This first album thing, it’s just a left-over bit of bollocks from music paper days really. I mean, look at any band/artist with any sort of life-span (even one’s you don’t particularly like) and say it was all rubbish after the first album:

U2, Blur, The Cure, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Underworld, Iggy Pop, The Jam, Chemical Brothers, Orbital, Radiohead, Queen, Iron Maiden, Kanye West, The Doors…. the list goes on & on.

Only band I can tjink of who actually never bettered their debut is the Sex Pistols. Cos they didn’t make any more!

Second album – songs not good enough for the first album plus that one the drummer wrote.

Third album – either genius or tedious shite about how you all hate each other, plus the one the singer’s new girlfriend wrote. And pass the coke.

The Verve  , Bittersweet symphony was a great album that they never managed to get close to reproducing .

The college dropout is a great shout, how the mighty have fallen. So much promise disappeard up his own arsehole.

Florence and the Machine. Lungs is a mighty, quirky beast of a thing. She’s got more polished and has the odd gem of a song (What Kind Of Man springs to mind), but no album since as been so consistently Florenceish for me.

More than that, has she ever bettered Rabbit Heart as a single song? Often think the same thing about The Killers and These Things That I Have Done.

The Verve , Bittersweet symphony was a great album that they never managed to get close to reproducing

Bittersweet symphony was a song not an album. It was on Urban Hymns which was their third album.

I’d disagree with Alice in Chains as Dirt was one of my favourite albums of the early 90s and Jar of flies/Sap (not techincally an album, but 2 EPs packed together) was exceptional.

Bittersweet symphony was a song not an album. It was on Urban Hymns which was their third album.

…and actually A Northern Soul is better – less whiny and more musical…

IGMC

Coheed And Cambria – when it came out, the first album was so awesome (and it still is), but they got progressively more and more epic with each subsequent album, so in places the first now sounds a bit demo-ish. Third album seems to be the most highly regarded but I love them all..

I preferred Music for the jilted generation

Pervert.

As it just came up on my playlist…..Glasvegas. in fact, the second half of the first album doesn’t live up to the first half!

The Long Pigs for me. Loved their first album The Sun Is Often Out and couldn’t wait for the follow up. It was absolute bilge. Never been so disappointed with an album.

The Killers is correct as they’ve never come close to Hot Fuse but some of what followed has been decent enough with the odd classic thrown in.

No mention of Alt-J yet?

Or er… Mumford & Sons?

Franz Ferdinand, really great first album

The Fratellis, another great debut and then nothing.

Agree about RATM, Evil Empire was pretty good but its nowhere near the debut

Portishead is a good shout

Leftfield too, they never got near their first album

No mention of Alt-J yet?

An Awesome Wave is sublime, but the second album is also pretty good, I thought?

For those saying Portishead, Third is (different but) very good. And that illustrates a separate point perhaps – what we wanted from Portishead was more of the first album, but they clearly felt that they’d done all they could of that style and needed to evolve a bit. Which could be a fair point: if album 2 is a bunch of tracks that weren’t good enough to go on album 1, we’re just as annoyed as if it’s a completely different style.

That said, I’ll also add Archive and Morcheeba as (trip hop) bands whose subsequent albums weren’t as good as the first

That said, I’ll also add Archive and Morcheeba as (trip hop) bands whose subsequent albums weren’t as good as the first

I’ve always preferred Morcheeba’s second album… Did the Sneaker Pimps ever release anything else?

 Did the Sneaker Pimps ever release anything else?

Yes, but they only had 2 decent songs anyway and they were both on their 2nd album.

I’d disagree with Alice in Chains as Dirt was one of my favourite albums of the early 90s and Jar of flies/Sap (not techincally an album, but 2 EPs packed together) was exceptional.

We may have lost a bit of the original purpose of the thread, but FWIW, Dirt was AIC’s second studio album anyway.

For every band of whom I am a big fan where their first album is my favourite I reckon I could find at least one where their best work is later in their career. Some don’t really even become the band/artist I really care about until some point after their first releases.

I’ll second badly drawn boy….. loved his eps but the album and subsequent ones were tosh.

Kings of Leon also for me and Paul Weller (solo stuff)

Kings of Leon

Great call! Also Get Cape Wear Cape Fly

I’ll go for Costello Music by The Fratellis and Kasabian.

The Streets; original pirate material is great and every subsequent album is worse than the last (and as for that dirge dry your eyes, what total bolleaux)

I disagree on RJD2 – his second album was amazing

“You’re all right, of course. Most bands have great debut albums then gets dross…shouldn’t the question be which band has produced a sublime subsequent album?”

This, of course, should be the question. 95% of bands produce their best work for their debut album…

I’d disagree with Alice in Chains as Dirt was one of my favourite albums of the early 90s and Jar of flies/Sap (not techincally an album, but 2 EPs packed together) was exceptional.

We may have lost a bit of the original purpose of the thread, but FWIW, Dirt was AIC’s second studio album anyway.

I know Dirt was the second album, I’m old enough that I bought it on tape when it came out. I was disagreeing with the point that someone made that everything was downhill after Facelift.