One-or-two album wonders

Awesome bands who had one or two albums!

For me, EZO. Why these guys did'nt take off I will never know, they're way better than Loudness at times.

David Bowie 1947-2016

Conscious Rot's 1995 demo The Soil should have gotten them signed but then again they were in a country like Lithuania which isn't exactly a stronghold for metal in the first place. They basically bridged the gap between American and Scandinavian style death metal and created a hybrid that took the best parts of both. The raw rhythmic crush, technicality, and labyrinthine structures of the American sound mixed with a Scandinavian ear for dirge-like doom, arching melodies, and a narrative approach to song development. They were up there with Timeghoul in terms of how promising they were.

Only Death Is Real

Don't forget to add them to the One-Book Author page if they're not there already! [[/shamelessplug]]

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• The Monks: Black Monk Time (1966). They tried to be the anti-Beatles, and wound up playing punk rock a decade too early, then burned out.
• Runforyerlife: Runforyerlife (1999). Mix of ska, jazz, and funk. I used to be obsessed with Ska Punk, but this album killed that obsession: it's so good, it made most of the other ska-punk albums in my collection sound terrible in comparison.
• Chasing Furies: With Abandon (1999). Somewhere between post-punk and goth, with just enough pop in the vocals that they might have really gone somewhere if they had stuck together.
• The Deluxtone Rockets: The Deluxtone Rockets (1999), Green Room Blues (2001). On the first album, they beat Brian Setzer at his own game (namely, swing-rockabilly fusion) as far as I'm concerned. The second album was just rockabilly, and was merely great (in comparison with the face-melting awesomeness of the first album).
• The Brothers Martin: The Brothers Martin (2007). Does a one-time collaboration between two otherwise-prolific musicians count? In any case, this album is catchy as hell, and sounds more like the '80s than the '80s themselves did.

Huh. Didn't realize before making the list how many of these were from 1999.

Demilich had only one full-length, Nespithe. It went out of print not long after release but has been available on the band's website, along with all their demos and a few live recordings, for many years.

Somehow you know that the time is right.

I enjoy that Monks album. as does Mark E. Smith, apparently, as The Fall have covered at least three songs from it.

Forest For The Trees - Forest For The Trees (1997). Maybe not a great album, but definitely an interesting and promising one. Carl Stephenson basically is Forest For The Trees, and he also co-wrote and co-produced several songs from Beck's Mellow Gold, including "Loser". He started working on this album in 1993, but due to a nervous breakdown it didn't see release for another four years - Beck makes a vocal cameo on the song "Infinite Cow", and due to Vocal Evolution you can tell that his part was most likely recorded in 1993 or so. It would have sort of been a bit ahead of it's time had it come out a few years earlier, as it's sort of like a new-age-ier take on Odelay. Reportedly there's a finished second album that it's likely no one is ever going to hear, and the only other release with more original material on it is an EP called Sound Of Wet Paint, featuring two outtakes, a remix, and, oddly enough, a cover of the title song from The Sound Of Music. You may have seen the appropriately Surreal Music Video for "Dream" get some airplay:

edited 15th Apr '13 11:05:04 AM by MikeK

Slauter Xstroyes made a strange technical take on power metal back in the early 80's, kind of like Cynic if they were raised on a diet of Omen and Cloven Hoof.

They had a second album that was just a compilation of various other songs, some of which were to be for a second album, but seems usually ignored in favour of the first. However it's much longer and shows just how skilled they were from 1981 - 1987.

Only Death Is Real

The Adverts had Crossing The Red Sea as their great debut album, only releasing an overlooked second album before breaking up

yeah man lowercase

Note: The following list is not taking into account live albums, compilations, and the like.

Neutral Milk Hotel
The Sex Pistols
Joy Division
The Germs
Jay Reatard - He was in a few bands, but his solo material seems more popular according to last.fm and he had only two solo albums.
Jeff Buckley
The Sonics
The Modern Lovers
The Clifford Gilberto Rhythm Combination
The Urinals - Technically, they do have a couple albums under the name 100 Flowers, but I consider them different bands considering their albums as 100 Flowers seem to be more serious whereas as the Urinals, they're just doing some goofy punk parodies and the like.

Those are the main ones I can remember from the top of my head. I have also been recommended Charles Bronson and Cap'n Jazz, both of which have one album as well as a compilation of just about every song they ever recorded, but I haven't gotten around to listening to either of them so I will have to verify their awesomeness at a later date.

edited 17th Apr '13 7:27:32 AM by FingerPuppet

I was just listening to Spiderland and I can't believe I forgot Slint. Arguably the first post-rock band, their complete discography consists of two albums and an EP.

In 2005, Dream Works' Nashville division introduced a band called Hot Apple Pie, which was led by former Little Texas member Brady Seals. Their album wasn't very deep, but it was a lot of fun. Also on the label was a duo called Hanna-McEuen, first cousins whose fathers co-founded the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Hanna-McEuen's album was downright amazing, with great harmonies and musicianship. But DreamWorks records closed in the middle of the year, so both albums went nowhere and both acts broke up.

Here's Hot Apple Pie's only hit, "Hillbillies": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjH8kqi8Etg

And Hanna-McEuen's only hit, "Something Like a Broken Heart": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNJL2WWCB84

Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth.

A lot of post-punk bands had this happen.

Gang of Four, Mission of Burma, This Heat... Mission of Burma did come back though, and it was good.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

Gang Of Four had four (Entertainment, Solid Gold , Songs of the Free and Hard). Not to mention their albums in the 90's and 2000's.

edited 12th Jun '13 5:55:30 PM by Quag15

Lothar and the Hand People.

An experimental rock band, they played satyrical and catchy psychedelic rock. They released two albums Presenting Lothar and the Hand People, and Space Hymn. The first album was the best, but the second is still pretty good and has their most popular single of the same name. They combined great early psychedelia with upbeat rock that's a fun listen. In my opinion, one of the most original rock bands to come out of the 60s.

They sang about goat people?

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The word "satire" comes from the Satyricon, so it's not the worst possible error.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Still pretty egregious

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The Avalanches

Still waiting for that second album.

Lauryn Hill. After The Fugees' breakup, in 1998 she released one of the best Hip-Hop albums of all time, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Her 2nd album was an MTV unplugged album that wasn't that great. I still listen to Miseducation a lot. That said, if she released another album I would be afraid to buy it, from what I've heard she's not the most mentally stable person. I heard she showed up 4 hours late for a concert and then yelled at the audience for being angry with her.

Come on, the least stable people make the best music.

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This tack made me think of Skip Spence, who fits into this category and has been described as "the American Syd Barrett"... He had schizophrenia, and infamously chopped down a hotel door in attempt to kill one of his band mates in Moby Grape (and intended to do the same to a second one). His lone solo album, 1969's Oar, is kind of a skewed, psychedelic take on folk and blues, with almost a "slightly more accessible Captain Beefheart" thing going at times. Plus, I think opening track "Little Hands" could have been a hit at the time if it'd had a more polished arrangement (though I think it's beautiful as is).

Gang Of Four did have a bunch of albums, but only one that anyone seems to care about, so there's that.

Maybe I'll do a First Installment Wins thread for albums.

I like Solid Gold. And some of the songs on Hard. I haven't listened to Songs of the Free, though.

One of my favourite albums ever is Details (2002), the only album by Frou Frou, collaboration of singer/songwriter Imogen Heap and producer Guy Sigsworth. Mellow electronic music, pretty compositions and best vocal work of Heap's career. And a lot of Singing Simlish.

Their most known song is probably Let Go, which has been used in numerous films such as Garden State and The Holiday. They also did the cover of Holding Out For A Hero that plays over the credits of Shrek 2.