Second album is the hardest?
Whatever happened to Poets of the Fall and Gwen Stefani? Both produced excellent first albums but failed to deliver on their second ones. They had some okay songs but the on the whole the albums weren't that exciting. I guess this might be a pretty common phenomena in music but still it's disappointing for a fan of both acts.
Bands and artists basically have to reinvent them for every record because producing exactly same kind of music record after record would be boring but this also means risking the things that made the music work on their previous record. Sometimes things go wrong and the second (n-th) album flops or things can go the other way as well, a band can find the thing that makes them a success.
Hopefully things go well for Von Hertzen Brothers and My Chemical Romance whose latest records were great (check them out!)...
P.S. Sweatmaster will release their next album in March or something. Definitely a must-buy for me.