"Difficult first albums" etc

New poster, cuteforce, mentioned this on the Odd Future thread, re: Tyler's new album:

as the online music discussion progresses, it seems the hype cycle is becoming pathologically noisy and violent. is OF almost an incredibly blank canvas that critics are using (via the tumblr-o-sphere) to project their hysterical wishes for the next big thing to emerge and 'shock' them? it's almost like OF's history has happened so quickly that they're useless now. did tyler use a time machine to kill his own grandkid? their potential has been maximized before they've achieved any significant artistic accomplishments.

While I realise this is technically Tyler's second album, it ties into something I've been thinking about a bit recently. Maybe it's always been going on, but has anyone noticed a trend with new acts releasing fantastic early EPs and then throwing a curveball come their career debut or breakthrough album?

Off the top of my head, James Blake, Jamie Woon, Egyptrixx, Aeroplane (I'm sure there are many more recent examples out there) have all released disappointing or alienating debut albums after a string of consistent singles and EPs. Now I'm sitting here trying to decipher the new Africa Hitech and it seems that they too have lost the plot after the promising Blen and Hitecherous EPs.

Are we getting to a point where artists are having to contend with the problem of a "difficult first album"?
Are new artists trying to do too much too early on in their careers? Not letting their initial M.O. mature properly and getting too ambitious too soon?

Or that they feel they need to prove they're more than simple one-trick ponies in light of their early successes?
Perhaps it's simply that these artists work better in the singles medium and that they can't hold our attentions for the space of a whole album?

Maybe bands have always released crap albums on the back of promising debuts, the difference being that with MP3 downloads and increased access to information, many more people are hearing these acts' early releases than they would have before the Guide got their hands on them?

beta band a much older example

Yes, although I count "The 3 EPs" as their debut album, in essence.

You may do, but it isn't.

Disco Inferno, to some extent.

Embrace failed to really capitalise on what made their early EPs ace on their debut album, in many ways.

Guillemots maybe too, in hindsight; the debut album definitely followed on from the early EPs but I don't like it anywhere near as much.

In both those cases the debut album is quite long and grandiose and a touch over-dramatic, whereas the EPs were more punchy, dynamic, fun, diverse. Embrace especially also spent ages tweaking their debut album, multiple producers, track listing that changed until the last minute, etc etc.

I'm sure there's a screamingly obvious example of this that I'm forgetting. Arctic Monkeys maybe?

The Stone Roses are maybe the opposite of this; some dross early on, took ages to find themselves, then the debut album fixed all.

The received wisdom back in the shoegazing era was that pretty much all those (UK) bands failed to capture whatever was exciting about the early singles and EPs on the debut album proper. It could be that they'd run out of material, that, at 45min length, it was all cut from the same cloth, or that, critically, things had rather passed them by.

I think Moose (Moose!) were about the only ones to sidestep this by taking a left-turn into kinda-country.

It could be that they'd run out of material

That's usually a second album problem

In 1988-92, it seemed a lot of yr guitary UK bands were chucking out 8-12 tracks on singles/EPs and then putting out a hugely underwhelming long player, which either relied on rerecordings of some of the good EP tracks or - worse - didn't.

There's always going to be a contingent in (especially rock) music where the OG fans are gonna protect their statuses from the bandwagon jumping hordes by saying things like "Pavement went shit when Slanted & Enchanted came out". The whole "I prefer their early stuff" challops is perhaps slightly different to these more recent examples... James Blake went from being post-dubstep's great white hope to a 16bit Jamie Cullen overnight. The majority of Mirrorwriting can't match Night Air's magnificent chill and seems more content to skirt around smooth soul-pop for the Mondeo Man. All Aeroplane needed to do was pick 12 gorgeous cosmic disco tracks from their archives and we'd have been happy. Instead we got We Can't Fly - a europop album littered with excruciating genre exercises and ill-advised attempts at "songs".

A less extreme example is Nicolas Jaar, who threw a curveball with Space Is Only Noise - not at all a bad album - but very much a different affair from his preceding releases, and left a lot of his fanbase confused.

I don't believe for a second that these artists are being deliberately lazy or all that misguided. It just seems in many cases they're trying TOO hard. The early Africa Hitech EPs were great because they did what they said on the tin - bang up to date dance music directly informed by African dance rhythms. But their new album suffers from trying to crowbar way too many influences and ideas and suddenly it becomes a confusing mess.

Bring back stupid bands/artists say I

Similarly, we could have forgiven James Blake had he releasing an album of leftfield 'nuum tracks and waited till his second album before changing direction into autotune gospel slop. But it seems he made this decision - and you have to respect the artist's decision, right?

xpost

I've always felt the second album sophomore slump was a result of a bias- fans remember the second albums that really disappointed after an exciting debut more than the ones that were satisfying (and isn't this true of any release that is disappointing? It looms much more in my mind than a decent follow up). For similar reasons the same bias may now be in play here. I'd be suspicious of any claim that there is actually any spike in slumps. Also I rarely find that critical context (the "difficult second album") convincing. I used to hear that bands have years to write their debut but only 18 months to finish the follow-up. But that tended to be said of big radio singles acts (mostly rock ime) and for most of the debuts I think it was more that the novelty wore off- not that the second one was too artsy.

xpost Haha, Tom - that's kind of the conflict summarised right there. I'm all for artists wishing to progress and develop and change direction - but like cuteforce says, some of them seem to succumb to some hype supernova, where they progress into experimental/difficult territory before many have had a chance to latch on to what makes them supposedly so great in the first place.

I hear this Jamie Woon character took like 4 years to do his debut album, fuck that shit, get it out there son and stop fannying about

Another quote that relates to this, this time from the Quietus, also regarding Tyler:

(The most genuinely shocking thing about this album for me is the way it graphically illustrates the hyper-acceleration of culture that we live in. Less than a week after NME's cover I'm sitting here listening to a substantial part of Goblin that deals with the "pressures of fame" already. There's no point in enjoying it for three or four weeks when you might as well move straight into the angst-ridden, 'no one understands how hard it is being me' phase. Expect him to buy a salmon farm before Xmas.)

I think this has always been a "thing" in single-oriented genres, such as most of dance music. Someone releases a string of awesome and hyped-up singles, then there's a pressure to put out a album, even though releasing singles every now and then might suit the artist's production method better. And the album is often filled with all sorts of pointless stuff by an artist who doesn't quite know how to build a full-length record. A good example is Josh Wink: people who loved "Higher State of Consciousness" and "Don't Laugh" probably didn't expect his debut album to have artsy interludes and other weird shit like that. The only difference is that with the Internet this release pattern has become dominant even for less single-oriented genres: a lot of people almost inevitably hear several of your tunes (even if they're not actual singles) long before an album ever comes out.

I'm not sure we can count Africa Hitech as the first album hasn't Mark Pritchard been making albums for years? His last one as Harmonic 313 was pretty sweet. So thats more of a random slump to me, he'll prob pick up with anotehr prject and be off again.

The Egyptrixx was pretty solid really, stylisticly it was on point and pretty interesting it just didn't hit hard. The James Blake album was simular in that respect. I kinda saw it coming since he had those minimal loopy vocal heavy tracks in mixes ever since I knew he existed and he said a while before he was going to make an album on that tip. So it wasn't much of a suprise and didn't seem difficult just a diffrent block of his sound he wanted to explore on an album. I wouldn't be suprised if he did a load more dance EPs in the next year once the touring and hype dies down.

Maybe there is just more of a confusing buzz going on around some artists. They get a lot of love thru whatever EP, mixtape, single. Gain a bit of hype then when everyone else hears about it and sometimes dont see the full picture they expect to see a full brand new hyped up amazing artist instead of what it is. Just for a few examples Tyler was always growing and not quite there but now he's doing it on a bigger stage. The expectations are too high sometimes. James Blake had that album sound in him from the start but never played it up until now and it just so happens the hype train caught up with him when he wanted to switch it. I don't think its been abandoned its too early to write any of these guys off realy. I just hope the hype doesn't put them off keeping at it and growing more, exploring the sound.

Lots of people like the Africa Hitech album - me I think it's a step down from the first two EPs - it's trying almost too hard to crowbar in tons of influences and it becomes a mess. I felt the same way about Harmonic 313, but for different reasons.

Blen and Down on the Streets are quality. He's always a little hit and miss for me though. He's a mad man in the studio but the tunes arn't always there.

Yeah - hit and miss, often in the same song. I think Do U Wanna Fight is such a wasted opportunity. The vocoder is immense, but it eclipses everything in the track. Not helped by that clippety-clop beat, which I'm sure is a reference to some obscure mid-west dance style or something, but it doesn't work.

I love the Egyptrixx album - I also liked the Darkstar one which seemed to disappoint a lot of people (another case of the artist moving away from the sound of the singles, 'Aidy's Girl...' really sticks out among the rest of the tracks).

Another complaint with debuts you often get is when someone makes a name for themselves with their live shows and then 'fails to capture the energy' or whatever in the studio. Sometimes it takes a while for bands to find their feet with the record-making process I guess (or alternatively, to get themselves into a position where they have more creative control in terms of things like choosing producers).

Yes, I liked the Darkstar one too, but yes, it threw a lot of people and I can see why.