Whether it’s actually real or not, the ‘sophomore slump’ is certainly a well-discussed trend in musical offerings. It’s that gap between a band’s stunning debut and its lackluster follow-up, and according to a new study, it’s very real.
To start, the people at Concert Hotels pulled from the “100 Best Debut Albums of All Time” list that Rolling Stone released in 2013. They took the rating statistic for those albums, provided by Album Of The Year, and compared the scores of the debut and sophomore album for each listed. Now, this method may be a little biased, considering they started with the 100 Best Debut Albums list, but the results show that 66% of artists had a higher score on their first album than their second.
There were some that increased, including The Talking Heads, Run DMC, and The Beastie Boys, but the majority of them did decrease in rating. You can view the results yourself with this interactive widget below:
Click image to open interactive version (via Concert Hotels).