Artists with One Album Significantly Better Than the Rest
Posted: Fri January 31, 2020 6:14 pm
Who are some artists that are one-album wonders for you? Not saying you have to dislike their output outside of that album, but that one album still towers over all their other music.
Here are some big ones for me:
Daughters - Daughters
All their stuff before this is tuneless mathcore with shrieked vocals I can't get into. With their 2010 S/T album, they embraced melodic, catchy, and huge-sounding noise rock with a radically different vocal style ("Elvis being tortured," in the words of the frontman himself), and to this day I still can't get enough of these eight songs. They broke up after releasing it, and finally returned in 2018 with the highly acclaimed You Won't Get What You Want - a fitting title for me since the oppressively hopeless No Wave thing they went for on this one left me totally cold.
The Wedding Present - Seamonsters
TWP is a pretty good jangle pop band, but in 1991 they hired Steve Albini as their producer and injected a bunch of noisy alternative rock elements into their sound, and the result was ten absolutely perfect, magical tracks I return to endlessly. The intense drum bursts on "Lovenest" are one of my favorite musical flourishes in history. It's such a bummer they didn't keep following this sound after this album.
High on Fire - Blessed Black Wings
Another band that used Steve Albini for one album with results that blow everything else they've ever done out of the water. Is this the best-produced metal album ever? It has such a uniquely deep, raw, organic sound - accented by some perfectly-integrated acoustic guitar - with Matt Pike's gravelly vocals mixed low so that they blend beautifully into the wall of sound. What a magnificent record.
At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command
Ross Robinson didn't think their previous studio work captured the energy they exhibited in live performances. He was right, and holy fuck did he capture it on this record! Maybe the single most energetic album ever recorded? And their songwriting never rose to this level before or after. A true lightning-in-a-bottle release, right here.
Here are some big ones for me:
Daughters - Daughters
All their stuff before this is tuneless mathcore with shrieked vocals I can't get into. With their 2010 S/T album, they embraced melodic, catchy, and huge-sounding noise rock with a radically different vocal style ("Elvis being tortured," in the words of the frontman himself), and to this day I still can't get enough of these eight songs. They broke up after releasing it, and finally returned in 2018 with the highly acclaimed You Won't Get What You Want - a fitting title for me since the oppressively hopeless No Wave thing they went for on this one left me totally cold.
The Wedding Present - Seamonsters
TWP is a pretty good jangle pop band, but in 1991 they hired Steve Albini as their producer and injected a bunch of noisy alternative rock elements into their sound, and the result was ten absolutely perfect, magical tracks I return to endlessly. The intense drum bursts on "Lovenest" are one of my favorite musical flourishes in history. It's such a bummer they didn't keep following this sound after this album.
High on Fire - Blessed Black Wings
Another band that used Steve Albini for one album with results that blow everything else they've ever done out of the water. Is this the best-produced metal album ever? It has such a uniquely deep, raw, organic sound - accented by some perfectly-integrated acoustic guitar - with Matt Pike's gravelly vocals mixed low so that they blend beautifully into the wall of sound. What a magnificent record.
At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command
Ross Robinson didn't think their previous studio work captured the energy they exhibited in live performances. He was right, and holy fuck did he capture it on this record! Maybe the single most energetic album ever recorded? And their songwriting never rose to this level before or after. A true lightning-in-a-bottle release, right here.
