Acts whose debut album is an afterthought in their overall discography

Guys I need your help. We have to come up with a list of artists whose debut album is basically ignored by the vast majority of their fans.

No hits. Nothing played live. Hated/discounted by the general listening public. Even better if most fans don't even know its existence.

1. Ride The Tiger - Yo La Tengo

2. Björk - Björk

3. This Is Your Bloody Valentine - My Bloody Valentine

4. Kraftwerk - Kraftwerk

5. Tori Amos - Y Kant Tori Read

6. The Nits - S/T

7. Ministry - With Sympathy

8. Pantera - Metal Magic

9. Mobb Deep - Juvenile Hell

10. Billy Joel - Attila

11. American Music Club - The Restless Stranger

12. Pulp - It

13. David Bowie - David Bowie

14. The Red Hot Chili Peppers - The Red Hot Chili Peppers

15. Lana Del Ray - Lana Del Ray

blur / leisure

*alright there's one hit on it. and i guess they do play it live.

Underworld's first two albums might fit into this category.

Hey I enjoyed Kraftwerk's !&2: low-budget Space Age bachelor pad music with jazzy breezes, often enough.

1&2, that is.

Genesis - From Genesis to Revelation

Prince

I mean it had a hit, but no one listens to our talks about that album in comparison to what followed.

Bad Religion's second album
Japan's first 2.8 albums

Grimes. I didn't even know her latest wasn't her first album although I loved it. Her fans may be aware (and like it ?), though.

Janet Jackson

Genius - Words from the Genius (aka the debut album from the rapper later known as GZA)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1a/Alanis1991cover.gif

Van Der Graaf Generator - The Aerosol Grey Machine
http://www.vandergraafgenerator.co.uk/pawnhearts/aerosol_mercury_front.jpg
(One of my fave songs is on this album)

Was gonna say that but expected objections

Wouldn't Fairport Convention's debut be a perfect choice for this?

Red Red Meat - S/T

TV On the Radio - OK Calculator

Supposedly the Rush debut but fans are generally so unenthusiastic about it, I cant be bothered checking if theyre right.

Lucinda Williams - Ramblin'

of Montreal - Cherry Peel

Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan

Lou Reed - Lou Reed
Neil Young - Neil Young

(last 3 debatable)

First Canned Heat album perhaps.

Girls Against Boys - Tropic of Scorpio

The first work of some of the tropicalistas, maybe:

Gilberto Gil - Louvação
Gal Costa and Caetano Veloso - Domingo

surely dylan is more known as the songwriter he'd become than a folk covers artist he began as xxxp

Oneida - A Place Called El Shaddai's

Al Greene - Back Up Train

Joni Mitchell - Songs To A Seagull

Hüsker Dü - Land Speed Record

Emmylou Harris - Gliding Bird
Billy Joel - Cold Spring Harbor
Juana Molina - Rara

Eminem — Infinite
Parliament — Osmium
Fleetwood Mac — Fleetwood Mac

Sly and the Family Stone - A Whole New Thing

(though I believe it underwent a major reevaluation/rediscovery in the mid-90s)

The Paperboys - January
The cassette Show of Hands albums ('87-'91)
Peatbog Faeries - The Great Ceilidh Swindle
Wolfstone - Wolfstone (and Wolfstone II)

AC/DC's discography is a mess. Powerage, their sixth album overall, was the first one to be released with the same track listing in all territories.

maybe they were inspired by the beatles catalog

like that BA Robertson album? Xpost

― Mark G, Monday, 11 May 2015 19:01 (nine years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sad to have been beaten re this one

Still there is the 1969 Robin Scott album

It was reissued a few times, but the 1982 Sonic Youth EP is very different from even what they were doing on their first full length.

the first Simple Minds album is different from even the other post-punk Minds albums before they transitioned into new wave heroes ('different' in that it's not very good, IMO)

In some ways they went full circle to its relative mediocrity

Modest Mouse - This is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About

important to their discography when they were truly an indie sensation and only had 2-3 proper albums amidst all their EPs, but I feel like now even fans of this period essentially would start the story with Lonesome Crowded West and/or Building Nothing Out of Something.

the first Porcupine Tree album (on the sunday of life) is either rubbish home recordings of nonsense or the best thing they ever did, depending on who you talk to.

xp disagree with Modest Mouse. This through Building Nothing is my MM sweet spot.

I disagree too, mainly because I bought it upon release and it’s always felt pretty “core” to me; but I admit I don’t know how it’s perceived by fans at large

It was reissued a few times, but the 1982 Sonic Youth EP is very different from even what they were doing on their first full length.

Yeah, part of me has always wondered what might have happened if Richard Edson (yes, the actor) had stuck around on drums — maybe they'd have just been a slightly clangy Downtown dance-punk act.

The Boo Radleys - Ichabod & I

― Kitchen Person, Sunday, May 10, 2015

This was only released on vinyl in the UK, almost impossible to find and not on streaming service's.

The Frogs - The Frogs

i do not disagree but it was the first one of theirs i owned and i've always had a soft spot for it.

Me too, I think I heard that one before their funny ones. Somehow it makes the roughness of the funny stuff funnier knowing what they were going for at first.

Also Starjob isn't all that representative, but I really like that one too.

sonic youth considered the s/t an album not an ep or castaway. it fits into a lineage of punk mini-lps that are typically debuts but i think they specifically did say "it's our first album". and it does have the song that lends the band their name which was the final track on their geffen bestof screaming fields. it's canon for sure. and to my ears not that different from songs like kill yr idols and nature scene.

i respectfully submit to the thread a 4th criterion to the op 3 rules:

no hits
nothing played live
hated or unknown to most fans
-no tracks excerpted for compilations

idk if it's still this way today, but when i was getting into samla mammas manna nobody mentioned their first s/t album, from before their guitarist joined. i know samla mammas manna aren't like super-famous or anything, but they do have fans and i'm one of them... i only knew they had an album before Måltid because of, well, i think he lurks here actually haha, hi johan if you're reading this :)

Michael Jackson
Pink Floyd

Tempted to say Steely Dan but scared of the FP's I'll accumulate. Aside from the singles, it really is a lesser, outcast album and I say that as a David Palmer fan.

fits the thread title, maybe, but not the criteria in the OP, I'd say.

y'all may be right about the Mouse! they're a tricky one anyway because of the "indie band that later got really huge" aspect... those of us who were listening before the crossover may never have a really accurate picture of what their career/discography looks like to the great majority of their listenership.

it really is a lesser, outcast album

How dare you.

I think I've heard the 2 big hits more often on classic rock/oldies stations than any of the subsequent hits.

y’all may be right about the Mouse! they’re a tricky one anyway because of the “indie band that later got really huge” aspect… those of us who were listening before the crossover may never have a really accurate picture of what their career/discography looks like to the great majority of their listenership.

To a lot of people, they’re the “Float On” band and even The Moon and Antartica (on a major in the US, but Matador in Europe) was not on their radars.

They’re just a similar case to like Goo Goo Dolls or Lemonheads, who also had a number of indie albums before jumping to a major and blowing up. They have fans who prefer the indie albums and fans who have never heard the indie albums.

I knew lots of REM 'fans' who thought out of time was their first album but some others who had no idea there was anything before Green *after* they found out it wasn't their first.

Modest Mouse's debut notable for being produced by Seasick Steve

Pulp mentioned way upthread, I reckon the average non-fan reckons they began in 1994

It always amazes me the amount of people who I've met over the years that have a few Oasis albums but not the debut. The million selling debut album that even the brothers themselves say they never surpassed.

There was a time when Definitely Maybe and Heathen Chemistry were the only ones in this house (i.e. between 2002 and 05) (apparently Morning Glory was bought in the mid-90s, but where it ended up is a mystery).

Modest Mouse's debut notable for being produced by Seasick Steve

Never knew this. The sleeve looks like one of his own too.

I'm surprised not to see Van Morrison's Blowin' Your Mind mentioned with the one disqualifying detail that it contained a massive hit single that you still hear everywhere.

Wow, I had never heard of that one…

xp I think that's a good example actually... that album was assembled without VM's consent (after the fact of the big hit) and it has always been somewhat obscure in his discography, similar to Bowie's debut.

Japan's first couple albums?

The Boo Radleys - Ichabod & I
― Kitchen Person, Sunday, May 10, 2015

This was only released on vinyl in the UK, almost impossible to find and not on streaming service's.

― Bee OK, Saturday, 15 March 2025 01:47 (sixteen hours ago)

As one of the few people that bought it back in the day, I'd say it fits the bill. Relative to everything that came afterwards it's almost unlistenable because of the production (though the original version of 'Kaleidoscope' is great).

I don't really know if Modest Mouse counts, "Dramamine" in particular sounds a lot like Mouse as we know them (at least in the 90s) and it's definitely a fan favorite, I mean if it's bolded on RYM I think it probably shouldn't qualify here

Jean-Michel Jarre on the other hand...his first two albums definitely bit the bill. They're called Deserted Palace and Les Granges Brûlées and most people don't even know they exist. neither are very good (though Deserted Palace is pretty wild for 1972 - it sounds a bit proto-Zuckerzeit), I am guessing none of it was ever played live, it's not until the 4xLP Planet Jarre release and any of these tracks were even released on a compilation.

Giorgio Moroder

https://www.giorgiomoroder.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/giorgio-moroder-giorgio-thats-bubble-gum-thats-giorgio.jpg

Donna Summer, "Lady of the Night", for that matter.

Al Green(e)

https://lpcoverlover.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/04.resized/452b_3.JPG

Send Me a Lullaby by the Go-Betweens feels like a bunch of hastily-recorded demos compared to everything that came after it.

hah, I was gonna mention "Son of my Father", didn't know Giorgio had one that was released even before that

xps nice yawnsomely literal cover

Maybe this has been mentioned but The Bee Gees’ first two albums were juvenile efforts released only in Australia, and then they had the nerve to call their third album Bee Gees 1st.

“Those were actually mixtapes”

Björk called her third solo album Debut in direct homage to the Bee Gees.

(*probably* not true.)

Back Up Train is good though

Blowin' Your Mind is bolstered by this totally false marketing with the cover being so aggressively psychedelic against the wishes of the artist- perfect candidate

The Carpenters' Offering (later "Ticket to Ride") is a bit like this. Richard sings almost as much as Karen and it's largely original compositions played largely by themselves plus strings. It didn't sell terribly well and only the Beatles cover tends to appear on compilations (and even that tends to be a re-recording IIRC!)

<i>Blowin' Your Mind is bolstered by this totally false marketing with the cover being so aggressively psychedelic against the wishes of the artist- perfect candidate</i>

Except, it <i>did</i> have a pretty big hit... though "not played live" criteria totally applies, save for "T.B. Sheets" being played in some early shows

oops forgot about blockquotes

oops bbcode not blockquotes. Having a bad day.