Although Bad achieved great reviews and sold exceptionally well, so much so that it was next to Thriller in most successful album sold by the end of the eighties, Bad, on the bottom line, paled in comparison to its predecessor. Jackson released three more multiplatinum albums, but with the listening public, his career was always measured by his magnum opus, Thriller. The treatment Jackson rendered is what the likes of Nas, A Tribe Called Quest and currently Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean and (technically) Andre 3000 was and is battling. But what exactly makes an album be considered a classic?
According to the dictionary’s definition, a classic is “Of the first or highest quality, class or rank.” Second definition is “Serving as a standard, model or guide.” Certainly, the artists mentioned have released seminal works that can be considered a standard for their field/genre; Thriller, changed R&B-pop and the idea of crossover; A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory put jazz musicality, minimalism into the alternative rap scene. Finally, Nas, piggybacked off the Jazz influence of ATCQ and released thekendrick-lamar-frank-ocean-2014 lyrical and diverse gold standard of rap music, Illmatic. But, why is it that producing a follow-up to a classic is considered one of the hardest jobs in entertainment? Do we as music consumers add onto the pressure for the artist to force the issue with producing an even better product?
According to Cee-Lo Green as reported by MTV’s “Rap Fix,” Green believes Outkast member Andre 3000 is “bothered by this bar that had been set and maybe he wants to do something different, and he’ll always be his worse competition, his worse critic and maybe he don’t want to live up to what people think he should do.” When he released his “solo album” The Love Below, fans and critics alike gushed at 3000′s funk/jazz/pop production and songwriting display. But, with this now new bar set for the rapper/musician, the rapper has delayed his solo album for ten years. As noted by Green, the fear of failure is a big contributing factor to those faced with following up an acclaimed album. Usually, a new album is released 1-3 years later from the previous work. With the times of music changing by the year, music audiences want to hear new things. For example, when Nas made Illmatic, hip hop just ended its renowned “golden age.” By 1996, Mafiaso rap was a recurrent theme.