I mentioned two great debut albums yesterday - Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left (1969) and The Jimi Hendrix Experience's Are You Experienced (1967) - both of which could be legitimately considered as the finest recordings of their respective careers. It got me thinking about a couple of things: 1. Why does it often seem to be the case that the earliest recordings of an artist are generally those that are the most popular with listeners? 2. Which other debut albums deserve to be considered, along with those mentioned above, in the category of the best ever? One album that I posted on not too long ago that deserves inclusion is The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967), which shares a key characteristic with the other two: its variety. The way I see it is fairly simple. A first album is like an undergraduate degree - or perhaps the first year or two of serious study in a discipline. Artists want to take a survey of the terrain, to experiment with as many aspects as they can, and to show what they can do. Also, they are still at the point in their career where the perceived possibilities far exceed the limitations. As time goes on, artists will often get more specific in their work, and investigate certain aspects of music in a more focused and/or thorough way. For example, compare White Light/White Heat (1968) with its supercharged electric sound, and The Velvet Underground (1969), with its acoustic settings, to the first album with its examples of both. I hope you'll agree that this is an interesting area to consider, and I'm going to continue to do so over the next few posts. Tomorrow: Are You Experienced.