kansas debut.
― fact checking cuz, Monday, 11 May 2015 22:19 (nine years ago) link
Bataclan tape..
"This next song is called Wild Child. It's about a Wild Child, funnily enough"
― Mark G, Monday, 11 May 2015 22:20 (nine years ago) link
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.
― Competent Cracker Barrel Manager (Dan Peterson), Monday, 11 May 2015 22:24 (nine years ago) link
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.
― intheblanks, Monday, 11 May 2015 22:24 (nine years ago) link
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.
― xhuxk, Monday, 11 May 2015 22:31 (nine years ago) link
Yeah, that Shania was a staple of mid-price bins after she blew up.
― Love, Wilco (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 11 May 2015 22:34 (nine years ago) link
(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 Release date kept getting pushed back, then publicist finally said it was getting withdrawn from the schedule, for "reworking."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.
― dow, Monday, 11 May 2015 22:35 (nine years ago) link
Marvin Gaye - The Soulful Moods Of Marvin Gaye
an album primarily of standards released a year before Stubborn Kind of Fellow
― da croupier, Monday, 11 May 2015 22:37 (nine years ago) link
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.
― da croupier, Monday, 11 May 2015 22:52 (nine years ago) link
Lana Del Rey
― akm, Monday, 11 May 2015 23:08 (nine years ago) link
Fall Out Boy's Evening Out With Your Girlfriend
― intheblanks, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 00:59 (nine years ago) link
a debut album that has been demoted to EP on the band's wikipedia page
― intheblanks, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 01:01 (nine years ago) link
The Wailing Wailers
― kornrulez6969, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 01:06 (nine years ago) link
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
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 01:11 (nine years ago) link
Pete Townshend - Who Came First
― WilliamC, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 01:19 (nine years ago) link
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"?
― octobeard, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 02:00 (nine years ago) link
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.
― xhuxk, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 02:20 (nine years ago) link
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.
― intheblanks, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 02:47 (nine years ago) link
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
― ufo, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 03:29 (nine years ago) link
Lightning Bolt - Lightning Bolt
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 04:14 (nine years ago) link
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").
― flappy bird, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 04:17 (nine years ago) link
Jimmy Eat World - S/T
― Gavin, Leeds, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 05:52 (nine years ago) link
Songs of Faith - Aretha Franklin (and all her subsequent pre-Atlantic albs)
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Tuesday, 12 May 2015 06:28 (nine years ago) link
Ween - Synthetic Socks
― Mr. Snrub, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 06:35 (nine years ago) link
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.
― Stevolende, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 07:21 (nine years ago) link
"Chicago Transit Authority"
― Mark G, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 09:36 (nine years ago) link
'Free Form Guitar' is the highpoint of their discography!
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Tuesday, 12 May 2015 09:41 (nine years ago) link
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.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 10:58 (nine years ago) link
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.
― Is It Any Wonder I'm Not the (President Keyes), Tuesday, 12 May 2015 11:36 (nine years ago) link
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.
― Is It Any Wonder I'm Not the (President Keyes), Tuesday, 12 May 2015 11:40 (nine years ago) link
Dan Hartman's first couple of albums were more aligned to his Edgar Winter Group beginnings than his disco stuff from album three onwards.
― Mark G, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 11:53 (nine years ago) link
― Mark G, Tuesday, May 12, 2015 5:36 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― 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.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, 12 May 2015 12:47 (nine years ago) link
― 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).
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, 12 May 2015 12:48 (nine years ago) link
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..
― Mark G, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 13:00 (nine years ago) link
Sarah McLachlan - Touch
― MarkoP, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 13:09 (nine years ago) link
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 GiorgioHell, 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.
Either way it's got "We Gotta Get You a Woman" which was his first solo hit
― frogbs, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 13:19 (nine years ago) link
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
― anthony braxton diamond geezer (anagram), Tuesday, 12 May 2015 13:56 (nine years ago) link
"Some of my best friends are songs" - Richard D. James
― Mark G, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 14:06 (nine years ago) link
oooh good one - Klaus Schulze and Conrad Schnitzler were on that one!!
― frogbs, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 14:06 (nine years ago) link
Dinosaur- STThis one's weird, but I know a lot of people who think "Severed Lips" is Mascis' best song
I always thought they went downhill off of the "Repulsion" 45 off this myself (and thought of nominating it yesterday anyway.)
― xhuxk, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 15:38 (nine years ago) link
"...went downhill after "Replusion"....I meant
― xhuxk, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 15:39 (nine years ago) link
What is this?
― p:s nerds know (dog latin), Tuesday, 12 May 2015 15:41 (nine years ago) link
tiptoes away...
― Mark G, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 15:43 (nine years ago) link
did someone already say Kraftwerk?
― akm, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 17:20 (nine years ago) link
i always think of the first simple minds album. which, like the first japan album, has that glammy ultravox/roxy thing going on. it's good, but i never play it and i doubt many people remember it much. (needless to say, the 6 albums after that are some of my fave 80's records...)
(also weird is their second album came out the same year as their first album and the second album is way better...)
― scott seward, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 17:43 (nine years ago) link
The Knife, self-titled
― katherine, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 17:46 (nine years ago) link
(some tracks, IIRC, are played live, albeit in heavily reworked form, that said I would be surprised if a lot of fans knew it existed)
― katherine, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 17:47 (nine years ago) link
I think Mark G meant to put that in the Syro thread
― octobeard, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 18:15 (nine years ago) link
"Earth, Wind & Fire's 1st lp and maybe the next few."
there are tons of examples of pre-fame soul/r&b albums that fit this bill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VouLLPvoS3M
― scott seward, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 18:20 (nine years ago) link
Adam And the Ants!
― xhuxk, Tuesday, 12 May 2015 18:37 (nine years ago) link