Proposition Joe said:Zombie Jon Snow said:chimpanzee said:
I'm on a Fleetwood Mac kick lately, it's pure pop/soft rock that might not be all that exciting, but the production quality and vocal work with Nicks/Buckingham/Christine McVie harmonies really is great listening. Rumours obviously blew the doors off everything, but their self titled album is cut from the same approach.
I was inclined to run an Ent board poll about greatest sophomore album.
Counting Rumours as the sophomore effort of the Buckingham/Nicks.McVie lineup they are a contender.
But I felt like it would be a futile effort with Nirvana Nevermind just running away with it anyway.
Other great ones:
Boston - Don't Look Back
LZ - Led Zeppelin II
GNR - Lies (counting that as an album not an EP)
Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
Carole King - Tapesty
The Band - the Band
Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
Radiohead - The Bends
Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
The Beatles - With the Beatles
Bruce Springsteen - The Wild, the Innocent & the E-Street Shuffle
Pearl Jam - Vs.
Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
I'm the resident Springsteen fanboy and I'd even consider The Wild, the Innocent... as more of a sophomore slump than deserving of an entry on "greatest sophomore album" list. Aside from Rosalita, it was a rather pedestrian album but Springsteen standards... Sandwiched in between a great debut of Greetings from Asbury Park and Born to Run knocking it out of the park, it's essentially his worst album of the decade.
I would agree - however I got some of those off a list I saw including that one.
But I see that album as a transition or growth album. Sometimes growth is painful. But I do think there are a few gems in there. E Street Shuffle is a precursor to a lot better grooves that would come together on Born to Run and other later albums. And Incident on 57th Street is a rich narrative lyrically in itself while the music is just average. He would nail that combination on Born to Run. But he had to go through this phase imho.
