There are some legendary artists, such as Led Zeppelin, R.E.M., or Pink Floyd, who burst into the mainstream with fully formed, excellent debut albums. Other legendary artists, however, stumbled a bit on their full-length debuts, and didn't truly find their voices until their sophomore releases. Here are eight classic artists whose debut albums were false starts.
1. Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan (1962)
Since Bob Dylan is a prime example of an artist whose songwriting is far more acclaimed than his technical abilities as a performer, it would seem almost pointless for him to release an album of songs written by other people, and yet that's exactly what he did with his self-titled 1962 debut, which featured just two original compositions alongside eleven cover songs. It wasn't until Dylan's almost entirely self-penned sophomore effort The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan that he would become the defining figure of the '60s folk revival.
2. Van Morrison - Blowin' Your Mind! (1967)
If you asked Van Morrison what his debut album was, he'd probably tell you that it was his 1968 masterpiece Astral Weeks, even though his official debut Blowin' Your Mind! was released the year before. This is because Blowin' Your Mind! was released without Morrison's permission, and was originally recorded as a series of singles rather than a full-length album. Though it includes the classic "Brown Eyed Girl," the album as a whole isn't nearly as strong as Morrison's subsequent work.
3. Neil Young - Neil Young (1968)
There probably isn't any Neil Young fan that would consider his 1968 self-titled debut to be a bad album, but when compared to his masterful run of albums during the '70s (pretty much everything up until Zuma, or arguably even Rust Never Sleeps), his debut simply comes off as overproduced and underconfident. His 1969 follow-up Everybody Knows This is Nowhere is where the raw and reckless Neil Young would truly emerge.
4. Genesis - From Genesis to Revelation (1969)
Before they turned to slick pop rock in the '80s, Genesis was one of the leading figures of the British prog-rock movement with Peter Gabriel as their lead singer. However, the band's 1969 debut From Genesis to Revelation is neither experimental prog nor polished pop rock, but rather Zombies-inspired baroque pop. 1970's Trespass is where Genesis would abandon any pop elements and embrace more theatrical prog.
5. Lou Reed - Lou Reed (1972)
Lou Reed's 1972 glam rock classic Transformer is often seen as the starting point of his solo career, despite the fact that he had already released his self-titled debut solo album earlier that same year. The largely ignored Lou Reed mostly contained re-recorded versions of then-unreleased Velvet Underground songs, but it was the David Bowie-helmed Transformer that finally granted Reed his first taste of mainstream success.
6. Björk - Björk (1977)
Though the title of Björk's 1993 album Debut would imply that it was the singer's debut solo album, this is only partially true. While Debut was Björk's first solo album following the break-up of her band the Sugarcubes, it was actually her second solo album overall, following 1977's Björk, which was released when she was just 12 years old and featured mostly cover songs performed in a variety of styles, including folk, disco, ska, and psych-pop. It's worth a listen only if you're a diehard Björk fan.
7. Blur - Leisure (1991)
Blur practically invented the Britpop movement with their bright 1993 album Modern Life is Rubbish, but this only came after the identity crisis of their 1991 debut Leisure, which delved into shoegaze and Madchester styles that simply weren't the band's forte.
8. Radiohead - Pablo Honey (1993)
To understand how Radiohead feels about their debut album Pablo Honey and its hit single "Creep," please consult the video below:
What are some other artists whose debut albums were false starts? Let us know down in the comments section!
