3 Bands From the 1990s That Would Still Be Legends, Even if They Stopped After Their Debut Album

I don’t know which is harder: recording a classic debut album or writing the hit follow-up. It typically takes most bands a few releases to develop their best work. Radiohead, Wilco, U2, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones each released multiple albums before writing their masterpieces. And the music business, for all its imperfections, used to allow artists the space to develop and become great.  

Videos by American Songwriter

However, some artists, like these bands from the 1990s, arrived with a timeless debut in tow. And they’d still be legends even if they’d stopped after their first album.

Oasis

When Oasis announced their Live ’25 reunion tour, I didn’t imagine at the time that the set list would be a mystery. Noel Gallagher doesn’t strike me as one interested in the deep cuts. So it wasn’t surprising to witness the iconic Manchester band fill stadiums on a selection of songs primarily taken from the first two albums (and accompanying B-sides). But Oasis could have been like the Sex Pistols, dropped one stellar debut, and split. They couldn’t have filled stadiums without “Wonderwall” or “Don’t Look Back In Anger”, both from (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, but had they stopped after Definitely Maybe, Liam and Noel Gallagher would still be considered legends.

Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam’s debut, Ten, wasn’t an immediate success. And when they recorded an Andrew Wood tribute album as Temple Of The Dog with Soundgarden, the record label had no idea it had a supergroup on its roster. But soon enough, following the success of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, the grunge dam broke. In hindsight, it’s shocking to think “Alive”, “Even Flow”, “Jeremy”, and “Black” didn’t strike listeners straight away. Often, the public needs someone else to tell it what’s good. Meanwhile, there’s a parallel universe where Eddie Vedder grows tired of stardom and walks away. If he had, his band would have released one classic album, and we’d still be talking about Pearl Jam.

Weezer

There’s a Saturday Night Live Weezer skit that neatly sums up what I’m about to say. In the skit, Matt Damon and Leslie Jones argue about the band. Damon, a ride-or-die fan in the sketch, talks about late-stage Weezer tracks most of us have likely never heard. For many, what followed Pinkerton remains dark times. But Weezer’s debut, the famous Blue Album, remains one of the strongest rock introductions of the decade. Strong enough to both enter and exit on. Say Rivers Cuomo had enrolled at Harvard, left his shredding days in the past, abandoned The Encyclopedia O’ Pop, kept the beard, and spent the rest of his life as a college professor, we’d still be cranking the Blue Album instead of debating Raditude, Hurley, or Pacific Daydream.

Photo by Fryderyk Gabowicz/Picture Alliance via Getty Images