in 1970 by comparison.

Catchups:

Re low end theory: Really? OK..

Re I'm in you: nor Frampton, right?

ok, carry on..

Kate Bush, The Dreaming

― Tim F, Sunday, September 6, 2015 11:51 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

which album did that follow?

― Cosmic Slop, Sunday, September 6, 2015 3:52 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Never For Ever, which had three hit singles and was I think the first number one album by a female artist in the UK?

I suppose it looks a bit odd b/c KB commercially rebounded so strongly with Hounds of Love, though FM did as well subsequently with Tango In The Night (albeit I assume not to Rumours level).

Maybe that was true in the UK, but The Dreaming was the beginning of Kate Bush having a footprint in the US. Her earlier albums were import only here anyway.

Being double albums, I imagine Tusk, Exile on Main Street and Quadrophenia were bound to sell fewer copies than their illustrious predecessors. Probably the White Album too.

I was about to ask if it was all that common for a double album to outsell its predecessor until I realized that The Who did it with Tommy. (See also: 1999, London Calling)

Oh yeah.

Insomniac - Green Day

Adore - the Smashing Pumpkins
Tomboy - Panda Bear
Centipede Hz - Animal Collective
Gaucho - Steely Dan

Gaucho is loved now, but I guess RS loved it then.

this woulda been Hootie's Fairweather Johnson if that album hadn't sucked dogshit

not buying Adore tbh - sure there's probably some fans who rate it over Mellon Collie? but every album is some fans' favorite, and generally i think the consensus would be, at best, that Adore is an interesting and underrated album that didn't get its fair shake (etc. etc.) but how many people who are really Smashing Pumpkins fans would say "yeah, it's definitely better than MCIS"?

Gaucho is loved now, but I guess RS loved it then.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, September 7, 2015 7:00 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

RS may have loved it in 1980/1981, but The New Rolling Stone Record Guide (or, specifically, Dave Marsh, writing in 1983) hated it:

...the kind of music that passes for jazz in Holiday Inn lounges, with the kind of lyrics that pass for poetry in freshman English classes. Donald Fagen's solo LP is a far better bet.

To a really small extent, Blink 182 - Blink 182.

perhaps not 'far' less, but STP's Core sold 8 mill, Purple sold 2 mill less, but Core was despised by many critics, who viewed Purple as a superior album and less derivative.

what a garbage opinion on gaucho, the lyrics slay throughout

did people seriously used to take dave marsh seriously? i mean, look, rolling stone gave "the final cut" five stars, but everybody still hated it.

but how many people who are really Smashing Pumpkins fans would say "yeah, it's definitely better than MCIS"?

hey

Uh, guys.

FOLIE A DEUX

Hissing of Summer Lawns arguably also counts, though perhaps more on ILM than amongst critics/fans generally.

I assume Rickie Lee Jones' Pirates also sold a lot less than her debut.

Fiona's When the Pawn...

Terence Trent D'Arby - Neither Fish Nor Flesh

did people seriously used to take dave marsh seriously? i mean, look, rolling stone gave "the final cut" five stars, but everybody still hated it.

Marsh didn't write the RS review of The Final Cut; that was Kurt Loder. Marsh had left RS by that point.

re TTD, I thought that everyone loved Symphony or Damn rather than Neither Fish Nor Flesh?

Aqua - Aquarius

Rihanna - Rated R

ha -- I just wrote about the Symphony non-phenomenon

Er...

re: In Utero, "its still a fan favourite and at the time people did prefer it." i'm sure some people did, but that hardly would've been a consensus.

not an anglo/am example but the japanese epitome of this would be shiina ringo's masterpiece: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalk_Samen_Kuri_no_Hana

There isn't really a critical consensus around 'Tusk' vs 'Rumours' either so let's not pretend this thread premise has much basis in reality.

Fleetwood Mac - best album (a poll)

Not kidding!

but how many people who are really Smashing Pumpkins fans would say "yeah, it's definitely better than MCIS"?

hey

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Monday, September 7, 2015 9:04 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

enough SP fans prefer adore for it to qualify. critical consensus has softened, it's considered their last masterwork now.

does Field Day qualify?

Field Day and the first album peaked in the same position.

Presence - Led Zeppelin

There isn't really a critical consensus around 'Tusk' vs 'Rumours' either so let's not pretend this thread premise has much basis in reality.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 9 September 2015 16:00 (3 hours ago) Permalink

otm, probably should be "Every Huge Artist has a Paul's Boutique" Obvious caveat that every huge artist doesn't have one, but every huge artist doesn't have a New Jersey either.

but how many people who are really Smashing Pumpkins fans would say "yeah, it's definitely better than MCIS"?

hey

― insufficiently familiar with xgau's work to comment intelligently (BradNelson), Monday, September 7, 2015 9:04 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

enough SP fans prefer adore for it to qualify. critical consensus has softened, it's considered their last masterwork now.

― flappy bird, Wednesday, September 9, 2015 9:56 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no

Blind Melon - Soup

Presence - Led Zeppelin

― flappy bird, Wednesday, September 9, 2015 2:11 PM (58 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Definitely not critically favored over Physical Graffiti

even if critical consensus has softened, though, i feel like this thread is asking for something a bit narrower - it needs to be favored by fans at large, like it's generally understood if you go to the usenet group for that band, preferring album B over A is what separates the fans from the masses who bought A, or whatever. like i'm really feeling Pinkerton and Return of Saturn as the exemplars here.

maybe i'm reading too much into the question but otherwise it just starts to be "albums after more successful albums, on which some people have sorta come around."

yeah this maybe oughtta be Has A Pinkerton (but even then it's a little blurred since TBA is their only other critically acclaimed album, and it does sometimes rank higher on lists)

I had no idea that Return of Saturn is the fan/critical favorite No Doubt record! I thought their 3 big albums were all pretty equally rated, but it totally makes sense that Return of Saturn would be the favorite.

Xpost Yeah, true. Pinkerton was almost undisputably this for at least a year or two in the late 90s (I mean I think feeling this way was what *made* you a fan of Weezer-as-band), but those years loom disproportonately long in my memory.

I feel like anything where the artist is ostensibly wrestling with personal demons, particularly if they are stretching musically into more dissonant terrain (In Utero, Pinkerton), or into like longer compositions or weirder arrangements (Pet Sounds, No Code... The Nylon Curtain, maybe?) is susceptible to this, since it's tailor-made for fans to construct their own identity as the ones who Get It, while almost guaranteed to shed some of the previous record's buyers. AllMusic urges you to spend time with it - it's a record that reveals its layers slowly, etc. If Dave Matthews doesn't have one of these I'd be surprised.

Of course, another version is a cult band with one crossover (or arguable sellout) record, who then don't try to keep that success going, or just don't succeed, so naturally most of the fanbase prefers the later record. (Of course it'll get complicated where people go on to discover the band *through* the hit album and become fans.) I wonder where the Modest Mouse fan community stands on We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank.

Does Todd Rundgren - A Wizard, A True Star count? No idea how it sold but it didn't exactly have the massive hits his prior album did.

One of the original examples of this: Jefferson Airplane - After Bathing At Baxter's

@Gorefest no question that diehard =w= fans, to this day, will almost always side with pinkerton. and its existence is really only the reason any of those people still exist – blue alone would not have sustained them through 20 years of what followed.

it's definitely my preference, though if someone were to say blue is objectively better i wouldn't call them on that

Smiley Smile, maybe? Although I guess you have to be pretty contrarian to prefer it to Pet Sounds. If Smile had come out when it was supposed to, it would be the ultimate example.

couldn't you make the argument for Pet Sounds itself? I was under the impression that it didn't actually sell very well at the time

Ha, yes — was just about to post that caveat

pet sounds was not "huge selling" at the time.

It met with a lukewarm critical and commercial response in the United States, peaking at number 10 in the Billboard 200, a significantly lower placement than the band's preceding albums.

xps

kinks following up lola, which at the time was their big comeback album, with muswell hillbillies probably fits here.

A measly 9.2, Rumours the p4k gave http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/21924-tusk/

p4k *fave that is

one of the better written reviews I've read lately imo