Best Debut Singles Evah!

(OK, both had earlier singles but these were the first ones that a lot of people actually heard)

Andrew ABBA's pre-Waterloo singles stubbornly refuse to be excised from history :(

Paul Kate Bush totally qualifies - #1 hit, debut single, like nothing else ever heard.

Tori Amos - Me And A Gun
Sugababes - Overload
Kenickie - In Your Car
Shivaree - Goodnight Moon
Lina - Playa No Mo'
So Solid Crew - 21 Seconds

Tori's first single was from Y Kant Tori Read, surely. ;-)

(Right, so a couple of these were only debuts for the artist themselves. But it was considered being a debut for the US market)

Buzzcocks - "Spiral Scratch"

*splutter* DEBUT? In 1993? Wheeeeeeee...

??

ah, but then you couldn't have Bjork's debut in here either, and that would be a great loss ;)

Her debut as Tori Amos, the solo artist, was Me And A Gun, as far as I'm concerned.

And seconding Justin... I cannot believe I forgot him.

2/3 of the bands in NYC today try to sound like Gang of Four did in 1978.

Except without the cod-Marxist lyrics, thank God.

Kinda hard to pull that off with a straight face when your band shamelessly pursues the filthy lucre (see:Interpol).

As for this question:

"Party at Ground Zero" by Fishbone

oh god, this is where I reveal myself to be a little too much of a Tori nut. MAAG was released first, with SATY as a b-side, then deleted (no idea why). Then it was re-released with the same artwork, same b-sides etc. but with SATY as the lead track.

Alicia Keys - Fallin'
Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls

ha, amateurist I wrote that then erased it - is it really The Impressions absolute first release?

did anyone actually kinda do this?

Well sure, Charlie, but Pulp weren't really known in the US, then. If anything, they were barely a blip. It did take a while for people to stop saying, "Who the hell are they"?

"Anarchy in the UK"

which band/artist's first single was their best song of their career? (please name band/artist)

The Who: "I Can't Explain."

here's where the comparisons don't really work due to the lyrical facility mega-evident in "I Luv U" and "Virginia Plain"

now if "The Message" had been a debut... ("Has It Come To This" anyone?)

"Fight For Your Right to Party"

Absolutely. And I wanna nominate one of the forgotten gems of the '80s, Londonbeat's 9 a.m. (The Comfort Zone). Why it isn't regarded as one of the all-time great soul songs, I'll never understand.

"Doo Wop (That Thing)" by Lauryn Hill

We should be ashamed not to have mentioned "Hit Me Baby (One More Time)" yet!!!!! (Why do all my choices have parentheses??)

Catsuit city was Kenickie first (on slampt)

if you mean madonna's "holiday," that was her third single, at least. "everybody" and "burning up" both came before. it was her first great single, though.

More: "Talk Talk," "(I Wanna) Testify," "All Fall Down," and "Touch Me, I'm Sick."

The Kinks' debut single was not "You Really Got Me." It was "Long Tall Shorty."

Yes, yes and yes.

I haven't even HEARD of Catsuit City.

Tasmin Archer - Sleeping Satellite
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Bang
Air - Sexy Boy
Darude - Sandstorm

oh god. you're right. silly me.

hee hee.

also whichever out of geno and dance stance/burn it down was first

(Not just The Damned's debut single of course but also the first UK punk single)

Is my memory playing tricks on me again or didn't "Lovers Of Today" come out before that one?

Mind you, their first single as BBAA wasn't "Ring Ring", it was "People Need Love", which to be honest, was utter tripe!!!

Wow, I was always convinced it was "Me, Myself and I" -- which also works.

Also:
Busta Rhymes - Woo Ha (Got You All in Check)
Mobb Deep - Shook Ones Pt. 2 (was this their debut? the title would seem to indicate otherwise)
Stone Temple Pilots - Sex-Type Thing
Tripping Daisy - My Umbrella
Linkin Park - One Step Closer

magnetic fields - 100,000 fireflies

Neeeeeeed! Help me out here..;-)

but Pulp weren't really known in the US, then. If anything, they were barely a blip. It did take a while for people to stop saying, "Who the hell are they"?
-- Nichole Graham

Oh sure, point taken, but are we talking about *actual official* debut single or just "the first single a band/artist released when people actually bothered to take notice and acknowledge their existence"? The former, surely, hence my exclamation. 'Snot my fault some people are so slow on the uptake...*ducks*

I think the fact that I've never hear of most of these must count against them to an extent.

Why sure. But first repeat to yourself, "Bloodflowers is a very good album. Ned and Dan have very accurate critical perceptions..."

That wasn't even on their debut album; I'm guessing that "Peer Pressure" was their first single, although I could be wrong.

Post-punk before punk. Bonus points for being indie.

Parliaments - I adore "Testify," but I don't know if it was their first. I think they recorded for other labels before Revilot.

Speaking of having more than one debut single out at once . . . Moby Grape. Out of five, only "Omaha" charted, but they're all pretty great.

Also:
(I'm sure someone already mentioned) "It's Like That"/"Sucker MCs"
Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, "It Takes Two"
Dylan's first single - "Mixed Up Confusion" - is pretty cool, and a nicely odd bit of his history
Superchunk - "What Do I"/"My Noise"/"Train From Kansas City"
Zombies - "She's Not There"
Was (Not Was) - "Wheel Me Out"
The Move, "Night of Fear"/"Disturbance" (I still think Quasi should cover either or both sides)

plus maybe:
Plush - "found a little baby"
Quickspace - "friend" (well...they'd dropped the Supersport and half the band, so kind of a 2nd debut....?!)
Four Tet - thirtysix twentyfive
Neneh Cherry - buffalo stance
The Monsoon Bassoon - "wise guy"
Tindersticks - marbles (or was "patchwork" first?)
PJ Harvey - "dress"
Mudhoney - "touch me i'm sick"
"kill Your Televisio..." oh ok, maybe not that one..

and unless i missed them, Sugababes "overload"/Tweet "oops"/Tricky "aftermath" too..

Here's thirty.

Devo - "Mongoloid/Jocko Homo" changed my life.

Losing My Edge because it proves its own thesis by being the best thing LCD ever did.

seal - crazy

Good one!

I can't stand "Losing My Edge," as I mentioned on FB.

the field mice - emma's house
e-40 - captain save a hoe

Organised Konfusion - Fudge Pudge
Curtis Mayfield - (Don't Worry) If There's A Hell Below We're All Going To Go
Janelle Monae - Many Moons
Rhythm Formation - Ready for the Darkness (aka Kelli Hand and Claude Young - I think this was the debut single for both of them)
Rythim Is Rythim - Nude Photo

Beyonce - Crazy in Love
Cassie - Me & U

how has noone suggested these!?

Beyonce's first solo single was 'Work It Out' no?

I think you’re right.. I used rateyourmusic as the source which separates singles and soundtrack work.

Other debut singles still unmentioned:

Young Marble Giants - Final Day
New Order - Ceremony
Lana del Rey - Video Games
M.I.A. - Galang
Sugarhill Gang - Rapper’s Delight
Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop
The Stooges - I wanna be your dog
Manu Chao - Clandestino
Soda Stereo - Nada Personal
Maldita Vecindad - Morenaza
The Band - The Weight
Bon Iver - Skinny Love
Van Morrison - Brown eyed girl
Phil Collins - In the air tonight
Lorde - Royals
Erykah Badu - on & on

Moar:

Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe
Kiiara - Gold
Althea & Donna - uptown top ranking
Nancy Sesay - C’est Fab
Kraftwerk - Autobahn
Human League - being boiled
Shura - Touch
Grimes - Vanessa
Whitney - No Woman
Maggie Rogers - Alaska
Mirah - Cold cold water
Jens Lekman - Maple Leaves
Haim - Don’t Save Me
The XX - Crystallised
Lykke Li - Little Bit
Fever Ray - If I had a heart
Tv on the radio - staring at the sun
Sigur ros - svefn g englar
Aphex twin - windowlicker (was this actually his firsr single?)
Rheingold - Dreiklangs dimensionen

I'd be surprised if Windowlicker was even Aphex's 30th single.

Autobahn was far from Kraftwerk's debut, too.

Rym might not be the most trustworthy source for discographies.

I’m doublechecking on discogs for Aphex and I see remixes, eps and collab singles but no Aphex Twin singles until windowlicker. He did have several under the AFX moniker prior to it though.

I guess if we count eps as singles his first one is Analogue Bubblebath from 1991 which is a pretty great debut single too.

Aphex singles:

Analogue Bubblebath (1991)
Analogue Bubblebath vol 2 (1991)
Bradley's Beat (1991, as Bradley Strider)
Xylem Tube EP (1992)
Digeridoo (1992)
Joyrex J4 (1992, as Caustic Window)
Joyrex J5 (1992, as Caustic Window)
On (1993)
Universal Indicator Red (1993)
Bradley's Robot (1993, as Bradley Strider)
Joyrex J4 (1993, as Caustic Window)
Quoth (1993, as Polygon Window)
Analogue Bubblebath 4 (1994, as AFX)
GAK (1994, as Gak)
Ventolin (1995)
Donkey Rhubarb (1995)
Hangable Auto Bulb EP (1995, as AFX)
Hangable Auto Bulb EP 2 (1995, as AFX)
Girl/Boy EP (1996)
Come To Daddy (1997)

plus Power-Pill as Pac-Man (1992), which I don't think of as being part of the Aphex project per se, and several remixes of other bands that were released with Aphex also front-cover credited as artist. If you count Analogue Bubblebaths 3 and 5, and Universal Indicator Green, as "not-albums" then you just about get to thirty by Windowlicker!

hi silby

X-POST: I don't know how you count Windowlicker as even his first single of 1997!

Because all of those you enlisted are EPs or under the AFX moniker as I stated. I too would count most of those as singles though.

I’m not saying they are not singles that just how discogs and rym have them categorized.

I refute them! but no matter how you count, it's going against the thread's principle of "the first thing they ever released being so good you wondered if hey could top it"

(Come To Daddy didn't say EP on it, had a video, and went Top 40 months before Windowlicker. Donkey Rhubarb didn't say EP on it, and had a video. Ventolin did say EP on it (not in the US though!), but had a video, and went Top 50. On didn't say EP on it, had a video (famously directed by Jarvis Cocker), and went Top 40.)

Sam & Dave had about ten singles out before Hold On, I'm a-Comin'.

My suggestions not yet mentioned itt would include:

The B-52s - Rock Lobster
The Doors - Break On Through (to the Other Side)
Bobbie Gentry - Ode to Billie Joe/Mississippi Delta
Astrud Gilberto - The Girl from Ipanema
The Go-Go's - Our Lips Are Sealed
Mary Hopkin - Those Were the Days
Janis Ian - Society's Child
Grace Jones - Sorry/That's the Trouble
Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam - I Wonder If I Take You Home
Laura Nyro - Wedding Bell Blues/Stoney End
The Marvelettes - Please Mr. Postman
Shannon - Let the Music Play

Some of my favorites that I don't think have been mentioned

Supergrass - Caught By The Fuzz
Change - The Glow Of Love
Garbage - Vow
The Blue Nile - I Love This Life
Prefab Sprout - Lions In My Own Garden (Exit Someone)
Art Brut - Formed A Band
Minnie Riperton - Les Fleurs
Goldfrapp - Lovely Head
Chic - Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah Yowsah Yowsah)
Dexys Midnight Runners - Dance Stance
Amerie - Why Don't We Fall In Love
Elastica - Stutter
OMD - Electricity
Life Without Buildings - The Leanover
Girls Aloud - Sound Of The Underground
Broadcast - Accidentals
Little Boots - Stuck On Repeat
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Merched Yn Neud Gwallt Eu Gilydd
Quadron - Slippin'
D'angelo - Brown Sugar
Altered Images - Dead Pop Stars
Cherrelle - I Didn't Mean to Turn You On
Annie - The Greatest Hit

many good choices since I last read this! & how fun to open a thread and find it’s an ancient one you started and forgot about

even though they’re not exactly considered a singles band, apparently the first two released (in 1966) by The Velvet Underground were:
“All Tomorrow’s Parties (edit)”/“I’ll Be Your Mirror” and “Sunday Morning”/“Femme Fatale”
makes me wonder if there are four better opening A’s/B’s by any other artist - suspect that’s hard to beat!

if you have/find a reasonably good condition copy of either of those Velvets singles, you can sell them for serious money, check discogs

best debut singles that aren't by Richard D. James:

King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band - Dipper Mouth Blues
The Mills Brothers - Tiger Rag
Thelonious Monk - 'Round About Midnight/Well, You Needn't
The Fleetwoods - Come Softly to Me
Loretta Lynn - I'm a Honky Tonk Girl
Barbara Lynn - You'll Lose a Good Thing
Sly & The Family Stone - Underdog
Os Mutantes -A minha menina
Sagittarius - My World Fell Down
Jeannie C. Riley - Harper Valley P.T.A.
Vainica Doble - Un Metro Cuadrado/La Bruja
Squeeze - Take Me I'm Yours
EBTG - Night and Day/Feeling Dizzy/On My Mind
A.R. Kane - When You're Sad
Lamb - Cotton Wool

Something I definitely heard via ILM back in the day comes to mind:

Junior Boys - "Birthday"

The Go-Go's - Our Lips Are Sealed

The Go-Go's actually had earlier versions of "We Got The Beat" b/w "How Much More" out on a single on Stiff prior to signing w/I.R.S. Both recordings are surprisingly obscure: "WGTB" only appeared on CD stateside on a reunion maxi-single, and "HMM" on Rhino's "New Wave Women" comp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuJHx1yplIM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EToEhep4rco

Would add The Mamas & the Papas - California Dreamin' but there's a technical question since they had a single just before, "Go Where You Wanna Go," that was withdrawn and may just exist in promo copies only

Public Image.

Yes

Tears For Fears - Suffer the Children

I made a playlist of all of my (available) faves: https://open.spotify.com/user/cryptosicko/playlist/0Q4eNrtXH5YRD2eEEEaJMq?si=oPbdkMk6TeiEdy84mgvOAw

Those not mentioned here yet:

Dusty Springfield - "I Only Want To Be With You"
The Dixie Cups - "Chapel of Love"
The Honeycombs - "Have I the Right?"
The Left Banke - "Walk Away Renee"
Procol Harum - "A Whiter Shade of Pale"
Friends of Distinction - "Grazing in the Grass"
R.B. Greaves - "Take a Letter, Maria"
Commodores - "Machine Gun"
Carol Douglas - "Doctor's Orders"
Blondie - "X Offender"
Nervous Eaters - "Loretta"
Buzzcocks - "Orgasm Addict"
The Germs - "Forming"
Odyssey - "Native New Yorker"
The Stranglers - "Get a Grip on Yourself"
Talking Heads - "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town"
XTC - "Science Friction"
Prince - "Soft and Wet"
The Buggles - "Video Killed the Radio Star"
Machine - "There But For the Grace of God Go I"
Pretenders - "Stop Your Sobbing"
Indeep - "Last Night a D.J. Saved My Life"
Cyndi Lauper - "Girls Just Want to Have Fun"
Big Audio Dynamite - "The Bottom Line"
'Til Tuesday - "Voices Carry"
Crowded House - "Mean to Me"
E.U. - "Da Butt"
M/A/R/R/S - "Pump Up the Volume"
Tracy Chapman - "Fast Car"
Michael Penn - "No Myth"
Arrested Development - "Tennessee"
Belly - "Gepetto"
Veruca Salt - "Seether"
Primitive Radio Gods - "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand"
Hanson - "MMMBop"
The New Pornographers - "Letter From an Occupant"
The Killers - "Mr. Brightside"
The Postal Service - "Such Great Heights"
Scissor Sisters - "Comfortably Numb"
Gnarls Barkley - "Crazy"
Vistosso Bosses - "Delirious"
Azealia Banks - "212"
CHVRCHES - "The Mother We Share"
Savages - "Husbands"
Courtney Barnett - "Avant Gardener"
The 1975 - "Sex"

Science Friction, yeah. What a killer song. One of their best, certainly of the live period.

Buzzcocks - "Orgasm Addict"

Spiral Scratch was the debut

Scissor Sisters - "Comfortably Numb"

was the b-side of the first single, not an a-side until their third

Hanson - "MMMBop"

Dust Brothers version was released after they'd had two albums, including one with another version of MMMBop on it. That said I'm almost inclined to accept this, as approximately zero people would ever have heard those albums without hearing them live, first.

Courtney Barnett - "Avant Gardener"

this was a track on her second EP, and another track from that EP was sold as a digital single a year earlier.

I was pretty rigorous, when making this list, with consulting Wikipedia and Discogs (and in a few cases, CD liner notes), so I can only imagine that these were just the results of shoddy research on my part. Spiral Scratch I knew about, and I cannot imagine how I forgot it. "Avant Gardner" might have been the result of some incomplete info on Wiki, but you're right--the song doesn't even appear until a year after her first release! As for "Comfortably Numb," I suppose I could count the b-side of a debut single, but (I see now) the song wasn't released as an A-side until their 3rd single, so I'm not counting it either.

Erasing those three from my playlist, but keeping "MMMBop" for the reason you mention: those first two records don't really count. Also, adding "Take On Me," which I just remembered after seeing it on Alfred's list.

The Saints - (I'm) Stranded

^ otm

yeah, Comfortably Numb could actually fit Paul's theme, in that one might have heard it before anything else. I definitely heard Laura first though! (maybe on mp3 blogs initially, but it charted slightly in Australia the year before Numb was a single, and it also placed on a Big Deal annual youth radio listener poll of best singles of the year)

Hank Williams - Move It On Over

The Teddy Bears - To Know Him Is To Love Him

Commodores - "Machine Gun"

Discogs says their first single was released in 1969, four years before "Machine Gun".

I actually like Laura better than Comfortably Numb and love it as a single.

Hank released four singles prior to "Move It On Over" (though it was his first chart hit).

i guess his first would be "Never Again (Will I Knock On Your Door)"? still a great song.

Thanks Tuomas, re: “Machine Gun.” Wikipedia strikes again!

I like “Laura” too, but it still isn’t their first single; something called “Electrobix” is.

The first one that came to mind upon seeing the thread title was 'New Rose', but I knew someone would have said that already as it's so thoroughly, undeniably classic. Surprised it took so long for it to get mentioned, though.

I like “Laura” too, but it still isn’t their first single; something called “Electrobix” is.

yes, that's why I said that Comfortably Numb was their third

(was noting that as far as singles go, it's not like Laura didn't make an impact well before Numb)

singles that stand out as leaving me instantly in love with the artist when they came out:

Neutral Milk Hotel - Everything Is (wrote Jeff Mangum a letter and he left me an answering machine message (never talked))

Cornershop - Waterlogged

and a couple already mentioned, Upside Down and Ohio River Boat Song.

SULTANS OF SWING

RIGHT OUT OF THE GATE

Change - The Glow Of Love

this was released as a single well after both "a lover's holiday" (the only single to have come out before the album did) and "searching". imo "a lover's holiday" is an incredible debut single tho!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A29BMj3v86w

Metallica - Whiplash
Slayer - Raining Blood

If "You Send Me" really is Sam Cooke's first (solo) single, then that