Artists whose commercial potential you got 100% wrong

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Judge Judy, Jul 21, 2013.

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  1. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Even with the goofy image, it was Lauper's voice that led people to think she could stick around. "Time After Time" was huge and not "frothy pop".

    And she did try to "mature" with "True Colors" - to a degree, at least. I think she understood that the shtick wouldn't last forever, but she just didn't have the pop hits to keep her at the top...
     
  2. Driver 8

    Driver 8 Senior Member

    All fair points, yet something like "Time After Time" was the antithesis of frothy pop, and quality enough to attract a (gorgeous) interpretation from Miles Davis, who always had an ear for a great ballad. There was more to Lauper than just the wacky image.
     
  3. pillboy

    pillboy Active Member

    I can just look at the Billboard Hot 100 almost any week and wonder "what is this crap and how can it possibly be popular?" I guess I am old (which is true).
     
  4. Jack White

    Jack White Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada

    Recently watched an episode of 'Jeopardy' and there was a music category. I recognized the songs by The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, but I didn't have a clue who the three others were even after I heard the songs, the song titles and the artists' names [whom I think dated from after the year 2000 to the present]. :)
     
  5. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

    I also thought that Marc Cohn would have been a true superstar after Walkin' In Memphis became a hit, but he didn't become a huge star, but he ended up being a cult figure.
     
  6. TheLazenby

    TheLazenby Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    Pittsburgh
    You know who I thought would have a lot more success? Chris Gaines.

    Seriously.... that is the only thing Garth Brooks has done that I actually enjoy. I was actually eagerly looking forward to the movie that never happened. Garth was once planning to go back and record Chris's entire back catalogue - damn shame he didn't.
     
  7. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Lauper's problem is that she tried to mature her music - sorta - but the image remained "dayglo bag lady", and she kept acting "kooky" (read: annoying). That grew old, fast.

    The other problem is that Madonna is a lot more talented. She's a better songwriter, but more importantly she's better at selecting co-writers, producers and musicians to work with - not to mention video directors. She also puts on a better stage show, and since she's a dancer she knows how to dance. She's not a great singer but then, Lauper's voice is fairly limited as well (although not as limited, obviously).

    I think if you'd asked me in '84 or '85 who'd be around longer, Lauper was the obvious choice. But by '86 when Lauper finally got around to releasing True Colors, Madonna had beat her to the punch by several months with True Blue, her own "more sophisticated, more adult" record. Worse for Lauper, Madonna had I think the best ballad of the year (and arguably the best single of her career) with "Live To Tell". Up until that point I hadn't taken Madonna seriously and hadn't really enjoyed much of her work (apart from "Material Girl" and its brilliant video). After hearing "Live To Tell" it was clear Madonna was a lot smarter than most of us had given her credit for - she made Lauper look like a goofy, attention-seeking idiot in comparison. Lauper's True Colors did alright on the charts (2 million sold in the US), but it was her last hurrah. Madonna's career was still just getting started (7 million copies of True Blue have been sold in the US - a whopping 25 million worldwide). And I think it, and her subsequent Like A Prayer, were so sharp (for pop records) that they forced a reappraisal of her earlier work. Like A Virgin I still find to be a mixed bag - I think the best tracks might be the minor hits "Angel" and "Dress You Up" - but her debut Madonna is a solid post-disco dance record, all bubbly beats, chiming synths and twiddling dance grooves (particularly on the infectious "Everybody"). She's a dancer by training, and it generally shows - her most dance-oriented tracks are usually, though not always, her best.
     
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  8. BongRattlingBass

    BongRattlingBass Forum Resident

    Location:
    Plainfield, IL
    Jack Johnson. I thought he fade away quickly. His monotonous tunes continue to fill the airwaves and is still pretty popular. The music he puts out sounds dull and lifeless but the zombies love it!
     
  9. Sandinista

    Sandinista Forum Resident

    I've said it before and I'll say it again. Circa She's So Unusual and Like A Virgin, I thought Cyndi Lauper was headed for the stratosphere and Madonna would be a flash in the plan
     
  10. Rodney Toady

    Rodney Toady Waste of cyberspace

    Location:
    Finland
    Even though I loved the band, back in the early 90's I really didn't see Porcupine Tree as the commercially going concern they later turned out to be.
     
  11. denesis

    denesis Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arlington, WA
    After Lightbulb Sun sounded like the lethargic little brother of Stupid Dream (which itself I only liked half of) I thought they'd peaked. I was very happy to be proven so wrong two years later.
     
  12. pjc1

    pjc1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston
    There's no way I would have picked out Peter Gabriel as headlining 2-night stands at arenas/amphitheaters based on the first few albums. I didn't anticipate So at all..
     
  13. audiotom

    audiotom I can not hear a single sound as you scream

    Location:
    New Orleans La USA
    Madonna
    Gang of Four
    Harry Nilsson
    Gabriel Era Genesis - while it was happening
     
  14. No Bull

    No Bull Forum Resident

    Location:
    Orlando Florida
    Steve Earle. - the song Copperhead Road made me think he might be built for the masses. Wrong.

    great artist though.
     
  15. leoconsole

    leoconsole Forum Resident

    Location:
    Exeter, UK
    I'm amazed at the success of most things in the Top 40
     
    Shak Cohen likes this.
  16. CraigVC

    CraigVC Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, OR
    As a college student back in March 1995, I went to South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, and decided to go to the Wilco performance, based on some buzz I was reading in CMJ or whatever. I had not yet heard a single song of theirs at the time.

    At the time, I was big into bands like Helmet, Quicksand, etc. I thought I was open-minded about music, but I decided during their performance that Wilco's country-tinged music was boring.

    Even worse, a record company representative walked over and chatted with me during the performance, and asked me how I liked what I was hearing. Being a "know it all" college kid, I declared that they were pretty awful and I predicted that they would never go anywhere.

    :oops: :hide:

    A couple of years later, a friend invited me to go see Wilco for a semi-secret performance at what I recall as a tiny little house/club in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I reluctantly went because she was so enthusiastic and insistent about going. It was there that I "saw the light" and repented my sins. :p

    I've been a Wilco fan ever since.

    Among the lessons learned:
    • I could have been a "great" slimey-slick big time record company executive (like the other executives who dropped Wilco along the way...).
    • I need to be more open-minded about music (which I think I have done a good job of, over the last 20 years or so).
    • I need to reserve judgment when I hear new sounds that I'm not familiar with!

    Craig.
     
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  17. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    I saw her tour with John Doe, and before she played it, she thanked the millions of teenage girls who accidentally bought her version instead.
     
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  18. No Bull

    No Bull Forum Resident

    Location:
    Orlando Florida
    Oatsdad.. I have to disagree with you here. Her mature work on "True Colors" was even more novelty andanoying than the frothy pop that came before it. I was so glad when she exited stage left...and was no longer getting airplay.
     
  19. Rfreeman

    Rfreeman Senior Member

    Location:
    Lawrenceville, NJ
    I certainly laughed at how terrible and amateurish Flock Of Seagulls were when they opend for The Human League on the Dare tour
     
  20. zen

    zen Senior Member

    I felt that way too starting somewhere in the mid to late 70's; and most of those top 40 hits have disappeared too.
     
  21. eddiel

    eddiel Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    Trying to remember my misses....

    The success of Metallica surprised me. We were into their pre-Black Album stuff being metal fans. But no one guessed that album would blow up like it did. I should've known something was up when people were talking about it the way they were even before it came out and these were people who weren't really into the band before hand.

    Nirvana - I thought Nevermind was a great album and I figured it would do well on the college radio type charts. But it obviously did much better than that. Even though I didn't realise the scale of their popularity until I was in the office one day (student job between semesters) and heard my very middle class not really the Nirvana music fan type humming what sounded like a Nirvana tune. I asked, he confirmed. I then thought wow they really are huge!

    Spice Girls - thought they'd never make it big outside of the UK.

    One Direction - party right, party wrong. I figured they would do well in the UK but no way did I think they would cross over and do so well in North America. When my cousin was going on about 1D this and 1D that I asked her "What's 1D mean?" she said I should know them as they're from England...surprised me for sure.
     
  22. JannL

    JannL Forum Resident


    Great post. And the thing about Madonna is she could come out with a dance track or a song pushing sexual boundaries and on the same album come out with a haunting ballad. People accepted both sides of the coin with Madonna and those sides never cames across as at odds with one another. I think Madonna probably has the best pop ballads of all pop stars put together. I bought her Something to Remember ballads compilation and it's so lush and beautiful. And many of her music videos are still the gold standard of pop as are her concerts, which she just has something on stage that is really intangible.
     
    sunspot42 likes this.
  23. Larry Mc

    Larry Mc Forum Dude

    The Tragically Hip in the USA. I know they are big in Canada, but they've never made it big in
    the USA. I didn't think they could miss, they are a great band imo.
     
  24. manicpopthrill

    manicpopthrill Forum Resident

    Location:
    ICT, Kansas
    In 1997 I 'discovered' a complete unknown. Thought I'd found my own little personal Generation X Van Morrison. Never dreamed he'd have any commercial viability: first cd I bought was an accidental find in a indie store bargain bin, second was a special order, and third was another accidental find at a Blockbuster Music. Then David Gray released White Ladder.
     
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  25. driverdrummer

    driverdrummer Forum Resident

    Location:
    Irmo, SC
    I never thought Phoenix would become the major label, hit making group they are now.
     
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