Best debut album

Lynyrd Skynyrd (Pronounced ’Lĕh-’nérd ’Skin-’nérd)

Not easy to beat...

Kristofferson (by Kris Kristofferson)

An album on which Help Me Make it Through the Night, For the Good Times, Sunday Morning Coming Down, and Me and Bobby McGee are just "some of the songs".

Honorable mentions:

Dire Straits

Songs of Leonard Cohen

HI,
Another two:
The Stranglers - Rattus Norvegicous
10CC - 10CC

+ 1 on the "usual suspects": Doors - Hendrix - Led Zep - King Crimson - Television - Dire Straits - Rickie Lee Jones - Pretenders - Elvis Costello - Joe Jackson & REM.

+ 1 on the "not so" usual suspects: Dada - Jellyfish - Spirit - Velvet Underground.

Here's a few more in the latter category:

JJ Cale - "Naturally"
Jim Carroll: "Catholic Boy"
Lloyd Cole & Commotions: "Rattlesnakes"
"Crack The Sky"
Mark Eitzel: "60 Watt Silver Lining"
Michael Franks: "The Art of Tea"
PJ Harvey: "Dry"
Martha and The Muffins: "Metro Music"

vinowino,

"Fleetwood Mac. ( aka The dustbin album. Peter Greens Fleetwood Mac)"


Green's Mac were a bit like Barrett's Floyd, or Curtis's Joy Division (now there's another great debut album - 1978s Unknown Pleasures) compared to what came later.

Less commercial maybe, but certainly no less good.