What Came Next...

Episode 35: The Georgia Satellites - Open All Night

After scoring a number two hit with "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" in 1986 the public were quick to write off the Georgia Satellites as a one-hit wonder novelty act.  There was much more to them, as evidenced on their 1988 album Open All Night, but the ran into typical audience and radio indifference to their sound. 

Episode 34: Arch Enemy - Anthems of Rebellion

Arch Enemy's addition of Angela Gossow on vocals for their 2000 album Wages of Sin was revolutionary at the time.  No other death metal band had a female singer, and Gossow certainly proved that she could scream and growl with the best.  Problem is, although she contributed, Arch Enemy is the baby of guitarist Michael Amott, and when he finds something that works he is more than happy to keep going back to the well. 

Episode 33: Kansas - Monolith

Kansas, after working hard for years, finally had a top-five hit with "Dust in the Wind" from their 1977 album Point of Know Return.  Thinking it was time to move away from the progressive sound they had nurtured over the course of their career, they went about producing Monolith themselves, pursuing a more commercial sound.  

Episode 32: The Cars - Candy-O

The Cars was a successful debut album, containing a list of songs that played like a new wave best-of.  Candy-O, the follow-up, sold even more, despite not all the songs being up to the same level as the debut.  They still managed to turn out a solid second record, something few new wave and punk bands were able to do. 

Episode 31: Rush - A Farewell to Kings

2112 proved to be the album that Rush needed to save their contract with Mercury Records.  The follow-up, A Farewell to Kings, was even more ambitious.  Challenging themselves in different ways and fully integrated synthesizers into their sound, the Canadian trio produced one of their most complex, but overlooked, albums. 

Episode 30: Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Works Volume 1

After releasing their best album, 1973's Brain Salad Surgery, Emerson, Lake and Palmer embarked on a world tour, followed by a much-needed break.  When they returned they did so with the double album Works Volume 1, featuring one side each of solo material and one side as a band.  To say it was spotty is an understatement, and more than anything highlighted a group that was becoming tired of working together. 

Episode 29: The B-52’s - Wild Planet

"Rock Lobster" quickly became a song that filled dancefloors in the late 1970s and, though it only sold moderately well at the time, The B-52's has become one of the top new wave albums in everyone's collection.  Pressured to get something out fast, the Athens, Georgia band quickly recorded Wild Planet and released it in 1980.  Similar in sound to the first, it outsold the debut.  Unfortunately, it was more of the same, with a lot of great songs but with many of the album tracks lacking. 

Episode 28: Public Image Ltd - The Flowers of Romance

After Public Image Ltd's second album Metal Box (known as Second Edition in the United States) bass player Jah Wobble left.  John Lydon and Keith Levene continued on, with drummer Martin Atkins, for the extremely experimental The Flowers of Romance.  Despite being as non-commercial as possible it was still a modest hit in the UK and a few other places around the world.  It would also be the last album featuring the original band members. 

Episode 27: Dio - Sacred Heart

Dio's first two albums, Holy Diver and The Last in Line, were hard rock classics.  So, why change things up?  If anything, Sacred Heart was a bit poppier, but largely it sounded like the first two, which was both a blessing and a curse.  It would be the last album with Vivian Campbell on guitar, signaling that the band's sound would change a bit for the following record, but not radically. 

Episode 26: R.E.M. - Reckoning

After a critical success with Murmur, R.E.M. again teamed with producers Mitch Easter and Don Dixon for their sophomore effort, Reckoning.  In some ways it was more of the same, but a slightly rawer, rocking sound became evident as well.