Follow-ups that could almost be part twos of classic albums

I think I bought those two Big Star LPs around the same time and didn’t fully absorb either one before listening to the other one. It took me quite a while to enjoy listening to either one from beginning to end as a whole without zoning out and just focusing on individual tracks I liked, so I barely thought This Album and That Album, just This Track and That Track. For years I downplayed Chris Bell’s role and figured he was just the founder and foil for creative genius Alex (who horned in and took over) and his leaving didn’t make much difference anyway. Now that I have, um, refined my opinion and improved my understanding, I feel that on the second album they are still to some extent channeling Chris- not sure Alex ever wrote or made records the same way before or since- so his departure made much less of a difference than might have been expected, despite sonic/production changes mentioned upthread.

Reproduction and Travelogue by The Human League feel this way to me. It definitely helps that I bought them on the same day.

Same goes for The Divine Comedy's Liberation and Promenade which I got around the same time. They were recorded and released very close together with extremely similar artwork. Promenade might be a bit more developed (the production is better for a start), but I always put them together. Especially as Neil never topped those albums.

XP John Fry claimed about a third of Radio City was Chris co-writes that he declined to take credit for.

Thanks. Was just about to make another pass through the Bruce Eaton 33 1/3 book on Radio City to refresh my memory about things like that.

Chris co-wrote “O My Soul” and “Back Of A Car” but, in what John Fry describes as “horsetrading,” Chris gave full credit to Alex in return for keeping full credit on two other songs, “There’s A Light” and “Got Kind Of Lost.” Chris later sent a letter to John Fry asking for credit on “those two songs” but didn’t say which, although Andy and Alex knew. All four songs were recorded on an early Radio City demo that went missing.

Both of those last two, all four songs actually, can be heard on the Live At Lafayette’s Music Room album which came out last year.

I think some of those demos popped up on the box set (alongside that concert).

Oh yeah. Wonder if those are the same initial demos that were supposed to have been erased or later ones.

Stevie Wonder - Talking Book / Innervisions.

The first two Magnetic Fields albums feel like this though the later album is perhaps a bit more jaunty. They obviously encouraged this impression by making the CD edition a twofer almost immediately. (And then by having Merritt finally singing his own songs by the third album.)

What about the first two Stooges LPs? genuine q, I don't really know them that well but as a teen I had this compilation that conflated them into one LP which felt pretty consistent.

The second Tindersticks album seems to fit into that scheme. More of the same but not quite as good, one obvious reason being that the sound wasn't new anymore.

Kraftwerk 1 / Kraftwerk 2

The first two Stooges albums feel fairly distinct to me in terms of rhythmic feel, production quality, and even instrumentation (sax on the latter album, some piano and viola on the earlier one).

Achtung Baby/Zooropa

Stevie Wonder - Talking Book / Innervisions.

I always mentally group Innervisions with Fulfillingness' First Finale because the cover art styles are similar.

Another version of this would be "albums you got used to listening to on a single CD but which wouldn't otherwise sound like they should fit together" - for me The Soft Machine / Volume Two

Spirit of Eden -> Laughing Stock

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – Damn the Torpedoes/Hard Promises

ZZ Top - Eliminator and Afterburner

The first two Magnetic Fields albums feel like this though the later album is perhaps a bit more jaunty. They obviously encouraged this impression by making the CD edition a twofer almost immediately. (And then by having Merritt finally singing his own songs by the third album.)

Also the artwork is super similar!

Fleetwood Mac: Future Games -> Bare Trees

the first two david axelrod albums —song of innocence + songs of experience— fit here pretty well.

bill evans has a couple, but i'm not sure if it's cheating to include them, as they were recorded at the same time and then split up into single lps later. the ones i'm thinking of are:
sunday at the village vanguard + waltz for debby
moonbeams + how my heart sings

would also like to mention some curtis mayfield in the form of:
back to the world + sweet exorcist (+ arguably even got to find a way)
and obviously curtis + roots

and finally, adrian borland and the sound:
shock of daylight + heads and hearts

Swordfishtrombones...Rain Dogs

This came to mind last night, though it doesn't fit squarely within the parameters of this discussion: The Cult's Electric and the first Danzig album sound and feel like two chapters of the same story.

Cultosaurus Erectus and Fire Of Unknown Origin

The Cult's Electric and the first Danzig album sound and feel like two chapters of the same story.

I've always felt similarly about Primal Scream's XTRMNTR and David Holmes' Bow Down to the Exit Sign.

How about the One Dove album as a sequel to Screamadelica?

surely the sequel to XTRMNTR is Evil Heat?

XTRMNTR was already kind of a sequel to Vanishing Point.

Dan Lissvik’s 7Trx & Taken By Trees - East of Eden

why are you all so bad at this?

Talk Talk "Spirit of Eden" and "Laughingstock"

see Duke's post a week ago!

ah sorry I was control+f'ing Talk Talk

Boston --> Don't Look Back