The “difficult third album” syndrome. Did it ever really exist? The idea was, a band would labour away for however long it took to put its first album out, gathering together a collection of songs drawn from a fairly well-developed list. Then the second album was kind of easy: the songs followed from the first bunch of songs, may even have been left over from the first album. It often happened, though, that the second album would be somehow more serious, or darker in tone. Or something. Think “Secondhand Daylight”, think “Heaven Up Here”, think “17 Seconds”. (Don’t think “Closer”: there being no third album, no pattern of development could be retrospectively discovered.)
But by then, or so the theory went, the well was dry. Perhaps the second album was not as well received as the first, or, if the band was English, maybe the inevitable critical backlash had taken hold. What to do? You could perhaps imagine Franz Ferdinand in this position right about now. Or the Strokes. Or even, if you imagined for one minute that they cared about such things as fans, Liars.
But was the third album actually “difficult”? The Ramones didn’t think so: they just kept doing what they had already honed to a sharp point. Magazine put out their best album (and thereafter kind of faded). The Clash threw out the rule book and produced “London Calling”, to this day a breath of fresh air from the first chord of the title track to the last note of the “special hidden mystery track”. Talking Heads chose a radical new direction, having saved all the darkness for their third album (which itself would, in retrospect, be seen as a period of transition, but which was at the time a stunning creative departure). (This last example may suggest that the success or otherwise of the third album can only be seen through the rear-view mirror; but isn’t that true of any band’s career arc, be it third or thirteenth album?)
The point, if there is one, is that the “difficulty” of the third album may have been that of the band concerned, wondering whether they should find a new corner to turn, or whether to give the punters more of what they fancy. None of the third albums mentioned above are necessarily “difficult” (and obviously the list could be extended exponentially if one’s brain was functioning better). But it seems to me that there is something to it, from the fan’s point of view. Third albums often do seem to be awaited with nervous trepidation. The fan has invested so much in the first two albums and fears that investment will be thrown away if the band tanks at the third hurdle. Or the second album hasn’t quite delivered on the promise of the first, and all bets are off until further progress is shown.
All of this was mulled over by me in the shower as I was thinking about David Mitchell’s “Cloud Atlas”. This is Mitchell’s third novel. Close readers of this journal will recall that I very much enjoyed his first two novels, and I have a feeling I held him out as being the New Thing vis a vis British novelists. Anyway, I was excited about “Cloud Atlas”, but also anxious, much as I remember feeling before The Cure dropped “Faith”. And I have to say, my feeling, one-third into “Cloud Atlas”, is that Mitchell has succumbed to Difficult Third Novel syndrome. He is certainly no slouch with the language, and has no shortage of stories to tell. But my overall impression at this point is that what we have here is an exercise in creative writing that has grown into a novel that it has no right to be. It may well be that the labyrinthine, Russian-doll plot strands will tie themselves together, but I fear that I might be wondering by then what the purpose of it all was. This reader’s expectations have been confounded. Which may have been the author’s purpose. Difficult third albums can be used to that end. Shake off the shackles of a “following” and strike out afresh next time. (Liars come to mind again, although they did it with their second album.) But an album takes forty-five minutes to listen to (or used to, before bands succumbed to CD Bloat - although that trend seems to have been profitably reversed in more recent years) and a book, especially a long one, takes (at least for a slow reader like me) a damn sight longer than that. The punishment needs to be rewarded. (Whereas an extended-middle-finger musical statement can be more easily forgiven.) The rewards of “Cloud Atlas” are taking a little too long to reveal themselves.
(And finally: now that serious music nerds - like myself - are almost unbilically connected to favourite bands or to communities discussing/analysing/arguing over said bands, and music distribution, at least for said nerds, comes down more and more to individual songs (and to seemingly infinite remixes of individual songs, often raising the question of what exactly is “the song” and what the stand-alone status of a “remix” might be), albums themselves are starting to be revealed as the historical, artificial construct they have, in reality, always been, so that if there ever was a “difficult third album” syndrome, it may have vanished into the ether.
