I wouldn't call George a one-album wonder. Cloud 9 was huge when it came out. Sure it wasn't on the level of ATMP, but it was still pretty successful.

This concept makes me think of Some Nights by Fun. That album had 3 huge songs and good a lot of commercial and critical acclaim and then the band never made anything else

It usually happens to the first album because there's literally infinite time to make your debut album. All subsequent albums are weighed down by expectations of time, money, or dozens of other factors.

I feel like George Harrison’s Cloud Nine deserves some recognition. It took the music world by storm when it released, and is the reason why we have the gift that is The Traveling Wilburys. My man George is much more than just his triple album

The Stone Roses was the standout band of my childhood, my dad is a huge fan. Tragic they never got the chance to fulfil their potential and hype

I think that Loveless by My Bloody Valentine qualifies as a one album wonder. One of the greatest and most influential albums of the 90s.

Nobody’s said Spiderland by Slint yet I think that fits perfectly here

One I always bring up is Endtroducing by DJ Shadow. It was so incredibly good but none of his other albums even come close to that masterpiece.

I totally understand your argument for George Harrison being on this list and while I agree to a degree, I want to stress how good some of his other albums are. "Living in the Material World", "Thirty Three & a Third", "George Harrison (1979)" and even "Brainwashed" are all on a similar level as "All Things Must Pass", and they all have songs that rival songs on that album. I would still say ATMP is his best album, but it's closer than you would think.

Not really sure about George on this one. If your argument is that most people only listen to the one album then you could classify hundreds of artists as one album wonders because they have one album bigger than all their others. After ATMP, "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)" was a massive hit, along with its parent album. Cloud Nine was also a big hit with a couple of big singles, and the Traveling Wilburys were big too. Regardless of popularity, all those albums are worth a listen.

Sky Ferreira is a name that immediately came to mind with her only album (Night Time, My Time) turning 10 this year. Fantastic record from start to finish.

Cracked Rear View by Hootie and the Blowfish is one of the most obvious examples for me. One of the best-selling albums of all time and they never released anything ever again even moderately approaching its success.

BOSTON is definitey not a one album wonder. Yes, the debut was never matched (17 x platinum) but the next 2 albums were #1 selling 7 and 4 x platinum respectively...not too shaby. On top of that, they scored their only Hot 100 #1 single in 1986, a decade after their debut.

I think Fetty Wap should have been on this list. His self titled album is one of the greatest hit making albums of the last decade

I always think of the New Radicals when I think one album wonders Such a vibe of an album, slaps from front to back, Get What You Give is one of the best pop songs of our time and yet he never followed it up, Gregg still had a fantastic career as a songwriter after the fact but I still can't help but think what could've been if he never disbanded the project

Modjo’s self titled comes to mind. Lady (Hear Me Tonight) has been a popular sound for Instagram reels. Once I found the song & the album, I was hooked. I wish they had made more

timestamps 0:00 - Intro 1:31 - Never Mind The Bollocks - Sex Pistols 1:35 - Grace - Jeff Buckley 1:58 - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill - Lauryn Hill 3:40 - Boston 4:50 - The Stone Roses 6:47 - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel 8:43 - All Things Must Pass - George Harrison 10:20 - The Dutchess - Fergie 11:28 - The Heist - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

I'd argue it definitely wasn't Sid's death that prevented the Pistols from making more music, it was the fact that they and their management are/were way too individually volatile to exist in the same space for long periods of time.

I think including solo albums by members of popular bands is kind of cheating, I would never say Lauryn Hill is a one-album wonder when she made The Score. DJ Shadow and Slint for example come to mind. And maybe you could count Burial as a different type of one-album wonder, since he basically switched to shorter formats? Depends on how well you like his debut album.

The one album not here that I've been screaming about for years now is The Wallflowers' _Bringing Down the Horse_. That thing was EVERYWHERE, and I was convinced at the time that Jacob Dylan had everything that was going to make him a star. But afterwards...nothing. I'll still bust out Everybody Out of the Water every once in a while, but nothing else touched that first album.

I haven’t seen it mentioned yet, but I think Bleed America by Jimmy Eat World is a great example of a one album wonder.

I'll toss in Elastica's 1995 S/T debut for consideration. They rose out of the Brit pop explosion of the mid 90's with a more punk edge and Justine was an undeniable force of a frontwoman. They may not have exploded like the artists on this list but they made an impact, dropped 16 bops on the world and were never able to recreate the magic on their final two records.

George set the bar so high. But everything else he did was still great. He could never beat the first solo album. Traveling Willburys was huge, he was the biggest influence on the hits.

I take exception to Lauryn Hill and Aeroplane being on this list. Lauryn Hill has an entire body of work with The Fugees and Soulquarians. And I love On Avery Island.

Surely George Harrison late 80's album 'Cloud 9' is worth a mention. It's a great album and did well on the charts and sold very well.

A couple of albums that always spring to my mind when thinking of this subject are Tracy Chapman's self-titled album, and Introducing the Hardline... by Terence Trent D'Arby.

Fun. and The Killers definetly deserve a mention. Syd Barret also should be mentioned although I don't know if he would count since his monumental strides in acid and psychedelic rock all come from his only pink Floyd album, and the band itself lived on ever after he went insane.

Burial - Untrue - instant classic from 2007, helped to take UK underground electronic music into a moody and spectral realm (“future garage” was created because of this); only 12” and EPs have been released since Untrue Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells - inaugural release from Virgin Records and a then 19-year old’s musical catharsis, got a big boost in exposure thanks to its use in The Exorcist; like ATMP, very interesting follow-ups but nothing like Tubular Bells Slint - Spiderland - the band members had considerable experience in the Louisville KY punk thanks to starting out at the age of 12 and were all approaching 20 when making what arguably a cornerstone album of post-rock; split afterwards and did other things There are plenty of electronic music acts that could qualify like Global Communication’s 76:14 or KLF’s Chill Out. More often than not, these are one-offs and in a collection of a number of different aliases/monikers. The current underground EM scenes also have this in spades.

The two definitive one album wonders I’m shocked that you left out are The La’s and Terence Trent D’Arby. They are both basically perfect debut albums from artists that more or less vanished from the public’s consciousness. (TTD still releases great music under the name Sananda Maitreya; the La’s never put out another album).

One album that came to mind for me was Blu & Exile's Below the Heavens. Amongst the blogs and underground rap fans, it's heralded as one of those classic, iconic albums of that time period. I think only recently (like the last few months maybe?) Blu and Exile actually got back the rights to the album, which is wild to think that this album that's been so highly praised, the people who created it weren't seeing much of anything from it.

s/o yourself and Brin, really been consistently putting great videos out every week now for a while, keep it up man!

This is a cool concept. There are a lot of acts that have one massive album but then mostly fall off. Alanis Morissette, Hootie and the Blowflish, Third Eye Blind, Hanson, KT Tunstall, The Presidents of the United States of America (band), etc etc.

Good takes. If you make another video in this series, I think New Miserable Experience - the Gin Blossoms and Cracked Rear View - Hootie and the Blowfish deserve mentions. Iconic records that were the biggest moment for each band, and nothing has really compared following.

Tf you mean George Harrison is a one album wonder? Living in The Material World and Cloud Nine were big albums. And even some of his more underrated albums like the self titled and brainwashed are fantastic

I would love a part 2. If you make a part 2 you should include The Postal Service.

To be fair the Sex Pistols were a spent force and split up before Sid Vicious passed away

George Harrison has two #1 albums and another that got to #2. Of his singles, yes My Sweet Lord was his only #1.. but Got My Mind Set on You peaked at #2 (plus a couple other top 10 hits)

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is one of my all-time favourite albums, so I'm looking forward to hearing their prior project

SHOUTOUT MINOR THREAT!!!!!!! Their entire discography is like 45 minutes long just as the hardcore gods intended

deathcontiousness by have a nice life is also a good example. personally, i love the second album and im ok with the third, but almost NOBODY listens to them in comparison to deathcontiousness.

I’d definitely say Fun’s Some Nights deserves to be on here.

Not a super popular opinion, but George Harrison's album Wonderwall Music is one of the best albums out there. It's a soundtrack, so nobody talks about it, but it's some of the most dream-like music I've heard.

Amazed "Frampton Comes Alive" wasn't on the list. Everybody and their brother had that album in the 70s, and it was a brilliant showcase for Frampton, but nothing else he released came close to that impact. I'd also add Bryan Adam's "Reckless", Norah Jones' "Come Away with Me", Julan Lennon's "Valotte", and Christopher Cross's s/t debut.

George’s All Things Must Pass might be his only great and big success album. But his discography is fantastic, one of the most consistent of the 4 Beatles. He also had a great commercial success with the fantastic Cloud Nine too

Jackson C Frank is definitely in this category. A fantastic Folk/Singer-Songwriter album with production from Paul Simon that was an early influence on guys like Nick Drake, but no real chance to follow it up. Life just kept getting in his way, knocking him down over and over until he died many years later with just a handful of other songs to his name as well as some covers and short live performances

I think you could add Fetty Wap into the list, as he was a likable club rapper that wanted to put on for his city but that came crashing down due to falling out with old friends, expensive spending habits, failing to replicate older material and of course, his massive legal issues. Kind of a shame he didn't get to stick around but he definitely left a mark in 2015 when he came on the scene.

Macklemore's issue wasn't the prior three albums posted, it was solely with Kendrick's album... Then he attempted a good hearted yet failed response to the issue and the rest is history

I'd like to nominate Carole King, and if we're counting side projects, Madvillainy and King Geedorah are clearcut examples aswell

Wonderful analysis

I feel like Myths of the Near Future by Klaxons deserves a shoutout, it was widely considered one of the best albums of 2007, the band became famous overnight and even headlined the Reading and Leeds festivals, but they only made 2 other albums after that, and none of them even came close to living up to their initial success. It's also a banger album so it deserves some recognition

Christopher cross has to be one of the biggest one album wonders out there. His 1979 album won all 5 Grammys in one night matching billie eillish and nothing really successful after 1985

Love these videos. Comparable to the one hit wonder, another similar topic - the TWO hit wonder. Musicians like Rick Astley, Jefferson Airplane/Starship, Natasha Bedingfield, and Owl City come to mind, but I'm sure there are more.

Surprised at no Alanis Morisette, she's basically the textbook example of this phenomenon. Her Jagged Little Pill album has like 4-5 giant hits on it that still get played on radio to this day, yet not a single other album has any songs I recognize.

Nice concept !!!

Cool Concept, glad im early

The nineties were a goldmine of this, weren't they? Off the top of my head: Sixteen Stone by Bush Elastica Oracular Spectacular by MGMT Cracked Rear View by Hootie and the Blowfish New Miserable Experience by Gin Blossoms Pocket Full Of Kryptonite by Spin Doctors 11 by Smithereens The Score by the Fugees Fallen by Evanescence Throwing Copper by Live Vincebus Eruptum by Blue Cheer Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and the Holding Company Death Walks Behind You by Atomic Rooster Living In The Plastic Age by the Buggles Take A Picture by Margo Guryan Vs. by Mission Of Burma And counting the great acts who only had one The La's Temple of the Dog Apple by Mother Love Bone Bigger Better Faster More by 4 Non Blondes Toy Matinee Oar by Skip Spence Lift To Experience by the Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads Young Marble Giants Szobel by Herman Szobel Energy by Operation Ivy God, how cool is it we have so many albums

Neutral Milk Hotel just makes you feel like you're in an alternate dimension.

I would like to mention Tiffany, the 80s starlet. Her second album, which by her own admission, wasn't a commercial success. If she had any albums after that, I feel that they are relatively unknown. Her first album was a huge success. I could listen to the entire album and enjoy every song. I feel that the albums' production was part of its success. The particular production gave the album a "color" and atmosphere which was appealing. The album could have been produced "normally" but it might not have been as successful.

You did forget one major candidate for your list; Third Eye Blind. They had almost half their first album go to the charts back in the late 90s, also a great and unique group deserving of the highest accolades

Sid Vicious's death didn't broke up the band, because they already had tensions within themselves during the American tour that drifted them separately. John Lydin even said that Steve Jones wouldn't dare to play more than three chords.

no way bro doesn’t think “Living in the Material World” isn’t a super ultra classic

All things must pass is a truly phenomenal piece of work. That album alone is the best solo Beatles album and makes George my favorite Beatle.

I haven’t watched this but clicked to say both Ferris Wheel on Fire and On Avery Island are classics. And Little Birds. ITAOTS is obviously always going to be the hit but they have other great works.

Black Sheep- Choice is Yours, KMD and Basehhead- Play With Toys. All debut albums. But they came out towards the end of the 90s Golden Age of Hip Hop when the music was becoming less culturally artistic and more vapid/commercial.

It was cool listening a video about music without any song fragment. Really cool.

The Dutchess front to back absolutely fucking slaps

Slint’s Spiderland is quite the one album wonder. Excellent project that managed to do so much with so little at the start of their career even asking for a female singer to come audition (on back cover) but sadly the attention never came so they parted ways and disappeared

Before I watch the video, I think to myself....Are Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians mentioned? "Shooting Ribberbands at the Stars" is an absolute masterpiece of an album.....then nothing (of note).

Similar to the stone roses there is also "urban hymns" by The Verve

I would definitely mention Comus, First Utterance is considered one of the greatest prog folk albums of all time while their other 2 albums are forgotten

The New Radicals fit this really well. One absolutely killer album.

Neutral milk hotel are not one album wonders. On Avery island and Ferris wheel on fire are both good as hell

I would have felt bad if i was macklemore too, tbh. How Ye didnt hijack the speech again, i will never kbow

The reason the Sex Pistols couldn't make another album was that Johnny Rotten quit. Sid was a non-entity when it came to recording and song writing and recording.

Others have already mentioned Marquee Moon by Television and Turn Off The Bright Lights by Interpol, which I completely agree with, so I'd like to throw in one I haven't seen anyone mention, which is Silent Alarm by Bloc Party. From everything I know about this band, their debut seems to be a great post-punk revival record, which they then followed up on with dud after dud after dud.

Great diverse list. I appreciate it and the research behind each album. Just wish there was a little pause before moving on to the next subject. The run on narration was a bit jarring when transitioning from Lauren Hill to Boston to The Stone Roses LOL

I'm so glad I'm able to say I saw Jeff Magnum live. It was such a memorable show and performance.

There is an Australian indie band called Frente! - the name includes an exclamation point (I think) - that put out a perfect alt-pop album in the 90's called "Marvin, The Album" and then disappeared, at least from American ears. There's a story there.

Ace of Base’s debut album The Sign/Happy Nation (depending on country sold 19 million. Their second album sold 5 million and wasn’t as compelling. One of their members was traumatised by a stalker attack and didn’t want to participate any more.

Jay Z’s Reasonable Doubt was planned to be his only album. That would be such an iconic one album wonder. Thankfully he gave us so many more albums

You should have mentioned that the reason All Things Must Pass was so uniquely amazing is that it was developed from the huge catalog of songs George had been building up while in the Beatles that didn’t make it into their albums

Setting aside my Neutral Milk Hotel gripes for a moment, the two biggest examples of this that I can think of are experimental hip-hop duo Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein, the story behind which in some ways parallels that of Lauryn Hill's tumultuous career; and the atmospheric black metal classic that is Weakling's Dead As Dreams, a record which came out of nowhere, blew minds, and saw the band immediately disappear back into the ether. (Extreme metal in general has many of these-Winter, Burning Witch, Toadliquor and Wormphlegm also come to mind-and I know for a fact that hip-hop has even more, although I'm less well-versed in that area.)

Great concept! Fugees: The Score comes to mind for me. (although I personally ADORE their debut and single post Score EP). They split because L & Clef split. Those three records are a great place to find a LOT more Lauryn, and she's got multiple features on Wyclef's The Carnival. I do NOT recommend her SECOND album, though, and I'M the dude who made my OWN Fugees shirts in HS in the 90s, and bought/buys anything they touch (VHS tape, John Forte's criminally underrated solo debut, -you name it.

I think part of Fergies fall was not only being a part of TBEP but also bc she got a lot of bad publicity for pooping herself on stage

Sublime's 1996 album Sublime Tricky's Maxinquay

Lauryn Hill's MTV unplugged album is fire.

First one that came to mind for me was Get the Knack. It had the #1 hit "My Sharona", and "Good Girls Don't" reached #11. Those two songs, plus "Frustrated" were covered on the "Chipmunk Punk" album. Their next album had one song that barely cracked the top 40, but I don't recall hearing it at the time. And of course, Weird Al's first album had his parody song "My Bologna".

Partial List of One Album Wonders: King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King (1969): While they did make more albums, this is the only album by King Crimson original/1st line-up. Derek & the Dominos - Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970): After this amazing debut, the band broke up after a follow up session for the next album which never came. Germs - GI (1979): With the death of Darby Crash, their could be now follow up to this explosive debut. Temple of the Dog - Temple of the Dog (1991): After the death of Mother Love Bone's Andrew Wood, this supergroup composed of Pearl Jam and Chris Cornell made this heartbreaking tribute. Elastica - Elastica (1995): After the first album the original line-up fell apart, leading to a sophomore slump; very similar to The Stone Roses. The Postal Service - Give Up (2003): After the amazing debut, the band hit a creative wall unable to make a follow up, they broke up, then reunited, then broke up again. Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures (2009): This supergroup made one amazing release, then hung their straps after one tour.

Late to the party but Flume’s self-titled debut album from 2012 comes to mind. That album was so unique at the time and had a massive influence on the direction and sound of electronic music. He’s continues to release music but nothing hits quite like that first album did.

Biggest one that comes to my head is the court of the crimson king by king crimson. Truly a great album and was iconic in the late 60s early 70s. Then, nothing else made by king crimson ever got as popular and they’re nowadays known for that album and their stand in jojo.

really happy to say the strokes managed to avoid this distinction 19 years into their career. if you check streaming numbers, the new abnormal is the album that most closely rivals is this it

I honestly thought you would cover the ultimate one album wonder of my teens, Cowboy Junkies. The Trinity Session was an absolute favorite, however they fell off a cliff into a mine shaft after that and never did anything as impactful again.

Gaelle's "Transient" should be up there. Imagine making all time great R&B album then just disappeared.

Nice video and cool idea. I went onto Acclaimed Music to look for bands with one album ranked distinctly higher than the rest. Of the top 50 ranked albums, this is what I found: Beach Boys (Pets Sounds, rank 1; next highest ranked, Surf's Up, rank 761) Patti Smith (Horses 25; Easter, 945) Television (Marquee Moon, 28; Adventure, 2565) The Strokes (Is This It, 34; Room On Fire, 1586)

Seeing the title "One Album Wonder," the group that immediately came to mind was Blind Faith, with members Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker, and Ric Grech. Blind Faith is indisputably a One Album Wonder, as they did in fact produce only one album. It can even be argued their original material didn't fill a full album, as about 3/4 of side 2 is a jam session that takes up about 15 minutes. Now, with your inclusion of groups that produced additional albums which just didn't sell as well or receive much critical acclaim, my first thought is Bad English. Their first album was huge, but their second album got little notice. After that disappointment, the group broke up.

I would like to throw 'we started nothing' by The Ting Tings into the fray - which I would consider to be a forgotten classic in pop music minimalism. Obviously it had the undeniable hit of 'that's not my name', a song that still lingers on in pop culture today, but there was also 'Shut up and let me go' and 'Great Dj', which also performed decently on the charts. The Ting Tings were shaping up for greatness, with their own kind of sound and Bri'ish charisma, a greatness that would have only been secured if they didn't wait 4 years with no promotion to come out with a follow up, which had NOTHING of anything people liked from their first album, from the instrumentals and hooks down to the way it was produced. From what I gather, they scrapped their 2010 follow up because their record label... Liked it too much? The Tings apparently didn't want another smash hit, and so deleted the project off their laptops and started again, to very mixed results. I think they also pissed their label off by making them spend a million pounds on a video they didn't even use (I have no idea why they had the power to reject a video that was shot and editted, but it would explain the lack of marketting presence their second record had).Weird guys. They're putting out stuff now, but I think in trying to be too different from what they'd done before they'd completely lost their way, which is a real shame because their first record is so amazingly consistent.

We all know MGMT’s oracular spectacular belongs here. Little dark age is a quiet masterpiece but it’s nothing compared to the major impact and airwaves they had in the late 2000s

I think you should have mentioned Cracked Rear view by hootie and the Blowfish that is definitely a one hit album and it's personally one of my favorites. It is the 19th best selling album in the United States but they never had another Smash hit like that. But I'd say it is one of the best 90s albums and it's crazy it sold that much

Implying that Sid Viscous had anything to do with the Sex Pistols’ creative output; or that George Harrison’s Cloud Nine album wasn’t immensely popular is some serious revisionist history.

Nice overview, I'd like to add Stereo MCs and Elastica to that mix