20 Watts

With bands like Vampire Weekend and Arctic Monkeys making mediocre follow-up albums, will the same happen to Fleet Foxes?

Vampire Weekend just came out with a new single “Cousins” — and what a disappointing pile of shit! You’d figure that after making their debut album with so many great tunes, they’d be bound to make a more brilliant follow-up album. Unfortunately, with “Cousins” it sounds like the sun just rose on a Monday morning for this skeleton crew. To be fair, Vampire Weekend are not the only band that seem to be facing this problem. Throughout the decade a whole lot of new Indie bands with brilliant debut albums have been popping up—where they have barely been able to create a worthy-enough follow up.

The list goes on and on with bands and artists that got their big break this decade on both sides of the pond. In Britain, bands like The Libertines and Arctic Monkeys each released debut albums that were universally adored by critics and new fans alike: Up The Bracket and Whatever People Say I Am, That Is What I Am Not—the latter of which is currently the UK’s fastest-selling debut album (note:  Britain’s Got Talent star Susan Boyle recently topped this accolade with her I Dreamed a Dream album). Nevertheless, these two bands–led by the apparent songwriting genius’ Pete Doherty and Alex Turner – never seem to have been able to top their debuts with their later works. Even the most recent Arctic Monkey’s release Humbug still sounds more-or-less the same despite the incorporated Americana tinged sound and their longer hair, which I guess is supposed to make them look more mature both personally and musically.

The same has also occurred with North America-based bands. Arcade Fire is a shining example of this… or perhaps more a murkily shining example — since their brilliant debut is entitled Funeral. Nearly every single track on the album is unique in its own way with rich, atmospheric mix of instruments and especially the songwriting. From the quietly swaying “Crown of Love” to the mildly-demented rocker “Neighborhood # 3 (Power Out)” to the uplifting “Wake Up,” this band of Canadians probably created the best album of the decade. Unfortunately, this would make it nearly impossible for them top their debut–as they would release Neon Bible –an album which did have its charm but nowhere near the inspired power of Funeral.

The Fleet Foxes are currently facing this conundrum. With their impeccably produced and written self-titled debut album and their Sun Giant EP, the band no doubt recognizes that these works will probably be the bane of their music career. The Fleet Foxes album is just as good, if not better, than Arcade Fire’s debut. However, it is clear that there has been no report of their recording a new album’s worth of material, despite their performing new songs on their seemingly never-ending tour. Fortunately the band seems to acknowledge this with their cautious approach, as they have stated in their latest MySpace blog entry that they won’t be recording for a while. With this in mind, I have faith that this band will somehow be able to successfully reinvent themselves and pull off another brilliant album –unlike the aforementioned groups.

There is no doubt that fame and the sleazy music industry machine, as well as the over-exposure these groups get because of our era of YouTube,have led to the follow-up disappointments that these bands have produced. With the immediate fame that comes with making a classic debut, the hunger to continue pushing the musical boundaries is gone. There are little-known bands out there with followings that should be bigger like Rubblebucket, who, through constant touring and writing of new songs have proven to be constantly growing musically and performance-wise. This is something all the great artists have done ranging from Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd to guys like Radiohead and Wilco.

Great artists start out decent and then they develop and become great.

–Charlie Weeks