10 artists who never topped the first song on their first album
Late-stage capitalism has created a society that wants more, all the time.
Shaped by a short-term culture, rarely do we let the magic of a long-form project sit with us for an extended period of time, enjoying just how impactful the journey of its creation is, instead desiring an immediate and improved follow-up. All art has suffered from this, but perhaps none more so than the humble record, especially a record that does well.
The immediate success of a new act brings with it a swirl of exposure that immediately results in calls for a follow-up, which, amidst the frenzied desire, for me, seems to overlook the crippling difficulty that comes with creating it. Iconic acts have come and gone throughout history, laying down a debut album that has changed culture, yet simultaneously hung an albatross around their neck. The Strokes, The Stone Roses and even the elusive Lauryn Hill have experienced it, with the latter removing herself from the industry altogether so as to avoid the rat race of continued expectation.
As society moves into even shorter-form content, the judgment seems to shrink with it. No longer is the evaluation of a band spread across a collection of songs; we instead decide the fate of a record with its opening track. But opening tracks are meant to be a grand statement after all, and so to pressure artists into delivering upon the close of that track, seemingly adds to the vicious cycle in which they are constantly placed.
So who has fallen victim to this nasty trend? What artists in history have laid down an opening track so iconic that everything thereafter has faded into cultural obscurity? While I have berated the attitudes of a modern society and how it views art, I didn’t say we were here to produce a solution. Instead, we will provide a list of the top ten songs that made a rod for their own back, by being so bloody good.
10 bands who never topped the first song on their debut:
‘I Wanna Be Adored’ – The Stone Roses
A very questionable entry into the list, because the remaining album was equally as brilliant, but we can’t talk about debut albums that weren’t appropriately followed up without including The Stone Roses, and while ‘Fools Gold’ may be the album’s standout, ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ runs it incredibly close.
It was a confident opener for a record brimming with originality, and while the rest of it elevated into the sun with its upbeat melodies and groove-laden rhythm sections, ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ was atmospheric indie at its very best, showcasing the mastery of the band’s bass player Mani, while similarly encouraging Ian Brown to step forward and be an enchanting front man. It was a true mission statement of the album, that teased of a world that never truly followed in the later releases.
‘Break on Through (to the Other Side)’ – The Doors
Not too dissimilar from The Stone Roses, The Doors’ opening track was part of a wider debut record that shone from start to finish. It was also a record that was never truly followed up by the band, as their lightning-in-a-bottle approach to music-making was almost too volatile to create sustained brilliance within the industry.
‘Light My Fire’ and ‘The End’ showed the truly versatile potential of this band, but on ‘Break On Through (to the Other Side)’, it was all wrapped up in three minutes of rock and roll bliss that showcased Jim Morrison as one of the most captivating frontmen in history. In truth, the track listing of this album, combined with the records that came after, shows the steady decline of Morrison the man and artist, whose demise serves as another cautionary tale of musical madness.
‘Sunday Morning’ – The Velvet Underground & Nico
There’s less of an artist’s demise with this example, because not only is the entire album a masterful work of art-rock, platforming an era of expansive and exciting new music, but the band, as they were with Nico, dissolved after the recording. So while The Velvet Underground continued on, they no longer did with Nico, and so every song on this album vies for the contender as their very best.
While ‘Heroin’ and ‘Venus In Furs’ leap out as obvious candidates, there is something about ‘Sunday Morning’ as an opener that feels undeniably charming. It invites you into this hypnotic world that the band have created, and for that alone, serves as a standout track on the album. It’s not so much that the rest of the album doesn’t top it, because on the aforementioned tracks, it arguably does, but it’s for how memorable the moment of introducing yourself to this iconic, one-off album is.
‘Intro’ – The xx
In what was probably meant to be a minimalist introduction to their world of electronic indie, The xx inadvertently wrote their most iconic track. The brooding and tense opener was the perfect first step forward for a band who ended up defying genre and expectation in their rise to stardom during the 2010s.
The rest of the album was ambitious, experimental and yet deeply intimate as these three young voices crafted something inherently contemporary. They would follow Romy’s atmospheric lead one minute, Oliver Sim’s melodic the next and Jamie’s ambitious rhythm arrangements the other, making the record a kaleidoscope of exciting ideas; but nevertheless, it’s the simplicity of the riff in ‘Intro’ that marks that standout moment.
‘More Than a Feeling’ – Boston
This track warrants its place on the list for the unarguable reason that it marked the absolute peak of Boston’s career.
Unlike other submissions, which are marred by the loopholes we’ve set for ourselves with the parameters of this list, Boston’s hit marks the moment the band reached a summit from which they quickly descended. A sad reality, though, because ‘More Than a Feeling’ almost inadvertently invented the idea of DIY rock, fit for a stadium performance.
Tom Scholz explained that during the writing of the song, he “would literally imagine I was in front of thousands of people playing this rock and roll music, and it worked”.
But the creative juice he relentlessly squeezed out of himself to write ‘More Than a Feeling’ ran dry shortly after, potentially proving that the song took everything out of him. Nevertheless, despite the lack of success thereafter, musicians would dream of writing an anthem as well-known as this, and so maybe it’s not an albatross after all.
‘Black Sabbath’ – Black Sabbath
As we all know, there are many moments to celebrate in Black Sabbath’s legacy. Beyond their achievements in revolutionising the hard rock and metal space, they were also spearheaded by one of the biggest legends in music history, the ‘Prince of Darkness’ himself, Ozzy Osbourne.
However, while it’s easy to pick out their best songs, there’s something prophetic about their first song from their self-titled debut album, ‘Black Sabbath’. It also incorporates everything that was weird and wonderful about the band, inspired by Geezer Butler’s obsession with the occult at the time, and a significant touchpoint for all the reasons why they absolutely smashed the rock rulebook.
‘Bat out of Hell’ – Meat Loaf
It’s rare to be able to call an album a real cultural moment, and even rarer if it’s a debut album, however, Meat Loaf’s explosive arrival with Bat out of Hell quite literally changed the game forever, not just in terms of pure, good, rock ‘n’ roll but how it ultimately challenged the parameters of the entire genre.
After all, the first song, ‘Bat out of Hell’, runs at almost ten minutes in length, and provides a masterclass in storytelling excellence and letting the emotional dynamics of both the vocals and the arrangements completely run the show. As far as providing a glimpse of everything Meat Loaf was capable of, it’s the perfect embodiment.
‘Welcome to the Jungle’ – Guns N’ Roses
Perhaps the most important entry in this entire list, Guns N’ Roses‘ arrival with Appetite for Destruction’s ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ really needs no introduction, but more than that, it was also a seminal moment when the band seemingly came together for the first time, creating magic that they probably knew they’d never be able to recreate again.
As Slash recalled in his autobiography, “It was really the first thing we all collaborated on. In that whole ‘discovering ourselves’ period from ’85 through ’86, when we were living together very haphazardly and getting together and jamming, there was something going on that not a lot of people had. And this song just had this natural feel that was very cool.”
‘Welcome to the Working Week’ – Elvis Costello
Many artists are influenced by a range of different artists and genres, but many artists also fail to replicate their magic while also putting their own spin on it, and even fewer manage to do it as early as their debut album, however, Elvis Costello’s My Aim Is True is a pretty good picture of example of how to do it right.
The first song, ‘Welcome to the Working Week’, is just about packed with everything you’ll ever need from a Costello song, and the lyrics are thought-provoking too, like the opener, “Now that your picture’s in the paper being rhythmically admired / And you can have anyone that you have ever desired / All you gotta tell me now is why, why, why, why?”
‘Clash City Rockers’ – The Clash
Many songs on The Clash became staples of the punk genre, including ‘London’s Burning’ and ‘White Riot’, with the record as a whole standing as a pretty good snapshot of a moment in time, navigating urban angst in one of the most turbulent times.
‘Clash City Rockers’ captures the positivity and hope of resilience and pushing on, marking one of the first times they actually tried to push their own limitations and take risks. As Mick Jones said, it “was one of the first numbers we did where we really began to stretch and experiment”. It also captured the entire spirit of the band, not just in terms of their sound but in being an entity against the world, one you either joined in earnest or you got left behind.
