There’s a fair amount of literature that refers to the second album by a group as the ‘sophomore’ effort. This is largely a result of American journalistic influence, the term coming from the American education system and while any increase in the quantity of material relating to or simply discussing progressive rock is to be welcomed, I have a problem with sophomore and I’d like to register my disapproval of the term; I believe the word is an interloper.
I’ve just attended a Bandcamp listening party for the second release from Artnat, Artnat 2, and it comes as no surprise that the band, a 21st century reimagining of Portugal’s premier 70’s symphonic progressive rock act Tantra headed by guitarist Manuel Cardoso, have created a magnificent uplifting complex and melodic suite. Their sound channels Yes and Mahavishnu Orchestra, musically and spiritually but the new album embraces avant-prog within a sonic space very few other groups are exploring, successfully extending their musical horizons.
While there are many bands, especially those from the 70s progressivo italiano scene, that only managed to release a single album, there can be a problem with a second release in terms of critical appraisal by fans and professional music journalists when the first album garners acclaim but the subsequent release doesn’t meet expectations. Though it’s good to diversify and harness true progressive spirit, making a conscious decision to avoid the criticism associated with producing a ‘son of…’ second album, it’s far from inappropriate to develop a style.
Counter-intuitively, the problem occurs for both groups that developed during the late 60s and those that arrived on the scene with pre-formed expectations, like ELP. For most groups that evolved from acts that were in existence during the pre-progressive days of psychedelia and blues, Pink Floyd, The Nice, Yes, Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant, progressive infers the process of stylistic progression from a largely American rock music format to a more diverse form, primarily through the re-examination of European art music or by fusing rock with non-rock forms, a journey informed by cultural, demographic and technological changes. In this way The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, though certainly not prog rock, caused something of a stir and managed to reach no.6 in the UK album charts; the next Pink Floyd album, A Saucerful of Secrets, might have made it to no.9 but the ousting of Syd Barrett disappointed fans, critics and the group’s management. It’s no surprise that The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets are stylistically disparate; the overriding impression of Piper is the Barrett-penned whimsy and not the instrumental music that formed the core of their live set. Saucerful simply moved the band in the direction of space-rock and I get a sense of music organised as architecture, something that I think was a defining idiom of their (IMO) far better, progressive material from Atom Heart Mother through to Wish You Were Here and subsequently revisited on A Momentary Lapse of Reason.
I prefer Ars Longa Vita Brevis and Time and a Word to The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack and Yes respectively, where there’s evidence of maturity of song writing but I have a preference for Air Conditioning over Curved Air’s Second Album because Second Album merely rehashes the same formula as on their first release. It’s my opinion that the first, fully formed progressive rock album is In the Court of the Crimson King and because it was a genre-defining release, anything that followed was liable to disappoint. In the Wake of Poseidon largely copies the formula of In the Court of the Crimson King but that’s no great revelation because much of the material that would go on to comprise Poseidon had already been written and road-tested by the original band members; the structure of the tracks Pictures of a City and In the Wake of Poseidon closely resemble 21st Century Schizoid Man and In the Court of the Crimson King respectively. The example of Crimson reveals another factor that needs to be taken into account: the impact of personnel changes on the direction of a group. Whereas Yes had a tendency to replace one member at a time (until the joint departure of Anderson and Wakeman between Tormato and Drama), which gave the impression of a group positively seeking improvement in a controlled manner, the shifting personnel involved in the very early years of King Crimson appeared as seismic changes; that In the Court of the Crimson King and In the Wake of Poseidon sound closely-related is also due to the retention of key players Greg Lake and Michael Giles as guest musicians. I would class Genesis as a band who developed their style in a manner similar to Yes, and despite replacing both a drummer and a guitarist after Trespass, their stylistic refinement followed a smooth path, reaching maturity with Foxtrot, their fourth release; Yes reached their pinnacle with their fifth album, Close to the Edge.
ELP arrived on the scene in 1970 as individuals from known, successful groups and produced a distinct and coherent first album that still rates as one of my favourite albums of all time. Tarkus, their second album contains more developed ideas, culminating in the side long suite that gives the record its name, but it lacks the overall balance of Emerson, Lake & Palmer with two decidedly non-prog compositions, Jeremy Bender and Are You Ready Eddy? Occasionally flagged as the first prog supergroup, ELP had to hit the ground running or face the ignominy of artistic failure. I think their studio output, taken album by album up to and including Brain Salad Surgery maintains a consistently high standard, within each of these records there is always some material that is below-par and unnecessary; there is musical development but there is an adherence to a structural formula, eventually broken on Works Volume 1.
Mike Oldfield may have spent a number of years as a jobbing musician before stunning the world with Tubular Bells but his first solo effort was a game-changer, affecting him personally and also inadvertently helping to establish the fledgling Virgin empire. That he’d release a second album was beyond doubt. Whether it could possibly be as original as Tubular Bells was a far more difficult question to answer. After selling my original vinyl copy of Tubular Bells (but subsequently regretting it) and keeping my original Hergest Ridge LP, I’ve grown to believe that his second album is a much more satisfying effort. Of course there are similarities between the two compositions but Oldfield seems to have learned and remedied the deficiencies in Tubular Bells. Embracing the talents of his erstwhile One World band-mate David Bedford and expanding the instrumentation to provide a symphonic scope, Hergest Ridge conjures a sense of place, of open countryside and wilderness, something that a piece titled Tubular Bells could never do. It took me around 40 years to formulate this hypothesis, so perhaps it’s best not to instantly dismiss the second album from a band as ‘more of the same’ or a ‘dramatic departure’.
On reflection, most second albums by exponents of progressive rock are of a similar standard to their first albums. There aren’t that many groups who stun the world with a brilliant debut and then go on to produce a stinker but there are plenty who follow the same formula with good results; Greenslade and Bedside Manners are Extra, Trace and Birds, Fruupp’s Future Legends and Seven Secrets. The downside to this approach became evident as the 70s progressed and prog lost favour with the media and the buying public; changes in style were dictated by the requirements of the music industry and not by the artists. One of the last great prog albums of the 70s was UK by UK; the second album which contained some good material was already showing signs of a more commercial appeal, though National Health, a band of comparable musical (if not commercial) standing, managed two albums of a similar stratospheric quality with National Health and the follow-up Of Queues and Cures, the former released in the early spring of 1978 and the latter at the end of the same year.
The examples I’ve so far used to illustrate this second album ’problem’ have all been from the golden period of progressive rock, which benefit from a degree of familiarity not necessarily available for contemporary releases. However, selecting a few time points from the third wave of prog, Änglagård set out a Mellotron-leaning dark-prog template with Hybris (1992) and honed the formula with Epilog (1994). The sonic universe of fellow Swedes Anekdoten commenced with Vemod (1993), which could have been a follow up to King Crimson’s Red, while follow-up Nucleus (1995) left out the melancholy of the debut and embraced a darker atmosphere. Across the border in Norway, Wobbler were playing music that they liked and it became clear from the first two albums, Hinterland (2005) and Afterglow (2009), that they’d been listening to a lot of Fragile-era Yes, Gentle Giant and Gryphon while managing to create their own, distinct sound. This is a band I must see play live.
Over in Italy, La Maschera di Cera, mixing the influence of heavier classic 70s progressivo italiano acts like Il Balletto di Bronzo or Museo Rosenbach with the whirlwind dynamics of Van der Graaf Generator created a highly successful retro-prog feel on La maschera di cera (2002) and Il grande labirinto (2003), without a full-time guitarist. More recently, the two Zopp albums Zopp (2020) and Dominion (2023) are both amazing examples of neo-Canterbury and conform to the model of evolution (Dominion has vocals, unlike the all-instrumental Zopp) rather than revolution, as do my albums of the year 2019 and 2024, music I had the good fortune to witness evolving: Melting Clock’s Destinazioni and Altrove.
Of course exceptions to the formulaic approach exist. Though not strictly first and second albums, my introduction to Steven Wilson as a solo artist was The Raven That Refused To Sing And Other Stories (2013), a modern prog classic in retro style which was followed up by a more electronic, post-rock effort Hand.Cannot.Erase (2015) and the subsequent pop-prog To the Bone (2017). I didn’t buy To the Bone but I did see Wilson on the promotional tour which I didn’t enjoy. Wilson was writing, playing and releasing the music he wanted to, not bowing to the desires of the fans of his 70s style retro-prog, and good luck to him. He’s earned the right to question the meaning of ‘progressive’ in prog rock, and if 2025’s The Overview is a return to a long-form prog style, it’s simply good news for the fans that left in 2017.
Steven Wilson aside, the decision to suddenly change musical course is more likely to be precipitated by the departure of a key member of a group allowing the remaining members or the replacement to express their influences but the two approaches, seeking a definitive style or radical departure from what a group has done previously can be equally valid, as long as the goal is to further the music through increased proficiency or taking on new ideas.
This blog originally appeared as ‘The Sophomore Problem’ on 26th April 2015 and has been expanded and updated.