10 Biggest Sophomore Slumps In Music History
2. Fairweather Johnson - Hootie and the Blowfish
Any good debut album tends to feel like an albatross hanging around the neck of the artist. Even though you may have some of the greatest songs at your disposal, there's only that much more pressure for your next record to be an even better version of your original sound. When you didn't have that much star power to begin with though, you get something like Fairweather Johnson.
That's not even to say that this is an entirely bad record, with most of the songs being the same trademark rootsy rock that you come to Hootie and the Blowfish for. No...the reason why this failed is because it couldn't hold a candle to Cracked Rearview. Given how many bulletproof songs gained radio play from their first album, it was almost expected for this thing to fail, with songs like Tucker's Town feeling like they were treading water before the proper album was even released.
It also doesn't help that you can tell they were trying to recapture the old magic a little too much, given that the lead single Old Man and Me was one of the songs that was on their original demo that didn't make the cut for Cracked Rearview. Compared to the usual flameout records that result from getting too big too quick, Fairweather Johnson may be the one record that had the quickest diminished returns for a mainstream rock band.