Korean Job Discussion Forums

[DWAEJIMORIGUKBAP]

Music - Leonard Cohen. His 1st album is his best. The other albums have great songs too but they also have duds. This album is literally perfect and every song a masterpeice. I will fight to the death over this.

Literature. Banana Yoshimoto with 'Kitchen.' Original, stylish, bold, quirky and full of pathos. None of her other stuff I've read comes close.

Film ( I will be crucified for this) Tarrantino with Reservoir Dogs. Look come on, Pulp fiction is cool but is not an overall great film and isn't as good on succesive viewings. The Kill Bills are two of the most original and visually stunning films ever made. But they are forgetable. Dogs was taught and tight, no access baggage. It was cool and stylish and paced like a Goddard film at his youthful best.

I could add more but I will hand this thread over to other posters as it's the kind of thread I'd hog too much.

[Moldy Rutabaga]

Looking at my shelf, albums by Boston, Amanda Marshall, Robert Plant, which all had anemic followups. Just off the top of my head.

[Fishead soup]

Artist

Sir Francis Bacon- The painter who painted The Screaming Pope. and lots of slabs of meat

[Gibberish]

Let's just get it out of the way now and admit that most artists first works are their best, since they pour their ideas onto the page or screen or whatever, then they have nothing left afterward. Most "artists" are one trick ponies, the good ones are the ones who hold a little back to keep their fans hungry for more- and can deliver.

[seonsengnimble]

Wu Tang Clan's first album was by far the best.
As for movies, I can't think of any directors whose first movie was the best. I disagree with Resevoire Dogs for one basic reason. It was already done by Ringo Lam. Maybe Hard Times for movies.

[Dude Ranch]

The Living End - ozzie band . loved their first cd

[Underwaterbob]

[.38 Special]

Macbeth (the Italian gothic metal band, not the drama). Their first album, Romantic Tragedy's Crescendo, is an underground masterpiece of the genre. Their second album is beautiful, but not nearly as soulful. Everything else (with massive lineup changes included) is just godawful pop music.

Being a metal head, a lot of the music I listen to begins OK, then matures, then fizzles.

Compare the first albums of Metallica, Slayer, and Megadeth. Classics, yes, but their second and third albums are fantastic, and absolutely defined the genre of thrash metal (as opposed to simply thrash).

Then there is the Gothenburg scene. Dark Tranquility, In Flames, and At The Gates, all began as very unrefined, peaked, and now are enjoying a relative sojourn into mediocrity.

Funny, though, how certain art forms mature into a genre and others become definitive of genres.

For example, Joyce's The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is, in my opinion, his finest novel. The rest of the world, however, prefers Ulysses. I could never get into it. And by that I mean that I was completely bewildered by page 40, unable to follow the verbiage, and totally unwilling to give it another go.

Not all artists are one trick ponies. Cormac McCarthy, one of my favorite authors, has been putting out excellent novels for decades. His earlier works are not nearly as well known. The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark, and Child of God are works in the traditions of the southern gothic, Faulkner principally. McCarthy didn't become among the greatest authors of his generation until he applied the gothic aesthetique to new media, especially in the pseudo-historical novel Blood Meridian and the Western Border Trilogy. In effect, he rose above his original genre (southern gothic) and used his unique talents to create new ways of reading other, traditional genres. Most recently from him, as a blatant display of this, is his Pulitzer Prize winning post-apocalyptic The Road.

But, then again, how is this relevant to this thread? I dunno, I just got really excited, and I'm going to hit submit anyway

[DWAEJIMORIGUKBAP]

I agree with 'Portrait' being Joyce's best work.

I Guess guy Richie's first movie was his best too, but I'd call him more of a good technition rather than apply the term 'artist.'

[Underwaterbob]

There are loads of movie director examples:

Orson Welles - Citizen Kane
Frank Darabont - Shawshank Redemption
Tobe Hooper - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

[detourne_me]

Apparently Diablo Cody with Juno...

[Sector7G]

[Koveras]

I've been a big fan of Christina Aguilera ever since she sang Reflection on Mulan. After that she dropped her first album, self-titled naturally, which topped the charts, and although I didn't really understand most of it, I appreciated the poppy, modern vibe on such songs as "Genie ina Bottle" and "Come on Over Baby". Then there were the more thoughtful, concept-laden hits such as "What a Girl Wants," a complex reflection on post-materialistic values from the perspective of a budding star and young lady which I think we can all agree was both touching and timeless. The album as a whole has a timeless, classic quality which her later efforts simply lacked, tinged as they were with hispanic and reggae influences which were passing fashions at the time

[DWAEJIMORIGUKBAP]

[ekul]

I think a better question is artists whose second piece is better than their first. That happens far less often.