10 Rock Bands Who Never Topped Their First Album

What do you do if you're the world's hippest artist in search of a fresh direction? Lop off an ear? Put your unmade bed on display? If you're Andy Warhol, you help form one of the world's most influential rock acts, The Velvet Underground.

Comprised of John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Lou Reed, Maureen Tucker and, of course, Nico, the band were young, dumb and ready to record seven-minute-long odes to hard drugs.

As iconic as rock records come, The Velvet Underground's self-titled album changed the musical landscape in the 1960s, launching Reed and Cale's careers into the stratosphere. With an approach to musical composition that was 50% art-based experimentation and 50% iffy musicianship, Warhol's backing allowed the Velvets free reign to create a new avant-garde style that, although it took a while to get off the ground, became one of the era-defining sounds of the sixties.

While Reed and Cale both independently produced albums far better than the Velvet Underground's first effort, the band itself never surpassed this high. Gradually, the members peeled off to do their own thing, until a time when none of the originals were left, ending on the whimsical, pop-influenced soft-rock oddity Squeeze (1973).