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Best Debut Albums


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5 hours ago, bickster said:

I have 31 from the ROlling Stones list (which is a shite list IMO

97. Arctic Monkeys

94. Arcade Fire

92. Yazoo

88. Violent Femmes

86. Killers

19. The Smiths

73. Pink FLoyd

67. Jeff Buckley

65. Oasis

63. NWA

62. Wire

59. Rage Against The Machine

58. The Slits

52. The Beat

51. Daft Punk

49. Gang of Four

48. Beastie Boys

45. Portishead

43. B52s

42. De La Soul

38. Television

36. X-Ray Spex

27. Led Zep

23. Sex :Pistols

17. Joy Division.

12. Steele Pulse

11 REM

9. The Clash

8. Guns and Roses

5. Patti Smith

3. Velvet Underground and Nico

 

That's a great list! -- slightly different than I would have expected (am I sounding patronising enough? 😁). I had about 46. Mine are in re-ordered "worst" to best. I guess I do give some weight to popularity, too -- sort of the if a tree falls ... argument. I love that Big Star album, but no one gave a shit about that for years and not many even heard it, and in the end, Alex Chilton was driving around the midwest in his car doing shows to tiny audiences of hipsters but it was too late. Sad story, really. But it just wasn't that "big" of an album -- so I don't know. Then there all the artists with mediocre or weird or unrepresentative debuts who later proved everyone wrong. Prince, for instance. The Beatles and, for me, a huge one, Public Enemy. And Kraftwerk.

Not sure how many on this board would have really witnessed the impact of the Cars' debut in the fall of 1978 and into 1979. Not enormous in UK. Very hard to overstate impact in US middle America. It was strangely divisive -- and got such airplay. 

The Libertines, 'Up the Bracket' (2002)
Big Star, '#1 Record' (1972)
Nine Inch Nails, 'Pretty Hate Machine' (1989)
Metallica, 'Kill 'Em All' (1983)
Fiona Apple, 'Tidal' (1996)
Frank Ocean, 'Channel Orange' (2012)
The Modern Lovers, 'The Modern Lovers' (1976)
Pearl Jam, 'Ten' (1991)
Sade, 'Diamond Life' (1984)
The Go-Go's, 'Beauty and the Beat' (1981)
Rage Against the Machine, 'Rage Against the Machine' (1992)
Leonard Cohen, 'Songs of Leonard Cohen' (1967)
The B-52's, 'The B-52s' (1979)
Van Halen, 'Van Halen' (1978)
Ramones, 'Ramones' (1976)
Pavement, 'Slanted and Enchanted' (1992)
The Cars, 'The Cars' (1978)
Led Zeppelin, 'Led Zeppelin' (1969)
The Pretenders, 'Pretenders' (1980)
Pink Floyd, 'The Piper at the Gates of Dawn' (1967)
PJ Harvey, 'Dry' (1992)
Yazoo, 'Upstairs at Eric's' (1982)
Violent Femmes, 'Violent Femmes' (1983)
Bad Bunny, 'X 100pre' (2018)
Liz Phair, 'Exile in Guyville' (1993)
Kanye West, 'The College Dropout' (2004)
Wire, 'Pink Flag' (1977)
Steel Pulse, 'Handsworth Revolution' (1978)
Madonna, 'Madonna' (1983)
Devo, 'Q: Are We Not Men? We Are Devo!' (1978)
Whitney Houston, 'Whitney Houston' (1985)
Run-DMC, 'Run-DMC' (1984)
The Smiths, 'The Smiths' (1984)
R.E.M., 'Murmur' (1983)
Black Sabbath, 'Black Sabbath' (1970)
Elvis Presley, 'Elvis Presley' (1956)
N.W.A, 'Straight Outta Compton' (1988)
The Doors, 'The Doors' (1967)
The Velvet Underground, 'The Velvet Underground and Nico' (1967)
The Beatles, 'Please Please Me' (1963)
The Sex Pistols, 'Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols' (1977)

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22 hours ago, theboyangel said:

Mansun - Attack Of The Grey Lantern (1997) 

 

Great album. It's a shame Paul Draper's behaviour in the last few years has put a massive dampener on things....

Stalking order for Britpop rocker accused of harassing the singer who revived his career  | Daily Mail Online

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11 minutes ago, DeadlyDirk said:

Great album. It's a shame Paul Draper's behaviour in the last few years has put a massive dampener on things....

Stalking order for Britpop rocker accused of harassing the singer who revived his career  | Daily Mail Online

Yep - many have fallen foul of ill advised behaviour sadly.

Mark Morriss of The Bluetones is another one. 

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  • 1 month later...
6 minutes ago, il_serpente said:

I was reminded today of one I forgot to put on my list:

Graham Parker-  Howlin’ Wind

Hmmm. It's an album I rather like, certainly my favourite by GP. But in the pantheon of great debuts, I'm not sure I'd put it in the top 100. 

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4 hours ago, Mark Albrighton said:

Fun pop debut. The Shangri-Las/Ronettes vibe but in 2006.
 

IMG_0312.thumb.jpeg.96bec2e2e50079d674010a61bd108920.jpeg

Really unusual thing about The Pipettes. Every single member of the group of over their time as an entity (all 5 of them) produces much better music in their endeavours since :D Not one of them is really making pop records either.

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4 minutes ago, bickster said:

Really unusual thing about The Pipettes. Every single member of the group of over their time as an entity (all 5 of them) produces much better music in their endeavours since :D Not one of them is really making pop records either.

Can’t say I’ve heard anything by any of them apart from this (including the follow up album, just never bothered). I know they all went their separate ways doing whatever - Gwenno and her Welsh language and Cornish albums.

They seem like they were a bit of a curious project. Rather pointlessly I know the drummer was in a couple of episodes of Peep Show as a supporting character. 

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Gwenno's sister, the last to join The Pipettes, Ani Glass is the closest to pop music I guess but again like her sister, it's Welsh Language. Their father is renowned poet, journalist and literary historian of Cornish descent but lives in Wales and writes in Cornish, Welsh, Irish Gaelic and Breton

Rose Elinor Dougall has a solo career and also works with Mark Ronson

Julia Clarke-Lowes is in indie band The Indelicates who are at least 6 albums into their career and..

Rachel Stephen’s has had a few solo projects but is probably best know for being a backing singer for Jesica Hoop

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Few that I don't think have been mentioned from my collection that probably deserve a shout out and immediately spring to mind.

Cypress Hill - Cypress Hill

Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle

Fat Freddy's Drop - Based on a True Story

The Specials - The Specials

Stevie Ray Vaughan - Texas Flood

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On 17/08/2023 at 16:09, Marka Ragnos said:

The Beat Happening. Started K Records more or less … 

 

 

A few years back, pre covid, I saw Calvin Johnson (as Selector Dub Narcotic) at a small in store gig, just about 20 of us in there including shop staff. It was like a chat with your mates and every now and again he’d do another song, but only if everyone was dancing. It was a truly excellent evening. ‘Merch’ at the end consisted of him having a stash of random K Records singles in a suitcase and selling them lucky dip style.

It was one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to. 

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