Setting aside for a moment the many, many bands who've put out more than three of four albums I'd like to focus today on the many, many bands who haven't; those newer, short-lived or just goddamn lazy bands who've made less albums than they have fingers on one hand.For many of these bands their first album got them in the door. Maybe it was revolutionary, maybe it defined a generation, or maybe they just sexed their way to a label's heart. (However one would do that) I don't know, but, regardless, it's there in the grand catalog. The ideas are there but half formed, the music is earnest if unpolished yet you've got that special something; that mystique that drives all the girls wild. You're living the dream, you're on your way and nothing's gonna stop you now! Of course we all know that's total crap, if a band is lucky enough to survive their first album and reach the escape velocity necessary to break free of "one hit wonder" status they typically have to step up their game with #2 or risk being shuffled into obscurity by the snipe-tongues critics with overblown egos and sense of entitlement. "I DEFY them to impress me!" The bands that make it through their sophomore album as conquering heroes are the bands that have a shot at becoming huge, or, as the hipsters say: "relevant". They're the ones you shell out $20 to for a poorly made screen print tee at a show and not feel like you just dropped your wallet in the toilet. The third album is by far the most stressful, or so I'd imagine. You've proven twice over that you posses the skills to can starbeams and fairy kisses and actually music good enough to sell to people. Now the label wants you to do it again. Well what if you can't? What if you used up all your magic on the first two? What if you want to reinvent yourself and it backfires? What if you wait too long to drop the album and people have already forgotten about you? What if you've started hanging out with Pete Dougherty and now have a crippling addiction to blow? These are all valid questions that I have no answers to. I'm but a humble rock critic with an overblown ego and sense of entitlement.Well, here are some hand picked bands who may or may not have survived album #3. Bands that seem to have peaked at their second album and then fell short on their third. *Eve 6:*
Their first album was a severely catchy album full of up-tempo alternative radio rock. Songs for frat boys to drink to, songs to drive to, songs for frat boys to drink and drive to. That kind of music. But the lyrics are what made the album because of Max Collins' love affair with alliteration and homonyms. For example (from "Open Road Song"): "...I feel the cool wind cleanse my every pore, as I pour my poor heart out..." See what he did there? That's catchy writing.
Album #2 "Horrorscope" was much the same but with a heavier hand on the mixing board. The songs were tighter, brighter and dripping slick with lots of studio magic and it was _excellent_. They migrated from the punk club to the dance club next door with the addition of keyboards and autotune and dance beats. However everything that made their first album great was still there, just in a different package. It worked and it worked well.
Album #3 "It's All In Your Head" was lackluster and scatterbrained. It has a few standout tracks but the majority seems disjointed from the format they'd built their reputation on. The single "Think Twice" borrows the tempo and chord progression damn near directly from Cake's "Jolene" and was the only song that anyone would remember from the album. Their gamble with experimentation was their demise as it got them dropped from RCA in 2004 due to poor sales.Tomorrow: Part 2, in which I continue....
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