[HN Gopher] Critics, not fans, perpetuate the failed second albu...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Critics, not fans, perpetuate the failed second album myth, study
       shows
        
       Author : PaulHoule
       Score  : 57 points
       Date   : 2024-12-19 15:31 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (phys.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
        
       | t-3 wrote:
       | I'd never heard of the "sophomore slump" before this article, but
       | it does resonate somewhat with my own experience. I've been
       | reorganizing and trimming the fat from my bloated music library
       | (~30k songs), mostly by listening to albums one-by-one and adding
       | each song to a playlist of stuff I like.
       | 
       | I wouldn't say second albums are universally bad, but many
       | artists seem to have only a limited amount of inspiration in
       | them. Some have just one song, some an album or two, and some
       | just never seem to run out. Also, when a "perfect" or near-
       | perfect album is followed by a less exceptional performance it
       | makes the second look bad even though it might be pretty good on
       | it's own. I've definitely been more disappointed by mediocre
       | output from artists that I expect great things from than I would
       | be otherwise.
        
       | jasonlotito wrote:
       | I have a feeling that most critics suffer from over consumption.
       | I see this in video game reviews. I stick to a few select
       | reviewers who like the things I like (and honestly, if you aren't
       | doing that, why bother?) but even they play a lot more games than
       | I do. Which means when a new game comes along, it being like an
       | earlier made game does not make it any less good. I've not
       | necessarily played that earlier game, so the comparison is
       | pointless for me.
       | 
       | Sure, yes, the game you are reviewing might not be doing anything
       | new or unique, but so what? Does it do what it does well? And
       | that's what I focus on. (And to be fair, the reviewers I watch
       | usually make that point clear).
        
       | keiferski wrote:
       | Bit of a meta comment, but: it's popular to rag on critics but I
       | think it's a tragedy that the professional critic is less and
       | less of a thing anymore. It's the same phenomenon as the
       | widespread loss of trust in "professionals" and institutions, but
       | in the cultural sphere.
       | 
       | Critics can sometimes be aloof or out of touch, but the
       | alternative is basically just money-driven populism untethered to
       | any deeper notions of quality.
       | 
       | They could be huge jerks, but I lament the fact that people like
       | John Simon or H. L. Mencken don't exist anymore. Nowadays people
       | like them would probably be unable to make a living.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Simon_(critic)
        
         | ThrowawayTestr wrote:
         | There are plenty of critics and review channels on YouTube.
         | Like everything else, criticism is no longer controlled by a
         | central authority.
        
           | keiferski wrote:
           | These are almost always just random people with typical (or
           | at best, idiosyncratic) opinions, they aren't highly-educated
           | professionals who saw the role of the critic as something
           | worthy in itself. YouTuber critics are basically just product
           | reviewers. It's not the same thing as the critic culture of
           | yesteryear.
        
             | jl6 wrote:
             | I think you're right that criticism as an exercise in well-
             | written insight is harder to find. However, criticism as a
             | filter is abundant. Those YouTubers might not be producing
             | erudition, but as long as they have watched a ton of
             | content and decided what the good stuff is, and as long as
             | their tastes seem to align to mine, then their opinion is
             | still very useful.
        
               | keiferski wrote:
               | Sure, they're still useful as information for consumers.
               | But that's what makes them product reviewers and not
               | critics. Someone like John Simon saw himself as upholding
               | artistic standards in theatre, writing, and other art
               | forms, not writing product reviews for consumers.
        
               | oneeyedpigeon wrote:
               | > as long as their tastes seem to align to mine
               | 
               | This is the crux of it for me. A good critic will be of
               | great use whether their tastes align with yours or not.
        
               | briandear wrote:
               | What is this "great use?" It seems like the purpose of
               | critics isn't to entertain people with an opinion about a
               | record, but instead bolster the feelings of the insecure
               | who aren't sure what to think and need someone else
               | pointing the way to an ideal of what cool is.
               | 
               | Critics feed ideas to those that attend parties so those
               | can have an opinion to express when they feel no
               | confidence in their own taste. Critics are Cyrano de
               | Bergerac.
        
               | keiferski wrote:
               | Yeah this highlights an idea that seems increasingly rare
               | today: you should go see a movie/piece of art because _it
               | 's important to see_ and not merely because it aligns
               | with your preferences. A good critic can make you
               | understand that.
        
               | oersted wrote:
               | Like always, one needs to engage with a critic over time
               | to get an idea of how they view the world and to be able
               | to project it onto your own preferences. YouTube greatly
               | facilitates this.
               | 
               | And every decent reviewer makes an effort to lay out the
               | facts in front of you and try to be somewhat objective,
               | or at least account for diverse tastes, for a portion of
               | the criticism, so you can reach your own conclusions.
               | 
               | There are tons of excellent full-time critics that know
               | what they are doing. They might not sound as scholarly as
               | in the past, but that was mostly a stylistic choice and
               | I'm skeptical about there being much more substance
               | behind the flowery language.
        
               | braza wrote:
               | > Those YouTubers might not be producing erudition, but
               | as long as they have watched a ton of content and decided
               | what the good stuff is, and as long as their tastes seem
               | to align to mine, then their opinion is still very
               | useful.
               | 
               | In most of the (big) YouTuber movies and TV shows
               | critics, I have a very hard time knowing what is their
               | taste and what is a piece of art.
               | 
               | I think in the future the role of a critic will be more
               | to the technical aspect of the piece, and how it fits in
               | their lore than something related to the taste
               | specifically.
               | 
               | In my case, I cannot watch most of the modern TV shows
               | 'cause most of them lack good cinematography, character
               | development, and sound which are important aspects for me
               | in terms of immersion and engagement. Most of the shows
               | today with CGI, only closed camera takes, and lack of
               | external shooting look like sitcoms of the 90s.
               | 
               | That's I think most of the Youtube Critics channels lack,
               | that kind of nuance around those technical aspects.
        
             | blangk wrote:
             | Quite the critique.
        
             | johnfn wrote:
             | Do you think it takes a high level of education to listen
             | to a song and tell you if you'd like it?
        
               | piva00 wrote:
               | Not formal education but definitely needs a lot of
               | training on listening critically to music to ponder about
               | how it relates to the overall body of works.
               | 
               | That's much more needed in any non-mainstream
               | analysis/critique of music. How do you expect someone who
               | never listened, for example, to noise music to be able to
               | judge the quality of a new artist in that field/genre?
        
               | megablast wrote:
               | I don't care if you like it.
               | 
               | I care if I'll like it.
               | 
               | How do you tell if someone else will like it without
               | education?
        
               | 7bit wrote:
               | And how do you do with education? And what education? How
               | exactly do you educate yourself in preparation to be a
               | critic? I firmly believe that's nonsense and nothing but
               | gatekeeping.
        
             | Dracophoenix wrote:
             | > random people with typical (or at best, idiosyncratic)
             | opinions,
             | 
             | > highly-educated professionals who saw the role of the
             | critic as something worthy in itself.
             | 
             | Which one then describes men like George Plimpton, Gore
             | Vidal, or Alistair Cooke? The distinction you've made is
             | unclear and unsubstantiated.
        
               | keiferski wrote:
               | The latter. I don't think any YouTube movie reviewer is
               | remotely close to someone like Gore Vidal's level of
               | erudition. (And even he had plenty of faults.) Maybe
               | Every Frame a Painting is the closest thing?
        
               | galleywest200 wrote:
               | Every? No. Some? Yes.
               | 
               | But not every "professional" critic was worth paying any
               | amount of time to eiter. Just because your brother worked
               | at the paper you got to be "the critic" back then.
        
             | carlosjobim wrote:
             | Every human in the world is a random person, including you.
        
               | keiferski wrote:
               | If that were the case, then we would pick surgeons by
               | randomly grabbing a person off the street, and not use
               | surgeons that have been trained for years in their
               | profession.
               | 
               | But then you might say, "Medicine is a science, and art
               | isn't. All art is relative and no one's opinion is better
               | than another."
               | 
               | With that, I don't agree. I think someone who has spent
               | more time studying a topic _probably_ , not always, but
               | probably has more insightful things to say about it. A
               | Shakespeare scholar probably has more insights about
               | Hamlet than a guy who read it in high school twenty years
               | ago. In short, I reject the idea that expertise doesn't
               | exist in evaluating the arts.
        
               | carlosjobim wrote:
               | You didn't get it. The surgeon is by necessity a random
               | person before he learns his trade. Just like a reviewer.
               | You're not born into it. Expertise in evaluating art is
               | usually self-made expertise (the academic expertise in
               | this field has zero value), meaning they're all "random
               | people".
        
               | keiferski wrote:
               | I "didn't get it" because you wrote one cryptic line and
               | didn't communicate clearly.
               | 
               | If you think academic expertise has no value, there isn't
               | much point in continuing this discussion.
        
             | oersted wrote:
             | I think that what people demand of criticism has evolved,
             | and the supply has evolved with it.
             | 
             | Scholarly critics were much more interested in
             | understanding how a work fits into the cultural canvas, and
             | how it innovates and advances culture. Identifying patterns
             | and making sense of distinct movements that would otherwise
             | look like chaotic cultural dynamics. They also cared about
             | criticism as a legitimate literary form and a craft to
             | master in itself.
             | 
             | I believe that's what you are missing, that makes a lot of
             | sense, that is an important social service, but I'm not
             | sure we associate that with the purpose of a critic
             | anymore. It has become much more pragmatic now, it's much
             | more about guiding a purchase decision, as well as,
             | sometimes more importantly, to entertain with humour and
             | snark. That is quite different.
             | 
             | I believe that actually most readers always read criticism
             | mostly to make purchasing decisions and had to reluctantly
             | go through the rest of the "erudition". The more cynically
             | entertaining critics were always the most popular too.
             | We've cut the cruft and made it more like what the audience
             | wants, which is a shame, but we have to be realistic.
             | 
             | That being said, YouTube is much deeper than it seems and
             | looks very different to different users, for better or
             | worse the recommendation engine is amazing. Seek out good
             | critics and you will find more, there are strong niche
             | communities of full-time critics like you describe that
             | have been doing it for over a decade and are masters of
             | their craft. They might not be in the newspapers everyone
             | reads, but there are more of them, and even if they might
             | not sound as scholarly, I believe they are more substantive
             | and they are just better at it than those hiding behind
             | flowery language.
        
         | wongarsu wrote:
         | The web2.0 made the professional critic obsolete. Back when
         | punishing was difficult, those with the means to disseminate
         | information needed a reliable way to get opinions on a topic:
         | the professional critic. But around the turn of the millennium
         | that changed, and we now have a plethora of ways to just access
         | the opinions of fans and laypeople.
         | 
         | Of course paradoxically we now also have more professional
         | critics than ever before. We just call them reviewers and
         | influencers. A lot of them shallow or outright bought, but that
         | has always been an issue with critics. But if you avoid the bad
         | actors you will find insightful critics on the most obscure
         | topics. And if you don't you can always just ask the relevant
         | subreddit
        
           | keiferski wrote:
           | This is the popular narrative, but what it misses is how
           | relying on the public/internet at large to fund criticism (or
           | even art in general), you're not going to get the kind of
           | niche hyper-expert analysis that previously would have been
           | funded by a newspaper or magazine owner. Fifty years ago, you
           | could pick up a newspaper and expect the critic to be fairly
           | educated in the topic. Nowadays you have to go to the third
           | page of YouTube results to find a similar level of expertise,
           | if you can find it at all, and that critic isn't making a
           | living at it.
           | 
           | Reddit has plenty of its own biases and isn't a great source
           | either.
        
             | menzoic wrote:
             | This type of analysis is heavily rooted in personal
             | preference. Critics have their own biased. Relying on mass
             | review system should represent more of what the average
             | person like rather than some elitist idea of a critic of
             | what should be.
        
               | piva00 wrote:
               | The issue is for finding stuff that doesn't cater to the
               | "average person". I'm not interested on what the average
               | person like if I'm looking for artistic value.
        
               | keiferski wrote:
               | Sure, there is some value in knowing what the average
               | person thinks about it. But if I want a more expert or
               | educated opinion, then there is more value in asking
               | someone that knows more about the topic.
               | 
               | The labeling of any sort of expert opinion as "elitist"
               | is precisely the issue.
        
               | mrbombastic wrote:
               | Rotten tomatoes seems like a good case study in the value
               | of both by presenting a critics score and a general
               | audience score. Usually when they diverge greatly is when
               | it is most valuable for me, e.g. critics loved it and
               | audiences hated it, it is probably pretentious and arty
               | and I can skip, audiences loved it and critics hated it,
               | it is probably mass appeal slop.
        
               | kevinventullo wrote:
               | Curious what you make of the The Last Jedi then:
               | https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_the_last_jedi
               | 
               | A terribly lazy movie that even the popcorn-guzzling
               | public could see through, but which mysteriously received
               | rave reviews from the "culturally elite" critics.
        
               | BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
               | Why do you think that was?
        
               | soco wrote:
               | 41% is not terrible either, but if you want the most
               | blatant example from that universe, take The Acolyte: 18%
               | given by the audience for a show of high school project-
               | quality was quite generous, even.
        
               | bluepizza wrote:
               | Because it is a fantastic movie, with fascinating
               | characters, a thrilling storyline, and full of
               | interesting concepts.
               | 
               | The popcorn and soda public loved it - it was the highest
               | grossing movie in 2017.
               | 
               | There is no mystery in its rave reviews. Both critics and
               | general public enjoyed it. The vicious hate this movie
               | gets is from Star Wars fans only. Nobody hates Star Wars
               | as much as its fans.
        
               | Fnoord wrote:
               | I'm not sure if those still count as fans or former fans
               | suffering from nostalgia. Consider Call of Duty. I really
               | liked 3 and 4. After that, not so much, and I have not
               | even bothered with recent ones. They could've stopped
               | there, as far as I'm concerned. I also did not really
               | like The Phantom Menace either, but I get the appeal for
               | _others_ (and I liked the next one a lot more). Do I
               | include that in my review? If it is a personal review,
               | no. If it were a professional review for a magazine or
               | website (i.e. critic)? Sure. I believe (cannot prove) the
               | main reason the latest Star Wars movies gets a lot of
               | flak is Star Wars = Disney, and Disney is too 'woke' for
               | some people. They don't like a female POC lead.
        
               | foobarchu wrote:
               | > I believe (cannot prove) the main reason the latest
               | Star Wars movies gets a lot of flak is Star Wars =
               | Disney, and Disney is too 'woke' for some people. They
               | don't like a female POC lead.
               | 
               | If you earnestly believe this, you really need to seek
               | out more diverse news. Everyone I know absolutely hated
               | both TLJ and TRoS, and I can guarantee it's not because
               | they're racist or misogynist. They are just really bad
               | movies (TRoS in particular is a series of nonsensical
               | mcguffin quests held together by the most nonsensical
               | plot). TFA is pretty universally agreed in my experience
               | to have been fine, but too safe.
               | 
               | It also feels like a big stretch to call Kelly Marie Tran
               | the lead, even if the harassment she experienced was
               | abhorrent. It's an ensemble cast and she has 12th
               | billing.
        
               | pmontra wrote:
               | The one starting with a zillion giant spaceship built
               | while nobody noticed? If at least they were conjured out
               | of thin air by magic. And many other oddities in the
               | first five minutes, then it slows down back to near
               | normality. I stand with the 41%.
        
               | bazoom42 wrote:
               | Still one of the most financially sucessful movies of all
               | time.
        
               | notTooFarGone wrote:
               | Note that this is prone to review bombing.
               | 
               | Often series and films get accused of having an "agenda"
               | and a lot of non-fans join in review bombing. It can
               | still be good media if "fan reviews" don't like it.
        
               | oersted wrote:
               | Just to note that this is even more common in gaming and
               | Steam has developed strong countermeasures, not to
               | outright suppress review bombing because there are
               | legitimate cases that look similar, but to highlight it
               | and give some options to filter it out.
        
               | bobthepanda wrote:
               | For now.
               | 
               | If you thought botting on reviews was bad now, LLMs and
               | the like are going to supercharge spam and drown us all
               | in a grey goo of bullshit.
        
               | Scarblac wrote:
               | Exactly, and with most dubjects what the average person
               | thinks is useless. The average person knows very little
               | about most subjects.
        
         | 7bit wrote:
         | Meh. Critics are just people with an opinion that have a way of
         | writing that people like. My friend's movie critiques much
         | better align with my personal taste than any critics opinion.
         | 
         | Critics are a privileged bunch and I'm happy the 'profession'
         | is dying - or opened up for everybody to have a stab at it. I
         | mean, there's thousands and tens of thousands of critics on
         | YouTube.
        
         | Tomte wrote:
         | Well-known critics are valuable for two reasons, even if they
         | have wildly different likes and preferences from me:
         | 
         | 1. they have seen/heard a lot. A professional movie critic
         | watches more films in a month than I have in years. That gives
         | him opportunities to compare, or to draw connections that I
         | cannot.
         | 
         | 2. they are known quantities. We have a certain image of Roger
         | Ebert (as an example) in our minds and can adjust his reviews
         | to get closer to our hypothetical opinion about the film. Also,
         | we get to know his mannerisms and idiosyncracies.
         | 
         | Nothing makes Roger Ebert a priori a better reviewer than Mike
         | from 4chan who obsessively watches films, but having a handful
         | of critics we recognize is more valuable w.r.t. these two
         | points than having thousands of unknown reviewers.
        
           | Izkata wrote:
           | > 2. they are known quantities. We have a certain image of
           | Roger Ebert (as an example) in our minds and can adjust his
           | reviews to get closer to our hypothetical opinion about the
           | film. Also, we get to know his mannerisms and idiosyncracies.
           | 
           | I'm guessing choosing him as the example means he's one of
           | the biggest names in professional critics, but he's as
           | unknown to me as Mike from 4chan. I really do wonder how much
           | the average person actually payed attention to critics like
           | him compared to trailers/commercials and friends.
        
         | skocznymroczny wrote:
         | Access journalism has damaged reputation of many professional
         | critics. When a new product is launched, e.g. a video game,
         | people want reviews on launch date, they aren't willing to
         | wait. The only way to have a review out on a launch date is to
         | get a pre-release access from the publisher. But the way to get
         | pre-release access from the publisher is to have a good
         | relationship with the publisher and you won't have a good
         | relationship with the publisher if you are going to give
         | negative reviews (even when it's well deserved).
         | 
         | "IGN 7/10" became a meme in the gaming community for meaning
         | "we think the game has some serious flaws but we don't want to
         | appear too negative". People pick up on this stuff, if bad
         | products are 7/10, then reviews get meaningless and people seek
         | more niche critics who are more honest and are not afraid to
         | rate the latest release 2/10 if it deserves it.
        
         | makeitdouble wrote:
         | Fundamentally I think we want experts, not critics.
         | 
         | It matters less to me that they're not as eloquent, not
         | professional public figures, not well renowned or have a fancy
         | title at some prestigious publication.
         | 
         | In our fields we have many of that, I'm thinking at people like
         | John Siracusa, with a background in doing things first, and
         | using it to comment on stuff that pick his interest.
         | 
         | In the musical field I see podcasts like Switch on pop in the
         | same vein, where they're not critics by trade, and will dive
         | into the music mainly from a technical viewpoint.
        
           | braza wrote:
           | > Fundamentally I think we want experts, not critics.
           | 
           | I think both have their spaces, but honestly, I would like to
           | have more critics.
           | 
           | With the advent of podcasts and YouTube channels, we have an
           | unprecedented level of access to experts. In my case, I was
           | about to record an album with my band, and back in the day it
           | was hard to get information on what happens in a studio. I
           | saw one video from a band that I liked and got more or less
           | the idea about the process and what it takes [1].
           | 
           | Regarding the critics I agree with others that access
           | journalism corrupted the role of the critics, and I tend to
           | think that we're in thins moment another side of the layman
           | or surface critics (in this context someone who can translate
           | small nuggets of technical knowledge to a broader public, or
           | infotainment) dictating part of the discourse based on
           | cultural aspects.
           | 
           | One example was the whole debacle related to the Disney Star
           | Wars series Acolyte.
           | 
           | The surface critics dunked the series on YouTube, and on the
           | other side, the access journalism tried to protect the series
           | due to the relation or personality of their authors.
           | 
           | I watched the whole series and even though I personally rated
           | it 3/10, I really would like to understand the artistic and
           | technical aspects of why the show wasn't great.
           | 
           | - Why the writing aspect was the main problem of the show? -
           | What's the role of cinematography in the scenes? - How does
           | this piece tie with the lore and what are its implications? -
           | What are the issues with the sound and depth? - And regarding
           | acting, which elements went wrong?
           | 
           | I tend to agree that the old 3 superficial paragraphs
           | critique is gone, but I do not think that the new critique
           | via Podcasts and Youtube are great substitutes either.
           | 
           | [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y40ZyDQXfoE
        
         | corimaith wrote:
         | This. People forget that when everyone's opinion matters, no
         | one's matters. Alot of hobby cultures are alot more fragmented
         | with the advent of social media today than in the early 2010s,
         | and we do suffer for it. Fan OC works are down, modern works
         | don't have lasting impact, it's the same tired discussions
         | going in circles every year, there isn't really a sense of
         | continuity in ideas anymore.
        
         | LAC-Tech wrote:
         | I find the whole concept of a critics bizarre. I don't need
         | other people to decide whether to like something or not. If I
         | like some music and the critic does not - what of it? He's just
         | another human being with ears and an opinion.
        
           | pmontra wrote:
           | Sometimes the critics don't tell if it's good or bad, but
           | what's in there. The story about Asimov and the critic
           | explains that pretty well
           | https://wiki.c2.com/?AsimovAndTheCritic
           | 
           | TL;DR: "Just because you wrote it, what makes you think you
           | know anything about it?"
        
           | saghm wrote:
           | Yeah, this is a pretty big difference to lack of trust in
           | "experts" and "institutions". If someone doesn't trust
           | medical experts that they should vaccinate their kids, they
           | perpetuate objectively dangerous illnesses. If someone
           | doesn't trust critics, at worst they
           | perpetuate...subjectively bad movies and music?
        
             | llamaimperative wrote:
             | An unbridled race to the bottom in art seems bad IMO.
             | 
             | I expect an (ironically academic) argument about how
             | monomaniacal focus on mass-market appeal doesn't
             | _necessarily_ entail a race to the bottom.
             | 
             | I'd be surprised if someone believes that _in reality_ a
             | monomaniacal focus on mass-market appeal doesn 't entail a
             | race to the bottom, though.
        
           | TheCoelacanth wrote:
           | The point isn't to decide whether to like it or not; it's
           | whether to listen to it or not.
           | 
           | You can't listen to even 1% of the music in the world in your
           | lifetime. You need to filter somehow.
        
             | llamaimperative wrote:
             | And good criticism should deepen your experience of the
             | art, whether a positive or negative critique.
        
           | operator-name wrote:
           | You don't, but it can be helpful if you find a critic that
           | strongly aligns with your preferences, or even strongly
           | misaligns with your preferences. Just like a reccomendation
           | from a friend, you can use it to consider if something is
           | worth even giving a try.
           | 
           | https://youtu.be/lG2dXobAXLI
        
         | UniverseHacker wrote:
         | I've never gotten any value from professional critics- their
         | opinions are totally uncorrelated with my own, and before I
         | realized this they would often turn me off from trying music or
         | movies I later found I enjoyed very much.
         | 
         | Moreover, they tend to seem jaded, and are either unable to
         | enjoy anything, or feel the need to pretend not to enjoy
         | anything to appear sophisticated. Seeing that negativity before
         | experiencing something reduces the enjoyment of it.
        
       | wongarsu wrote:
       | Looking at the graphs, the mistake of professional critics isn't
       | the idea that the second album tends to be worse, it it's the
       | idea that the second album it's an outlier and the third, forth
       | and fifth album are good.
        
       | Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
       | If we take the following ingredients:
       | 
       | 1. Regression to the mean and survivorship bias (a band with an
       | atypically good first album has much more chances to make a
       | second, but can find it difficult to live up to the first because
       | maybe it was mostly luck),
       | 
       | 2. The album that people consider "the first" actually being "the
       | first big hit" (e.g. how many people know the album that came
       | before Jarre's Oxygene?),
       | 
       | 3. The first hit done with no pressure, the following album under
       | pressure and deadlines because there's a public wanting to hear
       | it,
       | 
       | I would actually be surprised if the discussed effect _didn 't_
       | exist.
        
         | oneeyedpigeon wrote:
         | I prefer the "good art requires suffering" argument.
        
         | notTooFarGone wrote:
         | I'd say 3. is more of a "because there's the record label
         | wanting to sell it"
        
         | francisofascii wrote:
         | I suspect 1 and 2 are related, in that the first album only
         | becomes an actual album when is survives initial scrutiny and
         | becomes good enough to be produced. The first album is
         | essentially the "greatest hits" of the band in its infancy.
        
       | zabzonk wrote:
       | Led Zep 2?
        
         | MrMcCall wrote:
         | Yeah, well, Zeppelin were exceptional in perhaps _all_ ways.
         | 
         | Robert Plant was an unknown just singing around with perhaps
         | the greatest fricking drummer of all-time (at least legendary,
         | for sure). And Plant is also just incredible.
         | 
         | John Paul Jones was a multi-instrumentalist session player of
         | renown, and Jimmy Page was already famous.
         | 
         | It's one of those stories where the very first time they played
         | together they just looked around at each other, nodded, and
         | knew that it was special.
         | 
         | Plus, they did the 2nd album while touring the first one
         | (within a year, IIRC).
         | 
         | And, wow, that second album has "What Is And What Should Never
         | Be" and, my all-time favorite, "Ramble On". Just epic. And
         | then, later, "Kashmir", "The Rain Song", the list goes on and
         | on and on.
         | 
         | And they also back up my point that alcohol is a pox upon
         | humanity. RIP Bonzo. The alcohol-encouraging cultures on Earth
         | are insane, but the ones that forbid it tend to be even worse
         | in many ways. What a troubled bunch of kinda-monkeys we are,
         | huh? Common sense just ain't very common.
        
       | t0lo wrote:
       | Or the second album is what turned fans into critics :)
        
       | MrMcCall wrote:
       | A person/group has their entire life to make their first album,
       | but usually only a year or two to make their next one.
       | 
       | Being able to conjure creativity on-demand and/or under deadline
       | -- self-imposed or not -- seems to be the exception rather than
       | the rule.
       | 
       | My opinion is that perhaps 10% of artists continue to produce
       | equal or greater work as their career goes forward, depending on
       | their life circumstances, how they handle their success or lack
       | thereof, and how their label treats them.
       | 
       | They seem to be like programmers and Dunning-Kruger test
       | subjects: 10% are exceptional, talented and humble craftspeople
       | that produce work that is enjoyed by others as the years press
       | on. The rest either only had a few good ideas or are such true
       | artists that their explorations move them away from the kinds of
       | art that their fans or critics enjoyed in their earlier work.
        
         | dizhn wrote:
         | I was about to post something similar. Agree with you 100%. A
         | lot of really good indie bands can't duplicate their success on
         | their second album because they've used up all they had, which
         | is completely normal to do. They can't hold back and keep good
         | songs for the second album which probably will never come. It's
         | the sign of a very prolific band or member that they can keep
         | pumping out quality albums year in and year out.
        
       | alganet wrote:
       | Great study. Let's see if their next research can reach the same
       | level.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-12-23 23:01 UTC)