The Sophomore Curse

Many an artist have come bursting onto the music scene and taken the world by storm. They each have catchy singles and quickly gain a following big enough to warrant an album by that artist. The album does better than expected and prompts the artist to be the opening act on a marquee national and possibly a world tour. The tour is a huge success and this new artists went from nothing to something in a a little less than a year. All he/she is think is, "I'm on top of the world!!" The feeling of being somebody is so great that you would do anything to keep. So, you end up creating and promoting a brand new album. This is supposed to be the one that puts you over the top. This is what's gonna keep your name being said by the masses for generations to come!! Too bad the exact opposite happens. Your album drops and so do you. Your sales are worse than Gigli and you have nothing to show for yourself except what you just put out. In most industries, you are only as good as your last installment. Too bad your last installment will actually be your last.

There are plenty of explanations as to why the second album almost never reaches the success of the first, but I'm only going to touch on what I can remember at this point and time. Keep in mind that I am completely exhausted when writing this so it might not make much sense. I'll try to keep it as coherent as possible.

The first is the most obvious in my mind. You have to remember that the average person has a very short attention span. This means that getting people to pay attention to your debut is an achievement in itself. The second album is supposed to re-kindle a spark that just went out after they got bored and it didn't even come close to lighting. Bottom line, the public got sick of you. That's why you album didn't sell

The second is also pretty clear. The debut single for the album absolutely sucked! It's pretty obvious that if you do not have a good start, your finish is gonna be just as bad or worse. If you put out a crappy single, people will assume that the rest of your tracks are terrible. The rest of the LP is probably really good, but you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. My advice, get a few more ears to figure out a first track. Don't just trust your best friend or baby-momma's cousin. More than likely they'll just tell you what you want to hear instead of the truth.

Third is a complete lack of promotion for yourself. I know you have people to do that kind of stuff for you, but sometimes those people suck at what they do. The one thing that every person can do is talk about themselves and what they do. How do you think I get people to read this blog? I promote myself the best I can by using other sites, but it's mostly by word of mouth. (BTW, thank you to everyone who visits. It's all appreciated). You have to remember that you are the artist and you have control over what happens to you. If you want things to be successful, take charge and make it happen for yourself.

That's all I can think of right now. If you have any other reasons that I missed, drop an email my way. I promise I'll respond.

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