What Sophomore Jinx?

I was supposed to write about something serious, again. They serious ones keep getting backed up. Chalk it up to my mood lately. Happiness counteracts ranting like Kool Aid counteracts heat on a Wednesday afternoon in July in the Chi.

Anyway. Second acts. I have some traveling to do this weekend. Going through the ol’ iPod, I started thinking about one of the recording industry’s so called curses: the sophomore jinx. In short, artist releases great debut album, then falls off the second time around. I was thinking this as I was perusing “Have You Heard?” a wonderful blog by an admitted “music junkie.”

There are many who’ve been hit by the sophomore jinx, but the artists that dodged that bullet dodged it brilliantly. Scrolling through my album lists, I wondered about the number of artists present whose second album actually put their first in the dust.

Let’s see. “For You” had nothing on His Royal Purpleness’ self-titled follow up. “I Wanna Be Your Lover” is still one of the funkiest feel-goods of all time, and gave us a glimpse of what was to come. My main man Lenny’s (Mr. Kravitz to ya’ll) “Let Love Rule” was heartfelt, but “Mama Said” told it all. Trust me. A divorce will cause you to write some soul-searching material, if only to pay the legal bills. Lenny got that part. “The Score” rightfully overshadowed Pras, Wyclef and Lauren’s “Blunted on Reality”. Did ya’ll know that was supposed to be Pras’ group? Man, he got the short end on that one. Anyway, I count “The Score” as Lauren’s first real breakout as an artist, and that disc was crushed by her next project, “Miseducation”. We won’t even discuss Maxwell. Michael D’Angelo Archer angers me to no end with this two-album-every-decade silliness. The second studio album, “Voodoo”, however, outpaces “Brown Sugar’s” fun brilliance. It should. Took five years to make. Stay outta rehab, man. Messes up the timing.

Rap has its sophomore jinx busters as well. I love Chuck and Company, but “Yo! Bum Rush the Show” was light years behind its younger brother, “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.” To the G.O.A.T: Bigger and Deffer. Album Number Two. No more need be said. Debbie Mathers’ little boy, Marshall, displayed some talent on his commercial debut, “The Slim Shady LP”. That talent couldn’t hold a candle to the subsequent Marshall Mather’s LP’s explosion of wittiness and flow that left at least one 30-something farther spittin’ “Then you wonder how can kids eat up these albums like valiums, It's funny; cause at the rate I'm going when I'm thirty, I’ll be the only person in the nursing’ home flirting…” that’s not a lyric. That’s a life goal.

I firmly believe that the west coast produced rap’s first super group. Super lyricist. Super producer. Super writer. Super comic foil. That being said, “NWA and the Posse” was a waste of talent. Capes must have been on backwards, or something. ‘Straight Outta Compton”, however, gave even pretend thugs the idea they could tell the police where to go and leap tall buildings in a single bound while explaining the obvious about women who are out for the money. When the super writer departed, his initial solo release led to a lyrical feud that basically pushed his even better sophomore offering, “Death Certificate”, into the stratosphere. If you don’t count the treacherous “NWA and the Posse” (how they get that many curls on one page?), “Compton’s” commercial follow up, “Efil4zaggin”, made it clear the lyricist, producer and foil could do just fine without the writer. The battle was pretty even until the latter turned his writing abilities to movies. Music is long lasting. Characters like Big Worm are eternal.

Jazz is such a mind-blowing art form that I don’t think the jinx applies to it. I liked “Gumbo Nouveau” better than “From this Moment”, though both are good albums. The Marsalis kid that plays the trumpet? His sophomore effort, in my opinion, is his migration to Blue Note records, where I feel he has swung with more vibe than he did on many of his Columbia recordings. On Columbia, it’s like he wanted to let us all know, “This is jazz.” With Blue Note, he’s saying, “Yeah, I can play. Recognize!” Most jazz musicians apprentice with other bands before becoming leaders of their own, so the jinx does not apply. So much growth and development occurs over time in trying to master this art form that a jazzman’s musical life span is so much longer than a pop musician’s. By and large, the jinx doesn’t apply.

The second go ‘round. Depending on the artist, the talent and the dedication, there is no such thing as the sophomore jinx. There’s just music that sounds even better once the artist has knocked off some of his rough edges and comes back for another try.