Critics, Not Fans, Perpetuate the Failed Second Album Myth, Study Shows

A new study reveals that the widely accepted 'sophomore slump' phenomenon -- where a band's second album is perceived as significantly worse than the first -- exists primarily in professional critics' reviews, not fan ratings. Researchers suggest this bias stems from social conformity among critics, while fans provide more consistent and reliable evaluations across albums. 'If every music critic has heard of a sophomore slump and everyone knows it happens, they might be convinced to over-apply it in their reviews,' said Gregory Webster, Ph.D., the R. David Thomas Endowed Professor of Psychology at the University of Florida and co-author of the new study. 'We suspect it's a kind of social conformity, which we see in a lot of social groups.' Phys.Org reports: Webster and his co-author, University of Hannover Professor of Educational Science Lysann Zander, Ph.D., analyzed thousands of albums rated by professional critics and amateur fans. Both critics and fans said that bands' albums generally got worse over time.

But critics were exceptionally harsh with the second album, which was an outlier in this downward trajectory. 'It's only critics that show substantial evidence of a sophomore slump bias, whereby they are giving artists' second albums unusually low reviews compared to their first and third albums,' Webster said. 'Fans show no evidence of a sophomore slump bias.'

Webster and Zander expected that fan ratings would reflect a broader consensus about a band's true performance. Fans aren't pressured by the same social norms as professional critics. And with ratings from thousands of fans, the researchers could average across a large group to find more reliable ratings.

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