Top 50 Debut LPs
A bit of an
explanation.
I thought long
and hard about this list. Well, for a couple of days at least, but it sort of
worked itself out without much intervention by me.
There were a lot
of artists whose first albums didn’t make the list, but who are up there for
me; Bob Dylan being a prime example. As much as I love Dylan’s work, I can’t
honestly say that his first album deserves to be in my Top 50 debuts of all
time. I think that he falls into a category of artist who only really get into
their stride after one, two or three albums
There are also
many, many other artists, who if they had ever recorded an album, would surely
be in there; most of the blues artists from the 1920’s and 30’s could stake a
claim, as well as some jazz greats such as Professor Longhair and Jelly Roll
Morton, but albums were just not part of the landscape back then.
I then turn to
those odd artists who have only recorded one album and sunk into obscurity.
(Odd, being the correct word for some of these. Odd ,but great; that’s why
they’re there!) I suppose these debuts could also be their final ones and it
all depends how you look at it. I’m going for the glass half-full angle.
What has
surprised me slightly is the lack of music from the 60’s & 70’s as well as
whole genres largely missing; (album-era) jazz, soul, reggae, prog, punk. It could be that
many of my favourite reggae, soul and punk tracks are singles rather than
albums. As for prog, well, I just don’t like it very much!
The final piece
in the jigsaw was grading them in some sort of order.
I know these
choices are my Top 50, but the hard part was sticking them in some sort of
graduated order. Is the 50th one than much less worthy than what’s
number one? Or does number two really deserve a place up there in the stratosphere?
It is all down
to how I felt at the time of compiling the list. I’ll bet If I look back at it
in a years’ time, I’d be thinking, “Number three? Really?”, but for now, here
it is.
Hope you like
it!
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1
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Madonna
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Madonna
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2
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The Slits
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Cut
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3
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Elvis Presley
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Elvis Presley
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4
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The Fall
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Live at the Witch Trials
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5
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U2
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Boy
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6
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Tammy Wynette
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Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad
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7
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Blue Angel
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Blue Angel
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8
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Little Richard
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Here's Little Richard
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9
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Swell Maps
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A Trip to Marineville
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10
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MX-80 Sound
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Hard Attack
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11
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Swans
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Filth
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12
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Fats Domino
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Rock and Rollin with Fats Domino
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13
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The Beat
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I Just Can't Stop It
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14
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Frank Zappa
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Freak Out!
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15
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the passage
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pindrop
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16
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Satan Alfa Beel Atem
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Delicior Pink Ribbon Beel (Music of
Death)
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17
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Howlin Wolf
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Moanin in the Moonlight
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18
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Jeff Buckley
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Grace
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19
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Prefab Sprout
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Swoon
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20
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The Saints
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(I'm) Stranded
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21
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Tony Bennett
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Because of You
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22
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Rip Rig & Panic
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God
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23
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The Sundays
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Reading,Writing & Arithmetic
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24
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Big Black
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Atomizer
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25
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The Blue Nile
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A Walk Across the Rooftops
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26
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Muslimgauze
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Kabul
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27
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Alternative TV
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The Image Has Cracked
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28
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Laura Cantrell
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Not the Trembling Kind
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29
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The Descendents
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Milo Goes to College
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30
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De La Soul
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3ft High & Rising
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31
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Bruce Springsteen
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Greetings from Astbury Park
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32
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Karen Cooper Complex
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Shinjuku
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33
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The Congos
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Heart of the Congos
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34
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The Strypes
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Snapshot
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35
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Wire
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Pink Flag
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36
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Rocketship
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A Certain Smile A Certain Sadness
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37
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The Woodentops
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Giant
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38
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Portishead
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Dummy
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39
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Young Marble Giants
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Colossal Youth
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40
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Capt Beefheart
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Safe As Milk
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41
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The Art of Noise
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Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise?
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42
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The Ramones
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The Ramones
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43
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Manic Street Preachers
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Generation Terrorists
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44
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Aztec Camera
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High Land,Hard Rain
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45
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Scritti Politti
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Songs to Remember
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46
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Burial
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Burial
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47
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Ry Cooder
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Ry Cooder
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48
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Talking Heads
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77
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49
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Thomas Leer & Robert Rental
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The Bridge
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50
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The Baby Astronauts
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All the Pancakes You Can Eat
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I wrote about many of these albums and artists in my book
“Totally Shuffled-A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod”
This is what the book is all about:
One track per day for 366 days on a broken
iPod. 366 tracks out of a possible 9553. From the obvious (The Rolling Stones),
to the obscure (Karen Cooper Complex). From the sublime (The Flaming Lips) to
the risible (Muse). From field
recordings of Haitian Voodoo music to The Monkees. From Heavy Metal to Rap by way
of 1930’s blues, jazz, classical, punk, and every possible genre of music in
between. This is what I listened to and wrote about for a whole year, to the
point of never wanting to hear any more music again. Some songs I listened to I
loved, and some I hated. Some artists ended up getting praised to the skies and
others received a bit of critical kicking. There are memories of spending too
many hours in record shops, prevaricating over the next big thing and
surprising myself over tracks that I’d completely forgotten about. But with 40
years of listening to music, I realised that I’ll never get sick of it. I may have fallen out of love with some of
the songs in this book, but I’ll never fall out of love with music.
“Totally
Shuffled” is available as a Kindle book here:
and as a
paperback here:
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