The sophomore slump

By GRAHAM REID

Rock music doesn't offer much in the way of wisdom other than this: you have five years to write your first album and, if you are lucky, five months to write your second.

Which perhaps explains why so many bands suffer from a second album that slumps saleswise. It's an international phenomenon but lately we have been seeing it prevail here.

Stellar, Zed, Tadpole, goodshirt and others watched their debut soar and their second crash. In the case of Sony band Stellar, they sold 75,000 of their debut and less than a third of that with their second.

If we consider that rock wisdom we can guess why, but the Second Album Syndrome seems to be hitting home hard at the moment.

Michael Glading, head man at Sony Music New Zealand, says the strength of any album is the songwriting. "In the year after the debut album the bands are out working and touring and the songwriting is done on a part-time basis. I don't think there's enough time taken to develop the songwriting for the follow-up."

The irony is that a decade ago if a band had sold 20,000 copies - as Stellar did on their second - they would have been acclaimed.

EMI head Chris Caddick agrees. "It's the weight of expectation. It's easy to feel disappointed with sales of 20,000 on a second album yet that's a good result by any measure. You've got a platinum album, what's the problem?"

The problem is the disappointment on the part of bands and their record companies if that debut sold three or more times than that.

"It's an unfortunate side-effect of the growth of the industry," says music lawyer and former Stellar manager Campbell Smith. "There are so many more artists coming through every year and getting great treatment from radio, and record companies are looking for new artists all the time. The public are getting something fresh from the new acts, and they get more support from the media because they are new."

Glading on Stellar: "At the time we liked their [second album] songs and were genuine about that, but with the benefit of hindsight I don't think they were good enough. With Stellar we got a lot of feedback from around the world because we were trying to break them internationally and I think maybe we did too much listening to what the world wanted instead of being true to the band.

"We tried to make a [second] record we thought people [internationally] wanted - and we've learned from that. The artist has to be true to themselves."

Caddick at EMI says they don't put pressure on bands to deliver another album and isn't inclined to be judgmental about the material.

"Personally I like the artist to be the judge of their own work, otherwise we set ourselves up to judge and if you do that you reach the extreme we are seeing in the American mainstream now. The record companies don't quite write the song but there's not much else they don't do.

"And that has turned everything into soulless radio fodder, which we don't have in New Zealand. We've got some pretty sparky stuff going on all over the place and it hasn't been dictated to by record companies.

"Goodshirt's second album Fiji Baby is probably stronger than their first - although it hasn't sold as well."

And why not? "I wish I knew, then we would have sold more!"

Overexposure in a small market like New Zealand is a factor. There is more music media around today and bands hit it all on their debut. By the time their second album rolls around ...

"In a smaller market it's easy to get used up," says Glading, who notes that Sony acts Brooke Fraser and Bic Runga now live in Sydney and France respectively and so are away from media overexposure.

"It's partly that," says Smith, "and artists wouldn't mind if they were dropping from a four or five times platinum album if they were in America, because they are going from five million to two million, so who really cares? It's just more obvious in New Zealand because you are going from something sustainable for a career to something which is not. You can still tour successfully in a larger market and sell a bunch of merchandising, but you can't do that here."

Bands that aim at a teenage market have the most trouble. If the gap between albums is two or more years their original following grows up. Two years in the life of a band is nothing, but two years to a teenager is everything.

Tadpole suffered a considerable sophomore slump, dropping from sales of 40,000 for their Buddhafinger debut to around 7000 for The Medusa.

"That was a combination of two things," says Caddick. "They were very much of their time and their narrow band of fans had just gone past them. And second I think they subtly changed their sound to get a more mainstream pop airplay and lost their rockier edge.

"I'd never deny an artist the right to go in any direction they like but if you deliberately pander to radio that's not a good move.

"Greg Johnson would admit he tried once with the Sea Breeze Motel album, which he tried to make more radio-friendly and he lost the essence of Greg Johnson. Tadpole tried that, too."

Generally radio is supportive of local acts but it too follows international trends. If a programmer cannot hear a radio hit, suspects the band's audience isn't there anymore or that the music culture has changed and left them behind, they will pull out.

Bands like the Brunettes and Goldenhorse - quirky and with tangential approaches to songwriting - stand a better chance of longevity than a band trying for the middle of the radio dial.

Hip-hop is a treacherous area. Many hip-hop acts don't get to a second album and often their debut isn't seen to be as strong as its cheerleaders at the time thought. The audience is also young and fickle so an act giving big-ups one day finds the audience is soon off somewhere else and embracing a new hero or style.

If there is any good news in this it is that record companies are tending to stick with artists. Caddick says goodshirt's debut sold 28,000 and Fiji Baby is around 8000 "but it's a work in progress for us and we'll stay with them. I think we'll sell 20,000 on it".

Greg Johnson's latest album Here Comes the Caviar looks set to be his best seller yet - and he's well into a career, with a "best of" behind him. "We've lost money every time on a Greg album," laughs Caddick, "but we still believe he is a great artist."

Tadpole, after some line-up changes, are out playing live with a view to a third album, and Stellar are demoing songs again, although Glading admits there has been quite a hiatus.

"We and the band are making a conscious effort to create a breathing space. To be honest, they had to sit down and think if they wanted to do it again. The thing is if their first had sold 10,000 and their second 20,000 we'd be saying that was great. But 75,000 to 20,000 feels like a failure."

Glading also says he felt there was a backlash against the band on their second album. After putting themselves in all media for their debut they didn't want to traipse around the circuit again and so blew out some interviews. Word went round they were up themselves ("which they certainly were not") but the damage was done. "But you have to go out and do it all again."

No one in the industry believes you can sell an album above its natural level. While the first 15,000 are the hardest, the second 15,000 almost come easily because of word-of-mouth.

There is one conspicuous exception to the Second Album Syndrome: Bic Runga. Or maybe not? After her successful debut Drive, with sales of around 100,000, Runga wrote her second album, then discarded it and reworked some of the songs over a number of years. In a sense she sidestepped the second album by delivering her third, four years after her debut. It has sold around 150,000.

"If you talk to anyone involved with that album," says Smith, "we were hugely surprised it sold more than the first. We didn't think it would sell even half that. The delay may have helped, it's not prescribed theory. It made her some sort of 'new artist' and added to the mystery there has always been about her. She does have that status in New Zealand, she's an unknown quantity. She doesn't do a lot of press and when she does she's ethereal and all over the shop, that's just the way she is.

"I'd love to say we sat down 10 years ago and planned the route she would take because that would make me look like a genius, but that was just the way it happened and it worked."

Runga's audience, however, is older than that of the rock and pop bands, and probably less susceptible to the whims of change in the music industry.

In rock's other wisdom, bands therefore need to consider that second album very early on.

Glading isn't keen to see too many acts repeat Runga's pattern. "I don't want four years before another Brooke Fraser album. Already I am saying to her she needs to be writing now for her next album, even though we are still in the early stages of working this album."