One of mine is Commit This to Memory by Motion City Soundtrack. I basically took the title verbatim and know the album word for word. And while I would love if it did, the rest of MCS’s stuff just doesn’t hit the same way.

And if you’re not an album person, maybe a period of time in the artist’s work? Whatever works for you.

*Lots of mentions of hit debut albums that subsequently petered out, which follows with the dreaded sophomore slump that hits many artists. Anyone with mid or even later career albums that stand alone? Those always intrigue me.

  • herrcaptain@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    How about we take it a step further: Gotye’s song “Somebody That I Used to Know” is sooooo different from the rest of his discography. The rest of that album is great but is stylistically very different and never blew me away like that one single.

    • Jaytreeman@kbin.social
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      6 months ago

      Lol. I’m the opposite. Love his other stuff. I can sing along to most of the songs on two albums, but that hit… It’s an instant classic, but very much a pop song. His other stuff is almost antipop

      • herrcaptain@lemmy.ca
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        6 months ago

        Antipop is definitely a great way to describe all his other stuff. And to be clear, I kinda went against the theme of this discussion because I genuinely quite like his other stuff, just not to the degree that I like that one hit.

        • Jaytreeman@kbin.social
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          6 months ago

          ‘As I lay dying’ might appeal to you. It’s another song that’s great but nothing like the other stuff in the catalog piece

    • Ostrichgrif@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I heard a story once that he made that song to show how easy it is to have a mega hit song even though he didn’t like it himself, kind of like the guys that formed MGMT. Unsure of the source on that and it could very well be untrue but it would make sense.

      • SgtLuno@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        MGMT is another good one! First album was amazing, 2nd one was really good, everything else is meh except Little Dark Age (just the song).

        • brian@programming.dev
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          6 months ago

          little dark age (album) really just should have been 7 copies of little dark age (song). for some reason I always want more but nothing ever quite fits to follow up