Rock history loves a perfect debut.
Think The Velvet Underground & Nico, Led Zeppelin, Are You Experienced?, Appetite for Destruction, or The Dark Side of the Moon – albums that arrive fully formed, defining a band’s identity in one bold statement. Youth, ambition, and unshakable self-belief are built for debuts, making these albums iconic.
But not every first effort hits the mark. Some artists take a few tries to find their voice. Queen’s raw, tentative beginnings, Billy Joel still searching for a signature style on Cold Spring Harbor, or David Bowie experimenting with folk whimsy on his eponymous 1967 debut all show that even legends sometimes stumble first time out.
These albums may lack polish or clarity, yet they’re fascinating snapshots of potential, revealing the early sparks that would later ignite into career-defining greatness. Here’s a look at 15 unpromising debuts by artists who went on to leave a huge mark.
1. David Bowie – David Bowie (1967)
A portrait in sound of an artist desperately trying to find a style. Released during the height of British psychedelia, David Bowie's debut LP is a highly theatrical and whimsical collection of novelty songs and music-hall-influenced pop that bears almost no sonic resemblance to the alien rock god he would soon become.
Bowie's fascination with Anthony Newley and eccentric English eccentricity dominates, resulting in songs like 'The Laughing Gnome' that are almost unlistenable once you've heard the likes of Hunky Dory or Ziggy Stardust. It’s a work of forced whimsy, marked by lush arrangements and over-the-top character studies that, rather than hinting at future genius, serve as a fascinating document of a genius simply hedging his bets with the wrong hand.
2. Genesis – From Genesis to Revelation (1969)
This is the sound of a great band being led astray by their producer. Jonathan King forced the young, classical-music-loving band into a lushly orchestrated, quasi-religious folk-pop mould. The album is almost unrecognizable, marked by pastoral strings and short, unassuming song structures that suppressed their burgeoning prog rock ambition. Peter Gabriel’s distinctive voice is often disguised by unnecessary production flourishes, rendering the album a commercial failure and a creatively frustrating misstep that completely obscures the complex, theatrical epics that Genesis would soon champion.
3. Radiohead – Pablo Honey (1993)
While Pablo Honey was successful due to the massive international hit 'Creep', the album from which it sprang is pretty uninteresting. A straightforward guitar-rock record firmly planted in the post-grunge era it was later pretty much disowned by the band. Lead singer Thom Yorke labelled 'Creep' as 'crap' (bit unkind), and the band have steered clear of performing Pablo Honey tracks live.
Its sound is utterly conventional and lacks the experimental atmosphere, electronic textures, and artistic depth that would define their revolutionary work starting with OK Computer and Kid A. Thom Yorke was still singing with an American-tinged emotional style, creating an album the band later openly dismissed as a sound they quickly needed to escape from.
4. Van Morrison – Blowin' Your Mind! (1967)
Van the Man's debut LP is the unfortunate result of a disastrous contractual obligation following his time with the band Them. The album is a chaotic, haphazard mix of garage rock, rushed R&B, and folk, recorded under immense pressure from producer Bert Berns and released without the singer's consent .
While it contains the legendary, sprawling single 'Brown Eyed Girl', Morrison publicly disowned the record due to the lack of artistic control and its disjointed nature. Blowin' Your Mind! utterly failed to hint at the poetic, sophisticated jazz and stream-of-consciousness brilliance of his next record, Astral Weeks.
5. Elton John – Empty Sky (1969)
Before long, Elton John was to enjoy one of the greatest album runs in rock history – but it certainly didn't start with his debut. Empty Sky is a perfectly decent, but sprawling collection of folk-tinged rock that is completely lacking in focus or any signature moments.
The album is often hampered by overly long jams and ambitious, but often messy, arrangements. Crucially, it fails to display the sophisticated, anthemic piano work and bombastic pop polish that would propel him to stardom soon enough with the 1970 double whammy of Elton John and Tumbleweed Connection. Instead, Empty Sky is a work of transition, where the soon-to-be-epochal songwriting partnership with Bernie Taupin was still finding its theatrical voice.
6. Lou Reed – Lou Reed (1972)
Following the chaotic collapse of The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed’s first solo effort was a stunningly uninspired and compromised attempt at commercial pop. With no band or collaborators, Reed was forced to use polished session musicians and rerecord unreleased Velvet Underground songs in a sterile manner. The album lacks the signature grit, avant-garde tension, and lyrical danger of his best work, making it sound more like a polite, ill-fitting cover album that wasted his potent catalogue.
7. John Lennon and Yoko Ono – Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (1968)
Two Virgins is less a musical debut than an audio scrapbook of John and Yoko’s first night together – part performance art, part tape-recorder experiment, and almost entirely baffling as a supposed launchpad for Lennon’s solo career. Filled with freeform noise, clatter, moans, and avant-garde meandering, it offered none of the melodic genius or emotional clarity he’d soon reveal on Plastic Ono Band. As beginnings go, it’s infamous, audacious, and hardly the assured step fans might have hoped for.
8. Prince – For You (1978)
Prince’s For You is an intriguing debut – impressive in craft, undeniably ambitious, and almost shockingly polished for a 19-year-old who wrote, produced, and played nearly every instrument himself. But compared to what he’d unleash just a year later on Prince, and especially in the run from Dirty Mind onward, it feels like a talented kid clearing his throat rather than a visionary arriving fully formed.
The songs lean toward soft soul and disco sheen, pleasant but rarely distinctive, and the meticulous production sometimes smooths away the personality that would soon define him. What’s missing is the raw erotic charge, daring minimalism, and genre-shattering playfulness that would make his later work revolutionary. For You hints at future greatness – but only in brief glimmers.
9. Johnny Cougar – Chestnut Street Incident (1976)
Chestnut Street Incident, released under the label-imposed name 'Johnny Cougar', barely resembles the John Mellencamp who would later craft heartland-rock classics. Instead of the muscular songwriting, grit, and Midwestern storytelling that became his signature, the album offers a mishmash of slick pop, lightweight rock, and baffling cover choices – music aimed more at chasing trends than expressing any authentic voice.
Mellencamp himself has long disowned it, and it’s easy to understand why: the production is thin, the material generic, and the overall identity virtually nonexistent. As debuts go, it’s a false start – an awkward prelude to the far more genuine artist he soon became.
10. Neil Young – Neil Young (1968)
Following the dissolution of Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young's solo debut should have been a defining statement. Instead, it was an early example of a great artist battling an overzealous producer. Let's not do Neil Young down unfairly: the album is a significant work in his catalogue, featuring timeless songs like 'The Loner' and 'I've Been Waiting For You', but the entire recording is notoriously marred by a thick, soupy production layer (masterminded by Jack Nitzsche) that smothered the acoustic and electric instrumentation.
Young was so unhappy with the sonic murk that he demanded some tracks be remixed, believing his voice and unique guitar tone were completely obscured. It lacks the raw, emotional urgency and ragged electricity he found just months later when uniting with Crazy Horse on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.
11. Billy Joel – Cold Spring Harbor (1971)
Billy Joel's debut is the textbook example of a great album ruined by a catastrophic technical blunder. While the songwriting was sharp and characteristic of the talent Joel possessed, the entire record was mastered at the incorrect speed, raising his vocals by a half-step. This error made the younger Joel sound unnaturally high-pitched and slightly strained, completely undermining the emotional weight and confidence of his performances.
Joel was horrified and later disowned the record, ensuring his genuine debut – and its true, unblemished voice – was Piano Man two years later. The technical flaw alone makes this debut an unrepresentative failure, forcing the world to wait for the arrival of the proper Billy Joel sound.
12. The Cure – Three Imaginary Boys (1979)
The first Cure album is a fun, jangly, and punchy collection of post-punk tracks, but it is deeply unrepresentative of the band's identity as global goth-rock pioneers. Robert Smith was still finding his voice and style, resulting in raw, short songs that focused on nervy, quirky energy. Crucially, the debut completely lacks the sprawling, atmospheric gloom, sonic complexity, and intense emotional anguish that would define later masterpieces – such as the trilogy that would immediately followed it, comprising Seventeen Seconds (1980), Faith (1981) and 1982's Pornography.
A fan discovering The Cure through this album would have no idea they were listening to the creators of the world's greatest romantic gloom and doom.
13. Queen – Queen (1973)
For a band known for its maximalist vision, operatic vocals, and meticulous studio polish, Queen's debut sounds surprisingly small, raw, and unfocused. The band hadn't yet found the courage to embrace their full theatrical potential. Instead, the album is a somewhat generic and heavy-handed blend of hard rock and early progressive rock, relying heavily on Led Zeppelin and other contemporaries.
Freddie Mercury's voice is, of course, magnificent – but it hasn't yet found its signature range or flair. It’s an album that only hints at the genius to come, failing to showcase the unique sonic diversity and complex multi-tracking that would soon define their global superstardom.
14. The Smiths – The Smiths (1984)
The raw songwriting genius of Morrissey and Johnny Marr is evident on this debut, but the album remains disappointing because the band hated the production. The album went through two producers, resulting in a final mix that is widely considered flat, muddy, and lacking vitality.
Marr’s intricate guitar brilliance and the essential jangle-pop sound are buried in the mix, making the record feel strangely airless and sterile. It failed to capture the live intensity or the pristine, sharp production the band would later perfect with producer Stephen Street, leaving the sound of their foundational work oddly compromised.
15. Beck – Golden Feelings (1993)
Golden Feelings is arguably Beck's most obscure and unrepresentative album, being a cassette-only, lo-fi experimental folk-noise project. Recorded on a four-track cassette, it is a scattershot collection of bizarre spoken-word pieces, sound collages, and primitive folk-punk that is nearly impenetrable. It gave no hint of the polished, sample-heavy, and catchy slacker-pop genius of his commercial breakthrough, 'Loser', leaving behind instead a strange, sonic footnote of noise.
And two we're on the fence about...
Thin Lizzy – Thin Lizzy (1971)
Thin Lizzy’s self-titled debut is a perfectly respectable early-’70s rock record – but it gives almost no hint of the swaggering, twin-guitar glory that would soon define them. Instead of the hard-edged riffs, anthemic choruses, and street-poet charisma of Jailbreak or Bad Reputation, the album leans toward mellow blues, folk-rock, and introverted, sometimes tentative songwriting.
Phil Lynott’s lyrical sensitivity is already evident, but the band sounds unsure of its direction, still experimenting rather than igniting. Pleasant yet subdued, it’s a far cry from the confident, electrifying Thin Lizzy they would quickly evolve into.
Joni Mitchell – Song to a Seagull (1968)
Bordering on the unfair, this one, as Joni Mitchell's debut is actually a fairly beautiful, if flawed, acoustic folk record. However, Song to a Seagull is hamstring by an overly ethereal and somewhat naïve production style. The album often struggles with overly precious vocal deliveries and simple arrangements that lack the complex open tunings, sophisticated jazz phrasing, and raw, emotional complexity that Mitchell quickly mastered on Blue and Hejira.
Seagull hints at the poet she would become but doesn't fully demonstrate the mastery. Hardly a bad record, but not fit to keep company with some of the masterpieces that would very soon follow.
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