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The album after major commercial success


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Level 42: World Machine (1985) - 2× Platinum; Running In The Family (1987) - 2× Platinum; Staring At The Sun (1988) - Gold.

All three very different sounding albums - commercially succesful. All within the space of three years.. and a considerable change in line up.

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1 minute ago, SimonEdward said:

Level 42: World Machine (1985) - 2× Platinum; Running In The Family (1987) - 2× Platinum; Staring At The Sun (1988) - Gold.

All three very different sounding albums - commercially succesful. All within the space of three years.. and a considerable change in line up.

Running In The Family and Staring At The Sun remind me of late 80’s drives in my dads green Volvo 340GL

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9 minutes ago, SimonEdward said:

Level 42: World Machine (1985) - 2× Platinum; Running In The Family (1987) - 2× Platinum; Staring At The Sun (1988) - Gold.

All three very different sounding albums - commercially succesful. All within the space of three years.. and a considerable change in line up.

Three very good albums, but for me World Machine is the one where Level 42 went stratospheric. 

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Just now, spectoremg said:

Three very good albums, but for me World Machine is the one where Level 42 went stratospheric. 

Yes - agreed! World Machine was the 1st album I bought on vinyl back in 1985. Of these three, it's my favourite - the writing, musicianship and production is just a cut above the other two..

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I was thinking about Dire Straits pre Brothers in Arms, but just looked at the figures and was surprised. I was going to suggest Making Movies as being the breakthrough album (yes, I know Sultans was an iconic single, but MM seemed to have been the album that lifted them to the next level). However, the following album, Love Over Gold was actually more successful, and was their first number 1.

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ELO did it on a couple of successive albums.

A New World Record and then Out of the Blue were very successful and epitomise the violins and cello orchestral pop ELO sound everyone thinks about when you think ELO...

...then they released "Discovery"  - or "Disco-Very", their first No 1 album which had a very different sound but was also very successful with many hit singles.

AND THEN they released their last big hit album "Time", also a No 1 album, which largely ditched the strings-based/disco-tinged sound for a much more synth/electro tinged flavour. 

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7 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

Def Lep - Pyromania was massive (everywhere but the UK anyway), and then Hysteria was even more massive and was very different.

I nearly went with that very same example. My cousin is from Texas and she came over here in 1983 with Pyromania and introduced a 10yr old me to rock music. It sold something like 6 million copies which is huge but yet eclipsed by the later sales of Hysteria. None of my friends at school had heard of them but by the time Animal came out in the summer of '87 they were a household name. A very different story back in the US.

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11 hours ago, ClassicVibes said:

Radiohead - OK Computer > Kid A. 

Artistically you could even make that a trio...  The Bends> Ok Computer > Kid A 
I think Kid A was probably the most musically influential on everything that came after it though (and it hardly sold nothing) 

 

 

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18 hours ago, ClassicVibes said:

Ah, the I liked them before they were famous album. 

Most bands I like never really become famous.

However the classic IMO better before they were famous album is Travelogue by The Human League.

And for albums that are better after the best known one, everything the Sneaker Pimps have made post Becoming X has been far superior.

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1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

However the classic IMO better before they were famous album is Travelogue by The Human League.

And for albums that are better after the best known one, everything the Sneaker Pimps have made post Becoming X has been far superior.

Agree on the first one and not the second!

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The Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks, followed by The Great Rock n Roll Swindle. Essentially a great album followed by a pretty mediocre one, that had a few good songs and a lot of stuff imo just bunged in to pad it out.

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