Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself: Essays on Debut Albums

George Plasketes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317079743
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Media & Communications Industry
• Index: Business

Debut albums are among the cultural artefacts that capture the popular imagination especially well. As a first impression, the debut album may take on a mythical status, whether the artist or group achieves enduring success or in rare cases when an initial record turns out to be an apogee for an artist. Whatever the subsequent career trajectory, the debut album is a meaningful text that can be scrutinized for its revelatory signs and the expectations that follow. Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself: Essays on Debut Albums tells the stories of 23 debut albums over a nearly fifty year span, ranging from Buddy Holly and the Crickets in 1957 to The Go! Team in 2004. In addition to biographical background and a wealth of historical information about the genesis of the album, each essay looks back at the album and places it within multiple contexts, particularly the artist's career development. In this way, the book will be of as much interest to sociologists and historians as to culture critics and musicologists.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Notes on Contributors
• General Editor’s Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The First Cut is the Deepest
• 1 Lubbock or Leave It: Buddy Holly, Norman Petty, and The “Chirping” Cricket
• 2 Good Time Rollers: Little Richard and Huey “Piano” Smith
• 3 Joan Baez: The Classic 1960s Folk Heroine
• 4 From Roger and Out into Dang Me/Chug A Lug: Roger Miller’s Debut
• 5 Midnight in Memphis with the Wicked Pickett
• 6 Jackson C. Frank: Play the Game of Carnival
• 7 What Time Has Told Me about Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left
• 8 The Voice of “the Quiet One”: George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass
• 9 “That’s It”: Willis Alan Ramsey, the Ballad of a Cosmic Cowboy
• 10 New York Dolls: “Ridin’ right on the subway train”
• 11 Warren Zevon: Asylum IconocLAst
• 12 “Chasing after vengeance”: Elvis Costello’s Initial Aim
• 13 Alive on Arrival from Meridian to Manhattan: Steve Forbert as Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, and the Next “New Dylan”
• 14 Ready for the House: Jandek’s Inert Unveiling
• 15 Rickie Lee Jones: “Acquired a Cool and Inspired Sorta Jazz”
• 16 Metallica Kills
• 17 “I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life”: Pearl Jam’s Ten and the Road to Authenticity
• 18 LeAnn Rimes’s Blue: A Country Star in the Making
• 19 Third Eye Blind: Reluctantly Voicing the 1990s
• 20 Dap-Dippin’ Independent Tradition: The Rebirth of Rhythm and Blues
• 21 Pilfering the Past or Postmodern Punks?: The Libertines’ Up the Bracket
• 22 Cinematic Fantastic Sampledic Funky Found-Sound Sifting: The Go! Team’s Thunder, Lightning, Strike
• Appendix A: Debut Album Discography
• Appendix B: Grammy Award Winners and Nominees
• Appendix C: “The 100 Greatest Debut Albums”
• Appendix D: “The 50 Greatest Debut Albums Ever”
• Appendix E: “The 100 Best Debut Albums of All Time”
• Appendix F: “The 20 Greatest Debut Albums of All-Time”
• Appendix G: “The 20 Best and 10 Most Disappointing Debut Albums”
• Bibliography
• Index