the difficult second Lp

Who could forget Use your illusion I/II...bloated, overproduced 9 min drivel ballads...and those were the good tunes. The Darkness and Wolfmother also laid eggs on sophomore releases.

Television "adventure" really pales next to marquee moon...stooges Funhouse rules!

Big Country made a really unique, powerful LP in "the Crossing" that the time put them ahead of the likes of U2,the Alarm,etc...unfortunately "Steeltown" was a flop in the states... However they did retain their UK audience until their demise. The Alarm went all out with the grossly slick "Eye of the hurricane". Their association with U2 at that point was a liability, as months earlier the Joshua Tree went massive in sales.

Although I tend to disagree..."Regatta de blanc" is widely considered one of the Police's weaker efforts...It does contain contributions other than Sting that always seemed to weigh their records down...case in point..
Synchronicity

REM followed up their seminal "Murmur" with "Reckoning"...and almost eclipsed it IMHO...great songs,simple production=timeless release. Stumbled a bit on "Fables"...but 2 out 3 ain't bad!

This hurts me to say this as a committed fan...but Strange Days is vastly inferior to their debut...I think most Doors fans would agree...and true... they faltered even farther after this...and peaked on the sublime LA women...but "love me two times" seems like a bad parody of "light my fire"...and "when the music is over" is bombastic as "the end"...IMHO ofcourse

The Cars made a near perfect debut that sounded like a greatest hits album..."Candy-O", although far from a stinker, was a noticeable decline in quality... In fact the Cars never made a record as solid as their new wave classic debut...an argument can be made for Cheap Trick as well