When it comes to music, like anything else in life making a positive first impression is extremely important. The history of the recording industry is filled with artists who debuted behind much hype but failed to follow with anything substantial to justify their buzz. But occasionally an artist will strike gold (or platinum) with their debut offering, achieving both critical and commercial success. A wave of momentum follows and they can either ride it to further acclaim or capsize beneath the pressure of trying to reach the bar they've already raised. Take Bush for instance. A perfect example of a band who debuted with a highly touted record; Sixteen Stone was a cohesive assemblage of hits and quality album cuts. Behind the success of singles like Come Down, Machinehead and Glycerine, Gavin Rossdale and his mates were on top of the world in 1995. But apparently being Gwen Stefanis husband took priority over delivering another stellar album, because while continuing to record well over a decade later Bush never again released anything with the same level of excellence. The dreaded one hit wonder is a dime-a-dozen. It's far too daunting of a task to attempt to quantify the amount of musicians who've made their mark once and once only, subsequently fading into obscurity to become nothing more than the answer to a music trivia question. For the purpose of this article, we're not going to be including them in this list. Instead we're focusing on artists who had a sustained career of hits and relevancy, yet never managed to exceed the impact and recapture the magic of that initial release. Here's 10 artists who never managed to top their first album.
Brad Hamilton is a writer, musician and marketer/social media manager from Atlanta, Georgia. He's an undefeated freestyle rap battle champion, spends too little time being productive and defines himself as the literary version of Brock Lesnar.
