Listomania: Seven Debut Albums Not Worth Being Saved By God

By Daniel Hopkins Fri., Apr. 22 2011 at 4:20 PM

You're going to do what with my blood?

We're already started on a big weekend, folks. Earth Day and Good Friday are both happening now.

Plus, Sunday is Easter. Oh, and Passover ends next Tuesday.

Which brings us to this post.

In the original passover story, Jewish families would sacrifice a lamb to have their house passed over by the ten plagues God was dropping on the Egyptians. Among other nightmarish scenarios, if they failed to do mark the doorposts of their homes with lambs blood, their first-born sons would die.

So, in honor of this holiday, we've created a list of seven first albums that don't really deserve the pass-over treatment -- debuts that were duds in bands' otherwise incredible catalogs.

It's a stretch, we know, but bear with us. And, before I butcher any more Jewish history, let's just hit the jump and get on with the list.

Do you feel the magic?

Pantera's Metal Magic

Cowboys From Hell got us pumped in high school just before our basketball team went out and lost district. Great album. Way better than their 1983 debut, Metal Magic. This was before the Arlington natives were the hard-thrashing band of tough guys we all know and love now. This was back when they were still a makeup-wearing glam band. Gross.

Nada Surf's High/low

Nada Surf's career peaked somewhere around 2002, when they released their third album, Let Go. But long before the band penned sad indie-hits like "Inside Of Love" and "Blonde on Blonde," they were deemed a one-hit-wonder for their song "Popular." High/Low, the album it was on, yielded no other hits, and the band was nearly forgotten. For good reason, too. It was terrible.

Bruce Springsteen's Greetings From Asbury Park N.J.

Born To Run and Darkness On The Edge Of Town would've made brilliant debuts, but, no, The Boss had to come out with this one first. It's actually not all that bad of a release. But the album's general reception did kind of go something like this: "Ehhh." Lucky for Springsteen, and for the rest of us, Columbia Records still gave him another shot.

My Bloody Valentine's This Is Your Bloody Valentine

Twenty years after the release of My Bloody Valentine's seminal shoegaze record Loveless, and the disc's still inspiring new artists to add just a little (or a lot) more noise to their music. But, before noise was ever a factor for Kevin Shields and company, they had a goth thing going on their ridiculously titled 1985 debut, This Is Your Bloody Valentine. Luckily, few people have ever heard this record. Probably for the better.

Tags:

Bad debuts, good careers, Listomania, Passover

We Recommend

wha?

Gish, Pablo Honey and Bleach? The writer is obviously trolling. There are far worse debuts out there than these. Bleach is actually awesome and made better with a live set tacked onto the reissue recently. Pablo Honey and Gish are hit and miss affairs, but there are fine songs on both. Observer writers seem to be trolling more than usual lately....

hex

Bleach deserves much more than this...Nirvana was trying to appeal to the fanbase set up by Sub Pop. Sub Pop as a record label only really had a following in Britain. Its kinda unfair to judge like that.

Vinylspotter

The Lp "Gish" stands on its on and is creative magic. Not to mention a staple of early 90's collage radio. It was also was featured in several skate board company's videos. Like H-Street's "Hokus Pokus". The albums that came later, like Nine Inch Nail's follow up, and almost any other bands of the 90's. Is where the rest of the clueless people in High school became aware because now it was listed in the Columbia House 10 for a penny deals. Gish was raw and full of emotions and was un- like other music of its era it was played on many a road trips start to finish, over and over again.

Uncle Roosters Scruffy Kergs

Whats "Collage Radio"? is that like a bunch of different radio stations all cut into different shapes and shit and glued on poster board? I do agree though, Gish was a bad ass LP...

Steve Sandwich

The Strokes SUCK.

Arcade Fire SUCKS ASSHOLE.

All your Fleet Foxes and Iron & Wine gay-ass bullshit sucks balls.

wha?

dumbass

Crazy Ivans Drummer

At some level it's pretty damn hard to argue with most of these. Listen to Radiohead's - The Bends.

Then try and tell me that Pablo Honey was a great record....with a straight face.

True Freethinker

Not great maybe, but Pablo Honey was still decent and better than 99% of the shit that is out there. Though it wasn't any indication of how amazing The Bends and OK Computer would be.

Bob Dylan - Bob DylanDavid Bowie - David BowieFlaming Lips - Hear It IsMinistry - With SympathyRush - RushTori Amos - Y Kant Tori Read?Van Morrison - Blowin' Your Mind