a classic case of the music critic ecosystem finding the previous album too late, then overreacting to the next record

Certainly more than was warranted.

I still hear "Illusion" and "Houdini" on the local pop radio station.

lol at whiney’s car crash of a thread from 13 years ago. I’m not sure what it says that the same conversation is so much politer now.

And yeah Clipse was the immediate example that occurred to me. OutKast and The-Dream and Jay-Z also good suggestions (unbelievably, some critics I know here in Australia only jumped on with The Black Album? That’s like needing a late pass to the Late Pass Festival).

I was trying to think of a good dance music example but the usually the issue there is that the artist has already lost it (whatever it was) by the time they actually release an album, and I’m reluctant to blame critics for not paying too much attention before that. I’m struggling to think of a dance artist whose first album was unjustly ignored and second album over-praised.

xpost So this would be positing that critics did not pay attention to Future Nostalgia and made up for that by over-praising the famous flop Radical Optimism? Okay.

A lot of publications not called The Source missed out on how great Illmatic was upon its release. I don't know if that led to critics over-praising It Was Written, but Illmatic had definitely risen in stature by the time the follow-up came out.

Would Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book count? Like I do think praise for it was an overreaction, but I also don't think Acid Rap was necessarily ignored upon release either.

I’m struggling to think of a dance artist whose first album was unjustly ignored and second album over-praised.

― Tim F, Monday, September 30, 2024 12:07 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

fred again, maybe (lol)

seriously tho, the ep he did with headie one and the first actual life tape were great. then he got huge and much worse

I’m struggling to think of a dance artist whose first album was unjustly ignored and second album over-praised.

would not call Untrue overpraised - I think it was praised just the right amount - but Burial kinda fits here in that everyone seemed to jump on the bandwagon after he'd already released like 80% of his best material

Trying to think of these, but I'm mostly coming up with the opposite : artists who released their best work after the cognoscenti had moved on.

Sgt. Pepper's is a classic example!

― corrs unplugged, Friday, September 27, 2024 6:45 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't think Revolver was overlooked.

― There’s a Monster in my Vance (President Keyes), Friday, September 27, 2024 6:48 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Although arguably "the [rock/pop] music critic ecosystem" barely existed in 1966, and I've never read any contemporary mainstream press holding up Revolver as a bold step forward. Maybe Wilfred Mellers wrote something to that effect.

Although arguably "the [rock/pop] music critic ecosystem" barely existed in 1966, and I've never read any contemporary mainstream press holding up Revolver as a bold step forward. Maybe Wilfred Mellers wrote something to that effect.
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, September 30, 2024 4:19 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Wikipedia has a "Contemporary reviews" section under Critical Reception. Here's the first paragraph:

In Britain, the reception to Revolver was highly favourable.[366] Having found Rubber Soul "almost monotonous" at times, Melody Maker lauded the new release,[367] saying it was a work that would "change the direction of pop music".[366] The reviewer highlighted its "electronic effects", McCartney's "penchant for the classics" and Harrison's "stunning use of the sitar" as diverse elements that distinguished the LP as a group effort, such that the four band members' "individual personalities are now showing through loud and clear".[368] The writer concluded: "this is a brilliant album which underlines once and for all that the Beatles have definitely broken the bounds of what we used to call pop."[369] Peter Clayton, a jazz critic for Gramophone magazine, described it as "an astonishing collection" that defied easy categorisation since much of the LP had no precedent in the context of pop music. Clayton concluded: "if there's anything wrong with the record at all it is that such a diet of newness might give the ordinary pop-picker indigestion."[370][371]

OK, now read the same paragraph in the Sgt. Pepper's article and tell me the acclaim hasn't increased by an order of magnitude.

Finding Beatles album in the U.S. before they came out on CD was hard iirc, so Revolver didn't get its due until several years had passed and younger critics in the early '90s got to hear it for the first time in its unexpurgated form.

The funny thing is that the American edition of Revolver was actually more radical sounding because it was shorn of two of the more norm-y style tracks ("Dr. Robert" & "And Your Bird Can Sing") which had already appeared (along with "I'm Only Sleeping") on Yesterday and Today.

I might have misunderstood the premise of the thread but I'm just going to remind myself, if no-one else, what was said about Revolver at the time:

a work that would change the direction of pop music

the Beatles have definitely broken the bounds of what we used to call pop

the LP has no precedent in the context of pop music

Now if you'd asked me which Beatles' album those comments were made about I would definitely have said Sgt. Pepper. So, as I say unless I've misunderstood the thread, I don't know what Revolver and Sgt. Pepper are doing in this thread.

Every thread demands Beatle content

It most certainly does not.

Lol

I don't think that's a terrible example. "Widespread acclaim from critics" is boilerplate Wikipedia language. Bright Like Neon Love got generally good reviews from the publications that bothered to review it, but Metacritic shows only 9 reviews compared to 17 for In Ghost Colours. Pitchfork didn't even review BLNL, for instance.

― jaymc, Friday, 27 September 2024

As an Antipodean, my memory is the debut (and the EPs!) did well (critically/commercially) in Aus/NZ whereas the second one was the one that broke through to UK/US audiences.

Burial actually would be a good example other than that I think he got better after the album. Pitchfork probably regret my timely-but-tepid review of the debut but the last time I listened to it I decided I had not in fact been underrating it.

Pantha Du Prince is the dance music example. This Bliss >>>> everything since

nilüfer yanya’s “my method actor”

I sort of get the desire to include Revolver, in that the follow-up was instantly canonized as earth-shaking masterpiece among critical and fans alike, while Revolver (which was already doing so many of the same exciting things) was not. Especially in the US it's never had anything close to the pop-culture footprint of SPLHCB, or Rubber Soul for that matter. (See also: the Beatles Anthology doc, which devotes more time to the band's trips to Tokyo and the Philippines in this period.)

But it wasn't exactly ignored by critics, as the quotes prove. It's just that for the next one the praise went up to the megaton range. I'd say it doesn't fit.

Yes, I think it's very US-centric to think that Revolver was somehow under appreciated but then was Pepper the first Beatles album released in the US with its tracklisting intact?

Yes.

xpost - Well it doesn't really MATTER, technically. But I think ILX is one place where many people are professional, part-time or hobbyist critics/bloggers etc. And some times its interesting to talk about how sausages get made, y'know?

― url sweatshirt (Whiney G. Weingarten), Sunday, January 30, 2011 3:15 PM (thirteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

how sausage parties get made

― sarahel, Sunday, January 30, 2011 3:16 PM (thirteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

yves tumor heaven to a tortured mind

There's a couple examples on the Pitchfork list today. Both Chief Keef and Bladee was made BNM this year, but it's 4NEM and Crest that made the list.

i feel like 4nem is the opposite, a mid-tier album in his discography released after a swelling of good will for the artist that was overly praised because it was the first one he dropped in a while with focus, pr push, a lead single, etc.

Burial got better when he realized his stuff worked better in single/EP format instead of albums

alabaster deplume, gold

^^ good one!

As per Then Play Long's review of 2 Unlimited's Real Things, it was a relative critical hit compared to No Limits

Also ha 10,000 gecs is the first time I've found gecs any good

attention before that. I’m struggling to think of a dance artist whose first album was unjustly ignored and second album over-praised.

― Tim F, Monday, 30 September 2024 18:07 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Not overpraised as such, but Death in Vegas' Contino Sessions was one of the big UK critical favourites of 99 and that wasn't true of Dead Elvis in 97, when really they're similar in quality

Speaking of 99 albums that may have been overpraised, what about...
Shack - Waterpistol > H.M.S. Fable

my problem with Burial in 2024 is that it's all gotten increasingly cheesier and sentimental to the point it's a bit laughable, the praise makes less sense to me with each release

The latest Burial release is my favourite thing he'd done in years, while probably one of the least distinctive. Was it inevitable he'd eventually make a pretty straight hardcore record at some point? Having run out of ways to do anything around that but not actually that? Like it was probably on the cards since he first heard Sweet Harmony as a kid.

Burial will always remain beyond reproach for me based on all of his early work and a fair bit of the later work. It seems I'm the one of few people who rates Antidawn very highly, but nothing after that has quite stuck for me, even when my initial impressions have been positive. Phoneglow, Streetlands and Dreamfear are great examples: I really liked all of them, but every time I felt myself hovering over the button to add them to my cart, I thought about the price + shipping, and ultimately couldn't bring myself to actually buy them. That would have been unthinkable behavior for me for everything up to Chemz / Dolphinz.

Sorry for the Burial derail, I don't need much encouragement. He's still one of my favorite artists ever

I have to think a lot of the raves for mid-00s UGK and Three 6 Mafia projects was making up for critics ignoring their 90s output.

also see Fishscale

The acclaim for Fishscale -- an album I'll still stan for -- reminded me that I'd missed the two albums after Supreme Clientele, so I'm grateful.

Were Stone Temple Pilots an example of this? I've never heard those first two LPs.

Wikipedia suggests early reviews for Appetite for Destruction were nothing much (despite its belated P&J appearance), which wasn't the case with the Use Your Illusions.

Did Tiny Music got critical acclaim? If so, I think it might be more a case of the band changing up their sound to something that happened to be more critic-friendly (from post-grunge to neo-glam).

(but perhaps a bit of "this shift actually started on the last album, but we sorta didn't notice that because we judged THAT one based on the FIRST album)

I was thinking Purple getting more critical love/attention on release than Core

Speaking of 99 albums that may have been overpraised, what about...
Shack - Waterpistol > H.M.S. Fable

It was impossible to hear Waterpistol at the time

Wouldn't that make it a perfect example of 'finding it too late'?

Through no fault of their own ofc

till feel like the reception of NR is overcompensating (less than for the Love in Exile collab though)