???
John Barleycorn Must Die & Low Spark of High Heeled Boys were both way better.
She hasn’t proved very enduring, but so far not much attention is being paid to that aspect of the OP…seems like people are coming up with a lot of artists who really only had that one big first album that mattered.
So allow me to throw this in for the 2020 version of this thread: Fiona Apple. Tidal Was amazing. Not so much since.
And while I’m at it, Tori Amos ( Little Earthquakes)
Are we defining “enduring” as still alive and still playing? I took the word in a less literal sense, more like “influential” and “still considered important and listened to today.”
Tough call on Traffic. I think I might have to go with John Barleycorn Must Die or The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.
I’d have to rate Weekend in London a little higher – but yeah, they didn’t exhibit a lot of growth.
Man, no psychedelia fans around here, I take it.
I’d give you Low Spark, but I think John Barleycorn, while good, is overrated. “Freedom Rider,” “Empty Pages,” and the title track are great songs, but “Glad” opens the proceedings with a blatant rip-off (of Ramsey Lewis’s arrangement of “The ‘In’ Crowd”), and the album as a whole is a bit mired in stodgy tempos that don’t groove like the slow tracks on Low Spark do.
I would agree with that interpretation, and Joy Division’s influence may be described as enduring, I’m not so sure about the others listed.
Morrissey is a terrible choice! He has put out tons of solid material. Viva Hate is not better than Your Arsenal, Vauxhall and I, or even Ringleader of the Tormentors IMHO
Still*, Joy Division only ever made two real albums, so saying that they never bettered the first one isn’t saying much.
- Ha!
Their second album was better than their first one anyway.
Sure they are.
Richard and Linda Thompson - 6 albums
Tindersticks - 8 albums
Rasputina - 6 albums
Magazine - 4 albums
Orange Juice - 4 albums
The Apples in Stereo - 7 albums
Not exactly one hit wonders (one hit wonders are the opposite of “enduring” as defined by the OP). They all endured, and they all have at least 2 good albums… just none as good as their first.
Belly I’ll grant you. They only released 2 “real” albums and 1 sort-of-new album. I was cheating by combining these with Tanya Donelly’s solo albums.
One more vote for Pearl Jam: Ten.
The sad thing is they were just considered Nirvana posers back then. Now they’re largely respected and seen as hugely influential…but have never put out a better album than Ten.
The odd thing is, they’re fairly dissimilar, musically, to Nirvana. (At least to me, Nirvana was the odd grunge band out.) Ten was, indeed, as perfect a debut (and album) as you can hope for. I actually prefer Vitalogy and maybe even Versus, but Ten is the most coherent and even from start to finish.