Yeah, this idea from Boomers that anything not on their approved list is just youngsters trying to be hip and non-mainstream always cracks me up. I’d say pretty much every album listed in this thread is considered “classic” by large numbers of music fans, and most are decades old - hardly hipster posing.
I agree with you that posts with a list of albums, in some cases without any indication of preference, are annoying and fail to answer the simple thread topic.
However, there is room for speculation on whether people are making cliche picks like Boston because they truly, honestly believe that it is the BEST rock debut album, as in the highest quality, the best listen, or because they’re attempting to make a point about their own personal definition of “rock” and what they think fits.
I also don’t think album sales are a factor, unless Backstreet Boys are one of the ten best bands of all time.
Or maybe, just maybe, some people really don’t like the same music as you.
Take me for example. Half my music collection can be classified as rock, however I detest the likes of Boston, Metallica and Guns’n’Roses. I wouldn’t listen to them if you paid me.
But it’s cool with me if other people like them. Just don’t shit on me for not liking them.
(For the record I am the one that said either the The Stone Roses or Spiritualized’s first - although that second one may not count as the band is a spinoff from Spacemen 3.)
I don’t think **Enderw24 **is a Boomer - you’re much younger than that, aren’t you E?
This is more of a “rockist” type of argument - or, as Sammy Hagar has said “There’s Only One Way to Rock” (oh Sammy, you say the most profound things - who else could take his stand on the dominance of his favorite color? “Green ain’t mean compared to Red!” Preach it, brother.)
Look, Enderw24, you are welcome to prefer Boston and champion their debut as the best. But once you get past the cute of it, actually trying to argue that Boston is “more” rock than the Clash or Stone Roses, etc. makes no sense. Please either articulate your argument using sentences. that. don’t. have. periods. in. the. middle. or let’s just move on.
I dip into threads like this but tend to only post color commentary. I love so many of the choices shared…
One thing that’s interesting is that we are talking about music produced in the “album era” - around '67 or so (clearly prior, but I look to Sgt. Pepper as the “conventional wisdom” milestone where the album crossed-over to the mainstream as the artistic state of the music artist of the day.)
Before that, the single held sway - the thread isn’t naming Elvis or Chuck Berry albums. And when would you say the Album Era ended? Is the intro of the iPod the closing of the album era?
Which could somehow explain why he also disqualified psychedelica. But it’s equally ridiculous to not count examples like the already mentioned debut albums by the Jimi Hendrix Experience or Pink Floyd as anything that’s somehow “alternative”.
I’d say nearly everything here comes under the rock genre. Groups paint their own colours over the basic genre. For example, Pink Floyd started out playing ‘I’m A King Bee’ and ‘Louie Louie’, and then gradually mutated into pyschedelia. But they were underpinned by blues/rock.
To me, rock is a generic term that encapsulates everything that isn’t clearly in another genre, like folk or hip hop; even there, there is massive crossover potential.
There have been certain times in music history when something new comes in, with varying degrees of popularity. Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, for example, introduced new genres, that either were or became mainstream. The oft quoted Boston were probably one of the early examples of AOR.
I’m surprised no-one has mentioned the Sex Pistols’ first album. Culturally, they were hugely significant. In the same vein, but much earlier, I’d give a vote to the MC5’s debut ‘Kick Out The Jams’.
I agree completely.
I’ve been using the idea of thinking about which section of a record store the music would be stored in. I don’t think there’s a single band in this thread that wouldn’t have been in the “rock” section.
I like the idea of guitar/bass/drums and not country, but that then discounts clearly rock acts like Ben Folds that are quite obviously rock but based around the piano. And then there’s the rock acts that have an organ.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that you can’t pin rock down to a specific style. You can claim a certain subset of rock is what you believe true rock is, but in the end you’ll still be dealing with a mere subset. The subset that the traditionalists that are getting irritated are using I’d class as “soft rock” or “stadium rock”.
I chose Boston simply because as a debut album for a rock band - it set many records, still gets airplay and the music doesn’t feel ‘dated’ or of a particular period despite it being 35years old.
at the time I posted it, I thought it was #1, now I see that G&R is actually number 1, but I believe that Boston’s sales were initially better than G&R (took a year for G&R to take off, while Boston’s album was immediate).
I’m not debating what is rock, what is not, or any of the sub genres thereof - simply put - this album still holds the records that others aspire to (or atleast did).
[QUOTE=Boston (album) - Wikipedia]
Boston is the debut album by American rock band Boston, released in July 1976 on Epic Records.[1] It peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200,[3] and has been certified as selling 17x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2003.[4] The album is the second best-selling debut album of all-time in the United States, after Guns N’ Roses’s Appetite for Destruction.
[/QUOTE]
Nope. Not a Boomer. I’m in the latter portion of Gen X, actually.
And, I, just, won’t, use, periods! Anymore (can we type an interrobang?!)
I’ve already said that the full definition of “rock” is about the weakest point in my argument above so I’m really not going to spend the time debating whether what you consider rock is what I consider rock or vice versa. Heck, I think Rush is rock but you can’t convince the Hall of Fame that.
So I’m just going to drop that point entirely.
All good. And, per **simster’s **post, there are plenty of arguments for Boston simply based on their “back of the baseball card” stats - no need for a distraction about what is rock or not.
The underlying issue is less about “what is really rock” as it is “what criteria should be used” - and there is no correct answer. Albums like The Velvet Underground and Nico (aka the Banana album) sold a fraction of what bands like Boston and GnR did - same with the Ramones, Big Star and Television - but they are consistently held out as deeply influential to the artists that came after them. Vanilla Ice, on the other hand, sold 10 million (yeah, I know, not rock) but no one cares.
An interesting question is Alanis Morrissette - clearly JLPill was not her first album by a longshot - she was Robin Sparkles 
in Canada for a few years and albums. But JLP was clearly a full re-launch and her “Big Label US” Debut.
Same with bands like Green Day and Nirvana - Dookie and Nevermind were NOT debuts in most senses of that word, but were clearly the “coming out party” mainstream debuts for both bands…
You’re flunking Internet 101.
All threads about the “best” or the “one” or whatever follow exactly the same pattern. Most people have no interest in posting “Me too for the thirteenth time.” They post to mention stuff that hasn’t been mentioned before. That makes their post as valuable as the earlier ones, which is the first rule of internet posting. You can’t even argue that they are lying and not posting their true best. No such thing. For any question like “best rock band debut” a dozen possibilities exist in anyone’s mind. (Same with a thread like Which TV husband or wife would you most want as your spouse?) Mention them all as a list or just go through it for the one not previously listed. That’s how people work. That’s why threads go 100 posts instead of 10. It’s a universal.
As for “rock,” for 50 years the word has meant “anything and everything that isn’t obviously something else.” Rock is not country or jazz or classical, true. But it is country rock and jazz rock and psychedelia and grunge and metal and progressive. And hip-hop and emo and boy/girl groups and anything else that makes the charts. If you want to use rock in some other way, the onus is on you to soell out your carefully limited and detailed definition - which no one else in the world will agree with.
You also have to add in personal taste. The OP asked for “Best.” Not “Most influential.” Not “Most significant.”
“Best.”
That is wholly a matter of taste, and why I put The Doors. I could give a rat’s ass about GnR or The Sex Pistols. Hate their music with a passion.