Looking through the recently released NME Top 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade, the first decade of the 21st century seems to be suffering from a severe case of second album syndrome.
Is This It? An appropriate question for some of the bands on the list.
NME have revealed their Top 100 Greatest Albums of the past decade and as most of these lists do, it makes for interesting reading. Obviously these lists can’t satisfy everyone, an endless debate on what should and shouldn’t have appeared is the last thing I want to start with this article.
The most striking thing I found in reading through the list is the number of bands that peaked with their first release and have subsequently failed to reach the same heights again. Of course commercially some of these bands have grown massively, but critically they haven’t grown much at all.
The Top 10 features no less than 7 debut albums. The top 50 features 18, nearly 40%. This seems pretty high, which on one hand is good. It’s great that modern bands hit the ground running, creating instant classics at the first time of asking. However, looking at the bigger picture, it’s saddening how many bands never seem to reproduce the same quality on later albums.
This raises many questions. The biggest perhaps being, are the bands of the Noughties less talented than the bands of previous decades? They can have years to write and hone the early songs that will make up their debut, but when it comes to writing a follow up album within several years, along with touring and record company pressure, the quality seems to drop. Time constraints can’t really be a factor as it’s no secret most bands release a lot less material than bands of the past. On average a band will release a new album every two or so years. It’s not really fair comparing anyone with Bob Dylan but in his sixties heyday he released 11 albums in 8 years, from his debut in 1962 to 1970.
Focussing only on the Top 50 for a minute and looking a bit deeper, there are 6 artists with 2 albums featured. Apart from the 2 longer established bands, Radiohead and The White Stripes, the 4 other bands all have their debut album in the Top 10. Their follow up albums all appear further down the list sure, but they’re nowhere near their predecessors.
Some of the decades biggest new bands such as The Strokes, Bloc Party, Kings of Leon and Arctic Monkeys all grace the Top 100 with their critically acclaimed debuts, but see none of their subsequent releases get a mention. Are these bands still riding the success of their debut albums or have they been harshly treated? Does releasing a blinding debut put a potential curse on the rest of your career?
Lastly, whilst I’m not going to argue against anything on the list, I would like to applaud NME on some of their surprise choices. At The Drive-In, Capdown, Brand New and The Maccabees all thoroughly deserved their place in the Top 100.
Check out the list here
Tim Marklew
I’ve thought this was an issue for years. So many bands just plough out a couple of singles but with no real talent behind them, look at bands like The Hoosiers and Scouting For Girls. Same songs, same crappy hooks and that’s their career. Looking through the list there’s just barely anything striking. Bands arn’t writing music that people both love and breaks boundaries, although there is some amazing material there too, Bloc Party, Muse, Sigur Ros…that’s the difference though. When a band get to their third album are are still pushing out incredible stuff, that’s when you know they’ve got talent. Way too many one-hit wonders about…
Who’s going be the first to bring in the “it’s the internet” argument…
[...] seemed only able to pull off a great debut and not a lot else (See my previous article on that here), our hope for a great follow up to kick off this brave new decade is [...]