Bands with great second albums

Patti Smith Group - Radio Ethiopia! A worthy successor to Horses! The two best releases of the '75-'76 NYC downtown scene!

Tarkus
Desperado
In The Wake Of Poseidon 
The Bends
In Search Of The Lost Chord
Strange Days
Pretzel Logic

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.

I would add to the good suggestions above "Projections," the second album of The Blues Project. While most of my listening is to classical music, this is one of my all-time favorite rock albums.

Regards,
-- Al

So many already mentioned that I would have chosen. I will add Stand Up by Jethro Tull and Candy O by The Cars.