S&D - album sequels

It's often a weird thing when it happens when the band has significantly changed personnel. Rap is full of it. Which ones are good, which are abominable?

(Concept album sequels are ok too)

For me, it's:

Search:

Bat Out of Hell 2 (hair metally but excessive in the best ways)

Cam'ron - Purple Haze 2 (doesn't approximate the heights of the OG, but is better than it has a right to be)

Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys II (probably the best sequel ever)

Project Pat - Mr Don't Play 2 (it bangs)

Lil Wayne - Carters 2, 3, and 5 (fite me)

GNR - Use Your Illusion 2 (again...fight me)

Jay-Z - Vols 2 and 3

Destroy:

Jay-Z: Blueprint 2 and 3. (First is 57% good, second is an all-time abomination)

Helloween: Keeper of the Seven Keys 3 (wasn't even the same band anymore, no real connection)

Queensryche: Operation Mindcrime 2 (bad songs, bad story, Tate's bad voice)

Pain of Salvation: Scarsick (aka the Perfect Element 2). Billed as the long desired sequel to The Perfect Element yet only deemed so on the side of the jewel case, having little thematic or musical connection to TPM, features a grown man ranting about Stairmasters

Does Use Your Illusion 2 count as a sequel? It was released on the same day as the original.

I guess not

Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...Pt. II

(search)

Search: Neil Young, Harvest Moon

search: harry nilsson son of schmilsson

Oh good call on the Raekwon

do soundtracks to movies count? if so, the carpenter/howarth score to halloween 3: season of the witch rules

do compilations count? zulu jive the original, the indestructible beat of soweto the sequel. search both of 'em!

tryin to think of any that are better than the original and all I can come up with is St. Francis II by Satin Sheets. I'm sure there's a bunch in hip-hop.

compilations shouldn't count imo

(maybe soundtracks to sequels tho?)

kevin drumm sheer hellish miasma 2 is sick. not sure if it's better but it's worthy.

Gucci Mane - Burrrprint 2 HD

(SEARCH)

In 2001, William Parker put out Painter's Spring with Daniel Carter on sax and Hamid Drake on drums. It was always one of my favorite of his albums. In 2021, he got the trio back together and made Painters Winter. Very different but also very good.

Rob Zombie - Hellbilly Deluxe (1998); Hellbilly Deluxe 2 (2010)

Does Waltz for Debby count as a sequel to Sunday Afternoon at the Village Vanguard? If so, that.

Dr. Dre - 2001

Lexicon of Love II is at least as good as any other post-1985 ABC album.

xp was just gonna say

Haven't heard all of these, but what I have seems promising so I'll throw them both in the Search category:

Alice Cooper - Welcome 2 My Nightmare
ABC - The Lexicon of Love II

s: chief keef - almighty so 2, future - ds2 (dirty sprite 2) & beast mode 2, gucci mane - the burrprint 3d, and lots of other mixtape sequels

Neil Young - Chrome Dreams II, though I feel like it might not count on a technicality.

kevin drumm sheer hellish miasma 2 is sick. not sure if it's better but it's worthy.

― (⊙_⊙?) (original bgm), Friday, 10 April 2026 03:12 (sixteen hours ago)

You beat me to it

Don't know if this counts, but this is a continuation-type of sequel in the way that Karate Kid 2 and Back to the Future 2 pick up exactly at the moment in time where original films ended.

Don Caballero's third album What Burns Never Returns begins with the same drum beat (and similar muted guitar/bass notes) that ended the last song on Don Caballero 2 three years earlier. Search.

I haven't been able to steel myself to listen to Mike Oldfield's multiple Tubular Bells sequels after watching a pretty dismal televised live performance of TBII back in 1992. His swan song Return to Ommadawn seems a more intriguing prospect but I haven't heard it yet either.

The Legendary Pink Dots followed The Tower (which ends with "Tower Five") with Island of Jewels (which starts with "Tower Six" and features some of the same characters in the lyrics), but I'm not sure if it's a sequel or "one in a continuing series".

Trying to think of jazz examples -

The Bad Plus - Never Stop II
The Bad Plus - the second s/t album
(both felt like conscious moves to create continuity after changing lineups)

John Scofield - Uberjam Deux

Then there are album series like Brad Mehldau's Art of the Trio and Zorn's many series with volume numbers, those don't really count though.

There’s also Dave Brubeck’s Time Further Out.

(And a favorite of mine: Shelley Manne’s More Swinging Sounds.)

I mean, dig the cover art:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnS1xP8v6ug

One of my favorites, because it almost seems like a deliberate fuck you to people who liked the first one:

John Coltrane, Live At The Village Vanguard Again

Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxygene sequels are good. Not as good as the original but what is? He also did one to Equinoxe which is fine but if I heard it in a vacuum I'd never peg it as a sequel.

One that I think is actually better than the original is The Tangent's A Spark in the Aether which it says on the cover is "Volume Two" of The Music That Died Alone. Its definitely very similar.

One of my favorites, because it almost seems like a deliberate fuck you to people who liked the first one:

John Coltrane, Live At The Village Vanguard Again

― wipes chooser (unperson), Friday, April 10, 2026 6:10 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Harry Nilsson's Son of Schmilsson, mentioned above, was this almost literally

ya I've been fascinated with that album for a while, can't think of another artist in their prime who deliberately tried to tank their own career like that

Neil Young?

You can never be sure anything Neil Young does is deliberate.

Madonna releasing a sequel to Confessions on a Dancefloor this year:

https://www.nme.com/news/music/madonna-returns-to-warner-records-promising-new-dance-album-confessions-of-a-dance-floor-part-2-for-2026-3893511

Erykah Badu New Amerykah Pt II is definitely a search. I prefer pt I but I think I’m in the minority, at least on ilm

Son of Schmilsson is a little bit reflective of contempt for the audience, but it's also a callback to the movies and a friendly "That's Entertainment" approach.

xp I’m with you on Amerykah 2 > 1

of no surprise to anyone.

the black dog - loud ambient 2

yeah, they don't do anything radical,
its more of the same re ambient-techno,
but tBd have honed their craft so well over the last few years that each release hits the spot for me.

https://www.discogs.com/master/2300518-Shock-Headed-Peters-Fear-Engine

https://www.discogs.com/release/601417-Shock-Headed-Peters-Fear-Engine-II-Almost-As-If-It-Had-Never-Happened

^^ 1st one is good, 2nd one is great

Neanderthal you might actually like that band, classical-style baritone vocals and heavy guitar shredding

Lil Boat 2 def better than Lil Boat.

Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2)... I mean, don't destroy or anything like that, but it's nowhere near as good as Apple Venus.

Milton Nascimento - Clube da Esquina 2.

Used to think that Back at the Chicken Shack (Jimmy Smith) was a sequel album, but no.

McCartney 1,2, & 3?

I’m not a McCartney guy so I don’t know if those are proper sequels to each other.

There are as many good songs on Tropicália 2 as there are on the original, though of course they're not comparable in terms of historical significance.

Method Man and Redman - Blackout! & Blackout! 2

Rufus Wainwright - Want One and Want Two. One is by far the best of the two.

McCartney 1,2, & 3?

I’m not a McCartney guy so I don’t know if those are proper sequels to each other.

these definitely count

mccartney 2 is a search

mccartney 3 i barely remember so i don't know?

yea it's tricky sometimes. Is Van Halen II a sequel to Van Halen? or could they just not come up with an album title? For me it's close enough to the first album that it does come off like a sequel, hits a lot of the same notes and does a lot of things right but it's just not quite the magic of the original. but Van Halen III? no way.

I don't really consider Apple Venus/Wasp Star to be sequel albums, not just because they sound so different but because all that material was written at the same time

(xp) mccartney's i, ii and iii are definitely thematically related (all recorded at home studios, all recorded sans band). ii and iii aren't his second and third albums, not even close. rather, they're the second and third albums he made *like that*

which strikes me as fundamentally different than van halen ii, yes?

It’s like all the Chicago albums, that doesn’t count

I actually did not know that about the McCartney albums, yeah those do count then

another case of a volume 2 without a volume 1, but I feel that Working with Fire and Steel – Possible Pop Songs Volume Two by China Crisis deserves an honourable mention.

Peter Gabriel's rationale at the time for calling his first four albums 'Peter Gabriel' was that they were a "magazine in sound". So maybe those count too.

Traveling Wilburys have a volume 3 without a volume 2

But I don’t think they count.

And now Madonna has announced Confessions II.

Search: Chicago II
Destroy: Chicago III through XXXVI

"More Songs About Buildings and Food" is good. Though I've never been able to find a copy of "Songs about Buildings and Food."

surely the FAX label should have been mentioned by now.
so many of the classics that Pete Namlook and his crew released had sequels, and in many cases, that managed more than just a sequel.

bugger : 'that' = 'they'

There’s probably a lot of these from back in the day? Without looking, I bet there’s a Johnny Cash album called More Train Songs

More Moog Movie Melodies

Mitch Miller has so many of these

Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1958)
Christmas Sing-Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1958)
More Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1958)
Still More! Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1959)
Folk Songs Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1959)
Party Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1959)
Fireside Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1959)
Saturday Night Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1960)
Sentimental Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1960)
March Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1960)
Memories Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1960)

Martin Denny: Exotica Vol. II, which I like more than Vol I only because it's the first one I heard and the only one I own

Stevie got on a role after Fulfillingness' Second Finale: Songs in the Key of Death, Journey Through the Public Life of Plants, Hotter than January...

The Albion Band

https://i.discogs.com/7guZhPNedwd6mT7HJnjc57_-eqlcRZFilY8TDFlPU_4/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:598/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTI5NDQx/ODgxLTE3MDQ4NDE5/NDAtODMyMC5qcGVn.jpeg https://i.discogs.com/glyFG8qlys-ZyLI1OIkVi-hRxoOzMpJfLJ_Yhnsvi6A/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:596/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTI3NjMz/NDItMTU0MzQ5ODU4/My02NDAyLmpwZWc.jpeg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/SOBIINew.jpg/250px-SOBIINew.jpg

No-one's mentioned the literal sequels Preservation Act 2 and Joe's Garage Acts II and III. Does A Day at the Races count?

What about anti-sequels? Albums that are explicitly created to contrast with a previous one, an opposite or mirror image. Of course, having come up with this idea, I can't think of any examples.

anti-sequels?

son of schmilsson, discussed a bit above, is one possible version of that.

Marty Robbins:

Gunfighter Ballads & Trailsongs
More Gunfighter Ballads & Trailsongs
Return of the Gunfighter

What about anti-sequels? Albums that are explicitly created to contrast with a previous one, an opposite or mirror image. Of course, having come up with this idea, I can't think of any examples.

Opeth's Deliverance (super heavy death metal album, released November 2002) and Damnation (quiet proggy album, released April 2003). They were originally supposed to be released as a 2CD set, but the label decided to split them up.

Paul Westerburg- Stereo
grandpaboy- Mono

Ian Anderson released Thick As a Brick 2 a couple years back, checking in on the kid from the first album who now has a website.

Third World War had a self-titled debut, followed by Third World War II.

Oh, and Metallica’s Load and Re-load.

George Winston had those seasons albums on Windham Hill.

Autumn

December

Winter Into Spring

Summer

Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1958)
Christmas Sing-Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1958)
More Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1958)
Still More! Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1959)
Folk Songs Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1959)
Party Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1959)
Fireside Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1959)
Saturday Night Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1960)
Sentimental Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1960)
March Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1960)
Memories Sing Along with Mitch (Columbia, 1960)

― Cattedrale metropolitana di Santa Maria de Episcopio, Wednesday, April 15, 2026 4:52 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

More Sing Along with Mitch and Still More! Sing Along with Mitch count, I don't think the others do

Enoch Light et al's Persuasive Percussion 2, 3 and 4, and Provocative Percussion 2, 3 and 4 were mostly pretty respectable, from memory, if you dug that sort of thing in the first place.

I seem to recall liking Ghostface and Adrian Younge's Twelve Reasons to Die II at least as much as the first one, but it's been a while. (Which reminds me that I never heard Supreme Clientele 2.)

The Residents probably have several of these. There’s a series of Moles albums.

XTC Apple Venus and Wasp Star are almost anti-sequels in that they're showing 2 sides of the band. I wonder if the originally-planned double album was going to interweave the orchestral/quiet and the pop, or keep them segregated like the eventual separate discs.

Interesting experiment for the XTC obsessives--how would you sequence the double album?

Mannheim Steamroller/Chip Davis - Fresh Aire 1 through 7. Also two Fresh Aire Christmas albums and a solo piano album Fresh Aire Interludes

System of a Down - Mezmerize & Hypnotize

I liked Mezmerize a lot at the time but never got round to buying Hypnotize, as far as I know I've still never heard anything from it

Pain of Salvation: Scarsick (aka the Perfect Element 2). Billed as the long desired sequel to The Perfect Element yet only deemed so on the side of the jewel case, having little thematic or musical connection to TPM, features a grown man ranting about Stairmasters

Aww, I like Scarsick way more than The Perfect Element 1!

Speaking of Pain of Salvation, there's also Road Salt 1 + Road Salt 2 -- both marvelous. But that's fairly normal when the sequel comes out right after the original (Hypnotize kicks only a little less ass than Mezmerize!). It's the "years & years between" stuff that gets innaresting. Which brings me to:

Thick as a Brick 2 is brilliant conceptually and lyrically, whereas the music isn't up to the standard of the original... but not much music is. And the TAAB2 music is good. Add the concept and the lyrics, and I'm not really sure which TAAB I like better.

Hypnotize, as far as I know I've still never heard anything from it

― nate woolls, Thursday, April 16, 2026 12:09 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

the title track is their best song prob. whole album is really good actually.

Bat Out of Hell 2 (hair metally but excessive in the best ways)

We are forgetting Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, which I'd think falls into the 'D' category.

Not an album but Reasons To Be Cheerful Part 3 is an amusingly daft example of a "sequel" without a first volume.

ODB's Return to the 36 Chambers is sort of a sequel to the Wu Tang debut, though Wu Tang Forever is a play on a sequel title too (Batman Forever.)

reminds me of when Polysics put out a compilation called Polysics or Die!! and then three years later again as Polysics or Die!! Vista as a reference to Windows Vista

After Slayer released Live Undead, the band Undead released an album called Live Slayer

On that note, Nick Lowe famously released an EP called Bowi after DB released Low

after Pet Shop Boys named their 2009 album Yes I was hoping Yes would name their next album Pet Shop Boys

Bachman Turner Overdrive's album title Not Fragile was a response to Yes's Fragile. Because rock is not fragile you wimps!

After Orgy put out Candyass, a group called Candyass put out a release called Orgy, but I feel like they were trying to take advantage of confused customers

And of course the U2 EP by Negativland, who would never hope to sell it to confused U2 fans.

Maybe I bought it in a store that had it filed under U2, but I wasn't confused.

Negativland complained a lot about getting sued over that but come on they knew what they were doing

They made a whole book about the ordeal, I wonder if it's any good