10 Rock Bands That Completely Avoided The Sophomore Slump
3. Iowa - Slipknot
It goes without saying that most record executives want to get more radio-friendly singles out of the second album. While most first albums might be a shot in the dark on the part of the band, the second album is where you tend to get everything cleaned up and songs start to sound much more commercial. In Slipknot's case though, you throw that out the window and go even heavier.
Even on their first record, Slipknot was definitely not for the faint of heart, with songs like Wait and Bleed and Spit it Out providing the backbone for the controlled chaos they would become. On Iowa, the 9 double down on the heavier side of things, with songs that are more concerned with beating the snot out of you rather than make you sing along. Across songs like People = Sh*t and Left Behind, everything is dialed up to 10, as the group tries to shake the entire Earth to the ground.
That's before you even get to the lyrics from Corey Taylor, which deal with everything from mental health to suicide to even making nice with a corpse on the haunting final track. Though something this unholy shouldn't really belong on the charts, the pulse of the Maggots led to it reaching the top of Billboard in no time. For as amazing as it is, this is not an album you're designed to enjoy. This is an album that you let wash over and hopefully you'll survive the experience.