10 Rockbands Whose Follow-Up To Their Biggest Album Was A Flop

What does it take to be labeled as a flop album? The pressure you get from creating a follow-up after releasing one of the greatest songs/albums of all time, that’s frightening. All of a sudden, these prominent artists have found themselves in a bit of a bad situation— whether or not they have achieved to surpass that dilemma is beyond the topic of this discussion, so we’ll just take a look at the following bands and solo artists who experienced commercial flop following the predecessor album’s success.

 

REO Speedwagon

Hi Infidelity was REO Speedwagon’s artistic peak. But the growing emergence of MTV and New Wave suddenly washed their popularity among the people. The follow-up, Good Trouble was in fact, big trouble for them to succeed.

Semisonic

Feeling Strangely Fine became Semisonic’s first platinum album thanks to their iconic hit “Closing Time.” Unfortunately, the follow-up release of that album, All About Chemistry, was a huge step-down, prompting the group to break up.

Supertramp

Breakfast in America was Supertramp’s answer to worldwide fame, claiming a lot of their popularity in the US. But it seemed like the follow-up 7^th album entitled …famous last words… to their ever-successful 6^th, was a commercial failure.

Daryl Hall and John Oates

Hall and Oates gave their all and seemed to have paid their dues when they successfully released their 1984 album, Big Bam Boom. Several years later, after a few other artistic ventures, the group got together again to release their 13^th album, Ooh Yeah! which didn’t receive a lot of attention from many.

Kool & the Gang

Celebrate good times, come on! Kool & the Gang sure did receive a lot of praise because of their legendary “Celebration” single. A string of success came from their Emergency album where the single can be found. But later on, the follow-up Forever album didn’t even reach a quarter of sales to the previous album.

Meat Loaf

Meat Loaf showed everybody how to rock hard and heavy with his Bat Out Of Hell album. For 45 million copies sold, you could practically see jaws dropping with how massive this album was. Yet, for its follow-up entitled Dead Ringer, it was way too far from the previous album’s success. Fortunately for him, Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell did gave him a marvelous comeback.

Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac’s success catapulted all thanks to the miracle wonders of their album Rumours. Yet, like most of the artists here, their comeback album Tusk didn’t achieve good results and sold only about a tenth compared to the previous album.

Queen

Queen is well-known for its iconic songs and albums. Following the success of their album The Game, the group had a hard time making new hits after they released their Flash Gordon soundtrack and Hot Space album. Comparing the latter to its predecessors, it’s not much of a hit one.

David Bowie

Legendary David Bowie wasn’t a newbie to the ups and downs of the music scene. Let’s Dance was his peak-Bowie album until Tonight came and ruin it. Although, the follow-up album did go achieve its platinum status.

Pink Floyd

How could you possibly follow up on the hugeness that is The Dark Side of The Moon? Thank heavens, we have Wish You Were Here and The Wall to thank for that. But the so-called The Final Cut didn’t even receive a lot of commerciality during its time. But some people would later argue that the group didn’t bother to create hit songs at this point, only releasing the album merely as an afterthought.