To what are you listening?

[T. Foster]

A friend and I were chatting on Facebook about great second albums (i.e. counter-examples to the conventional wisdom of the "sophomore slump") which has inspired me to go back and revisit some old favorites including

Bruce Springsteen - The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle
Fairport Convention - What We Did On Our Holidays
Neutral Milk Hotel - In tne Aeroplane Over the Sea
The Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash
Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
Badfinger - No Dice

[rredmond]

Jakers. There is no wrong album on that list Trent.
Fairport, Beasties and Pogues were all listened to this past week! Van the Man next.

[Ratbreath]

The song translates as "funeral polka".

Kaizers Orchestra, singing in an obscure Norwegian dialect. Part of a sort of rock opera. The devil, tap dancing, so on.

[ThirstyStirge]

Italo-Disco, Retro 70s Disco-Electronica, and stuff like that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eglu23iGsU0
And the remixed cover by Kitland is the bomb: https://soundcloud.com/k-i-t-l-a-n-d/ki ... an-charlie

[rogatny]

A friend and I were chatting on Facebook about great second albums (i.e. counter-examples to the conventional wisdom of the "sophomore slump") which has inspired me to go back and revisit some old favorites including

Bruce Springsteen - The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle
Fairport Convention - What We Did On Our Holidays
Neutral Milk Hotel - In tne Aeroplane Over the Sea
The Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash
Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
Badfinger - No Dice

The sophomore slump album was often due to a band putting all their good songs on the first album and then touring so much that they don’t have the time to develop more songs for the second album, thus having to recycle rejected songs from the first. KISS’s Hotter Than Hell is probably the paradigmatic example.

Other types of second albums...

The band that structures its songs around blues jams, didn’t have time to write much new material for the second album, but touring made them so much of a tighter live unit that it doesn’t matter... Led Zeppelin II, Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, Cream’s Disraeli Gears.

And there’s the difficult, more complicated second album that initially loses a bunch of the pop crowd that was attracted to their first album, but gradually gains a cult following and is eventually what sustains the band through the rest of their career... Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique, Weezer’s Pinkerton, Faith No More’s Angel Dust (I know, third album overall, but second with Patton)

And then there’s the transcendental young artist just got better second album... Bob Dylan’s Freewheelin’, Nirvana’s Nevermind, Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions, Michael Jackson’s Thriller (if you categorize everything before Off the Wall as juvenalia, and you probably should), Metallica’s Ride the Lightning.

[Philotomy Jurament]

Paul’s Boutique

I don't enjoy hip-hop or rap, but even I think Paul's Boutique is a masterpiece.

[Chainsaw]

Love this album - Overkill's The Years of Decay.

[rredmond]

In a couple hours, Pomp and Circumstance - in the car - as the oldest graduates from her Engineering High School.

[gizmomathboy]

I think the first song in this set will amuse most here

[rredmond]

I think the first song in this set will amuse most here

Definitely.

[JCBoney]

Inade.

[Chainsaw]

My feel good summer mix, an awesome 10.5 hour playlist of 80s hairbands.

[fingolwyn]

I think the first song in this set will amuse most here

KJHK?!? It's been *SO* long since I listened to that station that I forgot it even existed.

Just finished watching The End by Black Sabbath, the final show on their farewell tour in Birmingham in 2017. Good show, great for nostalgia, and Iommi can still play, but it probably was time to put Sabbath to bed...at least as a live touring act.

BTW - I listened to the first two CDs by The Sword last week. Music was great, lyrics were OK, vocals were so-so (but got better from first to second disc...they were too far out in front earlier). Does it get any better? Also, I've seen that Sleep is recommended, but I only know them as the group that opened for Nik Turner's Hawkwind a long time ago who played so long that Nikwind barely got any time on the stage before the club owner cut the power. How are they relative to the first Witchcraft album, the other Witchcraft albums, and the first two by The Sword?

[Chainsaw]

BTW - I listened to the first two CDs by The Sword last week. Music was great, lyrics were OK, vocals were so-so (but got better from first to second disc...they were too far out in front earlier). Does it get any better?

I thought they were worse in the third album (and never bought the fourth), but that's because I didn't like the changes, so you might prefer the newer stuff. I also liked the lyrics!

Also, I've seen that Sleep is recommended, but I only know them as the group that opened for Nik Turner's Hawkwind a long time ago who played so long that Nikwind barely got any time on the stage before the club owner cut the power. How are they relative to the first Witchcraft album, the other Witchcraft albums, and the first two by The Sword?

Sleep's super heavy doom/stoner (at least Dopesmoker, my favorite), whereas Witchcraft feels like very folksy metal to me (at least the first album, the one I have) and I see The Sword's first two albums as more traditional heavy metal. I don't really know much about music though. I feel like rogatny, Dungeondork or Philotomy might help more here.

[Philotomy Jurament]

Sleep's super heavy doom/stoner (at least Dopesmoker, my favorite), whereas Witchcraft feels like very folksy metal to me (at least the first album, the one I have) and I see The Sword's first two albums as more traditional heavy metal...

That sounds about right, to me. The Sword still has some doom/stoner influence, but it's a little more mainstream/traditional.

If you like Witchcraft, try Blood Ceremony and Graveyard: all kinda doomy, but also folksy and occulty to varying degrees. Maybe Asteroid, too. Jex Thoth.

If you want more kinda like The Sword, some possible starting points include Wolfmother, Fu Manchu, Acid King, Red Fang, etc.