Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room Great Second Albums

It's a cliche that the second album is 'the difficult one' and I had surprising difficulty coming up with this list. In fact, I think that one or two of these belong in my very-good-but-not-quite-great category. I also debated whether I needed to judge an album as an improvement on the debut in order to qualify, before deciding that that needn't be a criterion:

John Foxx - The Garden

Ultravox! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Simple Minds - Reel To Reel Cacophony

The Dickies - Dawn Of The Dickies

Yello - Claro Que Si

Apparatus And Hand - Junk Receiver (Broadcasts From Bug Powder Radio)

OMD - Organisation

Heaven 17 - The Luxury Gap

The Associates - Sulk*

Brian Eno - Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)

Magazine - Secondhand Daylight

Visage - The Anvil

Quantum Jump - Barracuda

Scritti Politti - Cupid And Psyche 85

Soft Cell - The Art Of Falling Apart

China Crisis - Working With Fire And Steel


*If Fourth Draw Down is considered to be The Associates true second album rather than a compilation of recordings that weren't conceived as an album, then Sulk shouldn't be in my list.

Fascinating idea, Mr Trees.

I think it depends whether we are considering GREAT albums that happen to be SECOND albums (which was what I intended to mean in the 'debut' thread), or we are just considering how good a second album is in relation to the rest of an artist's output.
I agree with you on a couple you mentioned, but not on others.
IMHO for instance, Soft Cell's second album is the weakest of their set.

Into the first category, I'd add the following to your list

Scott Walker - Scott 2 (1968)
(at the moment I'm considering this his best work)

Marc Almond - Torment and Toreros (1983)
(he has only matched this with one or two subsequent albums)

Pet Shop Boys - Actually (1987)

The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow (1984)

The B52s - Wild Planet (1980)

Throbbing Gristle - DoA (1978)
(especially the CD re-issue of this with the singles and additional material)

Tindersticks - "Tindersticks" (1995)
Arab Strap - "Philophobia" - much better than the debut and arguably the finest album they recorded.
The Cure - "Seventeen Seconds", second only to "Disintegration" in my estimation of their career.
The Durutti Column - "LC", in which our Vini decides to sing. Bruce Mitchell starts to play the drums. I played this album just today - awesome. Only the next one "Another Setting" quite matches it for consistent quality.
Joy Division - "Closer" - timeless.
New Order - "Power, Corruption & Lies" (equal to "Technique" as their best in my opinion).
Morrissey - "Kill Uncle" (IF you treat "Bona Drag" as some kind of singles thing), otherwise "Bona Drag"
Nico - "The Marble Index".

I second that one!
Gets a lot of airplay here over at my place
Love the artwork around this album as well (singles, 12inches etc) but thats another thing

Agreed. This is an unbelievable effort. One of the best cds ever.

Adam and The Ants - Kings Of The Wild Frontier
Dead Or Alive - Youthquake
Duran Duran - Rio
Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Dress For Excess
Soft Cell - The Art Of Falling Apart
Ultravox - Rage In Eden

Agreed! Although it wasn't that difficult improving on A&H's 1st album 'Musical Noisebox'.

My choices were intended to be of the first category you mention, though I think one or two of the 'merely' very good albums that snook in are of the second kind.

Interesting that you regard The Art Of Falling Apart as Soft Cell's weakest album. I read an interview with Marc Almond recently in which he said that it was their best. I agree with him, although it is a three-way photo finish between TAOFA and the other two from the eighties, with Cruelty Without Beauty trailing a few lengths behind.

wow there are many..some already mentioned.

A few that stick out to me are

Devo- Duty Now For The Future
Siouxsie and the Banshees- Join Hands
Killing Joke- What's this For...
XTC- Go 2

Have to agree with Quiet about Soft Cell's TAOFA & also with RG about Killing Joke's WTF.

The Stranglers: No More Heroes