All Downhill from Here...instances where an artist peaked with the first song on their first album

am also a fan of Vow and Only Happy When It Rains tbh

Mercury Rev - Chasing a Bee

I wouldn't stake too much on it, but I was listening to "Re-make/Re-model" today and wondering if it was the best thing Roxy Music ever did. Close, if not.

Le Tigre - Deceptacon

Big Country - 'In A Big Country'

Neu! (first thing I thought of for this thread)
agreed on King Crimson, "Starless" and "Epitaph" are close but "Schizoid" is going to be the band's legacy
post-puberty Michael Jackson ("Don't Stop Till You Get Enough")
Telex - "Moscow Discow"

Radiohead.

The Jesus and Mary chain

The Saints - (I'm) Stranded

Mudhoney - Touch Me, I'm Sick

Elvis Presley

I'm not sure The Fall isn't a valid answer. I mean, it's been 36 years of sustained brilliance but at the start of it all lurks 'Frightened', always there, always peering out at us

Leonard Cohen – "Suzanne"

'Blues Run the Game', Jackson C Frank

definitely Gillian Welch, "Orphan Girl"

more contentiously, the Velvets with "Sunday Morning"

Stiff Little Fingers -- "Alternative Ulster"
― hector savage, Sunday, 28 May 2006 00:59 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hey poster from 2006, did you mean Suspect Device or were you just wrong on the internet?

the dovers

how about Martha and the Muffins "Echo Beach"

Vehemently disagree about Welch. Nearly everything on the next 2 albums slays me in a way that nothing on Revival (great as it is) does.

The Twilight Sad, Scottish shoegaze band.

First song is great, next two are also great but follow the exact same formula, everything else on Fourteen Autumns... sounds like diminishing returns of the same thing, as does the entire second album, after that even more boring indie-schmindie

^^^^^otm

The third track is my favourite tho

I still sometimes listen to that trio of songs occasionally and pretend they just released a single and then gave up and became accountants or whatever

Aimee Mann--"I Should Have Known"

The arc of the Ramones is long, but it heads in a straight line from Blitzkrieg Bop, bending slowly downwards

Beyonce - "Crazy in Love"
(arguably, although this is not my favourite song by her).

Same for Britney with "Baby one more time".

You could make a case for Violent Femmes with "Blister in the Sun." There are other songs on that record I'm more inclined to want to hear but that may be conditioned by the utter inescapability of "Blister."

Led Zeppelin

while i do not agree, i know a few people who could make a reasonable argument for the grateful dead here.

"Noticeable One" by Missing Persons. whole first album is great though

America: opener 'Riverside' is arguably not the best track on side one, but they definitely peaked with that first side of their first album. An ever-accelerating downhill ride into Blandsville from thereon, I'd say.
Heart - I suppose this depends on whether you prefer 'Magic Man' to 'Crazy on You', but anyway peaked on at least track three of album #1.
OK, here's one that's nailed on: Living Colour - 'Cult of Personality'.

I know someone who thinks 'Ruckzuck' is the best thing Kraftwerk ever did.

pretty sure there are at least a few posters here that feel that way about "ruckzuck"

"Blister In The Sun" is where a band records something so definitive that I wouldn't care less if everyone said that they peaked there and then

Fountains of Wayne - "Radiation Vibe"

Ruckzuck is really cool.

This thread is even harsher:

Artists whose first single was the best thing they ever did.

ELO.

Fountains of Wayne - "Radiation Vibe"

I was about to object, then realized that, while there are probably 15 FoW songs I like almost as much, you're probably right

Delays - "Nearer Than Heaven"

Raspberries - "Go All the Way"

ELO.

If you were a Move fan, sure.

Britney Spears OTM

Also agree with Fountains of Wayne

Ron Carter with his debut as a band leader- Where album, with Dolphy/Waldron, which is a minor masterpiece. Not really felt much else he did, although Uptown Conversation isn't terrible.

ELO.

If you were a Move fan, sure.

That would explain why I was going to say OTM

Guns N' Roses?

Meek Mill is never going to top Dreams And Nightmares (Intro) is he?

Enh he's recorded lots of stuff that's at least comparable in quality, if not urgency

t/s: blue gene tyranny 'next time might be your time' vs annette peacock 'i'm the one'

who bodied 70's avant-jazz-pop harder on the first try