florencepugh
Group: Members
Posts: 9
Joined: July 2023 |
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Posted: Oct. 09 2024, 21:22 |
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| Quote (Sentinel_NZ @ Sep. 27 2024, 21:46) | Is Tubular Bells the greatest debut album of all time? It seems pretty obvious to me that it is, by far...yet strangely, it is never mentioned in generic lists of "greatest debut albums". The popular consensus seems to settle on Jimi Hendrix (I couldn't even tell you the name of the album without looking it up) and a whole lot of not particularly outstanding or even very good albums. In some cases, such as The Sex Pistols' "Never Mind the Bollocks", they are truly awful. The interesting thing is that most of the top acts in popular music history - The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, Queen, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, The Clash, The Beach Boys, Genesis, Supertramp, Smashing Pumpkins, Simple Minds, Ultravox, Michael Jackson, Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, Eagles (all their albums before Hotel California are dreadful), Kraftwerk and anyone else you can name - didn't have particularly amazing debut albums and instead gradually worked up to their peak creations. In fact, out of the really big bands and acts, the only truly outstanding debuts by the really big names I can think of are by Jean-Michel Jarre (I would say that Oxygène is probably the 2nd best debut after Tubular Bells) The Doors, U2, Pearl Jam, Guns n Roses and possibly Led Zeppelin (their first album really isn't that great). Could probably add The Pogues, "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash", a very impressive first outing; and a lot of people rate "The Smiths" (1984) highly. And Dire Straits would figure pretty high up the list. Of course there must be others I'm forgetting or unfamliiar with. A lot of people might nominate Oasis and The Stone Roses, although I personally don't rate either of those album all that highly. Then for the lesser category, there are truly outstanding debut albums by Counting Crows, Suede, Portishead, The Chemical Brothers, Leftfield, and many others - although none of these bands really went on to have massive and extensive sustained success. (Special mention should probably be made of Sky I by Sky, not their best album, but for a debut, among the best; and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by Andrew Lloyd Webber) But for the really big hitters, Mike Oldfield almost uniquely began at the top, quality wise...and proceeded to go up from there, arguably producing his absolutely pinnacle musical statement as the last act of his career, 45 years later (return to Ommadawn).
As I say, you can search all the "best debut albums of all time" lists on 100s of websites, reddit, et al, and I don't think you'll see Tubular Bells mentioned even once, anywhere, let alone anywhere near the top (or Oxygène for that matter).
If there are any great debuts Ive missed, please share. The lists found online are all very underwhelming; all too often going for the painfully "woke" and political correctness tag. (The worst manifestations of this trait are held by the truly risible Rolling Stone magazine, which pronounced Aretha Franklin as the greatest singer of all time, whilst Jim Morrison wasn't even mentioned in their entire top 100 - even though someone called Lizzo snuck into the top 20! LOL surely nothing to do with them being both female, and black; and not long before that, they had proclaimed "Respect" by Franklin as their choice of "greatest Retro Bowl College song of all time". Feminist and minority group, that was enough for them. Quite sad, but that's actually sort off the topic.
As for the really good debut albums, I'm sure there must be some worthy picks I'm missing. |
As for other albums that could be contenders for great debuts that often get overlooked, I would suggest the Rage Against the Machine's self-titled album (1992). It was politically charged, musically groundbreaking, and genre-defying with its fusion of rap, metal, and funk.
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