I’ve dabbled in screenwriting for many years, and one of the things I became aware of early on is the standard progression of screenplay drafts. Your first draft is usually a mess. But there is an organic energy that unifies it. It all comes out of a singular mindset. The second draft, after everyone and his lawyer weigh in on the first draft, does usually fix some of the first draft problems, but it also does harm.
With so many voices, the draft plays like a shapeless mishmash of ideas and perspectives. Second drafts often constitute a necessary step backward in order to ultimately move forward. You move forward on the third draft. You have worked through the problems, tried different solutions, and figured out what makes things better and what doesn’t. You have incorporated outside perspectives and your voice is once again organic. The third draft, in many cases, is where things tend to get a lot better.
I have this theory that musical acts function the same way. Not all the time, of course. But the pattern holds true a lot. The first album is energetic and organic. The second is a bit of a hash. The third album leaps forward.
Ten 1960s and 1970s bands whose third albums changed their lives
I developed this idea when writing about a couple of major artists recently. Specifically, it was in a soon-to-be-published piece about the Offspring’s third album Smash, which came out the same year as Green Day’s third album Dookie. It also applied to Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic. When I wrote about Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark (her 6th album), I noted that she had taken a big step forward on her third – Ladies of the Canyon – a few years earlier.
I think there’s something to this. Sure, plenty of bands kind of go all in on the first album and climb no higher. Artists as diverse as T Rex, Blood Sweat and Tears, and Joe Jackson did arguably their best work on their first studio releases. The CSN boys actually did it twice – the first time sans Neil Young – and the second time with him. There’s no guarantee here. But it sure seems to happen a lot.
Don’t believe me? Here are some examples, just from the 1960s and ‘70s. Ten third albums which saw some pretty important artists take one giant step forward.
OTIS BLUE/OTIS REDDING SINGS SOUL by Otis Redding (1965)
Otis Redding only released five studio albums prior to his death in 1967. But in his short career, he left an indelible mark. Otis Blue was one of the seminal R&B crossover smashes that made black urban contemporary music one of the dominant threads of the American sound in the 1960s.
On his first two albums, he established a pattern of mixing covers with his own original songs, and he pushed that even further on Otis Blue. It resulted in his first two Top 40 hits on Billboard’s US chart – recordings of his originals “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” and “Respect,” (soon to be made even more famous by Aretha Franklin’s cover.)
He also included three Sam Cooke songs and tunes from Smokey Robinson and B.B. King. Most importantly for his crossover appeal, he did a fabulous bluesy take on the Stones' “Satisfaction,” backed up by Donald “Duck” Dunn’s bass and some great horn blasts from Bowlegs Miller and members of the Mar-Keys and Memphis Horns on sax.
The album would hit number one on the R&B charts and crack the top 100 on Billboard’s main charts. The albums that came after Otis Blue would build on that success.
WE’RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY by The Mothers of Invention (1968)
Frank Zappa’s third album took dead aim at hippie culture. On his “ode” to San Francisco “Who Needs the Peace Corps,” he proclaims “I’m hippy and I’m trippy, I’m a gypsy on my own – I’ll stay a week and get the crabs and take a bus back home – I’m really just a phony but forgive me cause I’m stoned…”
Later, he repurposes The Leaves and Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe” as “Flower Punk.” “Hey punk, where you going with those beads around your neck? – I’m going to the shrink so he can help me be a nervous wreck.”
Nineteen “tracks,” half of which run under 90 seconds, and some which serve as prototypes for the skits that would come to populate hip hop albums twenty-five years later...For the Money was a more coherent concept album than Zappa’s first two. It hit number 30 on the album charts – the Mothers’ highest charting album until their crest in the mid-1970s.
As he would do throughout the rest of his prolific career, Zappa proved you could use satire and experimentation on an album that had at least some popular appeal. On the album notes, one of his bandmates is credited with “mumbled weirdness,” while another is simply listed as “retired.”
A SALTY DOG, by Procol Harum (1969)
In many ways, Procol Harum never surpassed their very first release – “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” which was released as a non-album single in 1967. That’s unfortunate, because a few years later, on A Salty Dog, they created one of the greatest of all prog-rock albums.
Their blending of Gary Brooker’s classical piano with guitarist Robin Trower’s exceptional blues riffs wasn’t exactly unique, but when they hit on the right mix, they just did it better than most. Matthew Fisher’s organ added a special texture, not unlike the way the Band used Garth Hudson’s organ as its secret weapon.
The first three tracks reveal the remarkable breadth. The opening title track is a classically grand epic. It is followed by “The Milk of Human Kindness,” a first-rate blues rocker. Then the lovely orchestral “Too Much Between Us,” softens the tone.
That sets a pattern throughout the ten-song cycle, shifting back and forth between orchestral and blues numbers, and even throwing in a calypso note on “Boredom,” one of the tracks sung by Fisher. A Salty Dog was a bigger hit in the UK and New Zealand than it was in the States. But over the years, it has been recognized as the most complete articulation of the band’s unique sound.
MOONDANCE by Van Morrison (1970)
There are some fans who consider Van Morrison’s second album, Astral Weeks, his true masterpiece. I’m not one of those fans. There is no denying the ambition and the creativity involved in creating Astral Weeks, but it plays to a narrow audience.
Morrison would never give up his love of jazz and free-from song cycles that he played with on Astral Weeks, but the fact is that most of his subsequent career drifted closer to the blues-rock of Them, his first popular band. He really cemented that style with his follow-up, Moondance.
To be sure, there are still plenty of jazzy influences. From the very first cut, “And It Stoned Me,” Morrison is finding ways to blend those jazz influences with more standard pop melodies. It worked.
Moondance rose into the top 30 on the US albums chart, paving the way for a run of top 30 albums throughout the 1970s. Moondance is chockful of great singles, from the impossibly catchy title track to the gossamer beauty of “Crazy Love, from the jazzy “Caravan” to the gospel rock of “Come Running,” these were sophisticated songs that were also popular, a pattern that Morrison would replicate throughout his heyday.
AFTER THE GOLD RUSH by Neil Young (1970)
Just as some people prefer Astral Weeks to Moondance, there are some Neil Young fans who believe his fourth album, Harvest, is his earliest masterpiece. But the album that preceded it is better. Harvest may have Young’s first and only number-one hit (“Heart of Gold”) and a few very good tracks as well, but After the Gold Rush offers the best cocktail of Young’s folk rock impulses (“Tell Me Why,” “Oh, Lonesome Me”) with his more pure rock side (“Southern Man,” “When You Dance I Can Really Love”).
The album also has several songs that make clear just how good of a songwriter he was. The title track is an extraordinarily prophetic song about the environment that has only grown in stature through the years. The slow creep of “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” is extremely evocative.
And “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” is simply a gorgeous love song. After the Gold Rush put Neil Young in the top ten in the US, and was a hit throughout Europe. It also reached number 5 in his native Canada. In fact, After the Gold Rush sold almost ten million units, though far short of Harvest's 23 million.
SAIL AWAY by Randy Newman (1972)
Every record label in the USA was looking for singer/songwriters in the early ‘70s. Carole King’s Tapestry hit number one on the album charts in early 1971 and I believe it has its reservations booked in the top 200 until the dawn of the 23rd century. That might explain this mini-run of third albums by singer/songwriters in the early ‘70s. Randy Newman’s Sail Away will be the last such album.
Newman had achieved great critical success with his first two albums but had yet to really register with the public. Sail Away was only a modest hit when it was released, but its varied styles and moods – from music hall to rock, from satiric to poignant – began to carve out Newman’s reputation as a very sophisticated song stylist.
Playing with standout accompanists like drummer Jim Keltner and slide guitar virtuoso Ry Cooder, Newman created brilliant songs from the opening title track (about the slave trade) to the dirge-like finale “God’s Song (That’s Why I Love Mankind).” Newman explores topics not typically in the purview of pop musicians. Cooder gives a genuine swampy wash to songs like “Last Night I Had a Dream,” and “You Can Leave Your Hat On.” There are lovely trifles like “Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear” and “Dayton, Ohio – 1903.” And there is “Political Science,” which was at one time seen as satiric, but these days might sum a particular strand of American foreign policy rather accurately.
DIXIE CHICKEN by Little Feat (1973)
From Bill Payne’s opening piano motif of the opening title track, you know you are in for something special on Little Feat’s third album. The band had grown out of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, with whom band leader Lowell George had played in the late ‘60s. By the time of the third album, George had decided to expand his sound with the addition of a second guitar player, a second percussionist, and a new bass player. The results were immediate and immediately fantastic.
Dixie Chicken could be funky (“Fat Man in the Bathtub”) or country (“Fool Yourself”). It could serve up haunting blues (“Kiss It Off”). And it could do it all with the best of the specialists in any genre.
Several of the newcomers could sing too, and the band’s harmonic attack took a leap forward as well, bolstered on several Dixie Chicken tracks by the Bonnies...Bramlett and Raitt. Dixie Chicken was not an immediate commercial success, but it clearly set the table for a string of top 40 albums that would follow it. That is until George’s death in Arlington, Virginia due to a heart attack at the end of the decade.
ROCKET TO RUSSIA by Ramones (1977)
Ramones came of age with Rocket to Russia. It was the final album with their original lineup – drummer Tommy moved to the production side of things immediately afterward. The quartet, who were still learning their instruments when they released their debut a year before, had gotten better, and their label, Sire, seeing great potential in the punk rock boom of the late ‘70s, invested more heavily in the production. Consequently, Rocket to Russia simply sounds better than the first two releases.
And the songs were getting better too. ”Rockaway Beach” was an impossibly catchy homage to their home. “Sheena Was a Punk Rocker” sounded like the Beach Boys but painted a sharp portrait of the type of fan the boys from California rarely encountered. Certainly not while surfing. Maybe while crowd surfing. “Teenage Lobotomy” is an outright anthem about...see if you can guess. “Guess I’ll have to break the news – That I’ve got no mind to lose.”
Those are some highlights, but all 14 of its tracks (in just over 30 minutes) are fast and fun. The album cracked the top 50 in the US and produced the band’s first (and only) charting singles on the mainstream charts. Rocket to Russia was an early indication that punk rock could be clever and well-produced and that it was a genre that had the potential to reach out from inner-city barrooms into suburban basements and become something of a mainstream force.
PARALLEL LINES by Blondie (1978)
If you had to label Blondie in its earliest days, you would probably call them a punk band. They certainly had the pedigree, sound, and attitude. But they were a lot more than that – mixing everything from disco to metal, all with a healthy pop sensibility. It all came together on their third album, with its iconic black & white cover, and a whole bunch of...well, parallel lines.
It begins with a telephone buzzing, quickly followed by Debbie Harry’s insistent vocals and Clem Burke’s crashing drums. We are off and running with “Hanging on the Telephone.” The seductive “One Way or Another” follows it, and the lovely “Picture This” follows that. By this point, you begin to realize that Blondie, circa 1978, is incapable of failing to record hits.
OK, they weren’t all hits. But Blondie was saving its monster breakthrough for the end of the album. “Heart of Glass” was a hit in discos and soared to the top of the charts in the US, as well as in the UK, Canada, Germany, and Australia. The album was also a top 10 hit all over the world.
Mike Chapman, who wrote a string of glam pop classics with Nicky Chinn throughout the ‘70s, deserves a lot of credit for tightening the band’s sound without sacrificing any of their raw energy while serving as producer – though the band reportedly wanted to kill him during the recording.
LONDON CALLING by The Clash (1979)
Full disclosure: I think London Calling is the greatest rock and roll album ever recorded. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. The fourth side of the double album is just a bit redundant. But greatness doesn’t equal perfection. What is captured on London Calling is so monumental that it dwarfs any minor flaws.
The album was produced by the legendary Brit Guy Stevens, with assistance from the entire band when his alcohol and drug problems would put him out of commission for a while. Those demons would take Stevens’ life a few years later, but what he and the Clash created at Wessex Studios looms as large today as it did in 1979.
Punk, with its ska and reggae overtones, explores politics and romance, and the restless energy of youth on the edge. The guitars cut like a blade. The drums are explosive. The bass pummels. Joe Strummer’s voice is among the most urgent in all of rock & roll. London Calling was not a big hit, except in Scandinavia, where they seem to hear this type of music with better ears than we do in the rest of the world. But it set up the next couple of hits for the band before they called it quits due to exhaustion in 1986. Each of their six studio albums left a mark. None was bigger than their third.