Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in Soho, so glad you're with us today. If you weren't with us every day this week, you can check out some of our great interviews on-demand or on our podcast, including we spoke with Poet Maggie Smith about her candid new memoir chronicling her divorce. We also had a great conversation with Director Lisa Cortés about her electrifying documentary, Little Richard: I Am Everything.

You can always catch up on shows over the weekend by downloading our podcast, or head to wnyc.org and head to our show page. That is in the future for you, but right now, let's talk music.

Velvet Underground, The Ramones, The New York Dolls. Yes, they are New York City rock and roll royalty, and their first records are on a new list of the 100 best debut albums according to Uproxx's Cultural Critic, Steven Hyden, who says that debut albums are all about hope. He also has some specific criteria about how he made the list. Like if a debut album makes you think, "What in the hell is this?" or if it invents a new sound.

With me now to go over this list of best debut albums and listen to some tracks and take your calls, is Steven Hyden, who also hosts the Uproxx podcast, Indiecast.

Steven, welcome.

Steven Hyden: Thank you for having me.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want to hear from you. What is your favorite debut album, and why? Phone lines are open. Call in, let us know. 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. You can reach out to us on social media as well @allofitwnyc. Maybe it's Lauren Hill's miseducation or Madonna's self-titled debut. Anything goes. What do you think makes a debut album stand out as compared to the rest of an artist's catalog? 212-433-9692. 212-433-WNYC, or hit us up on social media @allofitwnyc.

Steven, tell us about this idea that debut albums and hope are in conversation with one another. What is that idea?

Steven Hyden: Before I answer that question, I have to say quick that I used to watch MTV News every day as a teenager, and I think you, Kurt Loder, and Tabitha Soren were the first music journalists I ever was aware of, so shout out to you for putting the thought in my head to do this for a living. I had to give you your props for that.

Alison Stewart: Thank you for my flowers.

Steven Hyden: I think in the beginning of the piece I wrote about why I think debut albums are so attractive for people, because if a debut album was really great, it's not just the album itself that is great, it's the potential for what that artist is going to do next. There's all this hope that we attach to an artist that really excites us for the first time. It's like falling in love, you remember the first date that you had with your spouse, you don't remember like the 10th date. The first date, there's something really special about that.

Then also on the part of the artist, there's a lot of hope. You've lived your whole life hoping that you can make a record, and then you make a record and you hope people like it. Then if they like it, you hope, "Maybe I can make another record that they'll like even more than this one." I just think that the potential that exists with every great debut album is just something that is intoxicating when you listen to these records.

Alison Stewart: It can also be why sometimes sophomore albums are so disappointing because someone has spent their whole life waiting to make their debut album and this is everything they got. The debut album really is the way they present themselves to the world, and then sometimes it's really hard because maybe they've been on tour, they haven't been able to write. The sophomore album is a whole other thing.

Steven Hyden: Yes, and there's that cliché about how you have your whole life to write your first album, and you have six months maybe to write your second record. There's a lot of truth to that, but there's also I think something in the audience where you can't replicate that feeling of freshness that you have.

You said earlier, one of my criteria that I laid up for my silly list here that hopefully is a lot of fun, is the idea of when you hear a debut album and you say, "What in the hell is this? I've never heard anything like this." Even if the second record is great, you can only have that, "What in the hell was this?" feeling once, because by the second record, you know what in the hell this is, you've already figured that out. Through no fault of the artist, really, that special debut feeling, you can't replicate it no matter how hard you try.

Alison Stewart: All right, let's get into the list. This one came in at 92, but it just celebrated the 35th anniversary of its release.

Tracy Chapman: I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone.

Alison Stewart: You have a description that this is a song that invented crying by yourself while shopping at CVS [laughter] to find the writing.

Steven Hyden: Well, thank you. I think that's relatable. I think we've all been in a situation where you're shopping at a CVS or a Walgreens, and maybe you need cough medicine, and you're already in a strange state, and then Fast Car comes on and you're just not prepared for the emotional devastation that that song brings every time. It just enters so unassumingly. It's like this quiet little guitar lick that Tracy Chapman's delivery is understated.

I could not get through that song without-- Even just now, I was like I wish you weren't playing the song because I do not want to be crying on the radio in front of all of New York City here, but yes, that's a great debut. I think, especially at the time that record came out, I think it was '88, it was so unlike music that was popular at that time. That was like the peak of '80s excess, big production, big sounds, and here you have someone with just an acoustic guitar and understated delivery, and it hit harder than anything else that came out that year.

Alison Stewart: That year, I was a senior in college at WBRU in Providence, Rhode Island. Everybody went to see Bruce Springsteen and someone said, "Oh, we're going to go to this artists' showcase. This girl named Tracy is going to sing." Everyone's at the Worcester Centrum, and I saw Tracy Chapman in a room with maybe 12 people singing that song, and I knew right away. I was like, "This is wild. This is transcendent. She is something else. She is something I've not seen before." It just cut right through. She was so honest. It was just one of those moments. I'll never forget it.

Steven Hyden: I believe that she was discovered busking on the subway in New York. Just imagine all the buskers you've seen in your life, and now here's Tracy Chapman playing Fast Car. That would be the most surreal thing in the world just to like, "Wow, here's a genius doing this." Her backstory is just really incredible.

Alison Stewart: Let's take some calls. Our phone lines are full, not surprisingly. Let's talk to Mike from Jersey City.

Hi, Mike.

Mike: Hi, how are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing great.

Mike: Great, great. My debut album was Rufus featuring Chaka Khan. I just thought that was a great introduction to Chaka Khan into the group. They had a big band sound, and they combined it with jazz and with rock. Having a woman and a Black woman as a front person, I think was a unique idea during the time.

Alison Stewart: Mike, good chase. Thanks for calling in. Let's talk to Michael from White Plains.

Hi, Michael.

Michael: Hi. B-52's first album, somebody put it on in a party when I was a freshman in high school, which is when it came out, and people just freaked out, like, "We were made for this," because it was so fun. It wasn't pretentious like arena rock, and it wasn't angry like punk rock, of which I'm a big fan. It was just fun and camp. We didn't know it at the time, but so, so gay, and so collaborative with these two amazing female singers. It was like a big party on disk.

Alison Stewart: Michael, thank you for calling in.

Yes, Steven, you have B-52's on your list.

Steven Hyden: Yes, that's a great record. The B-52's, I feel like there's two eras of that band. There was the original era where the guitarist Ricky Wilson in the band who was a driving force on that first record, and then he passed away in the mid-80s. Then they had this resurgence with Love Shack, which is a great song too, but I feel like people just know Love Shack and they forget that first record and Rock Lobster.

As the caller just said, that was like a subversive record. It's really fun and infectious. It's a party album, but there's a lot going on beneath the surface that's really tweaking a lot of the conventions of what punk and new wave were at that time. It just sounds so fresh. That record is a real example of an album that you feel like it could come out next week, and it would still hit just like it did in 1979.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to Rock Lobster.

[music]

Alison Stewart: I could listen to that all-day. My guest is Steven Hyden, Uproxx's Cultural Critic and host of the podcast, Indiecast. We're talking about his recent Uproxx article, The Best Debut Albums Ever Ranked. Let's take a couple of more calls. Let's talk to Christine on line eight, calling in from Westchester.

Hi, Christine.

Christine: Hi. You already hit one of my favorites, which was Tracy Chapman's album, but the other one I wanted to mention was Corinne Bailey Rae's debut album, Corinne Bailey Rae, which just was awesome. My husband and I fell in love to it. He joked he wanted her to play at our wedding, but we couldn't really reach her.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Thanks for calling in. Steven, that's so interesting, the idea that this was attached to some really important moment in her life, or is there an album on here that's just personal for you to attach to a personal moment in your life that it's on this list because it means so much to you at a time?

Steven Hyden: I feel like I could say that about almost all of them. The thing with this list that's different from a lot of lists that you see, because there's so many lists on the internet. Normally, it's a publication or a magazine assembling an army of writers, 10, 15, 20 people, they all vote. The tone of it is like, this list has been passed down in stone tablets by God, and it's the truth. My list doesn't really have that tone. It's just me. It's very upfront and transparent about my biases. I think one of the entries for the Weezer record from '94, upfront, I'm like, "Look, the reason why this is at number 35 on my list is because I listened to it every day when I was 16 years old." I don't have a highfalutin critical justification for that, I'm just going to be upfront that it's ingrained in my life, and it just has to be at number 35 for that reason. I just think that that's how people engage with music, how they think about music. It's so personal, and the things that are ingrained in our lives, like that is the music that matters the most.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Jeremy from Manhattan.

Hi, Jeremy.

Jeremy: Hey, how are you?

Alison Stewart: Doing great. You're on the air.

Jeremy: Hey, Steven, how's it going?

Steven Hyden: Good.

Jeremy: I was originally going to talk about Björk, her debut album, which turns 30 this year, but I think the most egregious omission on your list, and I understand it's personal, so, of course, this is all personal, but Killing Joke's debut from 1980, kind of shifted the landscape in a whole new way, the way they combined industrial textures with these tribal rhythms and distorted vocals. It was the sound that had just not been heard before. In many ways, some might say they never equaled it. I think they may have equaled it, but they never bet at it.

Alison Stewart: Jeremy, thank you for calling in. We're not going to yuck someone's yum, this is your list, but we can Jeremy. That can be on Jeremy's list.

Steven Hyden: That's okay. He is not the first person to bring up Killing Joke. Jeremy, you have company. Look, the thing I realized writing this is that it's a list of debut albums, but it could be a list of the greatest albums ever made. There's so many great debut records. You could make another list of 100 albums, all of which aren't on my list, and that would also be a great list. There's a lot of them out there. That's something I don't think I fully appreciated until I threw myself into this process.

Alison Stewart: You have Missy Elliot's 1997 debut Supa Dupa Fly on the list. What criteria did Missy hit?

Steven Hyden: Well, I think the what in the hell is this factor is big time with that record. It helps to know the context of that time. I think that record came out in '97. Just looking at pop and hip-hop in that moment, we're coming out of the East Coast, West Coast stuff that was happening in the early '90s. Obviously, that was a big time for New York hip-hop as well in the early '90s.

Then in the late '90s, it was a lot of the Puff Daddy stuff really became prominent. Then you've Missy Elliott who did not sound like anybody else in terms of her delivery, and she didn't look like anybody else, and then you get the Timberland production, which is so weird. We're so used to it now that I think we just have lost a little perspective on how unusual that record was when it came out, and yet at the same time, so funky and so accessible. To me, that was like a no-brainer to put on this list.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a listen to Missy Elliott.

[music]

Missy Elliott: Sway on dosie-do like you loco

"Can we get kinky tonight?" Like Coko, so-so

You don't want to play with my Yo-Yo

I smoke my hydro on the D-low

Alison Stewart: That is Missy Elliott. We're talking to Steven Hyden about his list, The Best Debut Albums Ever. He is a cultural critic and hosts the podcast Indiecast, Uproxx's Cultural Critic. We'll take more of your calls. We'll hear more about Steven's list after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[music]

Missy Elliott: Against my window, I can't stand the rain

Against my window, I-I

Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest this hour is Steven Hyden, Uproxx's cultural critic and host of the podcast, Indiecast. We're talking about his recent piece, The Best Debut Albums Ever, Ranked, you're our guest as well. Our phone lines are full, so let's get to some callers. Caroline is calling in from Brooklyn.

Hi, Caroline.

Caroline: Hi there. Thanks for having me. This conversation could not be had without mentioning Fiona Apple's title. I have a core memory of buying that album at 10 years old in Tower Records, and I have loved it every year for 27 years then.

Alison Stewart: Oh, Tower Records, making the heart hands. Thanks for calling in Carolina.

JC from Jersey City. What's up, JC?

JC: Oh, what's up, guys? Can you hear me?

Alison Stewart: I can, you're on the air.

JC: Awesome. My album would be Illadelph Halflife by the Roots. The song that stands out to me is the Clones. If you can play the Clones. I think that the group, when they first came out, everybody was sleeping on, in terms of having a full band, and to residents MCs, Black Thought, and Malik B, and everyone knows they went on to do really great things. They are the House stand for Jimmy Fallon, of course. Black Thought, to me, he's favorite MCs' MC. He was recently went on Hot 97, and he blew Funkmaster Flex's mind when he did a freestyle, and everybody, to this day, still talking about it.

Alison Stewart: He's the best. I don't know if he got to see his musical, but Black Thought is a huge talent. We have Marquee Moon by television. One of the best ever. That was from Mark. Will says Uncle Tupelo is no depression was the start of my wife and I's relationship. She from Champaign Urbana in Southern Illinois, me from my roommate, Chris, who was writing for Rolling Stone at the time. "Oh, I know, Chris."

Let's talk to George from Bay Ridge. Hey, George.

George: Thanks for taking my call. Boy from U2. At the time, my wife wasn't really a fan. I dragged her to the Palladium for the U2 show, and we both left and said, "This band is going to be huge."

Alison Stewart: I love that you called in, George. Thank you so much. Let's talk about huge bands. One huge band, which is missing from your list, Steven, no judgment, is the Beatles.

Steven Hyden: Yes.

Alison Stewart: You make the point that just because an album is historically significant, doesn't mean it necessarily belongs in the great debut category. Why is that?

Steven Hyden: Well, okay, so when you do these lists, an important aspect of listology is to stir the pot a little bit. You want to be a little interesting. Not including the Beatles, who obviously are one of the greatest bands of all time, Please Please Me their first album, very historically important. What I really wanted to do on this list was to have a variety of records, including records that don't always end up on lists like this, and to really focus on the debut album itself, because I think how these albums are often judged is by the subsequent career.

Please Please Me seems really important because obviously, the Beatles went on to a great career, whereas there's other debut records that maybe get diminished because the debut was really good, but the band didn't really do anything great after that. I was like, "I'm going to put weight on debuts where I feel like it's clearly their best record," because, again, it ties back to that hope idea. I think that there's something special where I wanted to award bands that maybe took their shot and didn't have anything left after that, rather than punish them, because I feel like that's what these lists often do.

The first record on my list, at number 100, is this band called the Exploding Hearts who are an obscure band at this point, but they put out a great debut in 2003, and then three of the band members died in a van accident three months later. A horrible, tragic story.

That record gets left on the side of the road a little bit, I think, and I was like, "I want to bring it back. I want people to remember this." I had to sacrifice The Beatles to pay homage to The Exploding Hearts. I think The Beatles will understand. They have a lot of honors at this point, so I think they'll be okay with me overlooking them in this instance.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Edward from Morristown, New Jersey.

Hi, Edward. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Edward: Thank you. I have not seen Steven's list, so I'm not sure whether my nomination is already on there, but I would nominate one of my favorite albums of all time, The Kick Inside by Kate Bush. Now, this goes back to 1978. She was, I think 16 or 17, when she began recording that album. She certainly did not sound like anyone else. I would just say to any young people who may know her from the Netflix series that used her song Running Up That Hill, that they might want to go back and discover her first album, which has some beautiful, beautiful songs on it. They will touch your heart, I guarantee it.

Alison Stewart: Edward, thank you so much for calling in. Let's hit number eight on your list.

[music]

The Doors: Try to set the night on fire

The time to hesitate is through

No time to wallow in the mire

Alison Stewart: Steven, you acknowledge that might be a controversial choice.

Steven Hyden: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Why would this be controversial, The Doors, Light My Fire?

Steven Hyden: I feel like The Doors, their credibility at this point is not very high. I feel like it's really easy these days to take shots at Jim Morrison, and I really blame the Oliver Stone movie. That movie came out 30 years ago, but I feel like when people picture The Doors, they picture Val Kilmer playing what he is in the movie, which is basically a drunken buffoon who's out of control, and very obnoxious.

The thing with that first Doors' record is that if you look at punk and post-punk and New Wave, and even a lot of Hard Rock, Jim Morrison and The Doors are really influential in a way that even people who don't like The Doors, I think you have to give that band props for that. I also think that first record is an example of a debut album that feels like a greatest hits album. Some of these debut albums have so many famous songs on them that you don't need a playlist or a greatest hits record, you just need the debut. It has almost all the songs that you would want from that artist. That Doors record has Break On Through and Light My Fire and The End and all these other songs.

I'm defending it from the cool kids who want to rip The Doors. I think The Doors, we've got to come back to them. It's time for a Doors Resurgence.

Alison Stewart: A Doorsaissance. [laughs]

Steven Hyden: A Doorsaissance, which I know-- There might be people calling right now who are just ready to slam the door on the doorsaissance, but just please keep an open mind. I think that they're better than maybe you remember.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Teresa from the Lower East Side.

Hi, Teresa, thanks for calling All Of It.

Teresa: Hi, how are you? Happy Friday.

Alison Stewart: Happy Friday.

Teresa: I want to pick Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Also on Steven's list, by the way, thank you for calling in.

How about Marie, who is calling from Upstate? Hey, Marie.

Marie: Hey. I'm shocked that nobody has mentioned Talking Heads' 77. It's an incredible album. Every song I still listen to it start to finish. Just a hint of the intelligence and the musical innovation to come that first album.

Alison Stewart: Thank you for calling in. We have to get to one of our New York bands. We have to get to Velvet Underground's debut. Let's take a listen to Sunday Morning, and we can talk about it on the other side.

[music]

Velvet Underground: Watch out, the world's behind you

There's always someone around you who will call

Alison Stewart: I picked it out to play because it's a New York band. Why did you pick it?

Steven Hyden: To me, it's self-evident that you'd have to put the first Velvet Underground record on a list like this. I think I had it at number two. This is one of my biases, I guess, is that I've got-- I think in my top five, a lot of the records are from 1967, including my number one record is from 1967. There is a certain bias there in terms of favoring records that just seem so monumental that they influenced a lot of what came afterward, and The Velvet Underground certainly, with any alternative music, indie music, punk, all the way down the line, any outsider music, that record is an essential text.

It's interesting when you look at younger music writers, because I was born in the '70s, so I grew up with people telling me that the Velvet Underground is an important band. I always wonder, in 10 years, are people still going to be saying that, because music writing is constantly shifting, and there's always new heroes and people wanting to take down the old heroes. I don't know.

I felt washed up, to be honest with you, when I looked at the top of my list, I was like, "There's so many old records here." I'm going to look like-- It's hard for me to put a record from the last 10, 20 years above the Velvet Underground. I just can't do that. It's like, "This record hasn't been around long enough yet to have that." I don't know. That's very much a middle-aged guy's opinion, probably. I don't know. That's interesting for me to think about.

Alison Stewart: We consider this often around music judgment-free zone. People like what they like.

Steven Hyden: Exactly.

Alison Stewart: They like what they like.

Steven Hyden: Exactly.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Chris from the Upper West Side.

Hi, Chris.

Chris: Hello. Wow, you're taking me back, The Doors. [laughs] I was working as a musician for quite a few years before I heard Are You Experienced? That just changed everything, everything. I spent the whole summer at my gig up in the Catskills with my head in the speakers listening to that and Sergeant Pepper, and it was-- Jimmy Hendrix. No bands that's come since then has not been touched. Jazz bands like [unintelligible 00:27:35] everything. He changed everything. It was just like the harder they come. It's one of those albums that just nothing was the same after that.

Alison Stewart: Chris, thank you for calling in. You have found a Kindred spirit in Chris, Steven.

Steven Hyden: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Your number one album was from Jimmy Hendrix, his 67 debut, Are You Experienced? Was that always number one, or did that come after looking at everything and looking at the concoction of this list and letting it simmer and coming back to it?

Steven Hyden: I had a feeling that was going to be number one just because I had this list of criteria. I think I had 10 different criteria, and that was an album that just hit everyone. It's innovative. Jimi Hendrix obviously invented something on that record in terms of how he approached guitar. It's an incredibly experimental and avant-garde record, and yet at the same time, it's great pop music too. He was not just this great musician, which we always talk about with Hendrix, but he's also just a genius songwriter. I think he's weirdly underrated as a songwriter. There's so much to just focus on his guitar playing understandably so. That's an album-- Again, like what I was saying before, it's a greatest hits album. Every song on that record is iconic. I don't know. It just seemed to hit all of the marks, and I love it too.

That's the most important criteria for every album on this list. I have to love it, and then there's other things after that. I don't know. I just feel like that's a perfect debut album. It's hard for me to put anything above that.

Alison Stewart: I'm going to run down some lists of people who have called in. Father John Misty, Mary J Blige, School of Fish. Also had Brian Eno, Here comes the Warm Jets. The Clashes debut album, Illmatic by Nas. Number one on Steven Hayden's list is Jimi Hendrix, Are you Experienced?

Steven Hyden, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for taking our listeners' calls, and thanks for sharing your list of favorite debut albums with us.

Steven Hyden: It was a pleasure. Thank you, Alison.

Alison Stewart: Let's go out on some Hendrix.

[music]

Jimi Hendrix: 'Scuse me while I kiss the sky

Purple Haze all around

 

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