Bands Whose First Album Is Their Worst

[chewm]

Sleater-Kinney maybe.

[E.H. Ruddock]

Elvis Presley

[LoathedVermin72]

Kanye West

Well this is wrong - the guy's been on a downwards trajectory since he dropped The College Dropout

[MadTIGERmaN]

Sleater-Kinney maybe.

I have a hard time listening to the first two... lack of Janet Weiss.

Definitely has some good songs, but definitely their two worst IMO

[LoathedVermin72]

SK's first album is kickass and underrated.

[chewm]

Sleater-Kinney maybe.

I have a hard time listening to the first two... lack of Janet Weiss.

Definitely has some good songs, but definitely their two worst IMO

They are my least favorites as well but I still really enjoy listening to them.

[daft twat]

Local H.

[Kevin Davis]

Tom Waits might fit this bill, though "Nighthawks at the Diner" probably takes the mantle in the end.

[epilogue]

Tom Waits might fit this bill, though "Nighthawks at the Diner" probably takes the mantle in the end.

Yeah, Nighthawks is definitely his worst. Then Foreign Affairs. His debut has some great stuff on it.

[Kevin Davis]

Man, I love "Foreign Affairs." I wouldn't put that anywhere near the bottom, though the two long beat pieces make it a tough front-to-back listen. But "Muriel," "I Never Talk to Strangers," "Sight For Sore Eyes," "Burma Shave," and "Foreign Affair" are all essential early Waits tracks for me. Very little on the debut ranks alongside those to my ears.

[epilogue]

Man, I love "Foreign Affairs." I wouldn't put that anywhere near the bottom, though the two long beat pieces make it a tough front-to-back listen. But "Muriel," "I Never Talk to Strangers," "Sight For Sore Eyes," "Burma Shave," and "Foreign Affair" are all essential early Waits tracks for me. Very little on the debut touches those for me.

I don't disagree with some of those being essential Waits. But it's easily his second "worst" album. But that speaks more to how fucking brilliant he is than it is any commentary on the quality of Foreign Affairs.

[tragabigzanda]

Top 10 maybe?
Hello Morning
Close Captioned
The Kill
Place/Position
Do You Like Me?
Latest Disgrace
Recap Modotti
Nightshop
Break
Life & Limb

I'd maybe bump Life & Limb for Epic Problem

[tragabigzanda]

[Kevin Davis]

Man, I love "Foreign Affairs." I wouldn't put that anywhere near the bottom, though the two long beat pieces make it a tough front-to-back listen. But "Muriel," "I Never Talk to Strangers," "Sight For Sore Eyes," "Burma Shave," and "Foreign Affair" are all essential early Waits tracks for me. Very little on the debut touches those for me.

I don't disagree with some of those being essential Waits. But it's easily his second "worst" album. But that speaks more to how fucking brilliant he is than it is any commentary on the quality of Foreign Affairs.

I dunno, those songs really get under my skin in a good way. Waits's isn't an easy catalog to rank but I like the good half of that album too much to place it that low -- at the very least I'd have it above "Closing Time," "Nighthawks," "Black Rider," and "Bad As Me," possibly some others that I'd have to research before saying for sure.

[Jorge]

Man, I love "Foreign Affairs." I wouldn't put that anywhere near the bottom, though the two long beat pieces make it a tough front-to-back listen. But "Muriel," "I Never Talk to Strangers," "Sight For Sore Eyes," "Burma Shave," and "Foreign Affair" are all essential early Waits tracks for me. Very little on the debut ranks alongside those to my ears.

Agree agree agree. Foreign Affairs is way better than Closing Time in my book.

Even still... if we count Night on Earth as an album, I prefer both Nighthawks and Closing Time to that.

[Brett]

Tortoise

Whoa, no! That's gotta be The Catastrophist. The first album still has this weird mysteriousness to it, and I love how it sounds like it spontaneously dropped out of the ether.

[epilogue]

Man, I love "Foreign Affairs." I wouldn't put that anywhere near the bottom, though the two long beat pieces make it a tough front-to-back listen. But "Muriel," "I Never Talk to Strangers," "Sight For Sore Eyes," "Burma Shave," and "Foreign Affair" are all essential early Waits tracks for me. Very little on the debut touches those for me.

I don't disagree with some of those being essential Waits. But it's easily his second "worst" album. But that speaks more to how fucking brilliant he is than it is any commentary on the quality of Foreign Affairs.

I dunno, those songs really get under my skin in a good way. Waits's isn't an easy catalog to rank but I like the good half of that album too much to place it that low -- at the very least I'd have it above "Closing Time," "Nighthawks," "Black Rider," and "Bad As Me," possibly some others that I'd have to research before saying for sure.

Nighthawks is easily his worst and his only album that I don't like. There are two songs on there that are fine but they aren't good enough to get me to listen to it. I pretty much pretend it doesn't exist.

Black Rider is a more challenging listen than Foreign Affairs. But it's also more rewarding, too. And 'Bullets' is better than any single song on FA.

I would absolutely rank Closing Time and Band As Me above Foreign Affairs. Though, I do concede that I'm one of the few people I communicate with that thinks Bad As me is a good record. So I'm fine letting that be a wash. You're the smartest person I know when it comes to music criticism. But I can't image there's an argument even you could make that would convince me FA is better than Closing Time.

Even if Closing Time is his third from the bottom. And I'm not saying it is. But IF it is. It's still better than FA.

[epilogue]

Man, I love "Foreign Affairs." I wouldn't put that anywhere near the bottom, though the two long beat pieces make it a tough front-to-back listen. But "Muriel," "I Never Talk to Strangers," "Sight For Sore Eyes," "Burma Shave," and "Foreign Affair" are all essential early Waits tracks for me. Very little on the debut ranks alongside those to my ears.

Agree agree agree. Foreign Affairs is way better than Closing Time in my book.

Even still... if we count Night on Earth as an album, I prefer both Nighthawks and Closing Time to that.

Ah. Okay, yes. If we count Night on Earth... I like Foreign Affairs more than NoE.

[Kevin Davis]

I think Bob Dylan fits this bill for me too, provided live albums don't count. Some of his garish '80's albums are probably more deserving, but those generally have at least 1-2 great songs to redeem them, and usually a few that are amusingly embarrassing. He just sounds so overwrought and phony on his debut, trying to put across all these old blues about fixin' to die and see that my grave is kept clean and all that, in a voice that makes the standard Dylan caricature voice sound like Pavarotti. The stuff he was singing in cafes and hotel rooms at the time was way, way better...

[epilogue]

I think Bob Dylan fits this bill for me too, provided live albums don't count. Some of his garish '80's albums are probably more deserving, but those generally have at least 1-2 great songs to redeem them, and usually a few that are amusingly embarrassing. He just sounds so overwrought and phony on his debut, trying to put across all these old blues about fixin' to die and see that my grave is kept clean and all that, in a voice that makes the standard Dylan caricature voice sound like Pavarotti. The stuff he was singing in cafes and hotel rooms at the time
was way, way better...