The Maccabees’ Given to the Wild spiked the UK Album Charts last week, debuting at a giddy number 4. This made me realise just how many bands are now ‘nailing’ their third releases.
Artists tend to explode from nowhere with a classic debut album, with songs creamed off of the top of often years of hard song writing. Following it up is often a far greater challenge.
The second album has been viewed as the developmental; a band’s opportunity to transcend their original fan-base, infiltrate the mainstream. Often though, it can kill the hype instantly and be suicidal for any career longevity; the honeymoon is long over.
Remember how the ‘cool’ surrounding The Strokes evaporated in the wake of Room on Fire? Not to mention Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts…
This ‘sophomore slump’ or ‘difficult second album’ can haunt bands at the height of their powers, such as The Enemy who obliterated the entire buzz surrounding them when they chucked-out Music for the People in 2009.
However albums from Metronomy, Wild Beasts, The Horrors and, of course The Maccabees have lead me to believe that there really could be a new trend: the death of difficult second and the amazing third LP!
Metronomy have abandoned the garish electro-pop and monotonal vocals for actual singing and lush, laid back grooves in the Mercury Music Prize nominated The English Riviera.
Wild Beasts crystallised their position one of the nation’s smartest art-funkers with album number two, they now have produced a brooding, throbbing masterpiece in Smother.
I believe many wouldn’t think those sulky goths, The Horrors would have been remembered much after their 2007 introduction, but in their third album, Skying they conjure such a euphoric warmth.
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| The Horrors circa 2007 |
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| ..and more recently |
The Maccabees now have joined the trend of winning loyal fans with their first offerings, critical acclaim with their second and triumphing with their third.
Perhaps they have all written their Parallel Lines, Screamadelica and OK Computer…..
Nick
Nick
