10 Bands That Never Topped Their 1st Album

It's hard to think of another album as impossible to follow up as The Stone Roses.

The Manchester band's 1989 debut transcends not only the baggy and Madchester scenes, but really any kind of strict definition. While many associated the band with dance and rave culture, the album's roots can be traced back as far as 60s guitar groups like The Beatles and their jangly American contemporaries The Byrds.

It became a blueprint for the coming Britpop invasion and its stature only grew as the years went by. In 2005, Rolling Stone included it in its updated and revised list of the 500 Greatest Albums and a year after that, NME put it at the top of its list of their list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. Even Noel Gallagher claimed there would likely be no Oasis without The Stone Roses.

The band really had a mountain to climb and it took them four and a half years to muster up The Second Coming. When they finally reemerged, the musical landscape had changed significantly and bands weaned on their debut had taken their place. Despite all of it, the album sold over a million copies and reached number 4 on the UK Albums Chart, but very few could argue it came anywhere close to the heights of the debut.

In hindsight, questions must be asked about the wisdom of starting an album, one fans had been waiting for almost five years, with four and a half minutes of guitar feedback, tape hiss and birds chirping over a bongo beat by a waterfall.