Album sequels

Suedehead

Suedehead

No Angel Came
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Madonna is reportedly planning on releasing a sequel to 2005's Confessions On A Dance Floor, about twenty years after its release.

This has made me think about other sequel records.

Which ones have been really good (maybe even better than the original), and which ones were turds?

I'll open the conversation with Neil Young's Harvest Moon - which is probably my favourite album of his. This was a sequel to Harvest, also released I think about 20 years before Harvest Moon was issued in 1992. I think he captured the same themes explored in Harvest - but this time from a different vantage point.





(And also: how great is it that we now have Neil Young and Joni Mitchell back on Spotify!)
 
Whether it's good or not does, I guess, depend on whether you like Meat Loaf & Jim Steinman's OTT epics - personally I have to be in the mood, but if so I'll get swept up in the ridiculous DRAMA OF IT ALL. This is surely, however, the most successful example of an album sequel.

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I'm a big J.Lo apologist, but a sequel to an album nobody really remembered all that fondly, in service of a relationship that broke down months later and accompanied by a truly bizarre movie. You really don't get crash and burn vanity projects of this magnitude very often. :disco:

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Artpop act 2, should it ever happen, will win this category.

Also, does Pop 2 (as a sequel to Number 1 Angel) count for Charli XCX?
 
Do Robyn's Body Talks count?

I love Call Your Girlfriend, but absolutely loathe the lyrics. I don't think she's singing as the new girl, but it's so feeble and fuck-you to anyone giving me that advice when The Tamperer's Feel It provides the much better suggestion.
 
Little Wild One (2008) reunited Osborne with her Relish (1995) collaborators. It's the far better album, but sadly no One of Us radio hit (although the cover of Cathedrals is gorgeous). I'd call this a sequel.

 
The 3rd in a trilogy, the more songful of the sequels and Set Me Free is an ultra gorge.



Obviously the peaks on the first soar so high and is where I'd recommend going first.
 
Largely rubbish



Although apparently it was originally conceived as a double album with the original Load
 
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Clock's About Time 2 was a mixed bag containing hits from the first album with a number of 60s covers with no Ten to Two remixes. You needed to buy the singles for those. Also, the fact that Pete Prichard was revealed to be a rude queen by @aquaplex dampened the memories.

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Neo-soul had two massive sequel albums





Both were originally part of a trilogy concept and both have never seen the release of a third - Badu seems to have largely moved on from the project but Maxwell continues to hint at a third.

Maxwell’s is an another strong album from someone who isn’t capable of a dud album but it’s a definite step down from the first, which truly felt conceptual and had a massive R&B hit in “Pretty Wings”.

Both Amerykah Parts 1 and 2 are exceptional - I prefer the first slightly but I think the internet largely prefers the second. Both were a shift away from the rootsy raw early albums and the retro sounds of Worldwide into a more experimental, diverse and creative mix of genres with electronic and psychedelic influences, and strong political narratives. I can’t remember which one and I can’t remember which song, but it’s also the first time I heard the word ‘woke’ used in popular culture. Almost 20 years ago.
 


This was a conscious effort to return to his politically charged themes from the classic debut Illmatic, after a late 90s shift into gangsta rap to target a more mainstream audience had seen him lose ground with critics. His debut was such a monumental album (the greatest hip-hop album ever outside of ATCQ in my opinion) that he suffered from the pressures of expectation in the years following, and while Stillmatic is nowhere near as good, it did put him back in favour with the critics, made him culturally relevant again, and put him back on the path to legendary status.
 
Streisand reunited with Barry Gibb for a sequel to her best-selling studio album

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I love a bit of Night of my Life :disco:

 
I hope Madonna channels that energy for the Confessions II press :disco:
 
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