False Starts: 10 debut albums that musicians want to forget
No album can claim to be perfect. Even the best artists in the world who have racked up all-star numbers whenever they step up to the plate usually have those musical skeletons in their closets that they don’t want to see all that often. Being a superstar only comes with time, though, and artists like Red Hot Chili Peppers weren’t exactly proud when looking back on their debut releases.
Granted, it’s easy to cut a lot of artists some slack when it comes to their debut record. Since it was their first time up to the plate, it’s almost expected that things will be a little bit rough around the edges, especially when it comes to either shoddy production choices or vocals that don’t exactly land with the same weight as they probably should.
Even as far as debuts go, there are some rough sections behind these records, ranging from botched production jobs to songs that would have been laughed out of the room if they even scraped the top of the charts. Then again, that might not even be the band’s fault, either, since some of the core lineup might not have even been solidified yet.
Despite a few hiccups here and there, these debuts are still far from bad in most cases, either ranging from a spotty version of the band we know and love to a dark look at what they would sound like in another life. Thankfully, fate was kind in this reality, and we all got the chance to see a classic rather than a sequel to whatever the hell these were.
10 forgetful debut albums:
10. Mate Feed Kill Repeat – Slipknot
Any band is going to use whatever they can to get that first record into stores. No matter if they have to pick up more shifts at their day jobs or scrounge every piece of dough they can get, it’s always worth it to have that one song in their hands at the end of the day. Mate Feed Kill Repeat certainly started the ball rolling for Slipknot, but now it feels like the metal maniacs look at it more as a demo than a proper album.
That’s not to say that the record isn’t devoid of highlights. There are a handful of tracks that wouldn’t be fleshed out properly until their actual debut, and the beginnings of a song like ‘Gently’ from Iowa would get its start here as well. But there’s a big elephant in the room missing, and his name is Corey Taylor.
Yeah, before Slipknot had all of the nine accounted for, Anders Colsefini was behind the microphone, which, while a serviceable metal singer for the time, doesn’t come anywhere close to what Taylor could do going from screaming to singing. It’s certainly interesting to see what a Mr Bungle-ified version of the group sounded like, but they were destined for bigger things before this had been fully pressed.
9. Infinite – Eminem
Eminem tends to have a particular character that he calls back on whenever he rolls out an album. Even though Slim Shady is the version of Eminem most teenagers fell in love with on MTV, the real Marshall Mathers seemed to be far more mature than the kid who randomly threw out homophobic slurs on wax. It took years to bring Slim, but given what we know, Infinite is one of the most unintentionally adorable Eminem albums ever released.
Because before he became the psychopath on record that people know, Eminem was a happy-go-lucky rapper singing about how he could face anything that came his way. Despite G-funk going on at the exact same time, his debut feels more like something that would come out of the alternative hip-hop scene like A Tribe Called Quest, which was bound to change when Mathers started taking cues from his touring mates like MF Doom.
While it’s still fun to listen to, this version of Eminem feels like a version of Slim Shady, who got everything he wanted when he was a kid and was going to do whatever he could to live a normal life with his “wife” Kim. You can call the fallout tragic if you want to, but it’s almost funny seeing Slim Shady come from a guy who sounds like he could sing ‘Always Look On the Bright Side of Life’.
8. Björk – Björk
Björk has never made music thinking about what’s trendy at the time. She is usually at the forefront of technology and will casually take risks whenever she wants to, but don’t go into one of her records thinking that Björk’s going to be making some of the most chipper pop tunes ever made. That was for the teenybopper stars of the world. Then again, Björk was that kind of child star once upon a time.
Even though it feels weird to even count this one, seeing Björk’s first official album is practically not fleshed out at all. Since she was still a literal child, many of the songs feel cute for what they are, from Icelandic tunes to covers of classics by The Beatles like ‘The Fool on the Hill’. But now and again, there is a little semblance of what’s to come when she starts reaching her high notes, as if she unintentionally gave us a preview of The Sugarcubes.
It’s not exactly fair to judge this on the same level as her other works, given that she was barely out of diapers, but even if it sounds nothing like Björk, this record is still charming for what it is. It is nowhere near what many expected, but it is also very interesting, considering this is the same person who would eventually be expanding minds with records like Vespertine.
7. From Genesis to Revelation – Genesis
The core ethos behind any prog band is to make something different from what came before. The Beatles’ Sgt Peppers contained some of the most chipper songs ever made, and it could be argued that it was the first prog record because of how willing they were to think outside the box. Genesis had the exact same idea, but they may have worn their influences a bit too much on their sleeves.
Because as much as From Genesis to Revelation sounds competent as an album, that zany energy from their debut is not something anyone was going to see again. Despite having the core lineup intact, Peter Gabriel also sounds a bit unsure of himself here, almost like we’re watching a recital for the group at a university theatre rather than the group that would one day fill stadiums.
If anything, what it did give them was a sense of direction, with Gabriel eventually daring to go bigger when sculpting his ideas for tunes on Trespass. Somewhere in here is a halfway decent Genesis album, but even when removing some of the weaker tracks, there’s not nearly enough polish to salvage it.
6. Alanis – Alanis Morrissette
The great thing about the 1990s was that it was an absolutely glorious decade for women in rock. Since the alternative scene had torn down the business’ preconceptions of what a rock star could be, then why couldn’t more women join the ranks of Stevie Nicks and Joan Jett as the next titans of the music scene? Alanis Morrissette was certainly ready to break through as a solo artist, but she needed a makeover so that people could forget whatever the hell her self-titled was.
At the same time, it’s hard to be too critical of an album like this. Considering the time period, hearing someone like Morrissette create 1983-style bangers in 1991 just reads like someone trying to relive their glory days on their debut record. In fact, there are a lot more connections between an album like this and the early career of another breakout 1990s act: Nine Inch Nails.
While Trent Reznor got out of his glamorous era before Pretty Hate Machine, seeing this in Morrissette’s discography has led to many people just assuming that Jagged Little Pill is where things start getting great. But who knows? Maybe if she stuck at it long enough, she could have moved out of her teen idol phase and become the Canadian answer to Janet Jackson.
5. Sentimental Journey – Ringo Starr
Out of all of The Beatles’ solo careers, Ringo Starr’s may have been the last one most people cared about. Despite being the lovable goofball of the group, no one was really counting on him to have the biggest hits, especially given that his voice was never up to snuff compared to his friends. There is one distinction that Starr has on everyone else, though: he started his solo career miles before the other Threetles.
John Lennon and George Harrison had made experimental records before, but Sentimental Journey is a strange easy listening record that Starr made for his mother. Considering The Beatles hadn’t fully broken up yet, this seems less like a proper album and more like he was testing the waters in the case that the group actually did fall apart.
But given that his breakout album was simply Ringo, Starr may have wanted to subliminally make his fans believe that this record never happened. While he is a man of many talents and can absolutely annihilate any drumkit that he gets behind, Starr is no Michael Buble, and no amount of soulful crooning is going to do much for his charm.
4. Pablo Honey – Radiohead
Radiohead’s entire career trajectory has never been anything less than intriguing. The 1990s were coming to a close, and without any real scene behind them, OK Computer’s reign over the last years of the millennium seemed to close the door on rock and pave the way for something completely different in the future. This is strange coming from the same band that logically should have been a one-hit wonder following Pablo Honey.
Despite having the iconic hit ‘Creep’, the group doesn’t really like to discuss Pablo Honey all that much, thinking that it’s only a facet of what they could do. And considering all of their subsequent records have sounded clean, hearing them try their hand at grunge with Thom Yorke rocking a yellow Kurt Cobain moptop on his head wreaks of trend-chasing before the music even starts.
For as much trash talk has been thrown towards this record by both fans and the band themselves, pieces of it have still crept up in little pockets of their discography. It’s nowhere near the first Radiohead album new fans should hear, but it’s important to have this in the past so that they could be seasoned veterans when making tracks like ‘Bodysnatchers’ off of In Rainbows or ‘Myxomatosis’ from Hail to the Thief.
3. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Red Hot Chili Peppers
The entire formation of Red Hot Chili Peppers feels like a joke that got way too out of hand. Since the whole group came together as a goof when Anthony Kiedis wanted to try his hand at rapping, that one fateful night in a California club led to much more than really should make any sense. After scrounging to get a record deal, Kiedis and Flea finally managed to get a product into the world, only for half the group to quit before they got started.
While everyone had faith in the Peppers, guitarist Hillel Slovak and drummer Jack Irons were already tied to their other band, What Is This?, which meant that they had to leave before they had played a note on the album. Despite being in more than capable hands with Gang of Four’s Andy Gill, it didn’t take long for them to butt heads, with Gill being upfront about how he was working with a shit group.
So even though Red Hot Chili Peppers is a decent record, it feels more like a demo tape with all of life sucked out of it. There are still Pepper naysayers to this day, but this is probably what the band sounds like to people who hated them in the first place. All energy all the time, but nothing to latch onto.
2. David Bowie – David Bowie
In the age of psychedelia, David Bowie could have gone in any direction and it would have worked. The age of flower power had led to aspiring musicians picking up guitars, but Bowie was never known to go along with the mainstream. No, he needed to be a little different, but his debut might be what happens when someone tries to go too far outside the box right out of the gate.
In an era that gave us everything from garage rock to raga rock to folk rock, Bowie chose vaudeville rock as his calling card, complete with tracks that feel like they’re ripped out of a low-budget circus loudspeaker. This kind of thing had worked for The Beatles on ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite’, but that was just one song, and hearing Bowie spend an entire vinyl record doing it is bound to get grating after more than two tracks.
Given the fact that the next album in his discography introduced the rock and roll alien to the world and is also called David Bowie, it seemed like most wanted to forget that it ever happened. In that respect, ‘Please Mr Gravedigger’ has some added poignance. Bowie wasn’t just addressing his burial; he was laying his outward persona down to rest so that Ziggy Stardust could take over.
1. Attila – Attila
I’ll bet there’s a lot of strange expressions right now. Looking at a group like Attila, this feels like a side project that a bunch of rock and roll dads after a night of heavy drinking got a little too carried away. And, in essence, you’d be correct, but just look at the piano player and imagine him clean-shaven and his hair cut just a little bit.
Yep, before Billy Joel debuted as a solo act, he set his sights on forming a Led Zeppelin-adjacent hard rock outfit, complete with him providing some vocals. And it’s about as awkward as many would lead you to believe, especially when Joel tries on his Robert Plant impression and ends up coming off like Tom Waits deciding that he wanted to be an opera singer.
Maybe there was a chance that Attila could have broken through, but any chance of Joel being the next rock god was not in the cards. He was always just an average guy who happened to play better than anyone else, and seeing him retire this version of himself is much better than having to lose out on tracks like ‘Scenes From an Italian Restaurant’.
