Acts whose debut album is an afterthought in their overall discography

Lou Reed's s/t debut certainly has its awkward moments---sometimes the writing, sometimes the drumming, sometimes both at once---but certainly has its keepers too, like "I Can't Stand It," the jangle-pop x Bo Diddly beats of "Love Makes You Feel," and especially "Wild Child"--did he ever do that live? Just so VU Lou, in a Loaded way.
Somebody mentioned Garland Jeffreys' s/t debut in passing: didn't get the (deserved) hype of Ghost Writer(which he'll be performing at Highland in NYC 5/30), but, as with the xpost Joni debut, musical sensibilities seem fully, distinctively formed (though both artists got more topical & varied the arrangements later on).
His phrasing is fluid, alert and adaptable, like he's found a good spot for busking, while keeping an eye on those creeps coming up out of the subway. Kind of a Dion vibe, although doesn't literally sound that much like Dion.
Da Croupier, there's a set of tracks (maybe an album) by Flip City, Costello's pre-Stiff band. Dunno what he looked like or how it sounds (posted here and there), but originally saw it referred to as bluegrass...

Queen

'Keep Yourself Alive' didn't even make it onto Greatest Hits, if I remember. I guess 'Great King Rat' and 'Liar' are fan favourites, but casual listeners probably would know very few tracks on it. The band seemed to approach the material on this album very rarely, if ever, after the mid '70s.

idk his narrative that well at all but isn't Alice Cooper's first album really totally different/not usually talked about?

― soyrev, Monday, May 11, 2015 8:09 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, and this goes for their second album too. Both Pretties For You and Easy Action are generally seen as early curios really, by pretty much everyone. I think Love It To Death is generally considered their debut even if it isn't.

I actually almost mentioned Glass Candy and Chromatics up there with the Rapture, I swear. (Then decided that with '00s indie acts, for all I know, their career trajectories might not even be all that unusual, and wasn't sure if anybody else even knew them. Was probably wrong on both counts.)

Somebody mentioned Miranda Lambert above, and it occurs to me that starting with CDBaby or whatever, this probably isn't rare at all in country -- Kacey Musgraves even self-released a couple albums as a teenager, to sell at shows or serve as demos. And she's far from alone in that. Jamey Johnson put out a self-relased album, then one called The Dollar with an actual top 20 country single before he got the idea to dress up more like an outlaw. That got him a whole different audience that might barely even know The Dollar existed, much less the first one.

Also, Shania Twain put out a flop self-titled album nobody remembers before hooking up with Mutt Lange -- And if you don't have hits in mainstream country, you might as well not exist.

Alanis.

Happy that you brought up Queen, Turrican. I was too chickenshit because I didn't know what the extent of "Keep Yourself Alive" was, hit-wise, and I knew some might harp on "Seven Seas of Rhye"'s original version (sans vocals) being on it.

but yeah, I think it fits perfectly. It's very quaint compared to the material that came later, and maybe not a 'forgotten' album but certainly kind of a dull thud of an introduction.

a gold record can qualify for this imo

can't qualify imo

it's definitely a soft opening but it's hardly a WHOOPS, LET'S TRY THAT AGAIN

I dunno, the band have always been incredibly critical of the production on Queen. For what it's worth, I like a lot of the material on the album.

If we're looking for "WHOOPS, LET'S TRY THAT AGAIN" albums, then Life In A Day by Simple Minds is definitely one of those. They rushed to get the second album out because they were dissatisfied with the debut.

More country qualifiers: Definitely first three Dixie Chicks, probably first five Shelby Lynnes (all of which placed low on the country chart before the album that won her a Best New Artist Grammy!)

Cat Stevens, Mathew and Son.

genesis: from genesis to revelation

kansas debut.

Bataclan tape..

"This next song is called Wild Child. It's about a Wild Child, funnily enough"

John Hiatt? Actually it took him a number of albums to hit his stride, but I don't think anybody talks about Hanging Around The Observatory.

I'm with croup on this, even albums that sell well due to later success (Bleach, the aforementioned Shania s/t, etc.) shouldn't qualify based on the criteria at the top of the thread. If an album sells half a million copies, it seems pretty well "accepted" as part of the discography.

The three pre-Natalie Maines Dixie Chicks records are a good example of "afterthought," in that they never charted or even went gold. This band has two diamond records and the first three releases are supremely ignored.

Okay, yeah, I hadn't realized that Shania debut subsequently went platinum (which is no surprise, I guess). Pretty sure I've never heard anything from it on the radio, but I agree, if it sold that much it doesn't belong.

Don't think I've ever even seen those first two mid '70s John Hiatt albums. Starting with Slug Line in 1979, at least he had new wavers who wanted an American Costello backing him up.

Yeah, that Shania was a staple of mid-price bins after she blew up.

(Pre-Natalie Maines Dixie Chicks albums were okay, as I dimly recall, but Maines brought the charisma. Those first albums were *not* reissued despite diamond sales of the later sets; figure it was a Chicks command, maybe especially from the firing/hiring foresisters, Emily and Martie, both with many marital surnames.)

I got a promo of Ashley Monroe's Satisfied like ten years ago (think she was 17), immediately got involved w several tracks and repelled by others; seemed like the "grown-ups" were practicing musical abuse, with schlock-shop cliches next to striking originals. Release date kept getting pushed back, then publicist finally said it was getting withdrawn from the schedule, for "reworking." She did some singles etc with other performers, established herself as a co-writer, then the thing finally came out, and it still seemed fucked-with (I don't know how much control she had at that point; who knows what kind of contract she signed all those years ago). But it's still worth checking, and personally (minority report) I still find some of it more compelling than her more professional, more detached Like A Rose. Which also has its keepers, but nowadays I like her best as a Pistol Annnie.

Sunny Sweeney has said that she "didn't know what I was doing" when she recorded Heartbreaker's Hall of Fame, but it's another erratic grabber; she sometimes sounds like an alt-universe Natalie Maines, pissed off about still spinnin' her wheels (real hard) in Big Woods Texas.

Marvin Gaye - The Soulful Moods Of Marvin Gaye

an album primarily of standards released a year before Stubborn Kind of Fellow

While Hall & Oates' Whole Oats has no hits, didn't chart, songs from it got covered by other people and the same people all worked on the hit follow-up a year later. But apparently the first single was initially credited to Whole Oats, as they were thinking about call themselves that. So i'd say it's like 2/3rds a qualifer.

Lana Del Rey

Fall Out Boy's Evening Out With Your Girlfriend

a debut album that has been demoted to EP on the band's wikipedia page

The Wailing Wailers

I think sometimes you get this with solo albums when they're still in the band, then when the breakup happens, the solo albums feel different. Peter Hammill's first album is okay but he really put everything into the second album after VDGG broke up

Pete Townshend - Who Came First

Giorgio Moroder's definitely fits the bill here:

That's Bubble Gum – That's Giorgio

Hell, his next five records are also just as obscure. Wouldn't most fans consider his Knights in White Satin LP to be his "debut"?

I've got his Son Of My Father from 1972 (title track from which went #46 in the U.S.); didn't even know he had any before that 'til now.

So...does Beck qualify? What do the referees say? First album was apparently initially cassette-only; second, Stereopathic Soulmanure, is up to 146,000 copies sold so far, according to Wiki. Doubt the vast majority of his fans have ever heard it, though.

That's a tough one! Part of me feels like the fact that these works are totally invisible to even his fans means they qualify.

But on the other hand, I feel like a major part of Beck's success in the early 90s was his slacker weirdo persona--the fact that he seemed like the type of goofball who probably released a couple of random tapes of noise and fell ass-backwards into a hit. I am undecided.

Golden Feelings definitely feels completely ignored by the majority of fans & i doubt most know it exists, but surprisingly he's played tracks from it live as recently as 2012.

Sufjan Stevens - A Sun Came is a another one

Lightning Bolt - Lightning Bolt

Silly Hat vs. Egale Hat and Meetle Mice by Dan Deacon, even though they're fucking great and have some of his best songs ("My Own Face is F Word," "The House I Was Isnt My Girlfriends Porsche," "Song for Dina," "I Will Always Have Juice Today," "Shit Slowly Applied on Cock Parts," "It's Not as It's Going Downtown").

Jimmy Eat World - S/T

Songs of Faith - Aretha Franklin (and all her subsequent pre-Atlantic albs)

Ween - Synthetic Socks

The s/t Incredible String Band which is straighter folk done by a 3 piece.

Ein Produkt Der and possibly Die Kleinen und Die Bosen by Deutsch Americanisch Freundschaft both cut by the band as a group not a duo. First one is largely instrumental, an imaginary film soundtrack. 2nd is like funky electronic drenched hardcore. Not sure how well known it is. I love it.

I think I've seen an Original Album series or equivalent for Alice Cooper that has the 1st 5lps in it including the Straight ones. So maybe they're becoming more accepted.

Earth, Wind & Fire's 1st lp and maybe the next few. Could be they have now been discovered by a different audience, whatever Rare Groove is called these days but it is pretty different to what they went onto once they became really famous. More psychy funk than Nilotic fantasy disco. &their first work was backing Melvin van Peebles on Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song. which I have on cd but am not sure if it got a release prior to it coming with the book about the film.

"Chicago Transit Authority"

'Free Form Guitar' is the highpoint of their discography!

Rick Wakeman - Piano Vibrations. It's a covers album.

Miranda Sex Garden debut is all A Capella folk songs, poems. I'm not sure if they were originally going to stay in that mode. I think fans probably like it too much for it to be considered an afterthought though.

Dinosaur- ST

This one's weird, but I know a lot of people who think "Severed Lips" is Mascis' best song

Oh & Journey started out good as a non-latinate Santana offshoot playing good almost psychy jazz-rock.

I'd assume the first three records, made before Steve Perry joined, are pretty much written out of memory, but who knows, maybe they still play a song or two live.

Todd Rundgren is a weird one. His official solo debut is the great Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren but a year earlier he released a pretty much forgotten album also called Runt, which iirc was meant to be the debut of a new band called Runt, but which is now credited to Todd.

Dan Hartman's first couple of albums were more aligned to his Edgar Winter Group beginnings than his disco stuff from album three onwards.

"Chicago Transit Authority"

― Mark G, Tuesday, May 12, 2015 5:36 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'Free Form Guitar' is the highpoint of their discography!

― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Tuesday, May 12, 2015 5:41 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And "Does Anybody Know What Time It Is?" and "Beginnings" are all over oldies radio.

Pete Townshend - Who Came First

― WilliamC, Monday, May 11, 2015 9:19 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thought about posting this, though he's revisited the material live a few times, both solo and with the Who (even "Sheraton Gibson," played once on a 1996 Who show).

It's disregarded because its "Chicago Transit Authority" as a title, and the band has no name.

Well, that's what it sort-of says on my copy..

Sarah McLachlan - Touch

Ween - Synthetic Socks

Silly Hat vs. Egale Hat and Meetle Mice by Dan Deacon

I'm wondering how much these actually should count since they weren't really distributed nor were they intended to be; if we're counting stuff like this then I would think that all sorts of early demo-ish stuff would be in this thread as well

Giorgio Moroder's definitely fits the bill here:

That's Bubble Gum – That's Giorgio

Hell, his next five records are also just as obscure. Wouldn't most fans consider his Knights in White Satin LP to be his "debut"?

I always thought Son of my Father was his debut, and that one's pretty damn good really. Never heard this one, but judging by that comp of early tracks that came out a few years back I would bet it qualifies.

Todd Rundgren is a weird one. His official solo debut is the great Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren but a year earlier he released a pretty much forgotten album also called Runt, which iirc was meant to be the debut of a new band called Runt, but which is now credited to Todd.

Either way it's got "We Gotta Get You a Woman" which was his first solo hit

Tangerine Dream – Electronic Meditation

not that TD ever had hits exactly, but like the first three Kraftwerk albums, this one stands apart from the rest of their discography