Friday, September 07, 2007

Second album syndrome and overhyped indie bands?


Yes, it seems to be one of those things that has no signs of abating. The reviews for Hard-Fi’s latest offering have been very mixed, ranging from a lukewarm NME review to a glowing 4 stars from Q. But the consensus seems to be ‘must try harder.’ It will be interesting to see how many of these bands from the exciting, rebirth of Britpop from 2005/2006 will be able to replicate their early successes.

The Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand, Hard-Fi, Maximo Park (I reluctantly add this, which I will explain later), Arctic Monkeys..the list goes on.

It stretches across the pond too; The Killers are a prime example of a second album not living up to expectations.

The reason that I reluctantly added Maximo Park to the above list is because initially, the second album was very disappointing. I listened to it and my heart sank because I had such high hopes for it. However, it is now one of my favourite albums ever, as it is such a grower. I will be doing a separate review of this at a later date.

With music increasingly becoming the ‘cool’ thing, and everyone from 13 year old girls to heads of record labels scouring Myspace and last.fm for the ‘next big thing’, there tends to be massive hype surrounding a number of artists who ultimately fail to deliver.

Who can distinguish between The Twang, the View the Enemy, the Fratellis, the Pigeon Detectives and all the other ‘the’ bands out there? I’m not debating the fact that I actually like all of these bands, and I have been championing the Pigeon Detectives for nearly 2 years, but the point is that the scene is starting to feel tired. And there seems to be a formula to it – band build up big following, NME, Q, the BBC, whoever labels them ‘the next Oasis’, ‘the next Coldplay’, ‘the next Libertines’ etc etc etc. Hype reaches fever pitch, and then when the album comes out the reviews are good, but not as good as the hype suggests, and then the next big thing comes along and it all starts again. I am looking forward to second albums from these artists to see if any of them have any longevity.

Of course, I’m not saying that it’s just a malaise attached to second albums. It can also happen to established artists that make a seminal album, and then the follow up has such high expectations to meet, that it ultimately fails. That’s not to say that these albums are bad, more simply that they cannot meet the high standard of their predecessors. The sad matter of fact it that if these also-ran albums were the band’s debut, then they would be treated as fantastic albums in their own right.