Mort Sahl brought Shelley Berman to Verve Records for Shelley to record his debut (and to which Sahl contributed the liner notes.) Mort Sahl's first two comedy albums came out in 1958. His first, At Sunset, had been recorded in 1955, but his second album was more contemporaneous to its release. Mort Sahl released The Future Lies Ahead on Verve Records.
Here is the discography surrounding Mort Sahl's second album:
Originally, Nichols and May performed as a threesome with fellow Compass Player, Shelley Berman, but three was a crowd and Berman was crowded out. But, he still found his own success as a nightclub comic and released his debut album Inside Shelley Berman in 1958 on Verve Records.
Here is the discography surrounding Shelley Berman's debut album:
"Sonata for Piano and Celeste" by Mike Nichols & Elaine May
The ascent of Whoopi's one-woman show to Broadway was helped along by director Mike Nichols. Nichols had also parlayed a stage and film career from a start in comedy. He was a member of the Compass Players (a proto-Second City) in Chicago where he developed an improv routine with Elaine May. They would leave Compass as an act and immediately find success as "Nichols and May." They released their debut album Improvisations to Music in late 1958 on Mercury Records.
Here is the discography surrounding Mike Nichols & Elaine May's debut album:
Improvisations to Music
Excerpts from "Improvisations to Music" (1958 promo single)
Nichols and May on Omnibus with Alistair Cooke
Nichols and May at the Emmys
"Everybody's Doing It" by Mike Nichols & Elaine May
Lily Tomlin was the first solo woman to win in the Best Comedy Recording category at the Grammys for her debut album. The next woman to win in the category also won for her debut album: Whoopi Goldberg's 1985 Whoopi Goldberg: Original Broadway Show Recording from Geffen Records.
Here is the discography surrounding Whoopi Goldberg's debut album:
Cheech & Chong's debut album was nominated in 1972 for Best Comedy Recording but lost out to another debut album nominated that year: Lily Tomlin's This Is a Recording, released in 1971 on Polydor Records.
Here is the discography surrounding Lily Tomlin's debut album:
An Evening at the Upstairs Downstairs Presents: Mixed Doubles and Below the Belt - Original Cast Recordings (1966 album)
Tommy Chong was one of the longest tenured Vancouvers and, before relocating to the US, a Vancouver-local business partner with Bobby Taylor. The modest success brought from the band's album and singles didn't meet his ambition and that ambition would, at least in part, lead to the dissolution of a band that was just getting started... though probably not going to do much better. Tommy Chong continued pursuing music but that would gradually give way to the greater success he found through comedy. His short-lived improv comedy troupe City Works would bring him and Cheech Marin together, and a routine was born. Cheech & Chong would release their debut album Cheech and Chong in 1971 on Ode Records.
Here is the discography surrounding Cheech & Chong's debut album:
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" by Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers
Gladys Knight may have brought the Jackson family name to Motown, but that didn't make any difference for their career. The Jackson 5 continued to tour and heard nothing back from their first booster. In 1968 at the Regal Theater in Chicago, they ended up opening for Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers, a diverse R&B group that had just released their debut album Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers on the Motown subsidiary Gordy Records. According to Taylor, Michael followed him around whenever either weren't on stage for the duration of their gig. Impressed by The Jackson 5's work ethic and Michael's James Brown-inspired performances, he told them that he could get them a meeting with Motown. He followed through and brought them to Motown himself.
Bobby Taylor performed throughout the tumultuous early history of rock and roll and set to wax doowop, garage rock and R&B. By the time he and his band were discovered and brought to Motown from... Vancouver, they were ready to deliver a solid record.
Most of the album consists of covers but for a couple originals that includes their debut single "Does Your Mama Know About Me," a song that would've played nicely during the opening credits of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. While the singles are helped along with flowery production, the repertoire covers that make up the rest of the album are a fruitful mix of genres from Taylor's past: simple but effective garage rock drums; punctuating doo-wop harmonies; funky, melodic bass lines; the occasional psychedelic guitar touch; and the anchoring, soulful voice of Bobby Taylor. Taylor makes it all work and he carries each song as best he can while the delicate sonic balance is staged all around him.
Here is the discography for Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers:
The Move Around (1958 single by 4 Pharaohs)
Give Me Your Love (1960 single by 4 Pharaohs)
Give Me Your Love (1960 single by Columbus Pharaohs)
Seven Steps to an Angel (1961 single by Bobby Taylor with Charlie and The Jives)
Too Much Monkey Business (1965 single by Little Daddie and The Bachelors)
Come On Home (1965 song by Little Daddie and The Bachelors)
Without Love (1967 single by Ronnie Taylor)
Does Your Mama Know About Me (1968 promo single)
Does Your Mama Know About Me (1968 single)
Malinda (1968 single)
Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers
I Am Your Man (1968 single)
In Bed (1969 single by Wes Henderson)
How Insensitive (1973 single by The Jury)
"It's Growing" by Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers
"I Am Your Man" by Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers
Despite the impression left by the album's title, Diana Ross didn't play a role in the "presentation" of The Jackson 5. Her name was included to cross-promote the start of her own solo career with the Five's debut. Gladys Knight, rather, was the first to bring the Jacksons to the attention of Motown brass. Gladys Knight and The Pips released their debut album Letter Full of Tears in 1962 on Fury Records.
Gladys Knight and The Pips had a tumultuous start. They started with a regional hit, "Every Beat of My Heart," that propelled them out of Atlanta to New York. The requisite album that followed didn't find the same success. Disintegration followed as the family band lost all its female members, including Gladys, to the family way. The Pips hung on as a solid live act and Gladys Knight pursued a solo career in collaboration with her husband.
Their debut album is also a tumultuous start to a storied career. Gladys dominates the album with a natural but young voice not yet ready for the forced crescendos in rock 'n' roll ballads of teenage wanting (the kind of songs Lesley Gore would perfect just a year later.) All the same song structure and none too flattering to a young talent. The Pips meanwhile are left to twiddle their harmonies redundantly behind typical pre-Beatles studio production, only getting a chord in edgewise to button a song. The occasional song does show their promise with "What Shall I Do?" highlighting Knight at her best, a soft, nearly spoken delivery that encourages the listener to lean in, and the song even gives The Pips unimpeded "Hey Hey Hey"'s. The song's last line even brings it all back around by slyly invoking the "Letter Full of Tears" that started the album.
Here is the discography surrounding Gladys Knight and The Pips's debut album:
Whistle My Love (1958 single by The Pips)
Every Beat of My Heart (1961 single)
Every Beat of My Heart (1961 single)
Guess Who (1961 single)
Letter Full of Tears (1961 single)
Letter Full of Tears
Operator (1962 single)
Linda (1962 single by The Pips)
Happiness (Is the Light of Love) (1962 single by The Pips)
Come See About Me (1963 single by Gladys Knight)
Queen of Tears (1963 single by Gladys Knight)
"Every Beat of My Heart" by Gladys Knight & The Pips
Bobby Shad had only one original composition for his Bad Men to perform. The rest were arrangements of some of the more eclectic hits of the sixties. "I Want You Back" was the highlight of Bobby Shad's 65-piece rock orchestra album just as it was the highlight four years earlier on Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5, the 1969 debut album by The Jackson 5 released on Motown Records.
Berry Gordy knew he had a sure hit if he could get The Jackson 5 off on the right foot. A dynamite 11 year old lead singer amidst a family of talented young boys might not have the longest shelf life in the music business, and their 1969 sessions consisting of backwards-facing soul covers wouldn't cut the lacquer for popular audiences—no matter how many string arrangements adorned their harmonies. Motown's West Coast studio crew The Corporation took over the recording of the boy band's debut and gave the 5 what would become their first single and a No. 1, at that.
"I Want You Back" lays down a great funk arrangement, groundwork for a star-making performance from a young Michael Jackson pushed to the edge of his vocal powers to spectacular results . But it proves hard to match as Michael does his best to elevate the rest of the album's cover songs. His maximal effort occasionally turns to strain in handling dubious material choices and dealing with inconsistent production quality. When other Jacksons get their shot at leading, the songs pale even more. But the talent is evident and exciting even if it is inexperienced and tilted too far onto the youngest Jackson's shoulders.
Here is the discography surrounding The Jackson 5's debut album:
Big Boy (1968 single)
I Want You Back (1969 single)
Diana Ross Presents The Jackson 5
We Don't Have to Be Over 21 (To Fall in Love) (1970 single)
Before they were Skip & Flip, Clyde Battin and Gary Paxton played as The Pledges and then Gary and Clyde. It was when they were signed to Bob Shad's Brent Records that they got the moniker that stuck. Bob Shad was a producer and small label boss who worked across genres. He organized A 65-Piece Workshop, a Big Band Rock album as Bobby Shad and The Bad Men and released it in 1973 on his own Mainstream Records label.
Great song choices constitute an album of luxuriant covers played as big as the 65 orchestra pieces portend. Shad's comfort with an array of genres (jazz, blues, rock and roll, orchestral) and the arrangements by Ron Frangipane work together to keep the songs fresh and playful, if not nimble, as they are engorged with brass and strings, interludes and slick solos by some outstanding session players. The bass, about as heavy as the rest of the band put together (despite the brass's best efforts,) sets the album in contemporary funk and prevents the various sections from floating the album's conceit too far away from its rock and roll roots.
Here is Bobby Shad and The Bad Men's discography:
Bobby Shad and The Bad Men
"Pinball Wizard by Bobby Shad and The Bad Men
"Up on Cripple Creek" by Bobby Shad and The Bad Men
The major labels all passed on Bobby Pickett's novelty single, so it took the young production phenom Gary S. Paxton to shepherd it along and release it on his own label, Garpax Records. Paxton previously performed under the moniker Flip with his college pal Clyde Battin, aka Skip. Skip & Flip were a short-lived duo with a handful of hit singles during their run. These recordings are collected in It Was I - The Very Best of Skip & Flip, the contents of which were all released between 1959 and 1961.
Lo-fi and rudimentary rock 'n roll make up the body of Skip & Flip's output. Full of "Na Na Nas" and "Whoa-ohs," their songs, subsequent to their debut "It Was I," echo previous radio hits across rock song forms (ballad, dance craze, story song,...) with only "Fancy Nancy" having any verve. The rest lack inspiration and fail to push them out of the shadows of less tame Rock & Roll duos.
Note: Another compilation means another year listing that represents when the material was first released, and not when the actual compilation album came out. That would be 1998.
Here is the discography for Skip & Flip:
Betty Jean (1958 single as The Pledges)
Why Not Confess (1958 single as Gary and Clyde)
One Hundred Baby (1959 single as Chuck and Chuckles)
It Was I (1959 single)
Fancy Nancy (1959 single)
Cherry Pie (1960 single)
Green Door (1960 single)
Hully Gully Cha Cha Cha (1960 single)
Searching for Linda (1960 single by Skip)
Tami's Dance (1960 single by Clyde Gary & His Orchestra)
Betty Jean (1961 single)
In the Soup (1961 single by Skip & The Hustlers)
Twister (1961 single by Clyde Battin)
Strange as It Seems (1961 single by Leonard Brothers with The Pledges)
"Rabian - The Fiendage Idol" by Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers
The scene was rockin', all were digging the sounds
(Wa-ooh) Igor on chains, backed by his baying hounds
(Wa-wa-ooh) The Coffin Bangers were about to arrive
(Wa-ooh) With their vocal group, The Crypt-Kicker Five
Bobby Pickett released his Halloween classic single "Monster Mash" in 1962 and its album The Original Monster Mash the same year on Garpax Records.
The album starts with the "Monster Mash" and builds upon the world established in it. Bobby Pickett's Dr. Frankenstein-like "Boris," henchman Igor, pop idol-aspirant Wolfman and rival "Drac" all return to pad the album with their own dance craze hits and graveyard skits. At its best, Bobby Pickett and his producers hit a Frank Zappa (for kids) level of satire, but that sense of wit is short-lived as the songs feel ever longer and tiresome and the interest in spoofing loses ground to world-building. After a few non-hit singles as just Bobby Pickett, "Boris" and the gang would return to recording every now and then either to spoof the latest trend (Woodstock, Rap) or advocate for social issues like the environment and anti-smoking.
Here is the discography surrounding Bobby Pickett's debut album:
The International Twist (1962 single with The Cordials)
Monster Mash (1962 single as Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers)
The Original Monster Mash
Monsters' Holiday (1962 single as Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers)
Graduation Day (1963 single)
Simon the Sensible Surfer (1963 single)
The Monster Swim (1964 single as Bobby Pickett and The Rolling Bones)
Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette) (1964 single as Bobby Pickett and The Filter-Tip Kickers)
Blood Bank Blues (1965 single as Bobby (Boris) Pickett)
Wake Up My Mind (1965 single)
Monster Concert (1970 single as Bobby (Boris) Pickett)
Monster Man Jam (1970 single as Bobby (Boris) Pickett)
Me and My Mummy (1973 single as Bobby (Boris) Pickett)
Monster Rap (1984 single as Bobby (Boris) Pickett)
"Monster Mash" by Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers
"Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)" by Bobby Pickett and The Filter-Tip Kickers
Jack Endino produced Afghan Whigs's label debut. It wasn't a very big or successful or necessarily well-organized label, but at the time, Sub Pop was a step up from the Whigs's self-released debut. Endino, whilst producing, also played in a handful of bands throughout the late eighties, and his debut recording was on the 1986 self-released, self-titled Crypt Kicker Five (often shortened to Crypt Kicker 5 for... space reasons?)
While a lot of the music Jack Endino produced, and produced, favored hard rock and heavy metal influences, Crypt Kicker Five prefers surf rock and post-punk. The allure of the band is in the interwoven guitar and bass and in the unique keys and tunings used to build songs that can sound at times oriental or aquatic or horror punk. The lyrics are unintelligible without any liner notes (though they hardly seem necessary,) and Jaime Caffery's voice in the mix unfortunately doesn't have the force it needs to anchor the meandering compositions as Endino's drums do. The album is one of two sides and Side B shows off the band in a live context: energetic, humorous, improvisational and imperfect. Not much would be gained from the addition but for filler in a shoestring production if not for Side A which hypnotizes with its complexity and texture. In turn, Side B becomes a fascinating microhistory of a band that could have been so much more.
Here is the Crypt Kicker Five discography:
Ya Ya Love Song (1984 song on The Sound of Young Seattle compilation album)
Crypt Kicker Five
Shoot to Kill (1988 song on Secretions compilation album)
Mecca (1988 song on Bands That Will Make Money, Too compilation album)
4th Hole (1990 single)
Shoot to Kill (1993 song on A Far Cry compilation album)
4th Hole/Bedouin Stomp (2011 song on C/Z Records Unreleased Singles 1987-1993 compilation album)
Shellac the Bozak claimed Ultrasuede-002. There was no -003. Ultrasuede-001 belonged toa release we've visited before: Big Top Halloweenby Afghan Whigs; appropriate, as the Whigs's John Curley created the Ultrasuede "label" and studio. As such, we return to Afghan Whigs and their second album Up In It released in 1990 on Sub Pop Records.
The Afghan Whigs got an indie label and grunge producer and it led to a step in more focused musical direction. They now had a sound and lyrical themes to match, an evolution of metal and punk that dwells in the seedy minds of addicts, deviants and abusers. The band brings to life, not the internal psychoses and obsessions of each song's character, but the world those characters live in... or at least they try to. When it's not working, sometimes you just have to plod through it with guitars on loud.
Here is the discography surrounding Afghan Whigs's second album:
John Curley owned and operated Ultrasuede Studio where Lizard 99 recorded their debut (which he also engineered.) A further extension of his DIY ethos had Curley creating his own label, also called Ultrasuede, that released the only album by Liquid Hippos, Shellac the Bozak, in 1988.
It's often amazing how deep and powerful rock and roll can be despite and because of how young the musicians are. Even immaturity can find resonance and beauty in the zeitgeist... or it can be produce some of the stupidest lyrics put to wax. Shellac the Bozak is an obscure album (with only one song available online) and there's not much use in bringing it up for rediscovery. Although the band is musically adept and their sound dances the line between 80s alternative and indie music, everything about the album, from production to lyrics, sounds like a practice run for putting out a record without any intention of it leaving the safety of the Cleveland music scene.
The lyrics are the bane of the album: confused when hiding in nonsense and laughable when they make sense. Every song seems to have a line meant to surprise for its sheer absurdity but those lyrics stand apart, aren't funny and do the songs no favors. The liner notes chronicle each song but one, the closing song "Unicorn Hop" which gives it the feel of a "hidden track." Where all the other songs carry an air of seriousness, this one was meant to be a lark. For posterity, I will go out of my way to chronicle one stanza from the song:
This old man he played one, he played knick knack on my thumb!
This old man he played two, he played knick knack on my shoe!
This old man he played three, he played knick knack on my knee!
This old man he played four; he played knick knack on my BOOTY!!!
Miraculous.
I'm still shocked that line exists, but sometimes youthful creativity takes you to some truly stupid places.
The Greenhornes's recorded their debut at Ultrasuede Studio in Cincinnati. One of the earliest other debut albums I could find recorded there was Lizard 99's 1990 self-released album Black Fantastic.
The first track of Black Fantastic calls to mind The Feelies mixed with Steve Albini's Big Black project but after "Dance Dance Dance" concludes, it gives way to the less industrial and more metal and goth rock influences of the 80s. Solid musicianship prevents Black Fantastic from becoming a chore to listen to even if the lyrics force an eye-roll at least once or twice per song.
Zee Avi had gone viral with her song "No Christmas for Me" but it took drummer Patrick Keeler to begin the journey of getting her name to the right people, specifically, to his manager Ian Montone.
Patrick Keeler has drummed in a few bands but started out with the retro garage rock band The Greenhornes. The quintet released their debut album Gun for You in 1999, and it is the sole release of Prince Records (likely the band's own label.)
The title of the album and its cover are the only indicators for the listener that this is a nineties release. Play any track at random and it could be the start of a compilation album featuring decent but forgotten Midwestern garage rock gems of the 1960s. But, The Greenhornes are not a sixties band and they're not musical archaeologists though they make a good act of it. Rather, they are more akin to geneticists, and their cloning project is a scientific success. From the lyrics and song structures to the vocals and harmonies to the guitar riffs and audio production, they sound exactly like a band formed amidst the long shadow of The Rolling Stones that never managed to sonically get out from under it. If the album were a rediscovery from a past era, it might have enjoyed cult status as an album of the lost "very good" from creative middle America. Instead, The Greenhornes have crafted an album as a very good bar band: playing for patrons originals that sound like covers which are just trying to recapture, for the players and for the listeners, the love of a past era now gone.
Here is the discography surrounding The Greenhornes's debut album:
The word about Zee Avi passed to the Malloys from Ian Montone, entertainment lawyer turned band manager turned management company impresario. Montone got off to a major start through his management of The White Stripes. He followed that up by guiding the success of indie darlings Vampire Weekend. Their debut Vampire Weekend came out in 2008 on XL Recordings.
Vampire Weekend's sound is a testament to how much popular and critical traction a band can get on the back of good taste. They transpose the sonic history of African guitar pop to the ivy league campus where it mixes with the more local chamber pop and indie influences. But what pushes the band's debut to a modern classic is an ideal of creative collaboration that challenges each contribution to be its most engaging best before all of them are neatly nestled together into an efficient, tight and buoyant song. The conceptual result is full of life in execution and in reception: eternally fresh and iconically memorable. The traveling, the melange, the product is a story of music just as familiar to Congo or Mali as to Columbia University and all the college campuses that had Vampire Weekend retelling it from just about every open window.
Here is the discography surrounding Vampire Weekend's debut album:
Vampire Weekend (2007 EP)
Mansard Roof (2007 single)
OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer (2007 compilation song)
The discovery and signing of Zee Avi took a winding road. She ended up on Jack Johnson's Brushfire Records but she was referred to Brushfire through Jack's surfing buddies, the Malloy Brothers. The Malloys got their big break with the surfing film Thicker Than Water, co-directed with Johnson, then shifted their attention to music videos for the first decade of the millennium. They worked primarily with rock acts and helped break out a handful of indie hopefuls. One of those hopefuls was the Cold War Kids for whom the Malloys directed the music video to "Hang Me Up to Dry," a song from their debut album Robbers & Cowards released in 2006 by Downtown Records.
Song by song, Cold War Kids show that they have a knack for the occasional bass hook or guitar riff but then can never turn any of these into a decent song. The missteps come from a combination of a sound, lacking any complexity, that owes way too much to other better bands; poorly executed "high concepts;" and insufferable lyrics, full of forced anthems, and made grating by Nathan Willett's strained singing voice which veers closer to a baby's wail than to an obnoxious Jack White impression. The Kids are also attracted to the use of noise as metaphor while lacking the ear for either. They are a band that have ideas though, but never more than one idea at a time, and if it's a clever idea, it's safe to know you can listen to a better execution of it from someone else.
Here is the discography surrounding Cold War Kids' debut album:
Mulberry Street (2005 EP)
With Our Wallets Full (2005 EP)
Up in Rags (2006 EP)
Up in Rags/With Our Wallets Full (2006 compilation album)
Four Excerpts from Robbers & Cowards (2006 promo disc)
Robbers & Cowards
We Used to Vacation (2006 EP)
Benefit at the District (2006 live EP)
Hang Me Up to Dry (2007 single)
Hospital Beds (2007 single)
OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer (2007 compilation song)
Zee Avi signed to Brushfire Records, a label created by Jack Johnson and named for his debut album Brushfire Fairytales, releasedin 2001 on Everloving Records.
Jack Johnson proves a clever songwriter, building up memorable images and wordplay intertwined into rolling rhythms. The lyrics are suffused with enough film language repurposed for metaphor to remind the listener he's not too far removed from film school, and he's not removed at all from his home state of Hawaii and his love of surfing. They anchor the album both musically and philosophically in a new iteration of surf music.
Here is the discography surrounding Jack Johnson's debut album:
Ken Boudakian played session guitar for Cli-N-Tel's Shinin' on the Funk. Outside of his main band (which is an ineligible stop for chronological reasons,) Boudakian doesn't have much other session work to his credit. One of the few is for Malaysian singer-songwriter Zee Avi who released her debut album Zee Avi in 2009 on Brushfire Records.
Zee Avi's music is comfortable. Her songs are anchored by the warmth of her guitar or ukulele that sound like a summer rain on the roof and a voice that captures the emotions and romantic memories that go with it. Her songs are best when not overdressed with typical indiepop production; her lyrics are simple, straightforward and welcoming. They lack that extra layer of depth, structure or poetry that could have been nurtured with a little more experience and time. Though the comparison might be unfair, her songwriting is overshadowed by the veteran pen of Morrissey in her poignant cover of "First of the Gang to Die." But with an album so much of the time of fresh youtube discoveries, the indie boom, and youth in transition, it was better not to wait.
Here is the discography surrounding Zee Avi's debut album:
This Warm December: A Brushfire Holiday Vol. 1 (2008 compilation song)
Brushfire Records Fall 2009 Sampler (2009 compilation song)
Cli-N-Tel left the Wreckin' Cru after the first album to pursue his own creative and financial direction. His journey continued with a few singles in collaboration with The Unknown DJ and then recorded again in the mid-nineties as a classic rap act. In 1996, he released his solo album Shinin' on the Funk on the Dolphin label in Japan.
After nearly 10 years away from professional recording, Cli-N-Tel proves that he has kept up with the West Coast rap scene and that his lyricism has evolved accordingly. The album is underpinned by excellent beats that sonically chronicle the evolution of hip hop since Cli-N-Tel's World Class days. His raps tell the genre's story, exposes its accrued pomp and reminds listeners of its true source as an art form. In its unique way, Shinin' is a concept album and Cli-N-Tel confidently embraces his role as classic rapper and hip hop historian.
Did you spot Dr. Dre in the "Same Song" video? Both Eazy-E and he are impossible to miss as neither seem to want to be there. Dr. Dre's first recordings were with the World Class Wreckin' Cru. The Wreckin' Cru released their debut album World Class in 1985 on Kru-Cut Records, a label created by group leader Lonzo (or Alonzo Williams) to release the Cru's output. The album is often redundant ("Planet"), occasionally forward looking ("Gang Bang You're Dead") and entirely percussive.
Here is the discography surrounding World Class Wreckin' Cru's debut album:
Slice (1984 single as The Wreckin Cru)
Surgery (1984 single as The Wreckin Cru)
Juice (1985 single)
World Class
Bust It Up (1985 single)
Juice (1985 EP)
"Surgery" by World Class Wreckin' Cru
"Gang Bang You're Dead" by World Class Wreckin' Cru
As one of the Oakland's premier rappers, Shock G made a couple of guest appearances on Luniz material: on the Oakland-loaded remix of "I Got 5 On It" and as Shock Jesus on "5150". We return, then, to Digital Underground for their Gold-certified This Is an E.P. Release released in 1991 by Tommy Boy Entertainment. The EP capitalized on the group's appearance in the film Nothing But Trouble from the same year. The film featured two songs from the EP, "Same Song" and "Tie the Knot".
The album might seem like a cash grab but its quality as filler only gives Shock G more room to shine. Shock's multiple-personality based humor and his keyboards become the reason to keep playing this record, and the remixes (of Sex Packet singles) reinforce Digital Underground as an act untethered by genre. Oh, and 2Pac has a verse on "Same Song".
Note: This is the Tour's first stop at an EP release rather than an album or compilation album. These kinds of stops I reserve for notable EPs.
Here is the discography surrounding Digital Undergrounds second release:
"Chris spreading faulty rumors around the town like Club Nouveau/Really though?"
Luniz used a degraded sample of Club Nouveau's "Why You Treat Me So Bad" to lay the framework for their song "I Got 5 On It". (On the all-star remix, E-40 is hip to the sample and runs the line to start his flow.) The song also featured Michael Marshall of Timex Social Club singing the chorus. Luniz released their debut album Operation Stackola in 1995 on Noo Trybe Records (a sublabel of Virgin Records.)
Here is the discography surrounding Luniz's debut album:
(Formally Known as The LuniTunes) (1994 EP)
I Got 5 On It (1995 single)
Operation Stackola
Playa Hata (1995 single)
Operation Stackola (6 Tracks EP) (1995 promo EP)
Operation Stackola (Hot Club Wax)
X.O. (1996 single)
Out to Be the Boss (1996 compilation track with Seagram)
Bootlegs & B-Sides (1997 compilation album)
"I Got 5 On It" by Luniz
"I Got 5 On It (Clean Bay Ballas Vocal Remix)" by Luniz
Timex Social Club's producers, Denzil Foster, Thomas McElroy and Jay King, all bailed on the Timex Social Club project and formed their own Club Nouveau. Off the strength of their hit single with Timex, Club Nouveau signed with Warner Bros. Records and released their debut album Life, Love & Pain in late 1986. The album is much of the same including their first single "Jealousy" an echo of and response to Timex's "Rumors". The songs are, as before, meant for the club and a good time and some of those songs endear you to them over time... particularly those silly, synthy "Lean on Me" bass lines.
Here is the discography surrounding Club Nouveau's debut album:
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