Legend has it that Salvador Dalí and his patron Edward James once quarrelled over a lobster until it was flung across the room, landing opportunely on a telephone hook. An accident that is the supposed origin of one of Dalí’s most recognisable pieces, Lobster Telephone (1936). The Surrealist movement often embraced serendipitous aspects of art, promoting a methodology that privileges chance and unforeseen forces in artistic creation. This creative mode, though liberating, might at times feel like a burden to the artist who hopes to find a formula for consistent, high-standard output in their work. How to recreate such a miracle?
In musical endeavours, these afflictions often arise in the aftermath of a fearless debut album – so often mythologised for its spontaneity. Such is the basis of the phrase ‘the difficult second album’ that haunts musicians and serves critics everywhere. It is to suffer from success in the angst of mulling over the probabilities of following a masterpiece in likeness, unaware of the newly disruptive constraints of self-conscious apprehension. It is the pain of feeling unable to reach a benchmark you yourself, or your fanbase, have set.
The beauty of one’s former self is not a mould for replication, but a wondrous event lost in time. To use a self-proclaimed magnum opus as a muse and to dream of recreating it is futile and will lead to inevitable disappointment.
How can one escape that curse? An antidote seems to lie in the fissures of surrealist philosophy, founded on the notion that all great art is no more than an accident. If this is the case, then the pursuit of a follow-up need not rely on logic, formula, or rationale in its creation, but rather on a willingness to abandon them altogether. The beauty of one’s former self is not a mould for replication, but a wondrous event lost in time. To use a self-proclaimed magnum opus as a muse and to dream of recreating it is futile and will lead to inevitable disappointment.
After the Debut
New York’s The Strokes are an example of a band who struck gold with their 2001 debut album – its vocal textures, cool looseness and urban attitude made it the hippest pip to fall out of the Big Apple since The Velvet Underground. However, the album carried an unfortunate name, Is This It?, which, in time, proved disappointingly ironic. What followed, across subsequent releases, is not failure in any simple sense, but a gradual solidification of identity. The looseness becomes style, the immediacy becomes intentional. The music begins subtly to reference itself, inevitably predictable in a way a newcomer should not be. It took nearly two decades for the band to make a comeback that didn’t rely on the residues of youthful novelty with The New Abnormal (2020) album.
A similar trajectory can be traced in the case of British band The Stone Roses. Their self-titled LP will go down as one of the most striking debuts ever, blending dance rhythms with retro psychedelia and transforming the jangly melodies of 60s guitar rock into a Britpop revolution. After just one album in 1989, they were dubbed prophets – ‘The New Beatles’. Yet, plagued by the second album curse, and after long delays, The Roses finally released a follow-up, merely pointing at the moon they had accidentally put in the sky five years prior.
Such examples are often framed as instances of decline, yet this interpretation risks overlooking what they reveal. Typically, diehard fans wish there were simply more sides to their favourite record. To recreate that sound is to offer exactly that, just to a lesser extent. And sullen acceptance amongst the audience often embodies a tableau of plateau that lends itself to a realisation that the music has neither stalled nor accelerated. But the issue is not that these artists lost their capacity, rather that the conditions under which their earlier work emerged could not be reproduced through conscious effort and any attempts to do so proved inevitably unavailing.
By contrast, those who resist the impulse to stabilise their sound, treating each record as a departure rather than a continuation, often arrive at more fruitful outcomes. Consider contemporary examples of solo artists who overcame the troubles of a second album by embracing the accidental nature of artistic creation. Childish Gambino and Frank Ocean are both artists who, in 2016, pivoted their careers with reinvigorating albums that abandoned the stylistic markers of their earlier work.
Only when artists let go of what they have previously learnt, stop attempting to recreate greatness, and instead try new things again that they have the greatest chance of conceiving truly amazing art once more. It is in the accidents in between, the attempts at divinity and the humility before something bigger than yourself, that true artists work.
Gambino, who began his career in hip-hop, was now drawing on the soulful and psychedelic funk of Parliament and Sly & The Family Stone to create his newfound masterpiece, Awaken My Love. Similarly, Frank Ocean’s Blonde (2016) takes on a whole new shade to Channel Orange (2012). In an intimate, unrestricted and unfolding ode to heartbreak, the seriousness of this record turns away from the playfulness of its now younger sibling.
Only when artists let go of what they have previously learnt, stop attempting to recreate greatness, and instead try new things again that they have the greatest chance of conceiving truly amazing art once more. It is in the accidents in between, the attempts at divinity and the humility before something bigger than yourself, that true artists work.
Between Chance and Control
The notion that all great art is accidental does not imply that the painter trips over a ladder, causing a bucket to fall and resulting in an unfortunate self-portrait on the pavement. There is undoubtedly a deliberate command that involves an active and autonomous choice to seize a creative opportunity. Music, after all, is composed, arranged, recorded, and produced through highly deliberate processes. Instead, the accident occurs in the space where success is neither guaranteed nor perhaps even pursued. What distinguishes certain recordings cannot be reduced to operations. It is in the invitation of chance and sporadic happenings that something quite wonderful may be produced.
There is little training or qualification in art that enables someone to prosper in the same way as other occupations do. If there is no logical formula to follow, if the fate of the artist rests in the unpredictable mystery of the cosmos, then there lies no ambition beyond making art for art’s sake. Embarking on this journey for the wrong reasons – seeking approval or wealth – is entirely antithetical to the accidental motions of art and will leave the disciple deprived of vitality. It follows to make art for yourself and nobody else and encounter the limits of hubris without relinquishing mastery. This is the first truism that the composer in strife must accept before embarking upon ‘the difficult second album’.
No matter what comes forth amongst the ponderings of that which is exceptionally moving and impactful in its beauty, only this is the standard of success to which the soul is ever attentive.
A second clarification should be made before inviting consumers and critics to face the ripples of this discussion – not all art is accidental. As established, anyone can intentionally make art. But great art is a rarity that one will always inevitably fail to define sufficiently. Nevertheless, each reader surely knows what it means to be under a deep spiritual and emotional spell that lingers in the admiration of great art. It is the awe-inspiring wonderment that takes over one’s spirit in an instant and for no apparent reason. It is the aesthetic experience that Immanuel Kant finds ‘sublime’.
Please note, it is not about an elitist appeal to ‘fine art’ or ‘higher pleasures’. Instead, it is to show that all art has the potential to achieve this glory. Critics oftentimes do little more than apply mathematical scales and scientific measurements to the irrational majesty of truly great art. This neglects, quite harmfully, the notion that all art is valid. No matter what comes forth amongst the ponderings of that which is exceptionally moving and impactful in its beauty, only this is the standard of success to which the soul is ever attentive.
When Theory Falls Short
Now that we have established that not all art is accidental, let us lend an ear to the sympathies of critics who conduct intellectual investigations under the valid notion that all great art is not entirely accidental. To an extent, it appears there are clear features that might determine whether a piece is better or worse. Certain chords, for example, are more suited against each other than others, and theory has been derived from this principle. Similarly, some notes work well together to form specific melodies, and rhymes across a stanza are pleasing. In this sense, there is a true and rational guideline for creating good music.
Genre is another compelling framework for categorising and understanding art based on its specific, examinable features. One often enjoys a plethora of works within a genre based on aspects and patterns they understand and prefer. And when an artist creates, they may well have an intention regarding the sphere they hope to participate in. This extends, of course, to the clothes a band wears, the venues they play at, and the crowd they play to, as seen in the punk scene.
A final consideration is the element of nostalgia. They say, for example, that the music that finds you as a teenager will forever summit the podium of your stack of records. Art that evokes nostalgia seems to be yet another predictable and reproducible way of creating a tender connection between an individual and a piece. Thus, we find examples of logic, inference, and sensible formulas that contradict the notion of accidentality, and music critics might rightly claim that their reviews and investigations merely draw on principles to make fair evaluations.
Yet these are only fragments of a wider image that otherwise appears unexplainable and mysterious. For example, experimental bands may embrace the chaotic clash of melodic hues that, in turn, twists and invigorates the original music theory. In doing so, they innovate an enticing mode of creative expression, dismantling the standard formula. Such irrationality has every right to be considered great art – and modernist musical movements would likely agree. Atonal compositions within this period, such as those by Béla Bartók or Claude Debussy, rebel against logic, featuring a dissonance now considered beautiful to many, regardless of the conventions so key to their predecessors.
For example, John Cage’s 4′33″ consists of an absence of sound for a prescribed period, embracing the accidental qualities of one’s surroundings and homing in on the listener’s unique experience. Finally, we are all familiar with lyrics that have no intention of rhyming, like ABBA’s. All this is to say that whilst there may be formulas to follow to create good art, they are neither essential nor sufficiently explanatory in the manifestation of great art.
Genre, furthermore, seems but a preliminary stage in the exploration of creation – a mere marker to guide the audience on their path to discovery. An enthusiast of arias may regularly attend the opera house in search of a spectacular songbird. Night after night, they may return home having thoroughly enjoyed the show. However, who could predict that one evening they might appraise an unsuspecting lead’s attempt at Puccini’s Nessun Dorma, say, capturing something entirely novel and magnificent? Left dumbstruck in the familiar crowd, they realise now that all the other shows they attended were not truly great in the way this one is. The signposts that help a critic understand why one likes a melody because it was written by John Lennon, or a side-long song because it was progressive, are only really telling half the story in explaining the holy accident experienced.
Even in popular music, moments of rupture often prove decisive. A deviation from genre, an unexpected production choice, a structural irregularity — these are not necessarily errors, but sites of potential transformation.
Nostalgia, it seems, comes the closest to sufficiency. What we feel when we experience music we once loved can express itself in unexpected bouts of emotion akin to the baptisms of great art. Yet, though deceptive, echoes of euphoria still do not rival the feelings earlier characterised and fail to explain them sufficiently. One embraces the music they cherished as a teenager because they are reliving adolescent adoration. Though it is through discovery that the beautifully true magic of an unexplained connection occurs. All that follows is in reference to an unaccountable encounter with a divinity found amidst some crackles from the jukebox.
Even in popular music, moments of rupture often prove decisive. A deviation from genre, an unexpected production choice, a structural irregularity – these are not necessarily errors, but sites of potential transformation. What the accepted frameworks offer, then, is not an account of greatness, but a set of conditions within which it might occur. They lack a sufficient explanation for how the artist could ever deliberately manufacture the miracle they instead seem to stumble upon. Just as the analysis of microscopes will inevitably fail to discover how many angels can fit on the tip of a record needle.
The Value of Uncertainty
Hopefully, now the difficulty of the second album appears less as a crisis and more as a sleeve to behold the universe’s endless supply of mysterious miracles. Freed from the obligation to reproduce what cannot be reproduced, the artist is returned to a position of uncertainty. The second album, rather than a test of consistency, becomes an opportunity for divergence. The serendipitous nature of art’s creation and impression characterised here holds positive implications for a noble and encouraging relationship within aesthetics.
Critique, for example, is not invalid or nonsensical, but only covers a slight portion of the analysis needed in the determination of great art. So, to the listener, do not let these guidelines overly influence your personal tastes and adorations – the value of music lies in the openness to the unforeseen. For if all art can be great, it can only do so in relation to the individual’s wonderment. Just as with faith, personal connections become the most significant factors here, bridging the gap between divine art and the postlapsarian world.
This is not to encourage an isolated consumption of whatever fleeting indulgence gets you high. But rather to forge your own path through the aisles of easels until you find that one ingenious idiot that seems close to God in your eyes. In doing so, you will likely encounter a companion that shares the same glimmer in their eye and devotion in their heart. Embrace the unexplainable and hold on to the magic rarities of life that, in wonderful confusion, remind you what it truly means to be human. Just as in the celluloid words of Robin Williams: ‘We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion […] beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for!’
Embrace the unexplainable and hold on to the magic rarities of life that, in wonderful confusion, remind you what it truly means to be human.
