Top 10 Debut Singles

Top 10 Debut Singles

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What takes many musicians years to accomplish, these artists got right on their first try. Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we’re counting down our picks for the top 10 debut singles. For this list, we’ve narrowed it down to debut singles that were successful upon their release. Songs that became successful much later, like The Doors’ “Break on Through”, or covers like the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Hey Joe”, or one-hit wonders like Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax” or songs that come from later solo or side projects, like the Gorillaz’s “Clint Eastwood,” have been excluded. So have The Beatles, since there’s no one single of theirs that was their clear-cut debut all over the world.

They’d later go on to claim on many occasions that they were the best band in the world. But before all that, Oasis gave us this single full of attitude and youthful confidence that immediately set the lads from Manchester apart from the rest of the pack. Taken off their classic debut album Definitely Maybe, this song only just barely made the UK top 40, but charted highly on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks charts in the States at number 11.

For some new artists, all it takes is one TV appearance to send your career into the stratosphere. That’s how things happened for Tracy Chapman when she performed this song at Nelson Mandela’s birthday concert in 1988. Despite the folk and pop track being a sad tale of generational poverty and alcoholism, it still sold tons of records and scored Chapman a top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hit as well as a Grammy for Best Female Vocal Performance.

The first song this band ever wrote ended up being their first single, and kicked off a career that is still going fairly strong today. With lyrics about a man becoming increasingly mentally unstable while at a party, and musical influences from Metallica and the Velvet Underground, Weezer’s “Sweater Song” cracked the top 40 in the UK, and helped their self-titled debut album eventually go triple-platinum in the States.

#7: “Just Dance” (2008)
 Lady Gaga feat. Colby O’Donis

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This track was a hit in other countries like Canada and Australia first before finally catching on in the States, and once it did, boy did it ever. Bringing Lady Gaga out of a career of writing songs for other pop acts and ushering in an era of her being one of pop’s biggest stars in her own right, “Just Dance” eventually sold over 10 million copies. Not bad for a song written in just 10 minutes.

This rap and alternative metal number goes through multiple time changes, and each one packs just as much of a punch as the others. It also features overtly political lyrics that would define the rest of Rage’s career, and riffs that guitarist Tom Morello came up with while he was teaching a guitar student how to play in drop D tuning. The song initially reached number 25 on the UK singles chart, but topped the same chart 16 years later following an online campaign, proving “Killing in the Name” and Rage Against the Machine’s” lasting influence and popularity.

#5: “…Baby One More Time” (1998) Britney Spears

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It might seem a bit creepy for a teenager to take something that sounds so dirty and make it seem so innocent, but this song was so catchy and so well-written that not many people seemed to care. And Britney wouldn’t be the only one to do this in the late ‘90s; as her fellow ex-Mouseketeer Christina Aguilera demonstrated with the next year’s “Genie in a Bottle.” But it’s BritBrit’s debut single that lands here. With the opening three-note piano riff immediately catching your attention, this single started a career full of many more pop hits and plenty of controversy. And yet, many still come back to this doozy of a track.

Their sound has taken on so many different shapes and forms over the years following this song’s release that it’s a bit weird to think Radiohead even wrote and recorded “Creep” to begin with. The 4-minute tune features a quiet verse-loud chorus dynamic more commonly associated with grunge. Nonetheless, the first single from their debut album Pablo Honey set the stage for a massive career for a band that still attracts huge crowds today – despite the fact that Radiohead has reportedly nicknamed the song “Crap.”

Its catchy Bay City Rollers’ inspired chant and its simple chord progression and instrumentation paid off in spades as far as turning these Queens-area musicians into legends of the punk rock genre. Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy would gain quite a following with a distinctive sound that was easy to learn on guitar, but just as easy to rock out to at shows. Not only that, but the opening track and first single of their self-titled first record has also been a staple at sporting events for years.

There aren’t many better ways to introduce yourselves to the rap world than this. With verses from eight different emcees – several of whom went on to have successful solo careers – this hip hop track goes hard from start to finish, and showed that the drastically different rap styles of Raekwon, Method Man and RZA, to name a few, could go hand in hand seamlessly. “Protect Ya Neck” was critically acclaimed, and is featured on a number of lists as one of the best songs of the 1990s. Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions. - “Alive” (1991) Pearl Jam - “More Than a Feeling” (1976) Boston - “Who Am I? (What’s My Name?)” (1993) Snoop Doggy Dogg - “Through the Wire” (2003)
 Kanye West - “Party and Bullshit” (1993) The Notorious B.I.G.

The moment you hear Johnny Rotten’s trademark snarl on this song, you’re instantly sucked in. Written as a means of reflecting the state of mind of the English youth who were frustrated with the government and the country’s economy, the punk rock track ended up hitting the top 40 in the UK –despite controversy and some stores refusing to sell the band’s music. As the Sex Pistols’ very first track from their first and only full-length album, “Anarchy in the U.K.” is a blistering debut and our number one. Do you agree with our list? Which debut single is your all-time favorite? With entertaining top 10s published daily, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.