Sophomore Slump features a comparison of a musician’s first and second albums, as well as a discussion of where those albums fit in their larger discography.

First, a bit of housekeeping—you may have expected this to have come out last week, on par with the typical schedule of a new post every other Sunday. But life got busy, and I just wasn’t able to get it out on time. The later it got in the week, the less sense it made to publish as soon as it was ready, and so I decided I’d delay it by a week, which means I’ll also push back the other wildcard essay for the month. I’ve decided that for the sake of planning and everyone’s inboxes, I will not publish in two consecutive weeks unless something is very timely, like, say, when I launched with a Christmas gift guide. So two weeks from now, you can expect a review of NPR’s book How Women Made Music. That edition will also include a new section of a rundown of the biggest and most interesting music news of the past few weeks. In the coming months, you can expect my Record Store Day wish list and a liveblog when I go out for the day, as well as my picks for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame’s newest class. And as always, if you have a suggestion of an artist and pair of albums to explore for Sophomore Slump, let me know! At the moment, chances are high we’ll stick with the musical projects of Andrew McMahon and dive into Jack’s Mannequin next, and eventually, we’ll do a review of his book, Three Pianos. At some point, I’ll also reprint some of my old work for AXS which was purged from the site during COVID but I fortunately saved.

Something Corporate

Something Corporate, sometimes abbreviated by fans as SoCo, formed in 1998 in Laguna Nigel, Orange County, Florida.

Technically, Something Corporate’s first album was Ready… Break, released in 2000, but it wasn’t widely released and isn’t available on streaming (well, except for YouTube!), and while I’m sure there’s some lucky early fans out there who snagged CDs and that some of those have made their way onto online marketplaces for fans looking for a copy, there are no official physical releases to easily buy. There does appear to be a bootlegged vinyl pressing, but some of the songs are not the original Ready… Break versions but are instead versions later re-recorded. Because it was such an early release with such limited availability, and because some of its tracks got new versions later, we’ll be considering Leaving Through the Window, their major-label debut, as the band’s first official album and its follow-up, North, as their sophomore release. Ready… Break is also notable for its live version of “Konstantine,” with slightly different lyrics and instrumentation than the recorded version which eventually landed on greatest-hits compilation Played in Space. There are also some wonderful early versions of the song lurking on YouTube.

Ready… Break was followed up with the EP Audioboxer in 2001, which also featured a few songs that would later make it onto Leaving Through the Window, including “If You C Jordan,” “Punk Rock Princess,” and “Hurricane,” albeit with a different and longer title.

Leaving Through the Window was released in 2002. The songs on the album ranged from three months to three years old at the time it was recorded. North followed a year later.

Leaving Through the Window

Leaving Through the Window gets off to an incredible start with “I Want to Save You,” an excellent choice of opening track which sets the tone for everything to follow. Its opening piano chords stand out immediately, and it only gets better from there, as it builds into a fast pop-rock song about a troubled girl the narrator wants to, well, save. The saving is mutual, however. “I want to save you/Save me, too,” speaking to what people can do for each other and the way relationships can look and feel when you’re young—they can be an escape from everything else around you.

Something Corporate’s most famous song is perhaps “Punk Rock Princess,” the second track on the album, and for good reason. It fits in perfectly with the emo/pop-punk musical landscape of the early 2000s.

Leaving Through the Window continues with “I Woke Up in a Car,” another of its standouts—the trio of “I Woke Up in a Car,” “Punk Rock Princess,” and “I Woke Up in a Car” opening the album is just about perfect. It’s easy to imagine "I Woke Up in a Car” is about touring, and it’s a fun song about the thrill of travel and the people one meets along the way. It fits in perfectly on any playlist for road trips.

But that momentum is slowed somewhat by “If You C Jordan,” essentially a pop-punk diss track. What did Jordan ever do to these guys, anyway? I find it interesting that “If You C Jordan” was included on both Audioboxer and Leaving Through the Window when it’s among the weaker songs, even though it was the most successful of its singles. It’s a reminder of how young the band was at the time, with McMahon being just 20 years old when it was released.

The following track, “The Astronaut,” is its redemption, however. It’s a lovely mid-tempo track which has also stood the test of time, and it’s followed up with “Hurricane,” another rock gem which has some of the band’s most memorable lyrics that are impossibly fun to sing along to, especially live. “Fall,” situated after ballad “Cavanaugh Park,” is similar, with guitars driving it and really fun lines to sing along to, while “Straw Dog” opens with a killer guitar riff and drum fill after the first few lines. Although not as memorable as some of the other tracks, “Good News” is another solid rock track, but the following one, “Drunk Girl,” falls in with “If You C Jordan” as one of the weaker offerings.

For its final three songs, Leaving Through the Window slows down. “Not What It Seems” has a nice melody, and “You’re Gone” is heartfelt breakup song. But of all the slow songs on Leaving Through the Window, “Globes & Maps” is the best by far. It’s a beautiful, touching piano-driven song. In retrospect, it feels like a preview of where McMahon’s songwriting and style would go with Jack’s Mannequin—his project after SoCo—and later with his solo endeavor, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness. The final three tracks especially also hint at the vibe they’d tap into on North the following year.

One of the most notable things about Leaving Through the Window from a musical perspective is its more polished sound compared to Ready… Break and even Audioboxer. Even though the releases are all separated by just a few short years, McMahon’s vocals are better and distinctly more mature, and the album is all the better for it.

North

Compared to Leaving Through the Window, North is more mature, more brooding—more adult. There are no songs about little redhead bitches and getting high in the park.

North opens with the wonderful “As You Sleep,” with lovely piano work from McMahon, followed by “Space,” a guitar-driven track that’s one of the album’s best and was its only single. The album’s faster, more rock-oriented songs are largely all standouts in line with what the band did on Leaving Through the Window, including “Only Ashes,” “Runaway,” and “Break Myself.” And then there’s “21 and Invincible,” an ode to and celebration of that exciting feeling of really just being out in the world for the first time with your whole future ahead of you. It’s certainly one of the album’s most fun songs, and it’s a great celebration of youth which again highlights how young the band was at the time without feeling immature the way some of the songs on Leaving Through the Window with a similar attitude did.

Like Leaving Through the Window, North features its fair share of ballads, including the lovely “Down,” “I Won’t Make You,” and the mid-tempo “Ruthless,” another of the album’s best offerings. One of the most beautiful offerings is “She Paints Me Blue”—it’s a great love song, and once again, McMahon’s piano work stands out. Meanwhile, “Me and the Moon” feels like the older sister of “I Want to Save You”—once again, it follows a troubled young woman, this time in a very different season of her life.

The band certainly knows how to pick a closing track, as the last ballad is once again the best—they nailed it with “Miss America.” It shows off McMahon’s chops as a musician and songwriter.

Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year?

Something Corporate went on tour in support of North with Good Charlotte—a tour I had the pleasure of attending. My memories are tragically hazy, as it’s been over 20 years, but I can picture McMahon at his piano. I can’t remember if the concert was my first introduction to the band, but I suspect it was, as I’m sure I’d have much more vivid memories otherwise. The funny thing is, I was there to see Good Charlotte, and I don’t really listen to them anymore, but Something Corporate and McMahon’s solo work? In regular, if not frequent, rotation. I’ve seen him live many times since, and he’s incredible each time. I jump on tickets every time they go on sale like I’ve never seen him live before and never will again.

North may have been the more mature release, but for me, “more mature” does not always equal better. Leaving Through the Window remains one of my favorite early-2000s pop-punk albums to this day, despite its flaws and despite the songs I don’t like so much—the opening chords of “I Want to Save You” get me every time, and I can still remember sitting on the bus in high school, putting my headphones on, pressing play, and hearing that. I don’t just like it and other songs like “Punk Rock Princess” and “Hurricane,” I love them, and they’re so good that they make for any missteps. I joke about not being able to listen to certain songs when I’m writing because I just can’t focus, and these are great examples, “Punk Rock Princess” especially. My process when writing about music is to write and listen at the same time to get my immediate, unfiltered reaction, and I just couldn’t do that with that song. I had to listen and enjoy it first, then get my thoughts together.

Leaving Through the Window is a classic of the era. It’s not typically held up as such, except for in the esteem of other SoCo fans—who are adamant the band is criminally underrated—but it should be. I suspect the reason is because their run was so short. There are merely three years between Ready… Break and North. Reviews at the time also complained that the album was too long and that the piano-pop aspect sounded like a poor man’s Ben Fold’s Five, ignoring the talent and songwriting skill Something Corporate brought to the table.

North is, admittedly, fantastic. I’d forgotten how good it really was until I sat down to write this and gave it another listen all the way through in order. But it just doesn’t have the same impact as Leaving Through the Window, and by the end, the tracks sort of start to bleed together, despite being noticeable shorter than its predecessor. It ended up being Something Corporate’s final album, and its members went their separate ways in 2005. On the one hand, it’s a shame we never got to hear what the band might've done afterwards, but on the other hand, we kind of did. McMahon continued to have a successful career afterwards, first with Jack’s Mannequin and then as Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness. He’s consistently released music and toured over the last 20 years. Guitarist William Tell also released a solo album, You Can Hold Me Down, in 2007.

After lots of teasing and a few smaller reunions over the years, Something Corporate reunited in 2024, nearly 20 years after going on hiatus, with a tour and new tracks “Death Grip” and “Happy,” which were labeled as Andrew McMahon featuring Something Corporate and certainly sound as such—I would’ve loved some heavier guitars. McMahon called the reunion “joyful.” Personally, I was thrilled to get my hands on the reprinted “Orange County piano movers” shirt, and I remain salty that I missed out on the run of “Punk Rock Princess” hoodies.

McMahon also still dusts off old SoCo songs at his live shows, and they’re always well-received—you can tell who’s been following his career for the last 20-plus years based on that. “If You C Jordan” may have charted, but “Punk Rock Princess” is easily the band’s most beloved song today and serves as an anthem for the girls in the scene at the time, and we didn’t have many of those. One of my favorite live versions I’ve ever heard him play was a slowed-down one with a damn accordion. I would kill for a full high-quality version of that. It was gorgeous.

Both Leaving Through the Window and North still hold up over 20 years later, proving that even though we’ve grown up, gotten jobs, and become parents, we’re still punk rock princesses (or princes) at heart.