Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak
Thomas Dolby - his debut album “The Golden Age of Wireless” had a couple of hits: “She Blinded Me With Science”, “One Of Our Submarines”, and I remember “Europa and the Pirate Twins” getting some airplay at the time. He released at least two more albums in the 80s (maybe more, I lost track of him after that) but that first album is what people remember him for.
Edgar Winter “They Only Come out at Night” with THAT song. The album is way under-rated, and the only Edgar Winter rock n roll album that I am familiar with.
Jill Sobule- she had a hit with “I Kissed a Girl” (and arguable a sub-hit with the cover “Supermodel” from the Clueless soundtrack) but her following albums were much better. I still have “Happy Town” on rotation.
Indigo Girls-Scored big on their self-titled album with “Closer to Fine” and again went on to a much longer and for the most part ignored career except for their niche of fans.
Imani Coppola- Her infectious hit which used a loop from Donovan called "Legend of a Cowgirl " brought her some acclaim. She recorded 7 albums since, was a member of Mike Patton’s band Peeping Tom, and started a new band called Little Jackie.
Dave Brubeck, Time Out. He made lots of other albums, but this one broke ground.
Shannon Curfman, Loud Guitars and Big Suspicions. This album made a lot of people expect great things from young Miss Curfman, which Fast Lane Addiction never quite delivered.
**Prince **- Purple Rain?
I’d say no. 1999 is not on it.
Big Country-- The Crossing
Men at Work–Business as Usual
Electric Warrior, Electric Warrior counts, at least in the US.
Love - Forever Changes.
Number 40 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time (and that is way too low in my opinion). Love’s first two albums were nowhere near this good, and they essentially broke up afterwards.
Natalie Imbruglia had (IIRC) three singles from Left of the Middle and then dropped off the face of the Earth.
Ace of Base maybe?
I’d also say that Oasis fits into this category in the US
I thought Christopher Cross was the classic example of this.
Don’t Look Back and Third Stage both did very well for Boston. The two that came after I guess did not.
Then I would like to mention Super Session. Mike Bloomfield, Stephen Stills and Al Kooper. (No, not Alice!)
Very good album.
The Bee Gees, Saturday Night Fever soundtrack
To younger fans, maybe. They had an entire career’s worth of hits before that album, but it did define them in many people’s eyes.
Volume 1, The Traveling Wilburys. They did release a second album (Volume 3), but it was without Roy Orbison (who had died shortly after they produced the first album), and it largely vanished without a trace.
Wait. What?
Dirty Mind, Controversy, Around the World in a Day, Sign o’ the Times. This was a joke suggestion, right?
Layla by Derek and the Dominoes, then.
Aquashow by Elliot Murphy. At the time, he was hailed as the next Bob Dylan, but he never produced anything of note afterwards.
Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield. He did other albums, and has his fans, but never reached the same level.
Climbing by Mountain. Big hit when it first came out, but their later albums were all disappointing.
Elephant Mountain by the Youngbloods. That’s a bit of a stretch – their hit single, “Get Together” was on an earlier record – but the group never really lived up to the critical acclaim of Elephant Mountain.
Alone Together by Dave Mason and John B. Sebastian by John Sebastian. They both had hits from other albums (“We Just Disagree” and “Welcome Back”), but no album they did ever lived up to the standard.
Surprisingly, they had 5 Top 25 albums in the US, including three top 5s. Perhaps even more surprisingly, Definitely Maybe is not one of the albums (that peaked at #58). That said, while Morning Glory is their big one, I think many people would recognize songs off Definitely Maybe.