Best debut album


So my 2 favorite debut album are as follows

1.Steely Dan Can’t by a Thrill
2. 3rd Eye Blind 1997 release 
schmitty1
Hard to argue with Zeppelin and Hendrix. Also not yet mentioned, I'd add Jeff Buckley.
Hot Tuna
Love the live acoustic debut. None of the others are in my collection. 
@buddhachild - listened to LH "to Zion" just the other day, with volume!
(tongue in cheek - my digital system never sounded so vinyl)

Tracy Chapman self-titled, for that I would renege on London Grammar.
Janis Joplin's "Cheap Thrills" and the Sex Pistols 'Never Mind the Bollocks".

Mike
Not easy to beat...

Kristofferson (by Kris Kristofferson)

An album on which Help Me Make it Through the Night, For the Good Times, Sunday Morning Coming Down, and Me and Bobby McGee are just "some of the songs".

Honorable mentions:

Dire Straits

Songs of Leonard Cohen
+ 1 on the "usual suspects": Doors - Hendrix - Led Zep - King Crimson - Television - Dire Straits - Rickie Lee Jones - Pretenders - Elvis Costello - Joe Jackson & REM.

+ 1 on the "not so" usual suspects: Dada - Jellyfish - Spirit - Velvet Underground.

Here's a few more in the latter category:

JJ Cale - "Naturally"
Jim Carroll: "Catholic Boy"
Lloyd Cole & Commotions: "Rattlesnakes"
"Crack The Sky"
Mark Eitzel: "60 Watt Silver Lining"
Michael Franks: "The Art of Tea"
PJ Harvey: "Dry"
Martha and The Muffins: "Metro Music"

vinowino,

"Fleetwood Mac. ( aka The dustbin album. Peter Greens Fleetwood Mac)"


Green's Mac were a bit like Barrett's Floyd, or Curtis's Joy Division (now there's another great debut album - 1978s Unknown Pleasures) compared to what came later.

Less commercial maybe, but certainly no less good.

There are SO MANY great ones listed. I'm taking notes to listen to ones I'm not familiar with.  A great album (to me) is one in which every song is a good listen. I think its usually a debut album because the artist records the best of their work for max impact.  So a couple of my favorite debut albums that are like this:

Basia - Time and Tide

Kaleo - A/B 

Good thread...no trolls...

@mitchagain 

Mark Eitzel: "60 Watt Silver Lining"

Wow, now there is a blast from the past. I knew Mark when he lived in Columbus and a member of ‘The Cowboys’, a sorta punk/‘new wave’ local band at the time. I still have their only 45 released at that time. In fact, we were sitting in Crazy Mama’s (a club in the OSU area) on High Street, he gave me the 45, (which he had a bunch selling them at the club), and as we sat and talked, wrote a rambling little note on the 45 cover, and signed it ‘Billie Lee’, the name he went by with the Cowboys. That 45 is worth some bucks, but may be more so as he signed it.

Eventually he and others put together another band called The Naked Skinnies (which another friend of mine played drums), I have their only 45 from that time as well, and they soon moved to San Francisco. It was there that he eventually formed The American Music Club.

Mark was/is incredible. Obviously a gifted writer, but also, a very nice guy if you could penetrate his personality. A very interesting mind to listen to, either through his music or by talking to. A larger than life personality even back in the ‘old days’.
@bkeske
Thanks for the Mark Eitzel stories! His concert monologues are legendary. I can only imagine what he is like to talk to. I lived in Ohio for 3 years in the 80's, and my job frequently had me on High Street near the OSU campus. There was a great record store in that area that I think was called Singing Dog Records.

One of my favorite concert stories happened in Columbus. I went to the Agora Ballroom to see The Psychedelic Furs. Right before the show started someone walked up to me and asked "what I thought the first song would be?" This contest idea had never occurred to me, so I went with the first song that came to mind, which was "Into You Like a Train." Turns out I was right; and, the bewildered look that he gave me was priceless!
@mitchagain

Yep, Singing Dog Records was right around Crazy Mama’s. Popular record Store at the time, along with Moles Record Exchange further north on High Street. ‘We’ (my friends, I included), put on a performance at Singing Dog with an ensemble we called The Null Set, which was basically an avant-garde performance art group which played on the surfaces in the store, among other things. Fun times back then, and very creative things going on.

I saw the Psychedelic Furs at the Agora in Cleveland (the original Agora). I always liked that band. But, saw many great shows at the Columbus Agora over the years as well, including The Band (sans Robertson) the night before Manuel killed himself. That was a shocker, but glad I saw them before that happened.
Richard Barone - "Cool Blue Halo"

It came out about a year before MTV Unplugged started, and it pretty much started the chamber pop movement.
Do you mean "best" compared to their work that followed?  I'll throw out Edgar Winter's "Entrance" and Led Zeppelin.   Most other acts started pretty rough compared to when they were seasoned later.....I'm thinking Beatles and Billy Joel....both of whom I worship!
bekeske.....Tiny Tim is really a good album, with a Bowie tune on it....hooda thunk?

I kinda mentioned Tiny Tim ‘tongue and cheek’, but when you think back to when it was released, it made quite the impression....nobody knew quite what to think, and he became an over night oddball success. Everyone took notice, young and old.
Boston "Boston", Stevie Ray Vaughan "Texas Flood"   Aha "Hunting High and Low." The Smiths "The Smiths"
Crosby Stills & Nash - who spawned a bunch of groups who tried to sound like them - most notably. the Eagles 
Crosby Stills & Nash - who spawned a bunch of groups who tried to sound like them - most notably. the Eagles 
Sorry if I’m breaking the "rules" but this was taking too long. I had to browse through 3000+ titles so this was a journey of sorts and nonetheless enjoyable. I had to create three categories in an attempt to prevent insanity.
My no brainers...Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Doors, Van Halen, Dire Straits
My faves...Foreigner, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ozzy Osbourne, Stevie Ray Vaughn
My contenders...The Black Crowes, Mike + The Mechanics, Tesla, The Traveling Wilburys
In order to qualify to be on a list of truly fantastic albums the record must be able to be enjoyed on all tracks such as Abbey Road by The Beatles. 
Too many to pick 1 favorite so here a few of mine
Allman Brothers band 
The Band
Steely Dan Can’t buy a thrill
Dan Fogelberg Homefree
Peter Gabriel 
Rush Fly by Night (1st LP with Neil Peart)
Van Hallen, Violent Femmes, Fear

Each one of these albums is still a great front to back listen almost 40 years after the fact.

The debut Danzig album also still holds up well.
Man, you had it right with your own number one: Can't Buy a Thrill. And you didn't ask but, Best album of all time? Aja.
The Stones Roses "The Stone Roses"
King Crimson "In The Court of the Crimson King"
The Band "Music From Big Pink"
You hep cats got most of them, but they might be a couple of other candidates for our rather long shortlist. LOL
Television Marquee Moon or Patti Smith Horses. Your choice for what best represents that version of the New York scene.
Wu Tang Clan.   You may not like it, but you can ignore it.
Sid anyone list the Ramones? I am inclined to agree with some of the other posters and say that never mind the bollocks was probably better.
voiceofvinyl -- I saw the New York Dolls live at, I believe, the Santa Monica Civic.  One of the worst live acts I've ever seen.  All posing.  No chops.  A modicum of talent.  I had good seats, too.  I did like the debut album, though...  It must have had a heck of a good producer.