One-album wonders

and of course its companion piece:

 

Just looked and Silverchair has hit number one on the Australia charts with each of their five albums (last one in 2007). I looked them up because I had heard of them through "Neon Ballroom", since my brother had that cd and played it fairly often.

 

Crikey!

 

I think I'm going to chunder up a Vegemite sandwich.

 

I still can't believe this thread started with Silverchair, i.e. grunge for preschoolers (and a then-27-year-old YGBFKM).

 

I nominate Quiet Riot's "Metal Health" Almost 30 years later, it's still fun to listen to.

Then, of course, the record company persuaded then to cover another Slade tune, Kevin DuBrow's big mouth turned everyone in the music industry against them, and it was pretty much over.

 

I was about to launch a defense of Silverchair solely on the basis of "Tomorrow" when I realized I haven't paid attention while listening to "Tomorrow" in almost a decade. Threw it on the ol' YouTube player. Holy fuck. It's like an anorexic Australian 12-year-old goth chick heard "Black Hole Sun" and "Alive" and thought, "This shit is easy."

 

T-Ride.

Three guys never sounded so huge (King's X fans can disagree). Aside from Steve Vai, Geoff Tyson was the only other student to "graduate" from Joe Satriani's guitar lessons.

http://darksinistar.hubpages.com/hub/10-Albums-You-Need-To-Hear-2-T-Ride-by-T-Ride

*Rush exempted

 

First one that comes to mind for me is Get The Knack by The Knack. Just a great power pop album that is definitely more than "My Sharona" (also contains a cool cover of Buddy Holly's "Heartbeat")[/crossthread].

There was a huge critical backlash at the time over the band's Beatlesesque album cover and Doug Fieger's overall douchebagedness but more than 30 years after its release it still sounds damn good. The Knack was living proof of the old music bidness adage that you get your whole life to make your first album, six months to make the second one. Dave Marsh memorably savaged their follow up in Rolling Stone and that was pretty much it.

Fieger died a couple of years ago and drummer Bruce Gary, who was sensational n the debut, died in 2006.

 

Asia's first album, Asia.

 

The Gaslight Anthem is another band that might be heading to this category. After a decent debut effort they blew up - deservedly so - with The '59 Sound and all of sudden Brian Fallon was everywhere as the greatest Springsteen acolyte and thief ("No surrender my Bobby Jean") alive.

Then they came out with American Slang which had few high points and sounded like nothing more than warmed-over '59 Sound outtakes. But I have hope for their next album, Fallon's solo acoustic album last year was pretty good.

 

I think you're undervaluing American Slang a bit. Also, '59 Sound was easily one of my top five albums of the 2000s so it was going to be tough for them to measure up to that. Like you, though, I have high hopes for the next one.