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[Chin Diesel]

Favorite/Best leadoff singles from artist's first albums. I'm thinking of first major release since many artists had smaller releases that never went national.

Back in the day (up until the past 10 years), it mattered and could make/break and artist when records, cassettes and CD's were delivered to radio stations.

So, a few that are in my head.

1. Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced had Purple Haze as the first song on his first album (US release). A bit too young for my time, but I'm thinking in 1967 no one had ever heard of anything like that. It immediately gets your attention that the artist has something going on beyond what you know as music.

2. Guns and Roses Appetite For Destruction's Welcome To The Jungle. Rock had hit a low point in mid to late 1980's (Yes, I'm looking at you Nelson and Winger). Summer of 1987, Appetite Comes Out and boom, rock it back.

4. Nirvana Nevermind Smells Like Teen Spirit. I have to think for Gen X this was like Beatles or Hendrix. Completely unlike anything that had ever been heard.

5. Beatles. From what I understand a bit backwards because they had singles before an album. I'll defer to the old beezin's for significance of I Saw Her Standing There in the context of how well known the Beatles were before they put out an album.

 

[8893]

Are you talking the first song on the debut album, or the first single released from the debut album? Usually not the same thing, but irrespective of how you phrased it, it looks like you've picked the first track on the first album as the thread subject.

In which case I'd add "Do It Again" from Steely Dan's Can't Buy a Thrill. Far from my favorite track from them, but it was and remains pretty ubiquitously known and instantly recognizable, and they were a whole new sound to most, fusing jazz and pop.

Really a pretty amazing debut album overall, especially the entire first side.

 

[8893]

Allman Brothers Band, "Don't Want You No More/It's Not My Cross To Bear" from their eponymous debut. Still mind blowing imo; although "Don't Want You No More" is actually a cover of a Spencer Davis Band tune. Totally new sound then, fusing blues, jazz, rock, jam and southern rock, and still the standard-bearer for that sound imo.

 

[Chin Diesel]

Are you talking the first song on the debut album, or the first single released from the debut album? Usually not the same thing, but irrespective of how you phrased it, it looks like you've picked the first track on the first album as the thread subject.

In which case I'd add "Do It Again" from Steely Dan's Can't Buy a Thrill. Far from my favorite track from them, but it was and remains pretty ubiquitously known and instantly recognizable, and they were a whole new sound to most, fusing jazz and pop.

Really a pretty amazing debut album overall, especially the entire first side.

Good point. It's been so long I was forgetting about first song on album vice fist released song.

I was going with the mentality where you'd listen to songs in sequence. Just turn it on and go.

 

[Waquoit]

No brainer for me. "More Than a Feeling" from Boston. Nothing else on the radio had that sound when it first came out.

 

[8893]

No brainer for me. "More Than a Feeling" from Boston. Nothing else on the radio had that sound when it first came out.

In college my buddy and I had several friends convinced that Boston’s second album was the first album played backwards.

 

[storrsroars]

Favorite/Best leadoff singles from artist's first albums. I'm thinking of first major release since many artists had smaller releases that never went national.

Back in the day (up until the past 10 years), it mattered and could make/break and artist when records, cassettes and CD's were delivered to radio stations.

So, a few that are in my head.

1. Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced had Purple Haze as the first song on his first album (US release).

2. Guns and Roses Appetite For Destruction's Welcome To The Jungle.

4. Nirvana Nevermind Smells Like Teen Spirit.

5. Beatles. I Saw Her Standing There

Agree on Purple Haze, that was a "holy shiat" musical moment. In the 60s, probably the only debut hit that could challenge it was the Kinks with "You Really Got Me", which was really the first "hard rock" song in Billboard history.

With the Beatles, it was either She Loves You or I Want to Hold Your Hand, can't recall which, but it was the whole package - melody, harmonies, backbeat, production and the packaging (read: hair/British). If Buddy Holly had a better producer and didn't die, maybe Beatlemania wasn't as big.

Nirvana and GnR I found very derivative. Just IMHO.

Good call on Boston. But that sound got tired fast. I'd put Big Country in that category of a very unique guitar sound, although they didn't hit it nearly as big as Boston (but maybe should have).

There have been very few the past couple of decades. I've had moments of "holy shiat" that's a unique sound, but the bands never really blew up, Black Grape being the foremost example. Maybe Edward Sharpe with "Home", but I now blame that song for giving us crap like Mumford & Sons and the Lumineers.

 

[Dove]

A few:

"Good Times Roll" off The Cars debut in 1978.
"Medicine Show" off Big Audio Dynamite's debut.
"It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock and Roll) on AC/DC's 1976 High Volatage
"Fantasy" on Aldo Nova's 1982 album.

"Say It Isn't So" by The Outfield on Play Deep. Killer tune leading in to "Your Love".
"Life Ain't Fair and the World is Mean" on Sturgill Simpson's "High Top Mountain" in 2013
"Brand New Man" in 1991 by Brooks and Dunn

"Concrete Jungle" on Bob Marley's "Catch A Fire"
"I Will Follow" on U2's "Boy" album in 1980

 

[G0UCONN]

Best debut albums includes....

The Cars - The Cars

Bruce Springsteen - Greetings from Asbury Park

NWA - Straight Outa Compton

 

[meyers7]

Off some of my collection.

Steely Dan off Can't Buy A Thrill - Do It Again

Crosby, Stills and Nash off Crosby, Stills & Nash - Suite Judy Blue Eyes

The Temperance Movement off The Temperance Movement - Only Friend

Head East off Flat As A Pancake - Never Been Any Reason

The Georgia Satellites off Georgia Satellites - Keep Your Hands To Yourself

Eagles off Eagles - Take It Easy

Dire Straits of Dire Straits - Down To The Waterline

Buckcherry off Buckcherry - Lit Up

Bruce Springsteen off Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ - Blinded By The Light

The Black Crowes off Shake Your Moneymaker - Twice As Hard

Alabama Shakes off Boys And Girls - Hold On

 

[Waquoit]

Best debut albums includes....
The Cars - The Cars

A few:
"Good Times Roll" off The Cars debut in 1978.

That's a good album

 

[Purple Stein]

Not a first album, but I'll never forget how Radiohead's "Everything in Its Right Place" stopped me in my tracks when I first tossed Kid A in my CD player.

No song matters more to me, even to this day.