It’s not unheard of for an artist to vanish after only one album. Especially if the album isn’t commercially successful. But when an artist’s lone LP also becomes a classic, listeners are left imagining what the next one would have sounded like. Yet some one-off albums almost feel like they were delivered by ghosts. Dropping a legendary record before disappearing and leaving behind a tiny but impeccable footprint.
Videos by American Songwriter
Jeff Buckley: ‘Grace’
The greatest one-album wonder of the 1990s. Perhaps ever. Jeff Buckley had slowly honed his singing style by internalizing the blues of Nina Simone and Robert Plant. He used Simone’s 1966 cover of “Lilac Wine” as the blueprint for his version on Grace. But the beauty of Grace is further ignited by Buckley’s tormented fury, the heavy metal bombast of Led Zeppelin, and the dark jangle of The Smiths.
Buckley was a dreamer, a poet, a jazz singer, a guitar virtuoso, and a rock star. He perfected Leonard Cohen’s hymn “Hallelujah”, and the gorgeous exactness of his only album has aged like the ideal wine. My sweetheart, the drunk, you bet.
Mother Love Bone: ‘Apple’
The improbability of Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament forming Pearl Jam out of the ashes of Mother Love Bone, and finding a lead singer like Eddie Vedder, who lived in another state, can’t be overstated. But Mother Love Bone was on the eve of releasing its debut album when singer Andrew Wood died of a heroin overdose. Mother Love Bone remains an important chapter in the 1990s pop uprising. The band bridged the gap between glam rock and grunge, with the latter culturally unseating the former.
But Wood’s young death also foreshadowed the tragedy that often accompanied Seattle’s biggest bands in the 1990s. Still, Gossard emerged as a grunge riff lord, and writing iconic jams like “Alive” and “Even Flow” wasn’t new territory for him. Check out Mother Love Bone’s “Stardog Champion”. I would crank it if I were you.
The La’s: ‘The La’s’
“There She Goes” was first released in 1988, but it later appeared on The La’s only studio album. Before Britpop was a thing, The La’s were revisiting the British Invasion bands from the 1960s that also inspired Oasis. Noel Gallagher called Lee Mavers a “magnificent songwriter.” He added, “If you’re only going to make one album in your life, make that album.” Bassist John Power quit The La’s in 1991 and returned with his own Britpop band, Cast. And the drummer on “There She Goes” is Chris Sharrock, who later played with Oasis and Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.
Temple Of The Dog: ‘Temple Of The Dog’
Following Andrew Wood’s death, Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell began writing songs for his friend and former roommate. Cornell asked Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament to collaborate with him as Wood’s bandmates were still recovering from the loss. Gossard and Ament had flown Eddie Vedder from San Diego to Seattle to try out for their new band. And Gossard invited his childhood friend, Mike McCready, to join the sessions. Vedder was hanging around at a rehearsal when he started humming along to “Hunger Strike”, turning the future grunge anthem into a duet between him and Cornell.
Temple Of The Dog is retroactively viewed as a supergroup, but Pearl Jam wasn’t even called Pearl Jam during those early rehearsals. The album also features Soundgarden and future Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron. Classics like “Say Hello 2 Heaven”, “Reach Down”, and “Hunger Strike” happened before the fame brought about by the success of “Rusty Cage” and “Jeremy”. It documents a group of dudes celebrating their friend’s life. They had no idea just how much their lives would soon change.
Photo by Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images
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