Top 5 Follow Up Albums

  It’s extremely difficult to pull off a decent follow up album to a successful debut or breakthrough record. Think about it: the majority of follow ups to major albums are either disappointing in that they fail to follow the lofty expectations set by their predecessor, or suffer from an ill advised change of direction that alienates existing fans. Think Oasis’s “Be Here Now”*, Michael Jackson’s aptly named “Bad” (too soon?), The Stone Roses’ “Second Coming”, or Snoop Dogg’s awful “The Doggfather” (does anyone even remember that one?). All of which is completely understandable given the huge amounts of pressure from fans and record labels, which makes it even more impressive when a band actually pulls a great follow up album out of the bag. Here are a few of my favourites (Lets just take “In Utero” as a given, OK?):

Weezer, “Pinkerton” – The quintessential dark follow up. A pop band makes it big, tours heavily, becomes disillusioned with the whole business and records a depressed, angry and difficult yet brilliant album. This was a relative commercial failure but an inevitable cult classic and fan favourite. Pinkerton is full of beautiful, deeply personal and immensly catchy pop rock tunes, although Weezer did fall to the follow up curse to some extent with the “Green Album” that eventually followed, with diminishing returns ever since.

Wilco, “A Ghost Is Born” – The follow up to 2002′s hugely influential “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”. Band changes, singer Jeff Tweedys drug addiction and guitar lessons from Televisions’ Richard Lloyd resulted in a jagged, edgy and yes, dark follow up record. Created initially using Pro Tools, the arrangements were then learned by the band and performed with live instruments in the studio for the record (more or less the reverse of how YHF’s predecessor “Summerteeth” was recorded). “A Ghost is Born” arguably signified the creative peak of Wilco’s recorded output (2005′s live double album “Kicking Television” is also recommended).

Lily Allen, “It’s Not Me, It’s You” -Following in the footsteps of 2006′s hugely successful “Alright, Still”, “It’s Not Me, It’s You” was more of the same, only better. More accessible, and with improved pop hooks, Lily accomplished the seemingly impossible by creating and even catchier and well written pop record than her debut. And it’s still early days for her career-wise.

Green Day, “Insomniac” – See “Pinkerton”. Green Day’s angriest and most bitter moment (“The world is a sick machine/ breeding a mass of shit” from Panic Song is a good example of the lyrics throughout), they followed up the multi-platinum “Dookie” with an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” ethos, only with more anger, more frustration, and better songs. The entire album clocks in at 28 minutes, meaning an average song length of 2 minutes. It wouldn’t be until 2000′s “Warning” that they released a disappointing album (“Insomniac”‘s follow up “Nimrod” was also excellent, although less focussed), but they surprised everyone by following that with 2004′s epic “American Idiot”.

Dinosaur Jr, “Beyond” – Not so much a follow up to an actual album, more the follow up to an entire career. “Beyond” saw the reunion of Dinosaur Jr’s original lineup for the first time since 1988 – frontman J Mascis, Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow on Bass and Emmett Jefferson Murphy III (“Murph”) on drums – with the band picking up exactly where they left off, without ever sounding forced, fake or jeopardising their original sound. 2009′s recently released “Farm” continues the trend.

Notable mentions: The White Stripes “Elephant”, The Hives “Tyrannosaurus Hives”, Oasis “What’s the Story, Morning Glory?”, Dr Dre “The Chronic 2001″, Rancid “Life Won’t Wait, Guns ‘n Roses “The Chinese Democracy” (joking), Panic at the Disco “Pretty. Odd” (not joking), The Smiths “Strangeways Here We Come”.

Next week: The Top 5 WORST Follow Up Albums

MP

* I secretly love this album. But I am certainly in the minority (Liam Gallagher excluded).

Can we get over the 80′s revival now, please?

One of the many things that annoy me about my generation is the idea that things were somehow better in the past than they are now. This seems to stem from an inability to recognise the difference between something that is “Classic” (ie something that is brilliant, important, ground-breaking and timeless), and something that was merely around during our youth and somehow given cult status simply by being there at a time that we consider “happier”. The 80′s music revival is the most obvious example of this.

Why my peers have such a fascination with this era, I have no idea. The 1980′s was the age of Reagan, Thatcher, Muldoon, high unemployment, mounting national debt, brown brick buildings, the Berlin Wall, shoulder pads, the Iron Curtain, and more relevantly a period of low artistic creativity, cocaine, excess, over-production and musical irrelevance. Almost every musician who made a name for themselves in the 60′s and 70′s, no matter how brilliant or talented, seemed to suffer from a complete lack of inspiration, opting for the synthesisers, electronic drums and slap-bass that the decade is famous for. Artists who often seemed previously incapable of releasing bad work hit their nadir in this decade (Bowie, Neil Young, Iggy, The Stones – OK the Stones were already a bit shit by then), with very few exceptions (Springsteen, Michael Jackson … er …. Kraftwerk?).

The hits of the day from new bands were just as bad, but at least the younger artists had invented the 80′s sound, which the older artists listed above were merely trying to mimic in a sad bid to remain relevant. Bands like Flock of Seagulls, Duran Duran, and Frankie Goes To Hollywood dominated the charts, as did rock acts like Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, U2 and Van Halen. Not all Eighties music was awful, of course – I consider myself a fan of Guns n’ Roses, The Smiths and Public Enemy, for example – but it’s the fascination with the kitschier side of this period that frustrates me, rather than focussing on the few great things from the Eighties (Chewbacca comes to mind here). Surely I wasn’t the only eight-year-old who sat in front of his TV, watching Bono prance about on a rooftop and thought “Who is this complete twat, and why am I supposed to care?” (Had the word “twat” been known to me at age eight, of course).

So why do people my age (I’m 29 at the time of writing) love the Eighties so much? Are we living in a time so devoid of great music and artistry that we have to constantly look backwards to find inspiration? I don’t believe we are, in fact quite the opposite. The internet, Mp3s, iPods, Myspace etc have created a musical climate where music is accessable to all, and anything seems possible. Musical genres are blurred more than ever before, record labels are becoming increasingly irrelevent (something that can only be good from an artist’s pespective), and there seems to be no signs of slowing down. We live in an age with more great music, with more variety, and higher accesibility than (arguably) ever before, so let’s be happy with what we’ve got for once.

Let’s enjoy the great music we have today, and leave Eighties music firmly where it belongs – in the cultural trash can that was the 1980′s.

Review – Death Magnetic

Hey, Metallica. Could you please fuck off and never force another one of your pretentious, pretend-political, appealing-only-to-retards albums on us ever again? Thanks.

Tool? Same deal. Cheers.

0 out of 10
MP

Henry Rollins – Talking Shit. Loudly.

When you are young and believe yourself slightly smarter than everyone else the world is your oyster. There is a brief shining moment between discovering that the people who picked on you are a pack of dicks and discovering that life is all about doubt, shades of grey and uncertainty. This period is known as ‘punk’ and it is beautiful.
When things are punk they are black and white and they are good and evil and right and wrong and cool and uncool and while you may veer between whether ‘cool’ is ‘good’ and ‘cool’ is ‘bad’ it’s all pretty simple. It’s not the same as ‘rebellion’ because it has ‘meaning.’ That’s what makes it so sweet. That’s what justified all the silly things you said, the sillier things you wore and the things you told yourself you believed.
This isn’t a rant about the follies of youth by a conservative, jaded arsehole. I have always felt one of the annoying things about this sixties was how everybody, twenty years on, repented. There are plenty of people my age who are exactly the same – people who thought and said things that were actually the right things to say and think but they are embarrassed by them now. See how I used the term, ‘the right things to say and think’ – remember when you believed there was a right thing to say and think? Weren’t you happier then? Of course.
I hate the fact that I can see two sides to many arguments, it annoys me that I doubt the things I believe – if only because it means that I have to admit I am wiser and by association, older. I was happier when I thought I believed one set of things. I was definitely happier when I could convince other people of this too.
Watching Henry Rollins spoken word then, made me wonder if behind all his anger and shouting he is in fact, the happiest man on Earth.
Henry Rollins, for those of you who have never heard of him, was one of the singers in a 1980′s hardcore band called Black Flag. I could Wiki him and find out what else he did between his leaving Black Flag and starting doing ‘spoken word’ but I can’t be arsed. I will just assume that it is nothing. This assumption however, is based not so much on as it is based on the fact that ‘spoken word’ really is just punk rock music, without the rhyming bits and the, well, music. There is lots of shouting, there is the occasional reflective bit, and there is plenty of politics – both sexual, social and straight out party political. The thing is though, take away the music from punk rock and you are often left with the worst bits. Take away the rhyming and, more often than not, you remove the intelligence from the lyrics. What you are left with is a dude ranting. Why Wiki a guy who’s career seems to be: ‘he was in music and then the band packed up and left him yelling into the microphone.’
It must be great beleiving all that crap too. Henry Rollins has made a spoken word career out of two dimensional sloganeering but he seems to beleive it all. He shouts it after all.
Henry Rollins also thinks he is funny. In fact, he delivers his spoken word from a stage with a spotlight on him and a microphone so he actually looks a bit like a stand up comedian too. As he is shouting he drops the odd well worn clunker about George Bush, but it is truly satire at its lowest ebb. I think there is even a bit of muffled laughter but I imagine Henry Rollins is only ever preaching to the choir. Like Jello Biafra, another early eighties punk luminary who went on to become a legend in his own lunchtime, these guys must actually get into spoken word because they are constantly surrounded by people who worship them. How else would they think they were funny? How else would they have the stones to not only charge people to go to their shows but also have them recorded for DVD? How else would they manage to go through life believing all things were black and white?
How else would he be so loudly and angrily happy?

DR

Why Are They Famous? – Amy Winehouse

One of the problems with excessive use of cocaine is it has a tendency to fuck you up. Of course this scientific phenomena is not restricted to cocaine. Other drugs also fuck you up; heroin, barbituates, huffing Glade air freshener from a plastic bag – all of things will cause you to become fucked up with prolonged use and often they ultimately lead to death. If you are a musician, history has tended to show that excessive drug use fucks up your music just before it fucks up your life – there is a cusp there where you are still with it enough to think you are amazing but your art has already suffered – Oasis’ ‘Be Here Now’, Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Tusk’, The Beatles’ ‘Individual, solo careers’. Then about two shows into the seven hundred date world tour you lose it. This is not to say that drugs have never led to the creation of great art. I will however point out that popular culture has a way of calling something a ‘heroin album’ or ‘psychedalic’ when the artists themselves saw things very differently. It is seldom the hard drugs that give us the ‘Revolver’s, the ‘Blonde on Blonde’s or the ‘Protection’s. There have been a number of acid albums and entire genres that have been nominally based around puffin’ da herb but name me a great crystal meth album.

Okay, this might be sounding like a sermon but it has a point – it is the basis for why Amy Winehouse is completely shit-house. It’s not her fault, she’s just an idiot. Why she is famous however, is ours. Amy Winehouse’s music is average. She has a raspy, blues voice which makes her sound like one of the great blues-singers of old but that is it. None of her songs are original enough for you to put one on and then not immediately realise you’ve heard it before, better, somewhere else. Amy Mann anyone? The problem is however, she isn’t famous for her music, she is famous for being fucked up on drugs. While she is far from the first and she won’t be the last she is part of a disturbing trend of musicians who lose the plot a long time before they have ever done anything worth being famous for, but become famous anyway, for losing the plot. You can say what you like about the self-destructive tendencies of Kurt Cobain or Shaun Ryder or Keith Richards – they all did something first, something worth it, before succumbing to probably inevitable tendencies.

Her music never had a chance to deteriorate, because her entire career began while she was on the cusp of fucking up her life and she became famous after this point, when she was a complete fuck up. Her life nose-dives and she gets more ‘tsk-tsk’ column inches. There is something a bit sick about this really. For all the sulphate Lemmy hoovered he was always famous for being the frontman of Motorhead and for all the heroin that was pumping through his veins, you know who Kurt Cobain is because of the culture-shifting earthquake that was Nirvana. It’s sadder when you look at another British tabloid darling, Pete Doherty, because he genuinely has done something but he could be so much more and probably won’t. Winehouse however, is a near-talentless, drug-monster with a loud, foul mouth, who looks more than any woman that famous has a right to, like a geriatric transvestite.

What is worse and more puzzling than Amy Winehouse’s fame however is how it seems to be so pervasive it is infectious; not only is she famous, her vile hangers-on are getting a grasp at the spotlight. Perhaps the nastiest of these is her ex-or-possibly-soon-to-be-ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil-List-Hyphen. This concentrated pile of human waste is even more of an affront to fame than she is, but he is also living proof that to be famous in the world of music you don’t even have to be a musician, or even particularly nice to one.

We can’t blame drugs for Amy Winehouse’s fame any more than we can blame musical talent. None of the people I know who take or have taken drugs will ever be famous, and some of them have some pretty funny stories. We are all to blame for her fame, in the same way were to blame for Big Brother and for Princess Diana. We keep buying NW to be shocked by her behaviour and even the music press are full of her antics as much as they are her gigs. The thing is, we keep buying it all. She doesn’t really have to make music any more; her life has less to do with ‘music’ than this blog entry. We will keep shaking our heads and getting outraged but we will keep being titilated. And she will be laughing all the way to the bank. Or to the underpass near a train station.

DR

How I learned to Love Lily Allen

I was a late-comer to enjoying Lily Allen. Until very recently I thought she was merely another annoying, mass-produced nonentity that had one or two catchy gimmicks that set her apart from the rest of the shiny pack but what she made up for in sass, she lost in being, well, a bit of a minger. While this shouldn’t effect my judgement of an artists music, in my mind, I wasn’t critiquing ‘music’ as such; I was critiquing a certain type of packaging. When critiquing any type of packaging, what it looks like is as important as whether it keeps what’s inside it fresh. Without labouring this dead-end metaphor any longer, I will continue. Lily Allen was a British Nelly Furtado.

I imagined, like most popstars of her ilk, she’d fizzle and die; her albums left only to be played ‘ironically’ by aging queens after they’d had one too many champagne cocktails and they wanted to reminisce about the ‘old days’ when they still had killer abs and all their hair. Like the Spice Girls or those awful mid-ninties handbag house compilations called things like ‘Shiny and Bouncy’. In fact, I thought she had a lot in common with hand-bag house in that she was overly twee and thus extremely camp but ultimately forgettable. I was of course, very much wrong.

Lily Allen didn’t go away and the next time I brought myself around to hearing her music was while I was practicing, very drunkenly, playing some tunes. Mike had ‘The Fear’, her new then new single. I liked it. Lyrically interesting and musically catchy it was what, in my mind, pop music should be. There is no reason that pop should be shit. Here was another piece of evidence in my mounting case to suggest that really, there is nothing wrong with a song that gets stuck in your head if that song is good. There is nothing wrong with music that is playing in the supermarket or in your naffest friend’s car if that song isn’t arse. I won’t dwell on the new album because it is widely regarded as being fucking amazing; largely because lots of blokes like me have come around to it. My real awakening to just how great Lily Allen is came when I gave her 2006 effort ‘Alright, Still’ another crack.

Everything I had judged her once to be, I found myself reversing my opinion on. Her songs were catchy but the lyrics were intelligent. In fact, it was in many cases the inteligence that I found to be catchy. Originality is not a bar I set too high for most pop music – it can be good even if you have heard the formula a million times before. However in the case of ‘Alright, Still’, the most throwaway aspects of modern girly-pop were purged – the four to the floor ‘banging’ track, the Timbaland (or Timbaland-style, lets be honest, it doesn’t matter…) block-standard hip-hop beat and the ‘croon’ were mostly gone in favour of a range of musical styles that stretched from bouncy Ska (LDN) to early drum’n'bass darkcore (Cheryl Tweedy).

I did still think she was camp, it is just my attitude to this changed. There is nothing wrong with something being hammy or theatrical if it is done right. Plenty of my favourite artists have done some of their best work when they were giving it lots of camp – Blur’s ‘Parklife’, Green Day’s ‘American Idiot’, Kanye West’s ‘Graduation’ David Bowie’s entire fucking career to name the tip of a bubble-gum iceberg. It is a knife-edge – like anything a bit fake, it is easy to over-do it and when you do, you look stupid (Blur’s ‘Great Escape’, anything the Darkness have ever so much as looked at …) The lyrical senstivity and the musical variation more than make up for the fake-chav, mockney posturings evident in a lot of this album.

‘Alright, Still’ illustrates a problem with music fans like me; the inate desire to write something off as rubbish or pointless because it appears to be unashamedly populist. There is, in fact, nothing wrong with being unashamedly populist if you are good. I may be talking arse, or trying to get one plus one to equal three, but I will just leave you with this thought – possibly the reason there is so much awful, throwaway, pop music, with no effort put into either the production or the writing is that this is all we have come to expect. Writing off pop music as a whole may have been what led to this lowering of the common denominator – those who consider themselves music fans have evacuated leaving only the grasping divs and those too prepubescent to know better.

DR

Why Are They Famous? – The Doors

A regular feature where we “discuss” some of the world’s most overrated bands and artists, and wonder why the hell are they famous? This week: The Doors.

Now let’s be honest, the Doors are pretty shit. Seldom has a band done so little to deserve so much adoration, over such a long period of time. Silly keyboards, drunken vocals that sound like the homeless guy who lives on my street, no bass player and an average song duration of 3 days, there’s little to attract the first time listener. For some reason they are worshipped by hippies and “chemistry enthusiasts” worldwide, and the Doors are still considered one of the greatest bands to ever come out of Los Angeles. (This, remember, is the same city that gave us such greats as Guns N’ Roses, Rage Against The Machine and the Beach Boys). But then, what can you expect from a sub culture that adopts a hair style that basically involves not bathing.

But when it all comes down to it, once you cut through all the bullshit, the only thing that should matter is the songs, right? And here lies the crux of my argument – does anyone actually like the Doors for their songs? And if so, why? From the monotonous boredom and 14 year-old-poetry lyrics of “The End” to the plinky plonky silliness of “Break on Through (To The Other Side)”, it’s the type of garbage that always reminds me of socks-on-cocks American fratboys prancing around at keg parties while paying homage to their “dark and thoughtful” side through Morrisson’s lyrics. And those are both examples off their first album. Things got much, much worse, a downward trajectory that more or less mirrored Jim’s increased Whiskey intake.

The cult of Jim Morrisson is also baffling. The guy sings with all the talent of my mate Chris doing a rendition of NWA’s “Fuck the Police” after two bottles of vodka, shortly before he puts a box on his head and passes out on his coffee table. And yet Morrisson is revered as one of the world’s great frontmen, and Chris remains a relative unknown (the local police constabulary aside). There really is no justice in the world.

-MP