10 Best Sophomore Albums of a Given Lineup

[Zzzptm]

Starting with 2nd albums overall, then we go into 2nd albums after personnel changes. And 1st albums don't count. Yep.

[Charger]

Yes we'll be making two seperate lists....one for bands overall and then ones after line up changes...that should be interesting.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Ok, I've had to knock out a couple of choices as they either had more early albums than I realised before the second album or I miss remembered the order that the albums came out (so that does away with Yes and ELP!)

Look for me to post my first choice sometime this evening!

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

#10
New Model Army - No Rest for the Wicked - 1985



While the debut had some good songs it was a very raw album, showing a band finding their feet in the music business. And while this isn't their greatest album it is such a great statement of intent and sets the foundations for the albums that follow.

Best Tracks: Frightened, My Country, Not Rest and Drag it Down

[Charger]

#9

MEGADETH - PEACE SELLS....BUT WHO's BUYING




The first album was great but bit lacking in production and it was clear Dave and company were still looking to find their actual sound.
But with this album they became a force to be reckoned with! Songs like the iconic title track, Wake Up Dead, The Conjuring and the absolutely suberb Devil's Island showcase Dave's masterful song writing. This album can be proudly presented as one of Thrash Metal's best albums of all time.

[Zzzptm]

(I'm going to visit Megadeth in my next list...)

My number 9 entry is...



Tyranny and Mutation, an amazing album from BOC. Their first had production issues, some poor song choices, typical first-album issues. But THIS one! Wow! The Red and The Black, OD'd on Life Itself, Hot Rails to Hell... and those are just the first three songs! One of the best early metal albums made, fits in snugly with the next album from the band, Secret Treaties.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

#9
Metallica - Ride The Lightning



To be honest, this could have been higher! But I'm just including the albums as I confirm they were indeed the bands second album. I've had to cut another two albums from my list today!.

Anyway this would always have been on my list, I've always known it's their second album! It is such an improvement over the first album (ok KEA is musically fine, but the vocals are ghastly!). Best tracks on here: For Whom the Bell Tolls, Fade to Black and their all time top 3 song Creeping Death.

[Charger]

I'm gonna go with another Big Four band and album

#8

ANTHRAX - SPREADING THE DISEASE



The first album was musically sound and suitably thrashy BUT the vocals of Neil Turbin were quite bad...but Anthrax truly hit the jackpot when they found Joey Belladonna as a replacement. His talent was light years above Turbin's and his vocals soared the band to whole new hights. And this album is full of thrash metal classics. A.I.R. , Lone Justice, Madhouse, Aftershock and Medusa just to name a couple.

I was considering putting Anthrax on my second list but eventhough Among The Living is a masterpiece I think the difference between the first album and this is far greater than the difference between this and Among...all thanks to mr. Joey Belladonna!

[Zzzptm]

My number 8 is...



Thundering opening with "Don't Look Around" and then straight into a moody, dark piece - the title track, after a short instrumental interlude. The title track itself would grow to massive lengths in concert jams, but it's just as formidable in the 5:49 it gets on the album here. The rest of the album is strong, American-flavored progressive hard rock. The folk influences that give it the proggy feel are American in nature, or Scottish/English/Irish transplants to America that may have not made it to the musical vocabulary of British prog bands but were most certainly in plenitude here in the states. A few tracks took some getting used to for me, but I enjoy them all. The final track, "The Great Train Robbery" has this wonderful slide guitar intro and some of Leslie West's best studio guitar work. On stage, the guy was even more amazing... but this album is a smash, start to finish.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

#8
Rain - Radio Silence



The second album by modern prog band Rain. This only came out this year and I'm not quite sure who to compare them to!

Best tracks are - Something New, Radio Silence, Solid State, Bring it Back

[Charger]

#7

ICED EARTH - NIGHT OF THE STORMRIDER




Iced Earth's debut was musically sound but the vocals of Gene Adam were...well questionable to say it politely...and he was quickly ejected and a singer of totally different caliber joined the band in John Greely. John Schaffer also delivers the goods both on guitar and on the song writing department. The concept of the album is great and the lyrics are very good. This remained the band's best album until the magnificent THE GLORIOUS BURDEN that was released over a decade later. It was a shame that Greely did not survive the turmoil of the band's ever changing line ups as he surely had the vocal abilities to keep the band going strong.

[Zzzptm]

My Number Seven (7) is...



Barely half an hour, it's still an incredible disc. But don't take my word for it! Here's a celebrity endorsement:

"In a time of terrible manufactured music, Back in the USA was rock 'n' roll, untreated… I used to sit and listen to that album for hours: listen to it through, then put it straight back on again. It was the kind of album you could do that with, particularly the odd songs like 'Human Being Lawnmower'. It was impossible to see the structure of that song for a while. You'd think, 'Fuck it, what's going on there?' Then you'd sit and work it out… My favourite track off that MC5 album would have to be Chuck Berry's 'Back in the U.S.A.'." – Lemmy, Motörhead

These guys take Little Richard's Tutti Frutti and actually do a masterclass with it, as well as Back in the USA, as Lemmy alludes to. High School and American Ruse are other standout tracks. Millions know the MC5 for Kick Out the Jams, and that's cool. But those who know them for Back in the USA got something really special, there. Best album from the MC5.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

#7
The Stranglers - No More Heroes




I'm not suggesting this is better than their debut album (Rattus Norvegicus), but this is a very good follow-up none-the-less. This album has more of the pub-rock feel to it, but they were never that "punk" anyway, they were better song writers than that.

Best Tracks on the album: Bitching, Dead Ringer, Dagenham Dave, Something Better Change, No More Heroes. My copy also the b-side 5 Minutes which is also excellent!

[Zzzptm]

My number six (6) is...



This second platter from Black Sabbath truly stands the test of time. It just does. One of the finest progressive hard rock albums made. Also a metal album, because that's how it was back in the early 70s. You took the one with the other.

And while people were still figuring out the whole metal thing, this was one of the albums where, if your band wanted to be a metal band, you and your mates would study carefully and try to sound just like it. This album put Black Sabbath firmly on the map and, when bands had really heavy track for the next few years, the critics would say, "Sounds like Black Sabbath on this one..." This is the album they were comparing it to. When Funkadelic pulled out all the stops and went full heavy on their track Super Stupid, this is the album it got compared to. And, given how Maggot Brain (the album with that track) itself is a watershed monument turning point colossal milestone of an album itself, that speaks to how important Paranoid is as a touchstone for other bands' development.

Also, it rocks, dude! 

[Charger]

^^^
Well how about that!

#6

BLACK SABBATH - PARANOID




Black Sabbath's debut was ground breaking in a lot of ways and it was also a SUBERB album... And they took almost everything that made it suberb and just amped it up for the follow up which was supposed to be called War Pigs thus the cover but was changed by the record company to Paranoid (a simple track they threw together in 30 minutes because they needed an extra track)....the fact that the cover art and title made no sense only made the album more special I suppose.
Even though some of the tracks have lost a bit of their speciality over the years being over played at every show by every line up there is still so much power and presense on this album that it is hard to even comprehend.
Some say this is the album that created heavy metal...a statement that is hard to argue with...