Acts whose debut album is an afterthought in their overall discography

Metallica's long forgotten debut "Sloughing Through the Muddy Banks of the Petaluma River in Search of My Tennis Racket"

The Stone Roses - s/t

this is a joke right

Neutral Milk Hotel - On Avery Island

This feels like a different category--the solid debut that is ultimately a warm-up for great second album. Although maybe it does fit the "basically ignored by the vast majority of their fans" criteria.

does anyone listen to the first guided by voices album?

Yup!

The Stone Roses are a strange one, because they made an album with Martin Hannett in 1985 which wasn't released until 1996 against the wishes of the band. Two tracks were put out as a single at the time though: 'So Young'/'Tell Me'. A lot has been written about Second Coming over the years, but I believe even less people enjoy Garage Flower.

So try The Rolling Stones. Featuring one Jagger/Richards composition, and nothing anybody ever hears on the radio.

― Vic Perry, Wednesday, May 13, 2015 12:06 AM (18 hours ago)

this fits the thread perfectly and it's why i prob listen to this more than any other stones album these days. no overplayed songs, nothing i've ever had a chance to get sick of, but everything still sounds wonderful.

i wouldn't say a critically-acclaimed album that hit #1 in the UK and featured a Top 5 single that made their '95 stadium setlist perfectly fits the thread

they also did "route 66" in 2012, "I Just Want To Make Love To You" in the '00s, etc

there might be ten beach albums you'd buy before Surfin' Safari but damn Surfin' Safari is still a big part of the story

Accelerator is a great album IMO. When Children Cry gets frequent plays at my house. The whole album is a slightly leftfield take on progressive house and early uk electronic styles. Anyway, it is probably forgotten by most fans so it fits in with the thread, just had to rep for it.

beach boys albums, i mean xpost

If debut EPs count, I'd add Ratt, the Bangles (who were still called the Bangs then I think), and White Zombie.

moody blues -- the magnificent moodies

― Thus Sang Freud, Sunday, 10 May 2015 20:55 (3 days ago) Permalink

methinks inclusion of a #1 hit ("Go Now") is a disqualifier

shit, what didn't hit #1 back then?

Although a much-maligned band after the mid '90s, the first Ocean Colour Scene album from 1992 surely fits the bill here? No big hits, nothing played live, hated/discounted by the general listening public, ignored by fans, ignored by the band, suddenly re-appeared in shops (albeit as a cut-price budget release) after the success of a second album in 1996 which pretty much everyone considers their "real" debut and band, fans and general listening public alike still continued to be indifferent towards it.

Does anyone from her existing fanbase care about any of the pre-2005 Robyn records? I've not heard them, but the impression I got was that she effectively hit the reset button on her career at that point.

Kraftwerk is obviously the best answer to this question though.

yeah, but the singer of "go now" left the band after that lp, and as far as i know they didn't make a habit of performing anything from their first album after his departure. and their current audience would be surprised that that's a moody blues song. and they totally changed their sound with days of futures past. but you know all that. whatevs.

does the album suck, though? I was gonna name it and totally forgot that "Go Now" was #1, but I haven't heard it, can't imagine it's very good

doesn't suck if you're into merseybeat type stuff.

for that matter cat steven's first lp and single were uk hits, just not here in the states.

stevens'

xp first Moodies album doesn't sound much like "Go Now" either - it's mostly R&B type stuff

the Days of Futures Past lineup did play "Go Now" live for the first year or so. It's been played on the radio enough (and included in compilations) that I think most fans are familiar with it.

first albums that sound nothing like any that followed due to a different band lineup are their own category, like this one or Pink Floyd or Pulp.

yeah and considering how many people stan for those early Kraftwerk albums I think they belong there

The early Pulp albums sound like Pulp, albeit a not very good Pulp.

Does anyone from her existing fanbase care about any of the pre-2005 Robyn records? I've not heard them, but the impression I got was that she effectively hit the reset button on her career at that point.

"Show Me Love" from her first album was an international Top 10 (by comparison, none of her post-2005 songs have made the Hot 100 in the US) and she still plays it live so it's definitely not a hated, ignored, unknown afterthought

though she probably has plenty of younger fans with no context for it, i'm sure

i hope at least once a true-blue '90s pop fan wandered into a Robyn gig expecting a retro show and was like WHUUUUUH

Do Notwist fans care about the self-titled punk album they debuted with in 1991? (I like their next few myself, though I get the idea their American fanbase, inasmuch as it exists, doesn't care much about anything before Neon Golden in 2002.)

https://bekoob.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/shakira-magia.jpg

http://eil.com/images/main/Celine-Dion-La-Voix-Du-Bon-Di-261703.jpg

(although Celine's did have a couple of Quebec region hits on it)

First several Miami Sound Machine LPs, too:

http://www.discogs.com/artist/48245-Miami-Sound-Machine

Doesn't look like they got any U.S. Latin chart action early on, either. "Dr. Beat" off 1984's Eyes Of Innocence was finally a top 10 hit in Europe and Australia, apparently, but I get the idea even that one's been way downplayed over time, and it was way into their career, either way.

does this count?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Angel_%28Blue_Angel_album%29

cyndi lauper's band, before "she's so unusual." album went nowhere fast. wasn't even reissued on CD (outside of japan, naturally) for many years.

not a bad album btw!

Seems like if you include that (which I used to have a copy of, ages ago), you have to include Debbie Harry's first band, too:

http://www.discogs.com/Wind-In-The-Willows-The-Wind-In-The-Willows/master/213789

But I kind of think "bands people were in before they were famous" is a whole different category, myself.

what about rufus's self-titled, extremely low charting debut, the only one they made before they officially became "rufus featuring chaka khan"?

yeah going back upthread Show Me Love was HUGE, I remember seeing it on MTV as a kid and digging it. the album that it's on is fantastic too.

But I kind of think "bands people were in before they were famous" is a whole different category, myself.

yeah, true.

Oh speaking of early Sly, that 2014 Light In The Attic comp, I'm Just Like You: Sly's Stone Flower, has a lot of good stuff, ditto the 2013 box, Higher!, although there's some overlap I think.

the stone flower comp is great! it's very simple to an earlier comp on ace records, but the sony comp has better sound IMO.

cyndi lauper's band, before "she's so unusual." album went nowhere fast.

o it's already been broughten

Lauper was the lead singer of Blue Angel, so would be a different category as noted above, re Debbie Harry in pre-Blondie band The Wind In The Willows (also as noted, the album by Blue Angel is good, with Lauper's 50s-80s belting in a no-frills club rock setting).
Haven't heard Alice Cooper's xpost Pretties For You, but used to play Easy Action and thought it was pretty okay: a bit demo-y, but Vince's vocals really go for the gusto, as they used to say in that beer commercial he probably relished.

Did anybody mention these cobbled-together collections that can come out soon after the first proper albums hit it big, like Hendrix on sessions of Curtis Knight, Little Richard, the Isley Brothers (got some of the first two, would love to get the remixed tracks, with guitar highlighted, that the isleys bought out on their label: really good reviews, OOP forever, prob 100s of dollars on eBay)

since somebody mentioned it...

http://www.willardswormholes.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/cover1-293x300.jpg

Inquire within:
http://www.willardswormholes.com/archives/468

does the Jefferson Airplane debut count?

no, but the first Jefferson Starship album (Blows Against the Empire) almost does....

Jefferson Airplane Takes Off is a solid debut, and neither fans nor the band distanced themselves from it. I think of it like the first Fairport Convention album (which sounds surprisingly similar, and is also very good); each was made with a fine female vocalist who left after the first album and are unfairly maligned because they're not Grace Slick/Sandy Denny, and weren't as popular or quite as good as what followed.

Gerry Rafferty's Can I Get My Money Back? (1971) is a weird one. Tucked in between the three Humblebums albums that proceded it and the three Stealers Wheel albums that followed, it was ignored upon its release and still (undeservedly) gets little attention now. It would be another seven years before City to City, which topped the charts in the US and many probably think is his solo debut.

John Cale's Vintage Violence fits doesn't it?
Think it's his first, stylistically different etc. VU were still obscure when he left.
Not sure what's on it though, so he may have reworked songs live.

First Little Big Town album (Monument 2002) also fits.

Did Dead Can Dance get a mention already?