Not every artist gets it right, right out of the gate. A debut record is a tricky thing, after all, so it makes sense that a sophomore album could surpass that of a freshman one, musically, lyrically, and commercially. Keep reading for three classic rock artists who did just that with their sophomore releases.
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Aerosmith’s Get Your Wings
Aerosmith’s self-titled debut came and went with little fanfare. Afterwards, the classic rock band teamed up with producer Jack Douglas in 1974 for their sophomore album.
“Columbia was going to dump us after the first record,” Joe Perry told The Record Plant Diaries. “This record was the first one that didn’t include a bunch of material that we’d been playing for years in clubs and theaters and on the road. It was the first time we had to go in and actually write stuff on the clock, and so it was the first record where we moved past the sophomore blues.”
While the album wasn’t a huge commercial success, it garnered much more attention than Aerosmith’s debut LP. Positive reviews also rolled in, with a consensus that Get Your Wings was where the band found its trademark sound.
Bob Dylan’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan is a triumph. Bob Dylan‘s second LP was the singer’s first album to be full of original songs. With hits including “Blowin’ In The Wind” and “Girl From The North Country”, it’s no surprise it reached No. 22 in the U.S. and No. 1 in the U.K.
“I felt real good about doing an album with my own material,” Dylan said while promoting the album, according to The Library of Congress, which added the LP to its Nation Registry in 2002.
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan was the first taste of what Dylan would grow to become—an iconic singer-songwriter full of masterpieces. Indeed, his sophomore record moved him one step closer to becoming a classic rock icon when he shifted to electric guitar a couple of years later.
Nirvana’s Nevermind
Widely considered Nirvana’s most iconic album, Nevermind was a critical and commercial success upon its debut in 1991. The band’s major label debut, Nevermind, topped the Billboard 200 chart. It also wowed with its first single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.
In an interview with Billboard, producer Butch Vig shared how he knew the album was going to be a hit.
“I knew the record was good, because I thought the songs and performances were great,” he said. “It wasn’t really until the time we finished that I started playing some rough mixes for people and they would stop what they were doing and say, ‘Play that again.’”
After Nirvana played some of the LP’s songs at a small Los Angeles venue, Nevermind‘s genius became clear.
“It was just packed. People were going crazy inside. They played a lot of the new songs and the crowd had this intensity, like something was going to happen,” Vig recalled. “I guess I hadn’t really seen anything that felt that electric, primal, that was ready to explode to a certain extent.”
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