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.
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.
Until very recently, I thought that the whole track was an original production. Turns out Gotye is something of a sampling genius - mad respect for the craft in STIUtK, and what a killer set of melodies on top of everything else.
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.
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).
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
What’s most impressive are his animations. This is on his main YouTube channel. Really good stuff.