One of mine is Commit This to Memory by Motion City Soundtrack. I basically took the title verbatim and know the album word for word. And while I would love if it did, the rest of MCS’s stuff just doesn’t hit the same way.
And if you’re not an album person, maybe a period of time in the artist’s work? Whatever works for you.
*Lots of mentions of hit debut albums that subsequently petered out, which follows with the dreaded sophomore slump that hits many artists. Anyone with mid or even later career albums that stand alone? Those always intrigue me.
Live-Throwing Copper. It’s an absolute masterpiece. Their other albums have some gems, but the rest of the discography is nowhere near the quality of TC.
I personally like Mental Jewelry best and feel like its a shame they asked the bass player to chill out. TC is great though.
I was going to say the same thing!
Linkin Park.
Hybrid Theory was amazing, but most of their other albums were mostly “meh” for me. Meteora had a couple of good songs, but that’s about it.
Turn on the Bright Lights by Interpol is incredible, in my opinion it’s one of, if not the most impressive debut albums I have ever come across. The rest of their discography is ok, but nothing that I would rate anywhere close to that.
I kind of disagree. I think Our Love To Admire and El Pintor are much more solid albums with better songs and better construction that better contend for their best. They hit the highs of TOTBL, and then some - my personal favorites are Heinrich Maneuver, Anywhere, and Everything is wrong.
That being said, that doesn’t keep TOTBL from being one of their best - it really captures that feeling of pre-9/11 indie rock with songs that are really gripping. If anything, I would say that the 10th anniversary edition of TOTBL is the best version of that album that includes their EP and demo material for the band that shows that the album wasn’t just their first album, it was an entire era for the band through the material they released around that album.
Came here to post this.
Like, the rest of their albums are totally fine, that’s just how good their debut was.
I would kind of say the same thing about The Strokes, but I think some of their follow ups have aged well
Daft Punk for me. Random Access Memories is perfect from start to finish but their other albums don’t do much for me even though I like many of the songs.
I’m the exact opposite, but I’ve been into house music for 20+ years
I wonder if The Avalanches have a simial divide of fans.
Honestly I love each of the avalanches albums, I understand that their sound changed a lot and that isn’t gonna sit well with everyone but I see the genius in each one for their own reasons
It’s not an age thing as I’ve been listening to electronic music since Prodigy dropped The Fat of The Land in the 90’s. I discovered Orbital and Daft Punk shortly thereafter. I was into the music at the time I just don’t think Daft Punk’s albums are great except for RAM.
Makes sense considering how musically distanced RAM is from everything else they’ve made, it’s a lot less house-y than their earlier albums. Talking as a die hard daft punk fan.
Lol, I’m the exact opposite. I really dislike Random, and love everything else.
Haven’t heard that take before, interesting. When did you start listening to their music? No judgement, no quip coming, just interested; sometimes the order we hear music from an artist gives us a very different impression than someone who followed them chronologically.
Endtroducing by DJ Shadow was life-changing, but everything after that… meh.
challenge. and yeah, i could have gone for something more recent, but i figured if you like endtroducing and haven’t heard this, you will probably appreciate it.
Hot damn!
That’d be Gorillaz for me. I can appreciate them, but not my thing. But, Demon Days is so damn good, love it start to finish
In the realm of 90s Canadian quirky-core folk rock, Crash Test Dummies… Well, I’m cheating a bit. Their debut album is indeed right up my alley, and even today there’s not a miss on it. Alternately funny and maudlin and nerdy, it was jauntily, unabashedly country-adjacent folk. One track even helped with the early chipping away at the walls of prejudice I was raised with as a southern-fried Mormon. I remain very fond of the album, though I only listen to it once or twice a year.
The reason I say I’m cheating is because I really did like God Shuffled His Feet as well, even Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm, but “quirky” was broadening into self-parody and even teenage me could hear it on several tracks. A Worm’s Life was… okay, I guess, sort of, but forgettable even for a fan, and nothing the band or Brad Roberts or any of he other members did afterwards really recaptured anything like that magic for me.
Probably not a ton of people representing for a meme-voiced 1.5-hit wonder from the early 90s, but I’ll stand and be counted, LOL.
In the realm of 90s Canadian quirky-core folk rock,
Three words for you, then. Moxy Früvous, Bargainville.
There are so many great Canadian 80’s/90’s bands that many folks will never discover. CTD would definitely have been among them if not for Weird Al.
The Strokes. Their debut *Is This It *is one of the best if not the best Rock debuts. Eveything else after is just meh to me.
You’re right. It’s an amazing album. “Definitely Maybe” by Oasis is my vote for best rock debut album but I think you’re spot on otherwise about The Strokes.
Silent Alarm from Bloc Party is such a an absolutely incredible album. Fantastic upbeat indie rock songs spaced out with slower meaningful emotionally powerful love songs. It really takes you on a journey.
Their other albums after have been anywhere from okay to good with a few great tracks here and there, but Silent Alarm is just head and shoulders above the rest. If I were ever able to write a song as good as Helicopter, Banquet, This Modern Love, or Luno… I’d die happy.
I would have picked Intimacy for largely the same reasons!
Garbage V2.0
The first garbage album I ever bought. I agree with this. Along the same lines, I think Chumbawamba’s Tubthumper comes to mind. Besides “Tubthumpin” (I get kocked down), the rest of the album is actually really solid and still a good listen today.
Metallica: Ride the Lightning
I love this album, but can’t stand any of their other stuff.
Infected Mushroom.
Classical Mushroom is fucking amazing to the point I can hear the whole album in my head including every note if I want. But after that it just fell apart.
Megadeth. Rust in Peace is a masterpiece. The rest of the albums are just boring.
I honestly don’t know why other bands are bothering to continue making music when Rust In Peace exists. It’s embarrassing.
*credit to The Onion
Megadeth is just one of those bands where you’ll only like select tracks per album. But there’s almost no album of theirs that’s perfect from beginning to end.
Alice in Chains - Dirt. Like, you can’t get any better than that and their quality after Dirt was wildly fluctuating and it didn’t help that the band was dealing with a struggling Layne Staley until his death.
Sabaton - The Art of War. A handful of my favorite tracks is coming off from this album (Ghost Division, Firestorm .etc). A lot of this band’s discography, I like a max amount of like 4 songs per album while the rest is forgettable. But Art of War has just a little more to it.
Disturbed - Believe. This is easily one of my favorite albums of all time and definitely my favorite album of all of the Disturbed discography. Their sound matured off from The Sickness and it was only their sophomore album. Their quality of sound gradually decreased every album release since to where I’ll only find a favorite track or two from them.
Believe is also my favorite from them. I remember when “Evolution” came out and being disappointed by how forgettable it is. I actually had to go search for it so I could remember the name of it.
Parachutes by Coldplay was a really good kind of alt-indie-pop album. Much more stripped down than the rest of their catalog. Everything since then has either been overproduced or soulless.
If you want more chill, brooding, melancholy stuff — songs that sound about right for a band that named itself “Coldplay” — there are two EPs and a handful of B-sides from before Parachutes that are relatively unknown and have the same vibe.
Got any names for those eps or b sides?
EPs are Safety, The Blue Room and Brothers and Sisters, while the B-sides come from the better-known Parachutes singles Trouble, Yellow and Shiver. Some specific track picks I’d point to are “Easy to Please,” “Bigger Stronger” and “Only Superstition.”
