Lists : Five Debut Albums That I Love

May 24, 2010 Lists

This list is in no way comprehensive nor is it in any order. These may not be the best debut albums of all time or even my favorite ones if I gave it a lot more thought. They are however five debuts that blow me away every time I hear them. Sometimes an artist or band just gets it right the first time around.

1. Steve Earle : Guitar Town (1986)

Earle comes out of the gate with an instant classic, Guitar Town, what’s crazy is that he was already 31 when this record was released. This record was over ten years in the making as Earle honed his songwriting chops hanging out with Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark.

Before this album, Earle worked in Nashville writing songs for other as so many writers do and had recorded another album that was not released. However, when it finally hit the shelves it helped make Steve the next big thing as it rose to number one on the country album charts.

Within its ten tracks are so many great songs. Highlights for me are the title track, “My Old Friend The Blues”, and “Daddy’s Little Rock n Roller”.

2. Todd Snider : Songs From the Daily Planet (1994)

I am so conflicted with this album. I love every song on this record, even the songs that have become the cliche Snider songs to like. While some of the album versions of the songs are great a lot of them leave something to be desired. I think the record company people tried to make Todd sound entirely too pretty and that would be a theme on a few of his albums and they don’t capture the raw energy of Todd with his then band the Wrecks or the emotion he plays with solo.

Having said all of that, this is still a great record to listen to. The songs that are nailed here are phenomenal and the ones that could have been recorded differently are still great songs. Snider is one of the best writers working today in my opinion and he let that shine through right from the beginning.

Of the songs that are great on the record, my favorites are “Turn it Up” (because sometimes you just have to rock out), “Somebody’s Coming”, and “Spoke Like a Child”.

3. John Prine : John Prine (1971)

Got to love when one of the “Next Bob Dylans” becomes the first John Prine. I’m not sure if there is another debut album that contains so many classic songs. With his unconventional delivery, Prine released what I feel are some of his best songs on the first go round. Many of these songs would go on to be covered by everyone under the moon and to me the best versions can still be found on this gem of an album.

As for favorites on the album, how can you go wrong when you have “Angel From Montgomery”, “Sam Stone”, “Far From Me”, “Illegal Smile” and “Paradise” and that only makes up half the record?

4. The Counting Crows : August and Everything After (1993)

This record may not seem to fit among the others, but I love it just as much. Ever since its release I have been listening to it on a regular basis and it never gets old. Unfortunately they have never released a record as good as this one again. I have liked just about all of their albums, but they seemed to get progressively worse the farther away from August they got. Their newest release however did break that pattern slightly.

Back to August and Everything After though. From top to bottom the songs on this release are pretty depressing but, extremely well written and they sound incredible. It’s one of those records where I never skip a single song while listening and that is rare even from good ones.

My favorite tracks follow each other back to back in the middle of the album. “Perfect Blue Buildings”, “Anna Begins”, and “Time and Time Again” make for a great three song run.

5. Adam Carroll : South of Town (1998)

The most recent release of this list, South of Town is the first look into what is becoming a great career for Adam Carroll. I love this guy’s writing and his style. He has a way of writing things that sound really poetic and at the same time common. The way he strings words together is beautiful and then he delivers the songs with an aw shucks sound that is often times behind the beat and just comes off sounding amazing.

There is definitely a reason that he is becoming one of the most covered artists to come out of the Texas music scene recently and that reason is prominently displayed on this record. A lot of these songs appear again on his live records as well, but you get a great feeling from the down home recordings found on the studio versions.

Listening to this again last night, I  decided my favorite tracks on it were “Smokey Mountain Taxi”, “Cane River Blues”, and “Home Again”. If you are not familiar with Carroll go and buy this and all of his other records immediately.

That’s it for this list, while most of you probably own these records or at least know of them, hopefully you will revisit them after reading this. This list was fun, I think I will continue it some other time, feel free to comment with some of you favorite debuts if you feel the urge.

On another note, look for the first edition of the Broken Jukebox podcast early this week. It has been recorded and will be up soon.

Tags: adam carroll, counting crows, john prine, Lists, Steve Earle, todd snider