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

Is that a Bloomsday reference?

The KLF's Chill Out (1990) springs to mind. Probably because the OP mentioned The Orb. Technically the band had released several singles and a couple of albums before that, but Chill Out was the first album credited to the KLF.

It was very influential but it's also an aberration. The KLF's next album was totally different, and most of the ambient music that followed from other musicians had beats, whereas Chill Out is mostly beatless. I have the impression it was intended as a throwaway joke that wasn't expected to age well, but it still holds up.

Gang of Four's Entertainment - specifically the guitar sound - is the first thing I think of when I think of UK post-punk. Not just Gang of Four but UK post-punk in general. I haven't heard a single thing the band released after that. They were so angry! Pere Ubu's Modern Dance is similar but with US post-punk-albeit-very-early-post-punk. When I think of US post-punk I immediately think of David Thomas going ahahahaha as if someone had dropped an ice cube down his back.

Modern Dance certainly was its very own fire escape experience when it first materialized. so unknown to many of us in boondocks beyond CLE (aside from a glimpse on a comp). But later there was this, which I never saw on CD, and no doubt if I'd heard the EP first oh shit (we haven't talked about EPs here, come to think of it) Must admit xgau nearly nailed it, as he could still do then:

Terminal Tower: An Archival Collection [Twin/Tone, 1986]
Side one is the long unavailable Datapanik in the Year Zero EP, itself comprising two indie singles and a compilation cut and as powerful a sequence as side one of Dub Housing nevertheless. Side two collects the kind of oddments that rarely cohere on LP, yet here the outtakes and B sides and stray singles come together as a record of David Thomas's slide or progress from willed optimism to blessed whimsy. In short, this is a gift from God--a third Ubu album from the former Crocus Behemoth's pre-God period. A-

Also, Music From Big Pink was its own kind of experience, like getting lost in the cornfield in the evening sun, and coming across a fallen scarecrow with pulsating kandy leaking out: there's a steady cadence, but they've just kept working it and packing and feeding the levels, as if the Dead could have brought something of their psychedelic overbudget studio expeditions to, say, Workingman's Dead. Also fitting this thread, The Band and some later tracks worked in their own terms, but never again like this.

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.