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My Favorite Debut Album Was One of the Best of the 1990s
This one surprised even me
When Pierce McIntyre issued the “Favorite Debut Album” challenge I thought the difficulty would lie in picking from so many that I love. However, as fate would have it, many of the albums that I thought were debuts were actually not. Both the Gin Blossoms’ New Miserable Experience and 10,000 Maniacs’ In My Tribe were second albums; each band had issued an indie first album before these. I learn something new with each one of the challenges.
I obviously gave serious thought to Bruce Springsteen’s Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., mainly because it’s Bruce. But while it has multiple great songs, it’s not an album I’ll often play all the way through. One important reason is that the production value on the album itself is inferior to what we would see from Born to Run onward (after Bruce broke with manager Mike Appel). Maybe he should re-record his first two albums like Taylor Swift is doing with her back catalogue.
After combing through my CD collection (yes, I still have one of those), I landed on the best album of 1993, and one of the best ever, debut or otherwise. It is criminally overshadowed by the horrible Hootie & the Blowfish album, Cracked Rear View, that released less than a year later, but from the opening lines of “Round Here,” August and…
