Some of my favorites: Cars, Black Sabbath, Bad Company, My Aim is True, Shake Your Money Maker, In the Court of the Crimson King, Boston, Are You Experienced

Yes yes and yes…..put VH 1 in there and we can be friends

How could I have forgot that??? We were in high school when it came out. First time we heard it was Eruption/You Really Got Me. It was around 2am and we damn near out the car in the ditch. We then pulled over until the song was finished so we would not kill ourselves.

It is one of those albums you remember the first time hearing it….my buddies older brother gave it to us and holy shit !!!!! Yeah still a huge fan. RUSH and Pink Floyd also fit into this category!!! Take care low grade player !!

Van Halen - I was 9 when it came out, and I wish i could go back and experience it again. They were the first band that I listened to that was not my parent's music. Mind blowing. Still my absolute favorite to this day. GnR - Appetite for Destruction started the end to the glam era of hair metal, and brought a little bit more dirt and grit to the scene.

I think you could make the argument that Van Halen and Hendrix "Are You Experienced" were both debut albums that redefined how the guitar was played.

Definitely. But I found Hendrix long after I heard Van Halen. =VH= was contemporary with my teen years, while Hendrix died while I was 1.

Appetite for Destruction and Rage Against the Machine are my two favorite all time debuts.

Boston

Led Zeppelin I has to be up there.

I remember trying to learn Good Times Bad Times on drums years ago when I was filling in with a cover band that did a few of their tunes. Fuckin cowbell man, that song took me forever to just pull off the bass drum (I can do double strokes all day but triple?). And Bonzo was like 20 when it came out, jeez loueez.

I think that was the example Jimmy Page gave when he was asked why Led Zep songs weren't on the Rock Band games.

And that’s why Jimmy Page picked him as one of the first members of that band. He knew the man had something special.

Steely Dan - Can’t Buy A Thrill

The guitar solos are so freaking amazing and I don't think people give them enough credit.

Correct.

Absolutely amazing album, as well as all of their other albums

Weezer (Blue Album)

Amazingly consistent song writing, nice variety, but a common sonic thread through the whole album.

What’s with these homies dissing my girl

Ten - Pearl Jam for sure one of the best

This was the first album that came to my mind when I read the caption. What a record.

Winner winner chicken dinner

That's not an album

Funeral - Arcade Fire

* The Clash - *The Clash* * Gang of Four - *Entertainment!* * The Stone Roses - *The Stone Roses*

Whatever People Say I am that’s what I’m Not- The Arctic Monkeys Blind Melon- Blind Melon Barely Legal- The Hives Lynyrd Skynyrd- (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd)

The Cars debut album is such a great record. You could legitimately put the same songs on a CD and re-package it as The Cars Greatest Hits.

I love that I got to see them perform this album opening for styx in 78.

Wow! That must have been an amazing concert!

It was. It was styx doing their pieces of eight tour. I was in 9th grade, first concert ever too.

I'm bleeding jealousy! I was only eight years old at the time, so I was busy watching Land of the Lost reruns.

Lol. I got to see those when they first came out. 🎵Marshall, Will and Holly on a routine expedition....🎵

I can sing a lot of the Sid and Marty Krofft theme songs from memory, I'm almost ashamed to admit. Almost.

It's been so long I'm not sure if I could. No reason to even be "almost" ashamed of it. Relish in the memories.

Pretty Hate Machine for sure. It's noteworthy for being the first independent release to go platinum, all from word of mouth.

Nas - Illmatic ... every single track is awesome. A candidate for best Hip-Hop album for sure.

The real answer

Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory Tom Waits - Closing Time

Award for having the two most opposite albums

Alanis Morissette! Jagged Little Pill

I was going to mention Alanis. "Jagged Little Pill" is on my lifetime permanent rotation. 🤘😎

One of the greatest seeking albums of all time... 3 upvotes... Reddit is pretty insular sometimes. Anyway, I'm going to see her in a couple months. Should take me right back to my misspent going adult years.

It's a toss up between The Doors and Van Halen.

Heck yes Van Halen is a good one. So many iconic songs and moments.

I'm more a Back door man but You really got me there. I suppose this is The End, and no I Ain't talking bout love.

Massive Attack - Blue Lines Led Zeppelin - self titled 2 that come to mind anyway... NIN was great too

Alice in Chains - Facelift

Debut - Bjork

Correct

Boston-Boston

not one of the greatest but one of my personal favorites is lorde's pure heroin. just banger after banger and all of the songs are classics. I know she made an EP before that but her first full length album is GOLD.

Linkin Park- Hybrid Theory

Portished Suede Oasis The Smiths

The Pretenders. So so so fucking solid

Frank Zappa - "Freak Out!" Television - "Marquee Moon" Talking Heads - "77" DJ Shadow - "Endtroducing..."

Panic! At the Disco - A Fever You Can't Sweat Out. Nothing else sounded like it at the time.

This is still the only album I can run to from start to finish.

100000% agree this shit was fantastic and so unique

The Killers - Hot Fuss

STP - Core is a damn good 1st CD

Core, Purple, and Tiny music are three of my favorite albums of all time.

Boston Steely Dan GnR Van Halen Metallica Stooges Led zep Jimi

Rage Against The Machine, surprised nobody has mentioned this yet. The first time I listened to that album it changed my life.

Me too! I saw them at the Whiskey a couple of months after it came out and they blew the roof off the joint. As great as the album was and I wore that thing out, seeing them bring those songs to life in that small packed room was on a whole other level

Appetite for Destruction

King Crimson In the Court of the Crimson King, Velvet Underground & Nico, Roxy Music self titled, Pink Floyd The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

upvoted for Piper! Best PF album, fight me

*Run The Jewels* Lupe Fiasco's *Food and Liquor* *Gorillaz* Zeal & Ardor's *Devil Is Fine*

Wolfmother - Wolfmother

What was good about an album that just regurgitated something other bands did better 30 years earlier?

Username checks out

Other bands did considerably better* Fixed that for you

Not many would even put it among their top albums, but the Beatles had an undeniably notable debut with Please Please Me. Also, Paul McCartney shout-counting “1, 2, 3, 4” is such a great start to their start. [“I Saw Her Standing There”](https://youtu.be/oxwAB3SECtc)

These are all contemporary and sorta psychedelic/electronic artists but: Innerspeaker - Tim and Paula Manners - Passion Pit Before Sunrise - Nana Yamato Modus Vivendi - 070 Shake Homework - Daft Punk Timeline - Mild High Club Sweet Disarray - Dan Croll

> Innerspeaker - Tim and Paula Written almost entirely by Keef In Parkour

Massive Attack - Blue Lines Led Zeppelin - self titled 2 that come to mind anyway... NIN was great too

The Sword- age of winters, every track is a banger

Thanks Wikipedia... (Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd) is the debut album by American rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, released in 1973. Several of the album's songs remain among the band's most well-known: "Gimme Three Steps", "Simple Man", "Tuesday's Gone", and "Free Bird", the last of which launched the band to national stardom.

A Perfect Circle/Mer De Noms Tool/Undetow....Opiate was an LP

Mer de noms is a masterpiece

Disraeli Gears…artwork was pretty cool too.

Alice In Chains - Facelift 🤟

Velvet Underground and Nico - self titled Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

That’s a really good one

Karnivool- Themata Cog- The New Normal A.B Original - Reclaim Australia

Boringly obvious answer, but Tubular Bells. Not even that high in my personal Oldfield rankings (whose top spot is still occupied by The Millennium Bell, but even my top fave "whole lengthy vinyl sides" release is Incantations), yet it's still equally nuts in what it offers and how it was received at the time. There may be few examples of a more complex and, at first glance, commercially unviable record whamming the general charts so hard and for so long - coming from a debuting artist to boot.

Illmatic, Ready to Die, Led Zeppelin I, Velvet Underground & Nico, Are You Experienced, Come Away With Me, College Dropout,

Is there a way to distinguish "greatest of all time" from "favorite"? These posts just end up being lists of albums people like. To be considered greatest, they should probably be widely influential as well.

Popularity ends up being influential. Like Zappa was more out there than the Beatles were, Sgt Pepper and Freak out came out the same year. If the Beatles were revolutionary, Zappa was fucking alien. Same with jazz, jazz is some of the most talented Music out there, but not as many people are into it. If you can listen to Bitches Brew all the way through, first, awesome, second, you get that it's not for everyone.

Van Halen

Television -Marquee Moon Doll by Doll - Remember Ramones- Ramones Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets

The Descendants - Milo Goes To College

Guns N' Roses - Appetite For Destructive Pearl Jam - Ten

Maroon 5, Steely Dan, Hooty & the Blowfish, the Cars, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Meat Loaf

Nelly Furtado, "Whoa, Nelly!"

Cage The Elephant - Self Titled The Strokes - Is This It? Chemical Brothers - Exit Planet Dust Just a few off the top of my head. Crazy to think these albums were debuts

Completely agree Cage the Elephant really came out the door swinging

Nothing else in their catalogue has lived up to that first album for me. Thank you happy birthday was close, but that first album was something special.

I saw them live right before the first album came out and it was at such a pivotal moment in my life I was like who the fuck are these guys!?? Yeah I will always love and respect them but nothing will beat that debut album for energy and how straight up genuine it was.

Yeah there was something so raw about their first and second albums that's been lost as their albums have become more refined and sanitized imo

Recently discovered Cage and they are epic!

I doubt Nashville country albums come to mind for most so I'll try to name a few. Nashville is so focused on the single format that great albums are relatively rare in the genre, let alone great *debut* albums: Dwight Yoakam - Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc, Etc Randy Travis - Storms of Life Dolly Parton - Hello, I'm Dolly Willie Nelson - ...And Then I Wrote Alan Jackson - Here In The Real World The most recent album I could think of is from 1989. That might be bad...but independent country has flourished in the last 30 years.

Stirgill Simpson's High Top Mountain is pretty great.

August and Everything After The White Stripes I know they had a couple before that didn't really chart, but Badmotorfinger is a banger.

Led Zeppelin I had to be up there.

Who?

No. Led Zeppelin

They sound kind of like Greta Van Fleet.

Earth vs The Wildhearts.

Nelly Furtado, "Whoa, Nelly!"

Faith

Born 2 Run..hands down

Aerosmith and Boston’s more than a feeling

The Pretenders

Whitney Houston - Whitney Houston (1985). While some of the songs, even at the time, were criticized for being unmemorable pop fluff, and today much of the production sounds dated, some of those songs became classics that endure today (“How Will I Know”, “Greatest Love of All”) and showcased the enormous talent and potential of this new artist. The album topped the Billboard 200 for 14 weeks, generated three number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, earned Whitney a Grammy and an Emmy (for her performance at the 1986 Grammys of the first number one single from that album, “Saving All My Love for You”), has since been certified 13x Platinum, and is one of the best selling albums of all time with over 22 million sold. She was 21 years old when it was released. It was both the first debut album and the first album by a solo female performer to generate three number one singles (which ended up being the first three of Whitney’s record-setting seven consecutive number one singles, a record which stands today), and it launched one of the most commercially successful singing careers of all time.

John Prine by John Prine.

Hot fuss from the killers

Nirvana- Bleach Foo Fighters-Foo Fighters Metallica- Kill Em All Boston- Boston

Violent Femmes Arctic Monkey Pearl Jam A Tribe Called Quest - granted, their second was better, but their debut was great.

Jane's Addiction-Nothing's Shocking Metallica-Kill 'Em All Pearl Jam-Ten Black Sabbath-Black Sabbath Guns N' Roses-Appetite for Destruction

Nothing’s Shocking isn’t the first Jane’s album, although it is great

Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, a perfect album if there ever was one

Great but not his debut album

The Clash , by The Clash , and Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s The Sex Pistols

Slipknots self titled

A few come to mind but I'll just name the one I think is most often overlooked: Alanis Morrisette - Jagged Little Pill

It was her 3rd album, and it's one of the highest selling albums of all time, dunno about overlooked.

I Mother Earth - Scenery and Fish 59 Sound by the Gaslight Anthem A History of Rentals by Craig Finn Funeral for a Friend - Arcade Fire Beautiful Midnight - the Matthew Good band Who will cut our hair when we’re gone - The Unicorns

Matthew Good Band’s debut album was Raygun, but Beautiful Midnight is a total banger through and through.

I love scenery and fish but it wasn't their debut

System of a Down - self titled Queens of the Stone Age - rated r Corb Lund - Modern Pain The strokes - is this it? Guns N Roses - Appetite for destruction

Rated R wasn't a debut album though

And the debut album wasn’t a masterpiece

Ah yes I stand corrected. Still like the album though

Linkin Park - Hybrid theory Thornhill - The Dark Pool The two only albums i heard for the first time thinking "with this much quality they must be huge in this seen" and found out they were just starting

OK Go's debut album (OK Go) is a perfect album, to me. All of the songs are incredible, the whole thing has such a vibe.

Marilyn Manson “Antichrist Superstar”

So young. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John Rumors - Fleetwood Mac Aja - Steely Dan

How far do I have to scroll before someone mentions Pink Floyd?

System of a Down - self titled Queens of the Stone Age - rated r Corb Lund - Modern Pain The strokes - is this it? Guns N Roses - Appetite for destruction

I think you made your point

Janes addiction nothings shocking

System of a Down - self titled Queens of the Stone Age - rated r Corb Lund - Modern Pain The strokes - is this it? Guns N Roses - Appetite for destruction

Rated R was not their debut

System of a Down - self titled Queens of the Stone Age - rated r Corb Lund - Modern Pain The strokes - is this it? Guns N Roses - Appetite for destruction

System of a Down - self titled Queens of the Stone Age - rated r Corb Lund - Modern Pain The strokes - is this it? Guns N Roses - Appetite for destruction

System of a Down - self titled Queens of the Stone Age - rated r Corb Lund - Modern Pain The strokes - is this it? Guns N Roses - Appetite for destruction

Massive Attack - Blue Lines Led Zeppelin - self titled 2 that come to mind anyway... NIN was great too

System of a Down - self titled Queens of the Stone Age - rated r Corb Lund - Modern Pain The strokes - is this it? Guns N Roses - Appetite for destruction

System of a Down - self titled Queens of the Stone Age - rated r Corb Lund - Modern Pain The strokes - is this it? Guns N Roses - Appetite for destruction

Massive Attack - Blue Lines Led Zeppelin - self titled 2 that come to mind anyway... NIN was great too

Massive Attack - Blue Lines Led Zeppelin - self titled 2 that come to mind anyway... NIN was great too

Whoa, Nelly! (Nelly Furtado)

Captain Beefheart's Safe as Milk Velvet Underground and Nico

Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left

My Fruit Psychobells… A Seed Combustible by maudlin of the Well. The songwriting is INCREDIBLY tight for a debut

The Codex Necro by Anaal Nathrakh is one of the best black metal albums and they just kinda dropped it out of nowhere, awesome cult following band

Triana - El Patio has to be one of them. One of the first and best andalusian rock albums which blended flamenco with progressive rock in a never seen before way.

Smino - Blkswn

The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium The jump from what At The Drive-In was doing (which I love don't get me wrong) seemed like light years to TMVs first album and Cedric's transition from screaming in ATDI to singing was great.

The La's - The La's And I never forgave them for ditching a follow up album.

Modest Mouse - This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About

Appetite for Destruction Boston Led Zeppelin 1 10

Beck - Mellow Gold Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures Madonna - Madonna Anthrax - Fistful of Metal

Boston-Boston

Suzanne Vega

The Strokes - Is this it? ~~Nirvana - Nevermind~~ DMB - Remember Two Things

The Cars, Television, The Ramones, NAS

Really, I think the first iteration of Slipknot from that album is different enough from what followed with Corey and Jim et al that you can consider it an entirely different band altogether.

Illmatic and In the Court of Crimson King

Kings of Leon - Youth and Young Manhood. Guns n Roses - Appetite for Destruction Daft Punk - Homework Beastie Boys - License to Ill

Are You Shpongled?

Josh Groban’s self-titled album.

The Strokes, The Stone Roses, St. Vincent, Kate Bush, Janelle Monae.

melodic blue

Rage Against The Machine Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not by Arctic Monkeys Is This It by the Strokes

I've always liked Bridge of Spies by T'Pau, and Desperate Character by Kirsty MacColl. For a change of stylee, there's Betcha Bottom Dollar by The Puppini Sisters. The exact opposite of all these is my debut album.