Entertainment For Lively Minds
Golden debuts
Posted by lit doof on 8 February 2009 - 6:36pm.
Has anyone yet pondered the question as to whether in the opinion of The Word's readers (ie the most passionate music afficionados, with impeccable taste) there are any bands with reputable, extensive back catalogues (ie more than 3 albums) who never really bettered the quality of their debut album?
A few spring into my mind:
Appetite for Destruction - Guns n Roses
Showbiz - Muse
Blue Lines - Massive Attack
In Rock - Deep Purple
Van Halen - Van Halen
Anyone else care to add??
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Um. In Rock?
1968 Shades of Deep Purple
1968 The Book of Taliesyn
1969 Deep Purple
1970 Deep Purple In Rock
1971 Fireball
1972 Machine Head
1973 Who Do We Think We Are
1974 Burn
1974 Stormbringer
1975 Come Taste the Band
1984 Perfect Strangers
1987 The House of Blue Light
1990 Slaves & Masters
1993 The Battle Rages On
1996 Purpendicular
1998 Abandon
2003 Bananas
2005 Rapture of the Deep
Discounts live albums.
I guess In Rock was the
I guess In Rock was the definitive "metal" debut from Purple, without being their actual debut
Yes, I guess I knew what you meant...
But it then allows disclaimers for any number of acts from Fairport to Hendrix to the Gourds. But, listen to Hush or even their version of Hey Joe* and you may accept they weren't terrible aforehand.(Not great, either, but acceptable.)
*I will post it on the covers spotify, along with a later Hush cover.
Exactly
Fairport Convention were still at the amorphous stage with their first album, and early Hendrix is a veritable quagmire that doesn't, for me at least, start until Are You experienced.
Do I even need to mention Oasis?
Otherwise...
Tricky - Maxinquaye
Air - Moon Safari
I'd also diagree that Showbiz was Muse's best album. Starts OK, then turns into a sludgey, showboating riff-fest. Origin... and Absolution are both much better, while Black Holes... is a bit forgettable.
Air
Didn't Premiers Symptômes come before Moon Safari?
I thought Premiers Symptômes was
a collection of EPs, and Moon Safari was their first "proper" album, thought I may be mistaken.
It's an EP.
You may well be right
I had just looked at my Air albums in iTunes sorted by year. Wikipedia (standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom) says that it's a collection of singles in EP format that had bonus tracks added for the re-release.
Either way I prefer Talkie Walkie, but I was mostly listening to that whilst having quite a bit of fun at work. I love the first half of Moon Safari (indeed, I think that all of Zero 7's first album can be traced back to "All I Need") but I don't tend to go back to the second half quite so often.
Showbiz by Muse
Oh, they got much, much better.
Rage against the machine
Rage against the machine primary effort comes to mind too.
Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne never bettered Nicely Out Of Tune. The Stranglers failed to improve on Rattus Norvegicus.
Does New Boots & Panties count? Ian Dury had recorded with the Kilburns but this was the first and best under his own name.
And although her many other albums are wonderful, to my ears The Kick Inside is Kate Bush's best.
Fog On the Tyne does it better for me, Indus.
But agree with Stranglers and Dury. Favourite Bush is Sensual World.
UB40
first album"Signing Off" was great. then downhill all the way.
Deborah Conway
A bit obscure, I'll grant you, but I loved "String Of Pearls" and the rest... nothing.
The
Velvet Underground
Leo Sayer
Silverbird had some good songs. Agree on Ian Dury.
And if we're discussing Purple, how can you arbitarily discount live albums? "Made in Japan" is the only one of their albums that I really liked (or remember).
George Harrison - All Things Must Pass - he never really betterd that. And I think "Imagine" was John Lennon's debut solo (as opposed to Plastic Ono) in which case that too was his best.
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells.
Gene’s debut album - 'Olympian'...
...owed a clear debt to Morrissey (a self-consciously, world weary title like Truth Rest Your Head is pure Moz, as were singer Martin Rossiter’s vocals ). Maybe it was these pronounced similarities to the UK’s best loved Indie band that caused many critics to hedge their bets and hold the album at arms length. I felt, and still feel, that it never really got the praise it deserved.
Unlike the ex-Smiths frontman, whose confessional lyrics would affect a camaraderie with kindred souls while studiously avoiding eye contact, Rossiter sang with his heart on his sleeve. The songs on Olympian simmer with genuine rage and tenderness.
Recurrent images of love, loss, and the struggle to come to terms with one’s sexuality, run through the eleven tracks; The latter was oafishly dismissed by their author while doing press for a subsequent album, when he mentioned that the theme of the band's debut was: “Does Martin Rossiter take it up the sh**ter?”
I recall a writer in the weekly music press making the bold and unsupported claim that the third Gene album would be amazing. In fact Revelations was the sound of a band running low on energy and ideas. By this time Martin Rossiter was in the midst of an identify crisis and attempting to reinvent himself as an emotional hooligan who would kneecap you if you looked at him funny. This ill-fitting persona bled unconvincingly into songs such as The Police Will Never Find You. Only the New Labour-baiting Mayday carried the spark of the band’s earlier work.
In hindsight Gene were group that got it right the first time around. Olympian still gets regular airings at my house while the remainder of their discography (mostly purchased in the hope that the band had regained their lost form) languishes unplayed somewhere in the depths of my CD collection.
I'd say a fair chunk of
Drawn To The Deep End is rather marvelous, though it tails off towards the end. Libertine is pretty decent, too, but I'd agree that Olympian is the most consistently enjoyable album as a whole.
The Stone Roses
The Stone Roses is the obvious one....
Suede's debut is still pretty spiffing
Boy is still by far the best thing U2 have ever done
Nothing can still hold a candle to "Never Mind the Bollocks" and "The Clash"