Releasing a classic album is both a blessing and a curse for a musician. It may feel great to have created something that people love, but you're also faced with the massive pressure of following it up. Some artists are able to follow their classics with more classics, but most of the time these follow-up albums are seen as disappointments. These five albums had the misfortune of being released after classics, but are much better than they're given credit for.
1. Pink Floyd - A Saucerful of Secrets (1968)
The only Pink Floyd studio album to feature both original guitarist Syd Barrett and his eventual replacement David Gilmour is 1968's A Saucerful of Secrets, the follow-up to the band's classic debut The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Because of Barrett's minimal input into the album (he wrote just one song and played on three), it's often seen as a lesser, transitional album in Pink Floyd's discography. Though it may not be as explosively vibrant as the debut, A Saucerful of Secrets is where the dark atmosphere of the band's later album took shape, with "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" and the title track being stellar precursors of the space rock genre.
2. Green Day - Insomniac (1995)
Green Day is one of the rare examples of an indie band that actually improved after signing to a major label, though many fans cite the band's major label debut Dookie as its last (or even only) great album. However, Green Day's 1995 follow-up Insomniac is just as good, despite the fact that it's often seen as an obvious step down. Though it's a valid criticism that Green Day didn't progress musically between the two albums, Insomniac is more streamlined and concise, not to mentioned that "Stuck With Me," "Geek Stink Breath," "86," and "Walking Contradiction" being among the band's best songs.
3. Sunny Day Real Estate - Sunny Day Real Estate (1995)
If Rites of Spring invented emo in the mid-80s, Sunny Day Real Estate perfected and popularized it in 1994 with its debut album Diary. The band followed this up with a self-titled album in 1995, also known as LP2 or "The Pink Album," and though loved by the band's die-hard fans, it's often held in lower regard than Diary or the band's third album How It Feels To Be Something On. Despite this consensus, "The Pink Album" might actually be Sunny Day Real Estate's best overall. It may not have any songs as beloved as "Seven" or "In Circles," but it's a leaner, more consistent, and more structurally inventive album than Diary.
4. Captain Beefheart - Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970)
It may not be fair to call Captain Beefheart's Lick My Decals Off, Baby underrated, since it received excellent reviews, but it is undoubtedly overshadowed by its monster predecessor Trout Mask Replica, despite the fact that it's the stronger album. Though inaccessibility is not a negative trait by any means, Trout Mask Replica is aggressively inaccessible, both in terms of content and its intimidating 77-minute running time. Lick My Decals Off, Baby takes Beefheart's mind-warping avant-garde blues and makes it slightly more palatable, mostly by shrinking the running time to 39 minutes, which is as much Captain Beefheart as the average person should take in at once.
5. The Jesus and Mary Chain - Darklands (1987)
The Jesus and Mary Chain's Psychocandy is undoubtedly one of the greatest albums of the '80s, and one of the most extreme, ear-shredding pop albums ever recorded, but it's not the only great album the band ever made. 1987's Darklands is another classic of '80s pop, and though it may be more conventional than Psychocandy, its lack of guitar noise puts the songwriting front and center where it can be appreciated best.
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