Enduring musical acts whose SECOND albums were their best.

Cafe Society
1

Obviously inspired by this thread, which mentions ** Meat Loaf**.

Meat Loaf’s second album Bat Out Of Hell is his best seller, his best, and a rock classic. Period.

I’d go with The Silver Tongue Devil and I as Kristopherson’s best. Ditto the Doors and Strange Days.

Who else?

2

Nirvana, Nevermind

ETA: Mixed up album with hit single

3

The Band’s The Band.

4

Maybe Garth Brooks - No Fences, but I celebrate his entire catalog.

5

These aren’t clear-cut, but I would say:

Wire - Chairs Missing
The Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Pixies - Doolittle
Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation To Hold Us Back
Nirvana - Nevermind

All those are arguable.

6

Doors. Strange Days.

.

7

Nevermind by Nirvana for sure.

Alice in Chains - Dirt

8

Shamelessly lifted from NDP’s post in the companion thread:

Cowboy Junkies – The Trinity Session (1988)

9

Arguably Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane.

10

Many people would argue that Metallica’s second (or third) album was their never-bettered masterpiece.

11

Live, Throwing Copper

12

Funny I always though “Crown of Creation” and “Volunteers” were better. “Pillow” seemed way too mellow.
How about “This Year’s Model” by Elvis Costello? It’s clearly his hardest rocking album, and it doesn’t suffer from Costello’s often misguided attempts later on to show he can do everything.

13

Except Bat out of Hell is his first album as a solo artist. read.

For second albums.

**Collective Soul **

14

PJ Harvey, Rid of Me

15

For a certain reading of ‘enduring’

The Soft Boy’s #2 Underwater Moonlight

A lot of Can of Bees is bloody excellent but Moonlight is just perfect*.

  • the re-issue is logically therefore beyond perfect since it adds stuff like Only the Stones Remain, Where are the Prawns, There’s Nobody Like You…
16

James Taylor, Sweet Baby James.

17

Carole King - Tapestry

18

Enya’s Watermark.

19

I second this. Although I’d say that one counterexample of his trying to expand his directions is Imperical Bedroom, which isn’t all punk or straight up rock but nonetheless excellent. But in general, yes, he does have some miscues here and there when he strays from cynical (alt-)rockerdom.

20

Another vote for *Surrealistic Pillow *by the Airplane