Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

Following up on fame

Reportedly, Lily Allen has said she’ll quit music if her sophomore album flops. Here’s a look at how a few of history’s notable second acts played out.

Rushed out on the heels of first-album successes “Light My Fire” and “Break on Through (To the Other Side),” The Doors’ Strange Days reached No. 3 on 1967’s album chart but failed to yield a top-10 single. It remains a polarizing piece in the band’s catalog.

Met with more than 400,000 advance orders, 1969’s Led Zeppelin II still managed to outstrip expectations, displacing The Beatles’ Abbey Road atop the Billboard chart and remaining on the UK version for nearly three years.

Set against the backdrop of their groundbreaking eponymous debut, The Ramones’ 1977 follow-up, Leave Home—a poppier, more polished effort—could scarcely have made the same sort of impact, despite enduring songs like “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” and “Pinhead.”

The sampled beat collages on 1989’s Paul’s Boutique marked a dramatic departure from the rock-ish radio singles of Beastie Boys predecessor Licensed to Ill, so Paul’s was virtually ignored upon its arrival. It is now held up as a seminal hip-hop moment.

Released five years after The Stone Roses’ lauded self-titled debut (still a perennial UK favorite), 1994’s Second Coming arrived amidst the crowded Brit-pop music scene and overwhelmingly failed to impress either critics or listeners.

Though it hovered at No. 1 for four weeks in 1996, Nas’ It Was Written was critically lambasted for abandoning Illmatic’s conscious rhymes for a gangsta-oriented stance. In the years since, however, Written has untarnished its image somewhat.

Initially dismissed as a disappointing follow-up to Weezer’s splashy, MTV-hit-laden debut (Rolling Stone readers voted it 1996’s second-worst album), Pinkerton has become nearly as beloved as its predecessor. In 2002, RS readers selected it the 16th-best album of all time.

Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill scored five Grammys (including Album of the Year), spent six weeks atop the R&B chart and has sold more than 18 million copies worldwide. Bizarre 2002 entry MTV Unplugged No. 2.0, the only other disc she’s ever released, never had a chance.

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