Photo by Kirk Weddle

We don’t always learn the names and faces of the record label culprits who encourage a band to deviate from their chosen path, but at one point or another, the average music fan becomes sure that such sabotage exists. Fortunately, the notion of “selling out” has been negated by bands that successfully proved capable of jumping from an indie label to a major without losing or unrecognizably altering their essence.



What follows are 20 albums that ultimately showed a freshly inked contract with a bigger label can do a band some good. Some are the band’s first album, released after a run of independent EPs and singles. Others came several albums into the group’s career, representing an inevitable shift after sustained indie success. Each serves as a reminder that something special just might await bands that make the leap and that fans’ pre-release trepidation is often unwarranted.

–Michael Madden

Associate Editor

20. Drive Like Jehu – Yank Crime

If any band knows the meaning of the adage “It’s better to burn out than to fade away,” it’s Drive Like Jehu. After two blazing albums, the second being Yank Crime through Interscope, the post-hardcore outfit called it quits. In a 1999 interview, guitarist John Reis revealed that Yank Crime was a lot more difficult to write than the band’s self-titled debut, and that tedium is what ultimately pulled them apart. It’s unclear, however, whether their switch to a major label played a part in that. To this day, the album is celebrated for what it is to its core: a classic emo record that thrives on the band’s instrumental proficiency, highbrow songwriting, and cutthroat intensity. The band’s identity and legacy is best demonstrated by opener “Here Come the Rome Plows”, a venomous mind-bender that goes straight for the jugular. –Danielle Janota

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19. Spoon – A Series of Sneaks

To this day, two decades into their career, Spoon remain practitioners of familiar rock song structures and rhythms. That foundation, however, may have been the problem of the underselling A Series of Sneaks, which doesn’t have a bad song or — more to the point — a surefire radio single. Still, it showcases frontman Britt Daniel’s nonchalant way with melody as well as the band’s taut playing (with production help from The Reivers’ John Croslin). It’s an excellent record, easily digestible at just 33 minutes. Regardless, Elektra didn’t show much patience with the Austin band, ousting them soon after the album’s release. In 2000, Spoon released a two-song CD single aimed at Elektra A&R man Ron Laffitte; “The Agony of Laffitte” and “Laffitte Don’t Fail Me Now” would also be included with Merge’s CD reissue of A Series of Sneaks in 2002. –Michael Madden

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18. Uncle Tupelo – Anodyne

With Anodyne, Uncle Tupelo were supposed to break through to the mainstream. Instead, the most beloved band from the alt-country movement of the ’90s was coming apart at the seams for the album’s creation — so much that their breakup became an inevitability shortly after its release. One upside is that most of Uncle Tupelo’s members went on to form Wilco; another is that despite the conflict between lead singers Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar, nothing could hide that the album contained great songs. “New Madrid” and “Acuff-Rose” are still Tweedy staples when he plays solo, while Farrar would ride his fertile songwriting well into some success as Son Volt. Still, Anodyne stands as a “what if” moment: How would music history have been different if Uncle Tupelo kept being an alt-country band and if Tweedy continued to work as half of a songwriting duo? –Philip Cosores

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17. R.E.M. – Green

After years of underground success, R.E.M. signed to Warner Bros. in 1988. Allegedly, other record companies approached the Georgia band with more lucrative deals, but Warner Bros. offered the band creative freedom. As a result, Green is more eclectic than R.E.M.’s previous releases. Approaching the project as an experimental album instead of a sonic evolution, Michael Stipe told the band to “not write any more R.E.M.-type songs,” which ultimately yielded tracks that were minor-key, mid-tempo, and sounded more folksy than anything they’d released in the past. But it was all for the best. R.E.M. will always be remembered for Green, thanks in part to the quintessential singles “Stand”, “Get Up”, and “Pop Song 89”. –Danielle Janota

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16. Death Cab for Cutie – Plans

“If Transatlanticism was an inhale, Plans is the exhale,” Death Cab for Cutie drummer Jason McGerr said about the band’s first major label release. Death Cab’s fourth and fifth albums, respectively, share thematic continuity, but the production process couldn’t have been more different. Instead of recording in the Pacific Northwest under Seattle-based Barsuk Records, Ben Gibbard and crew opted to take the recording duties to the opposite coast — in a Massachusetts farmhouse, to be exact — after signing to Atlantic. Every moody single, including “Soul Meets Body”, “Crooked Teeth”, and “I Will Follow You into the Dark”, gained traction, each of them landing on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart. Interestingly enough, “I Will Follow You into the Dark” initially fell the lowest on the charts. But now, not only is it the band’s most heart-wrenching ballad, it’s their best-selling single to date. –Danielle Janota

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15. Jawbreaker – Dear You

Some artists sing a swan song that never reaches the audience it deserves. Jawbreaker’s magnum opus, Dear You, is the ‘90s punk scene’s swan song. At the time, the trio was criticized for “selling out”; some 20 years later, it’s hard to find validity when anyone uses that term, let alone about the outfit behind “I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both”. Maybe the catchier sound came from an urge to meet major label requests or maybe Blake Schwarzenbach’s surgery on his vocal chords and a desire to write more charming songs. With killer introspection on songs like “Save Your Generation” and the rejection of norms on others like “Bad Scene, Everyone’s Fault”, Jawbreaker’s final go paved the way for the punk side of today’s “emo revival.” Schwarzenbach still tours as a solo artist, and someone still runs Jawbreaker’s Facebook, but they seem like the final holdout of the emo reunion era. At least they gave us a perfect parting gift in Dear You. –Dan Bogosian

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14. Built to Spill – Perfect from Now On

The press release for Built to Spill’s latest album, Untethered Moon, points out something that may or may not be obvious to casual fans: Built to Spill have been on Warner Bros. for nearly 20 years and that over the course of that time have produced music that has been essential in its influence of independent musicians. That all started with Perfect from Now On, not the best album in Built to Spill’s major label career (that would be the next one, Keep It Like a Secret) but a special record nonetheless, with eight songs all at or above five minutes in length. The story goes that the album was recorded three times, with one session scrapped because leader Doug Martsch tried to play every instrument himself, and another because producer Phil Ek ruined the tapes by heat when transporting them in his car. But the album doesn’t need this lore to be great. It stands on its own, and time has been kind to its sound. –Philip Cosores

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13. Tegan and Sara – The Con

Tegan and Sara’s evolution from sister folk act to indie rock mainstays was gradual and fluid enough that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when the band changed, and certainly their label affiliations never really played a part. On The Con, with Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla in tow to produce, the Quin sisters stitched together a couple anthems in the form of “Nineteen” and the title track, which became cornerstones of the mid-2000s independent music movement, regardless of its actual status. And album closer “Call It Off” finds Tegan still able to tug at heartstrings with an acoustic guitar. The Con isn’t the beginning or ending of anything for Tegan and Sara, but rather a fine chapter in a continually impressive career. –Philip Cosores

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12. Sonic Youth – Goo

Though it marked a streamlining of Sonic Youth’s wildest tendencies, 1990’s Goo still brought such noise rock firepower that it’s amazing it was released through Geffen at all. (To be fair, Geffen was the band’s first choice when major labels came calling.) If Kim Gordon’s voice was the band’s best shot at crossover success, it’s decidedly un-pretty here, floating ominously on the likes of “Tunic (Song for Karen)” and “My Friend Goo”. Meanwhile, guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo tend to favor near-violent spurts of noise rather than tight, melodic sequences of notes. Sure, “Kool Thing”, the Chuck D-featuring single, is one of the band’s most popular songs, but on the whole, Goo highlights their appetite for raucous experimentation (which is at its loudest on the nearly eight-minute “Mote”). As the band would declare with the title of a 2008 compilation album, hits are for squares. –Michael Madden

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11. The Decemberists – The Crane Wife

After three beloved albums in which The Decemberists and Colin Meloy tested the boundaries of indie folk’s theatrical capabilities, a jump to Capitol Records saw only modest changes. The band never had issues with recording quality and went for consistency, keeping Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla around to produce as he had their previous effort, Picaresque. And despite a couple of multi-song suites, “The Crane Wife 1-3” and the single track “The Island”, it wouldn’t be until their next album that Meloy would go full prog and write a rock opera. With this all in mind, it isn’t surprising that The Decemberists’ major label debut has also been their last great album, as the band felt content to continue the road they had been on and not try to reinvent the wheel. –Philip Cosores

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10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Fever to Tell

New York City’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs arrived with such an exciting toolkit (including Karen O’s as-nasty-as-she-wants-to-be vocals and Nick Zinner’s Jimmy Page-meets-Thurston Moore guitar playing) that any label would’ve been enticed by their potential. Eventually, the band signed with Interscope to release 2003’s Grammy-nominated Fever to Tell, which followed a couple of EPs released on Touch and Go. By and large, the band’s debut full-length is a whipping of punk energy, with the glorious noise coming from Karen O’s feral howling, Zinner’s spiky riffs, and Brian Chase’s torrential smacking behind the kit. “Rich” and “Date with the Night” wreak havoc as the album’s opening one-two punch, quickly cementing YYYs’ cool aggression.

But what solidified the group’s songwriting ability, of course, was “Maps”, the five-minute, masterfully paced stunner that reveals the need for stability at the heart of the chaos elsewhere on the album. “Wait, they don’t love you like I love you,” Karen O sings again and again, her voice dripping with melancholy. It was a moment of relative calm, but the band would be working through some tension a couple years later when Zinner would fight the opportunity for expanded studio access during the recording of Fever follow-up Show Your Bones. Fortunately, the thrills of the debut showed a band at peak vitality regardless of any future turmoil. –Michael Madden

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09. TV on the Radio – Return to Cookie Mountain



It’s a testament to TV on the Radio’s versatility that only recently, more than a decade after forming, have their pop intuitions become obvious (see last year’s “Happy Idiot”). Return to Cookie Mountain, on the other hand, is an experimental collage that typically sounds like the product of balanced teamwork, from Tunde Adebimpe’s sometimes otherworldly singing to Dave Sitek’s carefully maximal production (not to mention a guest vocal from David Bowie on “Province”!). It’s a shape-shifting album that favors electronics at times (opener “I Was a Lover”) and rocks furiously elsewhere (all-time great TVOTR song “Wolf Like Me”). Cookie Mountain, TVOTR’s first Interscope album, cemented the band as experimental rock space-explorers who can stay down to Earth when they want to. Given that adaptability, it’s no surprise they’re still thriving today even after losing bassist Gerard Smith to lung cancer in 2011. –Michael Madden

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08. Brand New – The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me

If you listen closely, right now, at this very moment, someone somewhere is begging for a new Brand New album. The band’s been discussed as one of the few uniting acts in a polarizing scene, with each album having its own flavor: the more vanilla pop punk of Your Favorite Weapon, the alternative spice of Deja Entendu, the rebellious noise of Daisy, and their hyper-emotional major label debut, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me. From the opening wane of “Sowing Season (Yeah)” to its twilight “Handcuffs”, Jesse Lacey, Vincent Accardi, Brian Lane, Derrick Sherman, and Garrett Tierney string together a set of rock songs that fits on the radio quietly playing in your room or blaring through your car with the windows down.

It’s debatable which Brand New album is best, but The Devil and God was well-received by critics and featured the single “Jesus Christ” (which hit No. 30 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart). More importantly, it bridged the gap between the easier beginnings of their first two albums with the harsher experimentation of Daisy. Fans are split on the reception of that album: Is it a rejection of their previous work? But almost every listener gets that warm, fuzzy feeling somewhere on The Devil and God. For me, it’s right in “Luca”, named after the famed character from The Godfather, as its final chorus turns from a melancholy echo (“So touch me or don’t/ Just let me know …”) and kicks into overdrive (“… where you’ve been”), firing a bullet that still makes my spine shiver. –Dan Bogosian

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07. Queens of the Stone Age – Rated R

“Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol … cocaine!”

These were the words that Josh Homme used to open Queens of the Stone Age’s Rated R. While the Queens previously recorded a self-titled album, an EP, and a split with Homme’s old band Kyuss, Rated R would foreshadow the popularity to come. That first song, “Feel Good Hit of the Summer”, set the band’s mythos in stone: They were here to rock, they were going to do it their way, and they didn’t give a fuck about the damage of anyone who stood in their way.

This album would also brand the group as Homme and his evolving band of musicians. Three people sing lead: Homme with his ghostly falsetto, Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees and solo fame sings lead on “In the Fade”, and newly joined bassist Nick Oliveri provides the grunge and screams on “Auto Pilot”, “Quick and to the Pointless”, and “Tension Head”. A rotating crew works drums, while Judas Priest’s Rob Halford sings backup on the first track. “I Think I Lost My Headache” serves a dish of the most delicious musical insanity for its outro that always leaves me feeling like the first time I heard it, basking in its wonder.

That album cover, blue on the original CD and red on vinyl (where it was originally titled Rated X), mirrors the rating portion of movie trailers, but leaves you wondering what an artist named Queens of the Stone Age would sound like. Are they a rock band? Are they inappropriate or meaningful? Is it heavy or soft? Is it sexual? Is it joking or serious? Is it worth it? One of the final rock acts of the ’90s to get a push from Interscope, Homme and co. declared yes to all of the above. –Dan Bogosian

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06. The Replacements – Tim

Tim is not The Replacements’ defining statement. That would be its immediate predecessor, 1984’s Let It Be, which is more varied and more exemplary of Paul Westerberg’s idea that the ‘Mats were “a sloppy rock & roll band that tries to straddle the line between comedy and tragedy.” But Tim, the band’s Sire debut, does make a compelling case for Westerberg as a powerful rock frontman and not just some kid from Minneapolis (even if he was still writing songs in his parents’ basement at the time). The heart-stopping acoustic strummer “Here Comes a Regular”, complete with those impeccable piano melodies and haunting strings, is the most obvious example of his newfound sense of command. There’s also his cannonball-explosion of an entrance into the ripping “Bastards of Young” and another boisterous lead on the smoother but equally anthemic “Left of the Dial”. Suddenly, this group of miscreants were too polished, too convincing, to be written off as mere fast-living punks. –Michael Madden

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05. Green Day – Dookie

No one makes adolescent boredom sound as cool as Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong. That’s why 21 years after its release, Dookie is still one of the most listenable punk albums ever made. Like its angrier older cousin Nevermind, Dookie carried a lot of weight when it was released, simultaneously propelling Green Day into the spotlight and punk into the mainstream. The band’s third album finally came to fruition when Green Day struck a deal with Reprise, which set them up with producer Rob Cavallo. With his help, the raccoon-eyed rockers managed to attain the Black Sabbath/Sex Pistols production style they were looking for while capturing the angsty adolescence that ultimately became the band’s staple. And when it comes down to it, the album’s youthful spirit is what makes it a classic. The album cover displays cartoon chaos, the title refers to the band’s post-tour-food diarrhea, and throughout the whole album, Armstrong drawls apathetic lyrics like “Twiddle my thumbs just for a bit/ I’m sick of all the same old shit.” Hell, even the name “Green Day” is a cheesy nod to the band’s love of cannabis. No matter the era, a pissed-off high schooler can find solace in Dookie’s perfect immaturity. –Danielle Janota

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04. The White Stripes – Elephant

With some bands, it’s hard to remember the first song they wrote that everyone you know has heard. The White Stripes don’t have this problem: the guitar-as-bass groove of “Seven Nation Army” was what brought them out of Detroit and into homes everywhere, kicking down doors as part of their major label debut, Elephant. The new label didn’t change the aesthetic; looking at its cover, you can’t tell if they’re brother and sister or husband and wife (or, you know, just Jack and Meg White). Jack later told Q Magazine that their seating on the cover actually forms a face-forward elephant, each member acting as the animal’s ears.

This album started a scene of imitators, bringing garage rock back in a big way. The Hives and The Vines may have subsided, but Jack White (and The Strokes) are the surviving icons of the day, and when most people picture Jack as something other than a disappointed baseball fan or a pale flash in the pan, they think of this album. It’d double as one of their strongest opuses; between the aforementioned lead single, a slick Burt Bacharach cover (“I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself”), and the dirty blues of songs like “The Hardest Button to Button”, with its throbbing pulse and strutting guitar, Elephant was often imitated, but rarely duplicated. –Dan Bogosian

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03. Nine Inch Nails – The Downward Spiral

There were only two artists my parents banned me from listening to: Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails. (Let’s ignore that they were basically OK with me having Eminem’s The Slim Shady LP on repeat before I finished puberty.) I’d discover Trent Reznor’s brooding work when my high school drummer gave me two albums to help my music self-education: The Downward Spiral and The Fall of Troy’s self-titled. One stuck more than the other.

Recorded while Reznor lived in the house where the Manson Family murdered Sharon Tate, The Downward Spiral cut deep into depression, drug abuse, self-loathing, and maniacal hate toward society all while effortlessly blending the heaviest guitar music with electronic production. The 1994 album served some of the strangest singles to ever come out of Interscope: “March of the Pigs” has a chorus that borders on music theater and a metallic verse in an awkward time signature (29/8, if you want to know). Johnny Cash would cover “Hurt” and cause leagues of uninformed listeners to think it was the other way around. (One lyric change and it makes all the difference: Reznor wears a crown of shit, Cash wears a crown of thorns; Reznor’s is an addict wanting a mulligan, Cash’s is an old man’s final apology.)

When I was a janitor, I idolized Trent Reznor; he was a janitor when he recorded Pretty Hate Machine. I’d put on “Piggy” as I wiped toilets and daydreamed of quitting: “Nothing can stop me now/ ‘Cause I don’t care anymore.” With self-references throughout (“nothing can stop me now” also appears in “Ruiner” and “Big Man with a Gun”), violent lyrics that warranted the parental advisory sticker, and musical experimentation that rarely reaches the mainstream, the major label machine turned Nine Inch Nails from Lollapalooza go-getters to the band that my parents never heard but wouldn’t let me listen to. It holds up strong as ever today. –Dan Bogosian

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02. Modest Mouse – The Moon & Antarctica

For Modest Mouse, it was hard to get more ambitious than their final indie LP, The Lonesome Crowded West. But after signing to Epic Records, The Moon & Antarctica is exactly that: an even more out-there, reaching, and huge concept album from an act that already sounded larger than life, particularly when seen opposite their indie rock peers.

The band’s rabid fan base rightfully worried that the band’s special brand of raw energy and spunk might be lost with more resources, but instead, Isaac Brock and co. pushed their boundaries conceptually. Tracks like “3rd Planet”, “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes”, and “A Different City” all sounded expansive but still melodically rooted and lyrically focused — everything fans had come to expect of the band. The 15-minute suite of “The Cold Part”, “Alone Down There”, and “The Stars Are Projectors” are rare numbers that aren’t meant to stand alone, rooting the album in a near post-rock grandeur.

In the end, The Moon & Antarctica found Modest Mouse as maybe the most complete band they would ever be, capturing everything people love in both independent artists and major label capabilities. It wouldn’t be until the next album, Good News for People Who Love Bad News, that prejudices about major labels would be realized, both to the band’s creative detriment and to their increased commercial viability. –Philip Cosores

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01. Nirvana – Nevermind

When you think of albums that changed the shape of music, few punches land as cleanly as Nirvana’s Nevermind. The unexpected popularity of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” — from the unforgettable chorus to the music video that showed it was cool to be the freak at your high school — may have done it on its own, but songs like “Come as You Are” served as proof that Kurt Cobain’s perfect pop wasn’t a fluke. “Lithium”, named for its use as a bipolar disorder and depression medication, gave ‘90s teens a relatable identity: They were labeled crazy but maybe just sought a way to be themselves. “Something in the Way”, with its stoic lyricism and almost in-tune strings, provided the framework for many Cobain myths: He was homeless and lived underneath a bridge (ooh), he was a vegetarian who would still eat fish (ahh).

Over two decades later, it’s still the major label debut with not only the strongest songs, but the strongest legacy. This is the album that led to Kurt Cobain’s Rolling Stone cover, “Corporate Magazines Still Suck” shirt and all; the album that introduced now-superstar Dave Grohl to an audience beyond DIY punk; the album that dismantled hair metal, changed pop music, refocused mainstream rock, and encouraged indie to be popular in one single swoop. It’s hard to predict what will last across time, but it’s more difficult to imagine what the world would be like without this album. –Dan Bogosian

Pick up the album here.