Greatest Debut Albums

Our list of the greatest debut albums of all time

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100 Best Debut Albums of All Time

Yaz made an album full of club classics like "Situation," "Too Pieces" and "Don't Go," along with "Midnight," a torch ballad Smokey Robinson could have written for Dusty Springfield.

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100 Best Debut Albums of All Time

Alex Chilton and Chris Bell were the Memphis whiz kids at the heart of Big Star.

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100 Best Debut Albums of All Time

M.I.A.'s 'Arular' was the sound of punk and agitprop meeting the 21st century – a protest march, a street riot, and a carnival, conducted over rousingly rackety beats.

the rolling stones posing for a group photo in front of a store with an american flag

Jimi Hendrix Experience

Merle Haggard

Loretta Lynn

100 Best Debut Albums of All Time

What a beautiful mess Moby Grape were, and what an amazing noise they made on their debut album, a stunning artifact of San Francisco rock at its '67 peak.

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100 Best Debut Albums of All Time

Even on the Hold Steady's first album, these Brooklyn-via-Minneapolis dudes had it all: drugs, sex, Catholic guilt, trashy bar-band guitars.

the who sings my generation album cover with an old clock tower in the back ground

100 Best Debut Albums of All Time

The Who exploded out of the West London Mod scene and pushed rock and roll to new levels of intensity and volume on their debut.

there's little richard on the cover of his album

100 Best Debut Albums of All Time

"I came from a family where my people didn't like rhythm and blues," Little Richard told Rolling Stone in 1970. "Bing Crosby, 'Pennies From Heaven,' Ella Fitzgerald was all I heard."

a black and white photo of a woman with her hands on her head

100 Best Debut Albums of All Time

The artist herself would later dismiss the post-disco pop on her debut as "the aerobics album."

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Storm Thorgerson

Dj Shadow

Trevor Jackson

The Velvet Underground

Peter Blake

Straight Outta Compton

Trip Hop

100 Best Debut Albums of All Time

DJ Shadow nearly did for the turntable what Hendrix did for the guitar – bringing vibrant technical brilliance, wild beauty and multifaceted musical texture to an instrument some rock Luddites still didn't even consider to be an instrument at all.

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Greatest Album Covers

100 Best Debut Albums of All Time

Joe Jackson's debut showed that he could match his rival angry young Brits where it counted: song-for-song.

the rolling stones album cover with an image of two men standing in front of a shack

Flying Burrito Brothers

100 Best Debut Albums of All Time

The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Gilded Palace of Sin "We're a rock & roll band that sounds like a country band," Gram Parsons said of the Burritos, whose first album was an obscure Sixties masterpiece that drew the blueprint for both Seventies country rock and today's alt-country.

lady in sunglasses with white hair and blue flowers on her head, looking to the side

100 Best Debut Albums of All Time

The title sounded like wishful thinking when Stefani Germanotta's album arrived in August 2008 to a shrug from radio programmers and record-buyers. By the spring of 2009, Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga, was famous indeed.

a drawing of a hand holding a feather on top of a piece of paper with the words road fire written below it

100 Best Debut Albums of All Time

Loss, love, forced coming-of-age and fragile generational hope: Arcade Fire's 'Funeral' touched on all these themes as it defined the independent rock of the '00s.

A trio of Milwaukee nerds using little more than guitar, standup bass, and a snare drum, the Violent Femmes did big-box string-band busker-pop years before Marcus Mumford was a rumble in his parents' pants. Blister In The Sun, Kathleen Hanna, Chrissie Hynde, Acoustic Guitar Lessons, William Faulkner, And So It Begins, Riot Grrrl, Ukulele Chords

Blister In The Sun

Kathleen Hanna

Chrissie Hynde

Acoustic Guitar Lessons

100 Best Debut Albums of All Time

A trio of Milwaukee nerds using little more than guitar, standup bass, and a snare drum, the Violent Femmes did big-box string-band busker-pop years before Marcus Mumford was a rumble in his parents' pants.

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Greatest Debut Albums