bands that improved significantly between their first and second albums

whether it's true in this instance or not, this caught my eye in the 1975 thread:

this is srsly the most a band has ever improved between 1st and 2nd album tho

― And the cry rang out all o'er the town / Good Heavens! Tay is down (imago)

interested to hear the best examples ILM can think of?

brand new

oh and even more extreme: my chemical romance

a lot of emo bands qualify

Sleater-Kinney
Radiohead

Genesis
Van der Graaf Generator

Meat Puppets

These New Puritans. I can't stand their first album, the subsequent ones are much more interesting.

Love
Neil Young
Bob Dylan
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Public Enemy

I admit I've never actually heard Tweez, but I think Slint are often considered an example of this.

Blur
Duran Duran
Chairlift
Simple Minds

The 1975 are a bad example, actually, since all they did was follow-up a turd with a slightly different shaped turd.

Black Flag
Iron Maiden
Judas Priest
Megadeth
Metallica
Nine Inch Nails
The Stooges

Incredible String Band

Colleen
Bardo Pond
Cocteau Twins
Raveonettes

Black Flag
― Don Van Gorp, midwest regional VP, marketing (誤訳侮辱), Sunday, May 29, 2016 3:44 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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

Bowie's two self titled albums

taytay

Nirvana

American Music Club
Go-Betweens
My Bloody Valentine

The Shaggs

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!

I'd rep all day for the first Prince and Japan albums...love em both

I love the first Japan album. In fact, I can think of at least one poster on here that thinks it's the best album they ever made!

Yeah, Adolescent Sex rules. Obscure Alternatives is very patchy, by comparison.

Underworld are kind of a funny mention, I always saw Doot-Doot by Freur as their real "first" album. Which is a great one.

Orbital - definitely. To be fair a lot of debut electronic LPs were not really meant to be as such, and just wound up being questionably-sequenced collections of 12 inches and their B-sides, plus a remix or two. It's hardly an album really. But yeah hard to believe that only one year passed between those two discs.

First one that came to mind was Jethro Tull - can't find anything remarkable about This Was, but I love Stand Up to death

Prefab Sprout

good shout that. Thomas Dolby is massively responsible according to Paddy.

Boo Radleys.

There. I said it.

Whoa, I love "Doot-Doot" (the single) by Freur, but I had no idea the same dudes were involved as in Underworld!

xp what do you count as their first album though mark g?

Steely Dan is an interesting one, they kind of make the leap to being fully-formed Dan btw the first two, although I don't actually like Countdown to Ecstasy that much and prefer both Can't Buy a Thrill and Pretzel Logic

Like they sound more like they're feeling around for their style on the first one, but I also like the songs more.

A bunch of my favorite bands made fuller sounding, better-produced records on their second attempt (Roxy Music, Sparks maybe, Blondie, Talking Heads, B-52's) but that doesn't necessarily mean I like them better than the debuts. There's quite a difference between Kilburn and the High Roads' "Handsome" and New Boots and Panties, but that's Ian Dury finding a tighter band and a new musical era.

Can't Buy a Thrill is a great record (couldn't for the life of me think of a band I rep for that put out a terrible first record yet somehow pulled it out on the sophomore effort sorry Turrican) but Countdown for me is all time, really like the country-rock vibe that they dropped after Pretzel Logic, still fantasize about what might have been if Denny and the Skunk had stuck around

afaik Radiohead fit this the best, even though i think fans unfairly rag on Pablo Honey as immature bc everything that came after was So Important

Radiohead's LP is far, far superior to Blur's first. Yet Blur fans accept that album, even though it's not very good and Radiohead fans dismiss Pablo Honey even though it's good.

"Ripcord" is about all I have time for off of Pablo Honey, it's not a bad record but <The Bends by a mile, I think The Zombies is a good example too

I don't know that it's as much that the Zombies improved a great deal after their first album as it is that they got way more ambitious with their second (see also: pretty much every band that released an album around '65 and followed it up with another album around '67).

Motorpsycho ?

DL, Well if you count Ichabod, then they massively improved to "Everything's alright forever"

And if you don't, they improved again with "Giant Steps"

I really like the Zombies around the time of things like Summertime and She's Not There so I do enjoy that first lp. It is very different to Odessey and Oracle obviously but I think still good.

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