Defend A Debut Album

After the Prince poll got to thinking about debut albums...many of them are underappreciated and overlooked but do contain the essence of what makes an artist/band great. So what I'm asking is what are the under rated debut albums...not necessarily great ones but ones that contain the qualities the materials that will make an artist great...

They Might Be Giants s/t

It really is the epitome of their rapid-fire and whimsical approach, and if anything the lo-fi, Mac-heavy production makes it sound even better. "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head" and "Don't Let's Start" are total classics. Even the smaller tracks are neat musical puzzles onto themselves.

Great example ^

Sonic Youth's first album (an EP actually but let's not split hairs) is great. The blueprint for their skronky New York spaciness is there but it's also a unique album in the catalog because of its density. The follow up, Confusion Is Sex, sounds nothing like it, and future albums sound nothing like Confusion Is Sex OR the s/t. An anomaly in their catalog, yes, but way underrated and unfairly maligned as an early hiccup in the band's discography.

After years and years of listening to them (SY) it's actually one of the only albums of theirs that I still get anything out of. Bad Moon Rising being the other one.

Anyway, first Squeeze album (especially via Peel Sessions, though maybe that's cheating) has some great stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyp9ZA413L8

First Blur album will probably come up at some point. First Fleetwood Mac is an easy one, but will piss off most of the Tusk fans.

I love XTC's first album (White Music)

Personally, I find the vocals hilarious, it really is the ultimate "sugar high" album. At the end of the day everything is super catchy and energetic. I kinda feel like fans don't like it because it doesn't sound like Black Sea or English Settlement.

even though two of these guys were gone by their third album
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qk6gHVRzTE&feature=related

Funny. There's a bit in the XTC book about the friendly rivalry between Squeeze and XTC around the time of their first albums. It's been a long time since I've read it, so I don't remember all the details, but White Music and Squeeze are forever linked in my mind.

Oh, duh, maybe the biggest one of all: Dirk Wears White Sox, which is secretly the best album he ever made. (Maybe not so secretly.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQp9yYrZTGQ

On some level, this also covers Blur.

Cool thread idea, and XTC and Squeeze are great noms. I don't know if Sparks qualify, their debut is not really ignored or maligned, but it contains a ridiculous amount of eccentric ideas that they would refine and popularize on Propaganda and Kimono My House.

Oh yeah, YMO's debut album is hardly talked about but it's totally classic, a great mix of electronic, jazz, and exotica that's kind of a similar innovation as what Kraftwerk was doing. It's a lot denser than it's given credit for.

Japan's Adolescent Sex. I don't care for them but I love the potency of those synths against those guitars and Sylvian's rather unconvincing sneer.

Kraftwerk is a good one too. Organisation, Ralf & Florian, Kraftwerk 1 & 2 are all great, even though in a way they seem like false starts on the road toward Autobahn.

the first KW album is pretty decent, yeah. the rest are pretty awful (though R&F has some great moments)

ok dude

Also I love Parliament's Osmium even though it's not as much of a fully realized expression of their whole vision as the first Funkadelic album.

Can't believe anybody else would stan for 'Adolescent Sex'...I was just about to say what a fucking genius album it is...I'm a huge fan of Japan's whole catalogue but this is sooo money...its kinda the album Royal Trux would of killed to make...and it funks so hard...unbelievable to think it was made by 5 nebbishes from Lewisham...I'm sure this would get some hipster love if it was better known...luvve it...it also sounds great in the summer...has a south London summer of '76 vibe about it...

You know, Deacon Blue fit in here pretty well.

Inspired by the poll thread, I'm gonna say Boy by U2... They captured something on that record that they never quite did again.

"Adolescent Sex" is pretty good! I like it more than the follow up "Obscure Alternatives" which Sylvian says is their "true" debut, whatever

Sylvian sounds so out of place on that album but that's what makes it work!!

xp I love Osmium too. Come in Out of the Rain is actually my favourite (though admittedly atypical) Parliament track.

Osmium is great...'Silent Boatman" is beautiful...if I could have music at my funeral i'd probably choose that...perhaps a little melodramatic but fuck it if you cant be melodramatic at your funeral...

I just this morning found an mp3 of the first, self-titled, Southern Culture on the Skids album. (Rick Miller on guitar, but a different rhythm section and a very Lux Interior inspired vocalist. (Whole band is pretty Cramps-y at this point.) I'm only a few songs in, but I'm digging it so far.

http://s.dsimg.com/image/R-150-774476-1183263052.gif

No Doubt's debut is very good and much different in contrast to their Pop crossover material from 1995 and later. The debut work is carried over on Beacon Street Collection and there are various demos from their Ska years scattered around the internet.

the first Posies album, Failure, is a very tentative early home recording with the 2 founding members playing all the instruments, and on some songs they sing in embarrassing fake English accents, but there's some really strong songs on there, especially considering that they were teenagers at the time, and there's something really charming about the lo-fi production.

i dunno if the first TMBG album is really underrated enough to even qualify for this thread, though -- obv the two that followed are more beloved, but it feels very much in the canon of their essential albums

Cowboy Junkies, Whites Off Earth Now!!. Mostly covers, more strange and anonymous than anything that followed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd2MEOvKqqo

just gonna say it...the first Rush album...without Neil Peart...my favorite Rush tracks are either on that album, or have the simplicity of the songs on that album...

Bjork's debut Debut, the last time she wrestled with au courant sounds.

oh yeah, first Rush is good. pretty Zeppy. cool cover too

Safe as Milk is one of the best Beefheart albums. I think a lot of hardcore fans overrate the later stuff and underrate the pre-TMR stuff.

Whites Off Earth Now is a great call. Their modus operandi -- narcoleptic cover tunes -- is already firmly in place; they just needed to sand down the skronky bits and improve the production to create the platinum-selling Trinity Sessions, --

Could I posit the first Prefab spout album...yeah it pongs of bedroom pretentiousness but it's so lovely...a little faberge egg of an album...

I'm a huge Junkies fan but I never listen to WOEN!! Has always sounded like a false start to me tbh.

Genesis, From Genesis to Revelation
Van der Graaf Generator, The Aerosol Grey Machine
Peter Hammill, Fools Mate

Could I posit the first Prefab spout album...yeah it pongs of bedroom pretentiousness but it's so lovely...a little faberge egg of an album...

Damn. Beat me to it. I think I listen to that album more than Steve McQueen/Two Wheels Good.

xp I like all three of those. I'd add Yes's s/t album (before they really were progressive) as well. That VdGG album really is good!!

First Fairport Convention record is quite good just nowhere as good as their next four records so it gets overlooked a lot.

Similarly the first Birthday Party album, etc.

yeah, first fairport is my fave. can't really get into the others so much.

What about the first Gary Numan/Tubeway Army album? It's kinda like a more synth-based Ziggy Stardust. In fact I think it's just as good as that album, but with a chillier atmosphere. It also rocks a lot harder than any of his other albums for a good while. If it had included the original "Bombers", I might even label it his best.

Has always sounded like a false start to me tbh.

That seems like the classic issue for debut albums: an imperfect false start or the rough essence of the band?

Low's debut, I Could Live In Hope, shouldn't be overlooked. You could even say that the first song, Words, from their first LP has all the key elements that make them a great band.