"the first album you hear is usually your favourite" - is this true or not?

I think it perhaps works with the Big Important bands that get you in your nascent-music fan period, adolescence perhaps, the albums that grab you and make you realise you love music - other albums by the same artists will never do the same for you because they simply AREN'T those first records. It's like your first kiss or something cheesey - subsequent kisses are going to be way better, but that first one would have blown your mind in a way no other kiss can.

I'm totally babbling here.

With REM, I preferred Murmur over Automatic...which I heard first and was the more palatable for a casual fan. Also New Adventures In Hi-Fi which I think is one of their strongest albums but doesn't have many 'hits' on it.

For me, it's true in the case of bands I don't *really* care that much about (Silver Jews, Sebadoh), but that's cause I'm too lazy to explore and I rather dismiss the other records as not being as good as the first one I heard. For bands for which I'd describe myself as a rabid fan (like Pavement, incidentally), this does not apply at all.

lodger was my first bowie album, and still remains my fave.

game over - or is it ..

i have all madness albums .. bought and listened to in order or release and i would say that Seven is my fave.

ah ha !

California, by Mr. Bungle (first heard: s/t debut)
The Reality of My Surroundings, by Fishbone (first heard, again: s/t debut)
Things Fall Apart, by The Roots (first heard: DOYOUWANTMORE!?!?!)
Bone Machine, by Tom Waits (first heard: Nighthawks At The Diner)
The Mollusk, by Ween (first heard: GodWeenSatan)
etc etc etc etc

The formula works better for successful bands, the sort where people argue about when exactly they got crap. People who heard and loved Album One will tell you nothing was any good past Album Three. People who first heard the band with Album Six will tell you everything through there is good as well. And this makes sense, psychologically. I mean, if the downward spiral is in fact going on, people who started with Album One will view everything past it as a horrible disappointment. People who start with Album Six will actually be discovering in Album Six shades of whatever made Album One so great, and will come to love it that way -- and then mine backward to the source.

Someone mentioned Orbital earlier. The first album I heard was the 'brown album'. I was a fan, and bought everything else I could find by them. When Snivilisation came out, they became my favorite group (for awhile).

Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest

Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord Is Dead by Do Make Say Think
Second Toughest in the Infants by Underworld
Fear of Black Planet by Public Enemy
Nassau by The Sea & Cake

But, yes, exceptions are numerous (e.g. OK Computer v. Pablo Honey).

Take Bone Machine, listed upthread. Lots more people heard that album first than heard The Black Rider first, and I'm sure lots more people think Bone Machine is their favorite album than think so of The Black Rider (though I'm sure some people out there do).

Now, with individual songs, I tend to like the first version I heard over all others. Almost invariably. That's why I, sadly, have no use for most remixes, unless they completely explode the song.

Its definitely NOT the case with Metallica Re-Load, I can tell you that much

e.g. Middle of Nowhere isn't my favourite Orbital album but I'll always think of them as making maximalist anthems for a rave at the end of the universe because of it, which i probably wouldn't think had I picked up Snivilisation or In Sides first.

Can - Soon Over Babaluma
Velvet Underground - first

First albums heard by, which have been my favourites:

The Fall - Dragnet
Captain Beefheart - Doc at the Radar Station
Faust - So Far
Harry Nilsson - Pandemonium Shadow Show

First albums heard by, which are my favourites:

Wire - 154
Parliament - Mothership Connection

More that I can't remember

Also, the question is strongly dependent on how long the band had been around before you heard them. People were mentioning Autechre -- I started listening to them in 1993 so there was only one album I could have possibly heard first (and it's not my favourite by them). It's a very different situation when you've already got a large catalogue to choose from and can pick which album you hear first on the basis of recommendations from friends, the internet, or whatever happened to be released in that year.