Debut albums which became their own phenomenon outside the rest of their catalogue

personally would argue that the Faust and King Crimson debuts fit perfectly into their oeuvre, though I can see someone preferring them to the later work.

― Halfway there but for you,

Would say exactly this about "Clerks"

It does everything you say except stand apart from the larger body of work. So I'm lost again lol

I was thinking of albums like Marquee Moon and Pink Flag, which are "phenomena" in themselves (at least in the rock-crit / fan world) – but they don't really fit the bill of "artists who clearly have the talent but don't quite know how to harvest it"; "not recorded professionally," etc. They're more in the realm of "fully-formed aesthetic statements."

well I guess these albums don't have to tick all the boxes, it's more a general idea that I hope I'm communicating somehow lol. like I would argue Pink Flag counts mostly cuz it deconstructs things in a way that more experienced artists would never think to do. they obviously had a vision there though.

Would say exactly this about "Clerks"

It does everything you say except stand apart from the larger body of work. So I'm lost again lol

I think it does! Like sure it's got the same sort of humor as his other movies, and in fact some of the same exact characters, but last time I watched it I was struck by how unabashedly strange it was. So many shots are clearly framed incorrectly, the style of humor bounces all over the place, there's virtually no plot, it's full of weird inexperienced actors who bring their own style of chaos to the film. You feel like you're watching someone's home movie. His later films aren't exactly like that, in fact it seemed the more he "knew what he was doing" the worse his movies got

don't worry, pretty sure i'm the only one confused

Licensed to Ill

Every single debut album by a famous band will be in this thread

Well that's not true, just run thru some famous bands in your head - many don't fit

yeah like eg Neil Young’s debut doesn’t really fit the parameters as laid out imo

REM Murmur possibly?

is there not already a thread on artists who arrived fully formed and then fell off a bit? this is a very similar scenario

dizzee - boy in da corner

Big Pink doesn’t seem to really, either. Phenomenon? Def. Their best? Arguably. But (for me) it’s hard to separate it from s/t.

is there not already a thread on artists who arrived fully formed and then fell off a bit? this is a very similar scenario

― maf you one two (maffew12), Thursday, June 16, 2022 12:36 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think of this more like "if the artist hadn't made anything after their debut it would still be regarded with mystery and wonder (as it is today)"

SAW I totally works for this, SAW II is very enmeshed in what i think of as the established rdj sound by that point

i think i also agree with murmur

is there not already a thread on artists who arrived fully formed and then fell off a bit? this is a very similar scenario

― maf you one two (maffew12), Thursday, June 16, 2022 2:36 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

idk about that, like I wouldn't say Pink Floyd arrived fully formed with Piper, nor did they "fall off" exactly...I mean sure their next 5 or so weren't as good, but last I checked Floyd made some pretty classic albums after that. and yet Piper is just sorta off on its own little island with its own contingent of very dedicated fanatics who think their popular albums are "boring"

i think the implication here is that the follow-up work isn't necessarily worse and may in some cases be better but the singularity of the debut is never followed up on

i think bands that had sudden lineup shifts after the debut are like maybe too-easy answers for this question, much as piper is still kind of a perfect answer

an interesting counterexample to this is artists whose first two albums seem of a piece, in conversation with each other, thus disqualifying them from this thread, but i can already name a few examples, like... underworld, the doors

Elvis’ Sun Sessions would be a great one if it had actually been an album at the time

illmatic

xxp actually Underworld did come to mind because dubnobass (and all that 93-94 stuff) feels like it's written in such a unique language, while STITI I think fits a lot more snugly into the progressive electronica that was becoming popular back then. but dubnobass isn't actually their debut and in fact a lot of its uniqueness has to do with them transitioning from one type of band to a very different one. yet still having some remnants of their old style. there ain't anything like it

"Aerosmith"

xxp actually Underworld did come to mind because dubnobass (and all that 93-94 stuff) feels like it's written in such a unique language, while STITI I think fits a lot more snugly into the progressive electronica that was becoming popular back then. but dubnobass isn't actually their debut and in fact a lot of its uniqueness has to do with them transitioning from one type of band to a very different one. yet still having some remnants of their old style. there ain't anything like it

― frogbs, Thursday, June 16, 2022 12:54 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol i knew you would disagree with me here. i feel you though. "ME" especially

with frog on Dubnobass... Second Toughest is more of a piece with what came after to my ears.

But yeah they didn't change their name so.. lol whatever

honorable mention a la trout mask replica then

How about Funkadelic and Osmium?

uhh which "first two albums are in conversation" example can i use in underworld's place uhhhh oh the band!!!

DEVO may qualify to be part of this rather exclusive gang ?

― mark e, Thursday, June 16, 2022 1:52 PM (fifty seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

was thinking of mentioning them for the Hardcore Devo stuff, which ticks a lot of these boxes. had Devo never gotten a deal and the Hardcore tapes were just "discovered" some decades later I imagine it would've been a big "holy shit everyone needs to hear this right now" sorta phenomenon

― frogbs,

yeah, i get that re the pre album material, however, this thread was all about the DEBUT album.

so, the earlier stuff is not relevant re DEVO ;)

Mellow Gold

Movement

first Springsteen would fit if not for the second

hmmmm

Maxinquaye by Tricky feels like it fits here

i think i also agree with murmur

Interesting. I see their first three albums (plus the Chronic Town EP) as being very much of a piece.

i think that's legit to some degree but idk for me there is something perceptibly different between murmur and reckoning, like two different photographs of the same band but the band is more in focus in the second one

uhh which "first two albums are in conversation" example can i use in underworld's place uhhhh oh the band!!!

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Thursday, June 16, 2022 3:06 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Cluster seem like they might fit there

As great/singular as Murmur is, I have always thought of Chronic Town as even more exemplary of – "imagine if they had recorded only this and then disappeared, how legendary it would be..."

I scrolled down here from the OP ready to post that R.E.M. somehow have two of these, between Chronic Town and Murmur!

otm

Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville ?

Chicago (Transit Authority)

Not an album and not different enough from what came next but maybe worth mentioning Spiral Scratch.

The Go! Team - Thunder Lightning Strike

Every single debut album by a famous band will be in this thread

― imago, Thursday, June 16, 2022 2:26 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I was about to say "that's silly, think about a band like REM where Murmur is so fully of a piece with (at least the next 5-6 years of) what follows," but a mere nine minutes later

REM Murmur possibly?

― OG Bob Sacamano (will), Thursday, June 16, 2022 2:35 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

As a result, if they're good, these albums sometimes don't even really feel like a part of their catalogue as a whole, and often people discovering them have no interest in the rest of their work.

I mean surely none of you would say this of Murmur!

Actually maybe Jagged Little Pill is this! It really is a thing a young person did not even really knowing the magnitude of what she was doing and the adult Morrissette never really made records that had the thing JLP had.

The B-52s

It brought John Lennon out of retirement.

illmatic is the best hip-hop example i could come up with that doesn't involve the addition or departure of a group member. maybe if kmd's mr. hood is considered mf doom's "debut album"

even then it involves the loss of subroc

The Go! Team - Thunder Lightning Strike

― MarkoP,

as much as i love them, the debut sounded like every other Go Team album ..

Motley Crue - too fast for love?

I want to say the first Joanna Newsom album.

Subsequent albums are all singular in their own right, but Milk-Eyed Mender has that quality of an immensely inspired debut.

Not psych in the overt weirdo sense, but mind-expanding in the syncretic writing, arranging, performing and production (incl. recording, sequence of tracks et.), together and separately (though mostly the former).

Terminal Tower was the first Ubu I heard, in 1989 or so. The early albums — The Modern Dance, Dub Housing, and New Picnic Time — were all out of print at that point, I think; at any rate, my local record store didn't have them. I saw the video for "Waiting For Mary" (from the then-new Cloudland) on MTV's 120 Minutes and liked it, but didn't feel like it was nearly as interesting as the TT stuff, so I didn't buy that. It wasn't until 1999 or so that Thirsty Ear reissued DH, NPT and a few others and I grabbed them.

^^and those were all spun off from a 'complete early years' box issued by GEFFEN of all people (who kept The Modern Dance and Terminal Tower reissues for themselves)

https://www.allmusic.com/album/datapanik-in-the-year-zero-box--mw0000181969

I remember seeing it on the shelves at Best Buy in my early CD-buying days in '97.

Back to the thread topic: Rickie Lee Jones? Pirates has it's cult, but her debut was embraced in a way far and way from the rest of her catalogue.

"in a way far and Away", even...

Meat Puppets s/t.

I remember seeing it on the shelves at Best Buy in my early CD-buying days in '97.

Prior to the 1997 Datapanik box, in 1989 Rough Trade put out CD reissues of everything from Dub Housing through Song Of The Bailing Man, including the two live albums (360 Degrees Of Simulated Stereo and One Man Drives While The Other Man Screams). The cover art on these reissues emulated then-current Apple Macintosh desktop screens. I don’t know why The Modern Dance wasn’t part of this reissue program, and Terminal Tower was licensed to Twin/Tone (and impossible to find on CD).

don't worry, pretty sure i'm the only one confused

(You're not.)

Not a debut but Confusion is Sex seemed to have its own reputation separated from the rest of Sonic Youth discography

It is a debut album tbf.

s/t was a mini lp until it was lengthened with bonus tracks. It was released by Branca's label then the same German one that put out Confusion IS Sex . & the Kill Your Idols e.p.

I was just trying to work out if that meant it was widely available. I got the Kill YOur idols e.p. then Confusion is Sex in Rough Trade after seeing the Venue show. So not sure if that meant they had things the rest of the country did or not.

I thought the <25 min-long s/t was always considered an EP but the usually credible Mustang site does say "[ t ]hough considered an EP by some, the band have always referred to it as the first album".

http://www.sonicyouth.com/mustang/lp/ep1.html

Little Dragon

Gorillaz

Both predict how they would form their signature sound but are very moody and different from their subsequent albums.

I might have understood the prompt erroneously.

I wasn't sure if anybody had said Meat Puppets s/t before me but it does seem to create its own thang which may have been picked up on people afterwards but is moved away from by the band. II seems a lot more clearly produced and overtly countryesque. The jazz/psych/grunge thing which had them being compared to ballroom scene bands when it was reviewed in the British press was not something they stayed with in the studio at least. maybe they were just continually morphing thanks to acid and things. I guess that SF comparison is there for a lot more of their music but the amateurish improvisatory grunge thing gives way to them showing they have chops if they need them far more clearly and they soon get a lot more rockish, like 4 lps or so later or something.
I guss the thing is doing their own thing and also doing it to country classics first heard from the Sons of the Pioneers etc, doing similar things to tracks from South pacific for hardcore Dead Kennedys audiences is also a really god trick. Not sure what timespan those 2 were over though. Assume the grungier bits might be understood by hardcore crowds but the anti genericism might not be.

The first 3 puppets records were like 3 different bands, none of which they ultimately continued as IMO. Traces of all three remained but their long haul persona was basically Huevos. (Of course they still play tracks from II and UotS).

Actually with the addition of keyboard dude they are in a major new shift to their sound currently

Anyway

Pups

I remember seeing it on the shelves at Best Buy in my early CD-buying days in '97.

heh -- I BOUGHT the first two Pere Ubus at Best Buy in summer '98.