It's 2020, which is the future. The future is a time for change, and to go along with that, my topic is slightly different from what we’ve done so far. Personally, I listen to albums way more often than I listen to just individual songs. So, my topic reflects that in a way. A much-referenced phenomenon in music is the "sophomore slump". Many bands don’t live up to the quality or success of their first albums for the rest of their careers. Some examples that pop into my head right away are Boston and The Strokes.

So I’m wondering what bands you think oppose that trend completely. The "rules" are to pick five second albums that you believe are a band’s best work… unless you can’t think of five, or just want to pick five albums you like a lot. Now, of course, we’ve only done songs up to this point, so what I’m expecting is for people to link to songs from bands’ second albums, but then talk about the full album? Or do whatever you want. If you want to link to full albums, go for it. I just prefer talking about albums as full art pieces over individual songs, and that’s what drove me to pick this for my week.

When discussing this on last week's thread, I also added this caveat: I’m definitely not a stickler for rules. I fully expect some folks to bend the rules, and that’s fine. I mean there’s even some bands out there where the idea of a "second album" is kind of nebulous. Take Car Seat Headrest for example. Is their second album "2", which was released on Bandcamp but never saw a physical release? Is it Twin Fantasy, their second album to get a physical release? Or is their second album Teens Of Denial, their second to be released on a record label instead of only on Bandcamp? Is a debut EP a band's "first album"? It’s definitely arguable. So go ahead and break whatever rules you need to. This is my week, and I've been breaking the rules since we started these threads.

MN Exile's next week, and the topic is female singers. So start thinking about that too.

ok, thanks for reading, GO.