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One Album Wonders


Sweet Pete

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Having a think about bands who had one great album, but their other work never reached the same heights. Could be that their first record was great but subsequent albums were poor, or that they had one standout album in amongst a career of dross.

One that comes to mind for me is Hundred Reasons. Ideas Above Our Station was a classic record, but their albums that came later never seemed to have the same quality. Ideas has great songs, a dreamy feel, a bright, sparkly production and transcends genres, whereas their later stuff seemed to peg them as a post-hardcore genre band and as well as not matching the songwriting quality of Ideas, the production was never on the same par either.

Should be loads of bands out there who've had a brief flare and then faded into obscurity. Care to name some?

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The Supernaturals. Their first album, It Doesn't Matter Anymore was excellent and would feature highly in my list of favourite albums, even now when I listen to it I don't think it has aged badly at all, unlike a lot of the stuff I listened to around then. Their second effort, A Tune a Day had a couple of highlights but was distinctly average in comparison. They really should have been far more successful than they were at the time.

ETA:

Space probably should be put here as well. "Spiders" was one of the absolute high points of Britpop, a fantastic collection of catchy songs and quirky lyrics. The follow up, Tin Planet, actually scored higher in the charts but was terrible in comparison. They have released 4 or 5 other albums since, but none with any kind of commercial success.

Edited by Ross.
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7 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

The La's. They only released one album but Lee Mavers was a terrific song-writer, if he wasn't a complete mental case/perfectionist/smack addict they probably would've gone on to release much more.

I prefer Cast, so The La's demise was an advantage ultimately in my humble.

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I have a mate who swears he went to see The La's in Glasgow circa 1990, and they were pretty much chased off stage after being shite and playing "There She Goes" for a 3rd time.

Edited by Ross.
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2 minutes ago, Ross. said:

I have a mate who swears he went to see The La's in Glasgow in circa 1990, and they were pretty much chased off stage after being shite and playing "There She Goes" for a 3rd time.

Just read their wiki out of curiosity. They sound like an utter shambles. Still playing the same set of songs sporadically now that they were in the mid 1980s. Bonkers.

Think I've only ever heard There She Goes to be honest.

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2 minutes ago, Sweet Pete said:

Just read their wiki out of curiosity. They sound like an utter shambles. Still playing the same set of songs sporadically now that they were in the mid 1980s. Bonkers.

Think I've only ever heard There She Goes to be honest.

Mavers was a bit of an oddball whose legend seemed to grow the longer he went without putting out a second album, which according to him and a lot of industry types, had been written and was majestic, but just not quite as good as he thought it could be.

There She Goes wasn't even a particularly big hit when it was originally released, though has sold well and received a f**k load of airplay off the back of several re-releases over the years.

FWIW, Cast were definitely better than The La's.

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Fratelli's - Only album that I fully like is Costello Music.
Priestess - Hello Master is an absolute stormer of an album but their second offering was awful and as far as I know they're no longer together.
Seether - Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces. Rest is w**k.
Wolfmother - Self titled is a class album but the rest didn't do anything for me. Decent songs here and there but on the whole nah. Does that count?
Guns 'n' Roses - Appetite for Destruction is one of the best albums ever made and again they have other singular songs that will live forever but more than one full album that I love? Nope.
Linkin Park - Hybrid Thoery - Don't like any other albums apart from this
The Darkness - Again, Permission to Land is amazing and I love other singular songs but full albums aren't any good. Am I doing this right? could go on forever about this type of feeling.
Lily Allen - First album is decent, rest is gash.

 

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47 minutes ago, Ross. said:

I have a mate who swears he went to see The La's in Glasgow circa 1990, and they were pretty much chased off stage after being shite and playing "There She Goes" for a 3rd time.

Never has an album been so well promoted off the success of one song.

In reality, There She Goes is one of the weaker tracks on the album, and I'd imagine that many people who bought the record on the back of that track were mightily disappointed.  

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41 minutes ago, Francesc Fabregas said:

The La's debut is one of the best albums of all time. Still sounds tight, fresh and bouncy now.

Given what we now know, is it disingenuous to call it a "debut"? The La's album surely, no?

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Guest Pampered Adolescent

Punk:

Sex Pistols - arguably just the one 'proper' album

Stiff Little Fingers - Inflammable Material pisses on anything else

Tom Robinson Band - Power In The Darkness ditto

X-Ray Spex - Germfree Adolescents ditto

Television - Marquee Moon ditto

Indie:

Elastica - Elastica ditto

Of course, this can be subjective. I personally prefer the debuts from the Skids, Joy Division, Sleeper, Supergrass, and erm, Urusei Yatsura, where my nom de plum originates...., to their later stuff, albeit that others possibly see said acts later stuff to be more 'mature'  

Cheers

PA

 

 

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I have a mate who swears he went to see The La's in Glasgow circa 1990, and they were pretty much chased off stage after being shite and playing "There She Goes" for a 3rd time.
I saw Lee Mavers in Amsterdam a few years ago, I thought it was terrible a total rabble, most people there seemed to think it was good but i reckon they had their beer tinted nostalgia shades on, , halfway through he had a shot on the drums and battered out a drum solo, that was it for me
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20 hours ago, Pampered Adolescent said:

Punk:

Sex Pistols - arguably just the one 'proper' album

Stiff Little Fingers - Inflammable Material pisses on anything else

Tom Robinson Band - Power In The Darkness ditto

X-Ray Spex - Germfree Adolescents ditto

Television - Marquee Moon ditto

Indie:

Elastica - Elastica ditto

Of course, this can be subjective. I personally prefer the debuts from the Skids, Joy Division, Sleeper, Supergrass, and erm, Urusei Yatsura, where my nom de plum originates...., to their later stuff, albeit that others possibly see said acts later stuff to be more 'mature'  

Cheers

PA

 

 

For punk you could add The Ruts - The Crack.

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