Albums that came after double-albums C/D S/D

What does a band do after making their "biggest" statement? This has to be the hardest point in a group's career along with "difficult third album" syndrome. Do you go in a new direction? Do you try and reign back your sound after the sprawl of the previous one? Do you try to be more focused or remain eclectic? Will there be a feeling amongst fans that what you have produced is a bit insubstantial compared to the content overload of before?

NIN - With Teeth - mostly D
Outkast - Idlewild - Unfairly overlooked, there's quite a lot of good stuff on it.

Wrong board. You seem to have some strange ideas on how bands work.

good thread idea - really struggling to think of one i like

There's loads of them

I like Smashing Pumpkins' 'Adore' a lot, the one after 'Mellon Collie'. And it's one that sounds entirely different from it's predecessor.

There's loads of them

that i like? oh well if you say so

xxxposts
Some examples to consider:

Beatles - Abbey Road
Radiohead - Hail To The Thief (if you count Kid A/Amnesiac as one production)
Smashing Pumpkins - Adore
The Clash - Combat Rock
Fleetwood Mac - Mirage
Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence
Led Zeppelin - Presence
Magnetic Fields - i

shit, sorry about it being on the wrong board.

Wouldn't Let It Be count as The White Album's immediate successor, as it was recorded before Abbey Road?

I'm assuming this'll be moved to ILM at some point, but great thread idea, I've thought about this a lot. Double albums are kind of a weird gambit, because either you fail big and everyone questions your editing/quality control, or you knock it out of the park in a way that it becomes impossible to top or follow-up and your career's all downhill from there.

The only classic follow-up to a successful double album I can think of is Purple Rain. You can arguably say Abbey Road to, but the whole Get Back mess that immediately followed The White Album maybe proves my rule more than it's an exception.

xpost

Husker Du - New Day Rising (great)
Sonic Youth - Goo (awful)
Captain Beefheart - Lick My Decals Off, Baby (great)
Minutemen - 3-Way Tie (alright-ish)
Can - Ege Bamyasi (great)

^ no real trend there for things that spring immediately to my mind.

Tangerine Dream - Phaedra (great)

I don't buy the idea that double albums are "statements". Sometimes are.

For some reason I see Let It Be as a sort of "side project" the Beatles had that never really got finished properly but they decided to release anyway. In my head, Abbey Road is the successor to the White Album because it did come out before Let It Be. But that's me.

The Beatles kind of avoided following The White Album in a bona fide way by being really bitty about projects - Yellow Submarine, Let It Be being postponed, The Ballad Of John & Yoko singe, Abbey Road ending up as the de facto "follow up" but really being quite a way after it in terms of concept.

It's not like there weren't a good number of bitty singles and EPs and 'minor' projects before The White Album, though.

Jay-Z's The Black Album isn't really all it's cracked up to be, but it is definitely better than The Blueprint 2.

I love Goo. In many ways, I far prefer it to Daydream Nation.

It was Sgt. Pepper's they had problems following (xxxp)

kate, i agree - goo is my favourite sy album

'the white album' wasn't their 'big statement'. it was SPLHCB if anything.

Disappointingly and not very romantically, bands don't tend to make statements, they just put out albums

or "concept albums"

... whose treatment as statements they often collude in.

Of course, it's invariably bollocks too

what is invariably bollocks

I think I meant "big" in size more than anything else. Double albums aren't necessarily going to be a bands "best" or most deeply involving, but by releasing a large amount of material as one studio album, it is a statement in itself. Certain exceptions would be experimental/ambient records that necessitate the need to go over the length of one disc. But in the case of the White Album or Sandinista!, I think this is very much making some kind of statement because of the sheer amount of material that hasn't been left off.

Rolling Stones - Goats Head Soup
Bob Dylan - John Wesley Harding
Todd Rundgren - A Wizard, A True Star
Miles Davis - Tribute To Jack Johnson

All great, as are some already mentioned - I think the Rundgren and Ege Bamyasi are the only ones I like more than the preceding albums though.

what is invariably bollocks

That this collection of songs they've cobbled together constitutes some sort of statement or has a unifying concept

ah

so, um, who gets to decide what constitutes a statement

Maybe a good example of what dog latin is talking about is the Swans' Burning World. Children of God was a huge monolithic beast and it definitely felt like some sort of statement. With the follow-up they took a totally different and quieter tack.

Is this some sort of stealth Beatles thread btw?

so, um, who gets to decide what constitutes a statement

Dog Latin!

But in the case of the White Album or Sandinista!, I think this is very much making some kind of statement because of the sheer amount of material that hasn't been left off.

Or that they happened to have recorded a lot of material and had sufficient clout at their record company that they could persuade them to put it all out and could ignore someone saying, "Are you sure you want to put out "Why Don't We Do It In the Road"?"

I think that it's rare that a band ends up releasing a double album because they got all the bits and pieces they'd been recording and said "well everything here is absolute mint, we'll just have to make it a 2-discer, there's no other way".

Normally there's some other motive. In the case of The White Album, it's because it's mostly solo efforts by four people who don't seem to be able to agree with each other any more. Similarly, Speakerboxx/The Love Below was necessitated by two competing visions. Mellon Collie, I can imagine was born out of excess and egomania. The M.O. behind "69 Love Songs" is in the title. etc. etc.

That this collection of songs they've cobbled together constitutes some sort of statement or has a unifying concept

― The Prince's choice: making a brush. (Tom D.), Tuesday, September 29, 2009 1:55 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_szBwjSTJ5GQ/SCyFn-_mUYI/AAAAAAAAAOg/EEcaFRrQRu8/s400/talking+heads+msabaf.jpg

what is this shit?

no sounds about buildings OR food!

haha

I think that it's rare that a band ends up releasing a double album because they got all the bits and pieces they'd been recording and said "well everything here is absolute mint, we'll just have to make it a 2-discer, there's no other way".

I'd say that bands do this all the time and record companies say, "I don't think so"

But in order to get round this, the band has to be able to justify why they deserve to release a double album.

are there any debut double albums?

"Freak Out"

But in order to get round this, the band has to be able to justify why they deserve to release a double album.

They will earn the record comapny a lot of money

there was one in the late-90s by some press heralded never-rans. I can't remember their name but they had an incredibly obese singer called Tiny.

not these days xp

seem to be far fewer hip-hop double albums since OutKast's

Ultrasound?

Ultrasound, that's it.

are there any debut double albums?

Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Welcome To The Pleasuredome

cody chestnuTT

Tom, the record company might be pushing the buttons and writing the cheques, but it's a bit fucking unromantic to think that it is only they who have a say in what a band eventually produces, besides fans, critics and the band themselves.

Did FSOL release an album between Lifeforms and Dead Cities (which is pretty good)?

ISDN, not a double tho

Tom, the record company might be pushing the buttons and writing the cheques, but it's a bit fucking unromantic to think that it is only they who have a say in what a band eventually produces, besides fans, critics and the band themselves.

I'm not saying that, I'm saying it happens a lot more than you seem to think. And it is fairly unromantic and mundane, for the most part.

Oneida followed up their double Each One Teach One with the excellent Secret Wars.
How will they follow up their new triple album, Rated O? Probably with more awesome music, is my guess.
Hampton Grease Band's Music to Eat is another double lp debut, I think.

Who, aside from the Clash, has followed a double-album with a triple-album?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2yxShucczeo/Smus6zRul-I/AAAAAAAAAFY/ksxK63gXzdM/s400/TripFlipout.jpg

^ Triple LP debut

xxxpost to Tom D

this thread is being derailed by semantics over the term "statement", which wasn't really the idea. but personally, i feel that since the advent of Pepper's (and possible earlier examples), most albums can be generally seen as artistic statements as that is why the individual songs are released together as an album with unifying artwork and album titles. whatever counts as a "statement" not though, isn't really worth discussing.

I can't take that sort of thing seriously anymore, particularly when it comes to rock music

I recognise this syndrome in respect of Radiohead. OK Computer was a double on vinyl and Kid A was a doomed attempt to get away from its grandeur and complexity.

Also I suppose you could say this in respect of the Floyd following The Wall with The Final Cut. I actually prefer the latter though.

x post
so are you saying that albums are no more than aimless collections of songs commissioned by record labels that have no relationship to each other, the band, or the greater world?

No

Purple Rain and New Day Rising are good examples of classic followups. Mirage is a classic example of a holding-pattern release – the record company and the band reeling from perceived excesses.

Is that Zweistein album any good Tom?

Never heard it but Pashmina says it's shite!

I recognise this syndrome in respect of Radiohead. OK Computer was a double on vinyl and Kid A was a doomed attempt to get away from its grandeur and complexity.

Not sure about this - OK Computer is a 12 track album (on a single CD, never mind vinyl because a good-quality 33rpm record holds less running time than a CD) and follows a fairly orthodox format as far as things go. Kid A and Amnesiac could have been released together as a double album as they were recorded at the same time and shared certain aesthetic points. It was the fact Radiohead decided to release them within a relatively short space of time from each other (not to mention the experimental musical direction those albums took) that subverted the regular album format.

Nebraska following The River is a fantastic follow-up. I don't know that the The River's sprawl was as much a statement of concept as it was of "I have written a lot of good songs and want, for once, to put them out".

Okay, glad I didn't sell my granny to buy a copy then. xx-post

Who's Next (the title being a statement in itself?)

OK Computer is a 12 track album (on a single CD, never mind vinyl because a good-quality 33rpm record holds less running time than a CD)

It was the fact Radiohead decided to release them within a relatively short space of time from each other (not to mention the experimental musical direction those albums took) that subverted the regular album format

Rock City Angels' Young Man's Blues another debut double LP, on Geffen in 1988 (though they sort of cheated, since side 4 is actually a "dance" remix of one of a song from one of the other sides.) And they get bonus points for never releasing a followup LP (unless outtakes/etc collections that came out more than a dozen years later count)

Not quite sure what you're getting at here. Lots of double albums fit on a single CD, that doesn't mean they're not double albums. As far as I'm concerned if an album is too long to fit on two sides of vinyl, it's a double album.

around 1990 when CDs took over as the primary format for albums, a lot of people started releasing 120-minute double CDs and nobody really considered 70-minute single disc albums doubles anymore. right or wrong, that's kinda the way most people see it. and definitely not something under 55 minutes like OK Computer.

It's Kid A/Amnesiac that slipped back into what were by that time a rather orthodox musical modes

Orthodox for certain sub-cultures maybe (Kid A was hardly a revelation for anyone versed in Warp's catalogue), but less so than OK Computer for a platinum-selling rock act.

So by the standards of single vinyl length, the Pumpkins haven't released a single album since Gish.

And there have been very few single albums in hip-hop in more than a decade.

As a child of the CD era I only see albums that don't fit on to a single CD as doubles. Sorry.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3D4uW44cDSw/Sm8eFjKmH8I/AAAAAAAAFBY/2X2MhwOOXqI/s400/2cd9w0l.jpg

^ Another triple LP debut album

That's supposed to look like the Bob James cover right?

Captain Beefheart - Lick My Decals Off, Baby (great)

^ best answer so far

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PZ6IAVJxQSs/SXR21zT1cSI/AAAAAAAAAbo/2MAvQVjlOvM/s400/armageddonabox1a.jpg

(3rd album just duplicated much of the first two in a live setting, however)

Summerteeth: Wilco

Jay-Z's The Black Album isn't really all it's cracked up to be

Hey, Metallica followed their double with a "black album" too!

Anybody said Disintegration yet?

Orthodox for certain sub-cultures maybe (Kid A was hardly a revelation for anyone versed in Warp's catalogue), but less so than OK Computer for a platinum-selling rock act
Not really – it was OK Computer that was the radical, groundbreaking and, yes, experimental paradigm shift – a massive leap forward from The Bends. Kid A/Amnesiac was very much a retrograde step. They could have built on OK Computer's innovations but for whatever reason chose not to.

I'm not really sure I follow your reasoning. What were they retreating to? It was a direction they'd never fully explored before.

(sorry everyone, this probably isn't the thread to discuss this on)

are there any debut double albums

Chicago started out with a double album, followed by a another one, and another one.

What were they retreating to? It was a direction they'd never fully explored before.

You're right, this probably isn't the right place, unless you think of OK Computer as a double album, which I do but I admit that's arguable. So briefly, the point I was trying to make was that even though they hadn't explored that direction before, it was a retreat inasmuch as it was derivative of Warp and so on. OK Computer, on the other hand, didn't sound like anything else, and still doesn't.

What did Sun City Girls follow up 330,003 Crossdressers with? I can't remember, but I recall it being a drop off. One from which they soon recovered, though.

Another great one: Jimi Hendrix, The Cry of Love.

Even though it was released after he died, it still makes up a bulk of what would have been his follow-up to Electric Ladyland.

two words

cardiacs
guns

ithangyew

Who By Numbers. Underrated.

Who's Next was the one after Tommy.

Unless you count Live At Leeds which is also a masterpiece.

"By Numbers" was after "Quadrophenia"

Good point. I guess I just see Tommy as being their historic/quintessential double LP. But anyway, yeah you're right! :)

Another debut double album would be Test Dept Beating The Retreat (though I think they may have preceded it with some kind of super-limited edition cassette; not sure if that counts as an album, or not.)

Coupla posts relevent to this thread: Best Hüsker Dü Album (POLL Ends 4th May)