the lumberyard debut album theory

I was listening to the new Dave Matthews Band CD this morning on the way to work, which I purchased recently. My opinion so far boils down to this. It's good. I like it. It's still no Under the Table and Dreaming or Crash. I like what I'm hearing, but there's no #41/Say Goodbye here, or Jimi Thing. Those early albums (and the songs I mentioned specifically) continue to be my favorites. It's the same story when Springteen puts out new music. For me, the first three albums were Bruce's best. Maybe that has more to do with where I was at the time and the nostalgia factor, but nothing he's done since Greetings, The Wild, The Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle or Born to Run does for me what those three still do. Rosalita is still, for my money, the best Bruce song ever. Elton John. Give me Madman Across the Water any day. Boston had nothing but sound alikes after their debut album which is why some of you born in the eighties are saying, "Who?".

So we get to the lumberyard theory of music. Of the above examples, Boston is probably the one that fits the theory best, and most bands who do have melted away from the collective memory. This theory doesn't explain or fit all bands. In fact, Dave Matthews and Bruce are examples of people/bands who managed to break the theory to some extent, in that they have been successful over time. I still contend they fit the theory because the early stuff is still the best. The lumberyard debut album theory struggles to answer the question, "Why do so many bands second albums disappoint," or "why do I always like the early stuff better." Really it's just a piece of common sense.

Think of the life of a band. A few people get together and start playing music. First they play songs from bands they like. Then they get good enough at that to play in bars. They play covers for a living and on the side they start writing their own stuff. Then they start throwing their own stuff into sets in front of people and some get rave reviews. Others get panned. Over the next few years though, they put together a good 10 or 20 songs that the regulars where they play have helped them filter out as their best efforts. So far, we're probably 5 or 6 years into the process. Then they get brave and put two or three of the best ones on a demo tape and start shopping it around, and someone takes a flier on them. They head for the studio and in about six months they have a debut album in stores. It's made up of the best stuff they have to date, because they want to put their best foor forward. They have their first hit single and smile hearing themselves on the radio, followed by a second single and they're on the cover of People magazine and mom's asking who the half naked girl is in their video on MTV and they're touring, backing up U2, and they have some roadie filtering out the green M&Ms, and life is good. Till the record company comes back and says, "The people love you! We need to get to work on the next album like, yesterday. We have studio time booked next week. Get your new songs ready." New songs? Shit! It took us 10 years to put together the songs on our last album. You want new ones next week? And so the new ones get written. True, there are bands out there who can handle it and do, but an awful lot of them can't and so more often than not, we hear about the disappointing second effort from...whoever, and we never hear from them again.

Granted, like I said, good bands get through that and have something to offer after the first album, and some actually get better. Still in an awful lot of cases, in my opinion, the early stuff is the best.