Bands with great second albums

Some great nominations, particularly The Band (big surprise ;-), Neil Young, and Procol Harum. I’ll add Bob Dylan’s The Freewheelin’, Buffalo Springfield’s Again, The Byrds’ Turn! Turn! Turn!, Juliana Raye’s Something Peculiar (great album produced by Jeff Lynne), The Traveling Wilbury’s Vol.3, Dave Edmunds’ Subtle As A Flying Mallet, Nick Lowe’s Labour Of Lust, Jellyfish’s Spilt Milk, The Dwight Twilley Band’s Twilley Don’t Mind (not as good as their incredible debut Sincerely, but that was awfully hard to match), Iris Dement’s wonderful My Life, Los Lobos’ How Will The Wolf Survive? (second English-language album), Jackson Browne’s For Everyman, David Lindley’s Win This Record!, The Sons Of Champlin’s (about the only real good Hippie band) The Sons, The Yardbirds’ Having A Rave Up With (ignoring the semi-released live album---as a debut?!), Buddy Miller’s Poison Love, plenty of others.

Oh yeah, Ram by Paul McCartney. Not a band of course, but that wasn't absolutely literal, right?

Walter, I found Gram's Grievous Angel to be quite a bit better than his first, mostly because his tendency to go flat is minimized. There are great songs, including his nice duet with Emmylou on The Every Brothers' "Love Hurts", and a great band. Real fine album. Have you heard The Continental Drifters recording of his "A Song For You"? Better than the original (on Gram's GP album). 

Good ones tseliot, though After Bathing is The Airplane's 3rd album (the 2nd with Grace; they had a different singer and drummer---Skip Spence, later in Moby Grape---on the 1st album, Takes Off). And Veedon Fleece, from 1974, is Van's 8th album!

loomis, I agree, and that's why I left in off my list. I feel The Ramones didn't get really good as a band until Marky replaced Tommy on drums. It was on their 4th album---Road To Ruin---that they fulfilled their potential. The earlier albums had great material, but Tommy's weak drumming undermined the power of the songs. Marky is a much "stronger" drummer than was Tommy.

Yeah loomis, the songs and the band are separate issues. I too felt the 2nd album material wasn't up to the level of the 1st. My comments about Marky vs Tommy on drums were intended to make the point that Marky is a more muscular, hard hitting drummer, which benefits both the band and the material.

Walter, it was I who stated I felt Road To Ruin was the album on which The Ramones fulfilled their promise, loomis stating that he felt by that time they had become a Pop band. It is my opinion that they had always been a Pop band, just as are Weezer. The proof that they may also have viewed themselves that way is in their decision to have Phil Spector produce their End Of The Century album. I didn't care for that decision any more than I did The Beatles decision to do the same.