A second bite of the apple…

On Sunday, my sister’s boyfriend Matt came up with an interesting quandary: How many artists can you name whose second band were superior to their first? Discounting High school bands and solo work. It seems a simple proposition at first but it’s actually quite hard to come up with more than one or two. The most obvious one (to me at least) would be Josh Homme as Queens of the Stone Age are generally agreed to be better than Kyuss. I timidly suggested New Order but was quickly shouted down by the rest of the room and, to be honest, I prefer Joy Division but was trying to play Devil’s Advocate.

I’ve run the quandary around in my head for the past few days thinking it would make a pretty good subject for a blog and trying to define the parameters of what qualifies as a second band. Bands which keep the same core line-up but simply change their name (Kaiser Chiefs, White Lies…) can’t really be counted. But what of bands who change a key member of the line-up? For example, it could be argued that Dio era Black Sabbath is superior to Rainbow but inferior to Ozzy era Black Sabbath so does that count for Dio but not the rest of the band? What about supergroups? The Reindeer Section are better than Snow Patrol but not as good as most of the other bands they borrowed members from. Are Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young better than Buffalo Springfield?

I threw the question open to Twitter this morning and was met by a wave of interesting responses. Almost immediately @martinwolfenden said “Paul McCartney” bringing to mind Alan Partridge’s assertion that Wings were “the band The Beatles could have been!” @majorbisho said that he liked The Seahorses better than The Stone Roses so John Squire was better second time. I think he might be alone on that one but I guess the whole topic is subjective so it’s all a matter of opinion.

@mrs_kensington pointed out that Garbage was, in fact, Shirley Manson’s third band but I would counter that the relative lack of success of her first two bands would possibly invoke the “high school bands” rule. @handofglory pointed out that in the 60s a great number of bands tended to mix and match members using Deep Purple as an example. @PhilthD suggested Eyes Adrift for all members except Krist Novoselic, Elastica (good call!) and that you could make a case for A Perfect Circle. @cripesonfriday said “it’s all about personal taste but I’d say Bobby Gillespie and Mani both went to better bands with Primal Scream.” and I have to say I’d agree with him on both counts. But what do you think?

As I pointed out to @multiclassgeek this morning, I want this blog to be a starting point for debate rather than a definitive list of ‘whose second band was better.’ What I would like to know is if there’s any bands about which there is a general consensus. So let me know your thoughts. If you’re sat there thinking “This guy’s an idiot. OBVIOUSLY Mike & The Mechanics are superior to Genesis!” Then drop me a line: gordy@theoutdoortypes.co.uk or @GordyODT on Twitter. I shall compile the responses at a later date.

Gordy x

P.S. Mike & The Mechanics are NOT superior to Genesis.

It Is The Mercy is available on LP, with FREE mp3 download, from www.iblametheparentsrecords.com and can also be heard on Spotify.