Bands/Artists who were huge and now mostly forgotten

Oh true. But then again how would a child automatically know of the Beatles? Or automatically know about any "old artist"? Or even many new artists as well!

Plus, these things are only relevant in relative comparisons. No artist is known by everybody. But I do highly suspect that more children indeed may know of the Beatles than, say, Gerry & The Pacemakers or Humble Pie.

 

This is a pretty long thread, and I'm guessing Christopher Cross has already been mentioned.

 

Why yes, yes he has.

 

No, that's okay. It is kind of a running joke now in the forum where every thread has at least one post with "The Beatles"

 

Gotta after with the OP re: J Geils Band. It was the first band I thought of when I saw the thread topic. They were a formidable rhythm and blues band... can’t help but wonder if their MTV success with a couple poppier pinholed them to future generations as more of a pop band

 

How 'bout Frankie Goes to Hollywood?

Wasn't for some strange reason the group like super huge in the UK all of a sudden in the mid-80s for about a year or so?

I know the group had some minor, but notable success in the U.S., but it's my understanding that Frankie was almost Oasis level huge in the UK for a hot minute.

 

I would say Fabian

 

For some reason I always confuse this band with the band Michael Learns To Rock lol lol

 

Or Johnny Hates Jazz?

 

Heh, is that band name in response to Gene Loves Jezebel?

 

Idk about that, but I do know that these are all terrible band names!

 

To quote John McEnroe, "you cannot be serious." And especially being in the Midwest. After Jack & Diane, John Mellencamp kept having hits all the way through the mid-1990s. I count at least another 19 or so after Jack & Diane and up through his S/T album. After that, he's had a lower profile with exception of the big "This Is Our Country" song that got used in a bunch of commercials. He's not a good example of "fell off the map."

 

They really hurt their career with the Bang & Blame song and the album that came from (Monster). It still sold pretty well because people really WANTED to like it - as a reaction to the big success of Automatic For the People. But the relative failure of their next album, which was slightly better than Monster, tells you how much Monster turned people off. All the way off. While they did so a smattering of stronger songs on the subsequent albums, they never re-captured that momentum. Monster was a true turkey, perhaps one of the worst albums ever released from a superstar group.

 

I'm sure you are right from a U.S. perspective but as a global performer he is certainly fare less known since the early 1990s.

 

im wagering some went to see them ironically, but were tapping there toes regardless, they had their share of hits (esp when you ad in doobies, loggins/messina)

 

But the OP did not phrase the question as "global performer" and also the reply I made was to a person based out of Chicago. That's practically the epicenter of Mellencamp. Whether we call it early 90s or late 90s, it is clear that his "hits" days ended somewhere there. But the poster to whom I was replying was saying he hadn't heard JM pretty much since Jack & Diane.

That leaves out his biggest hit-making period: Pink Houses, Crumblin' Down, The Authority Song, Small Town, Lonely Ol' Night, ROCK In the USA, Rain On the Scarecrow, Paper In Fire, Cherry Bomb, Check It Out, Pop Singer (not one of my favs), Now More Than Ever, They're So Tough, Again Tonight, Human Wheels, Wild Night (he mentioned that), Key West/I Saw You First, Your Life Is Now, and I'm Not Running Anymore.

 

Just curious: what specifically is that you hate (or hated then) about it? Was it aesthetics? Lyrics?

 

Just because they are popular now doesn't mean they shouldn't, or won't be forgotten.

 

Well, the OP did not phrase the question as a Midwest music lover (even if they are from Colorado). We all live on the planet/market www., all of the artists cited were to some extent international and JCM is one of many who are no longer impacting as they once did. I could cite Australian bands who were huge here and are not anymore but I wont because my audience will never concede that they were huge in the first place.

 

I'm gonna go with Lorde. The long wait between the first and second album coupled with her anti-israel stance killer her career.

 

Moving to the hip hop era, and artist who really seemed to run out of legs is Snoop Dogg. And I would have thought that he'd maybe carry on having more hits. Had a very unique cadence to his vocals. But since the Snoop Lion experiment (and relative failure) and the Bush album, he's had a steadily diminishing profile.

 

You're missing the point. It's clear that's true about JCM, and from about the time we discussed. But my answer was not to the OP but rather to the guy who posited that JCM fell off the map after Jack & Diane. Or rather, that he'd heard virtually nothing from him since Jack & Diane. And they guy posted from Chicago. That's utterly . . . well, I have no words, but it was worth calling into question. He most certainly did not fall out of the "impactful" state right after Jack & Diane.

And I'm not actually a big JCM fan.

 

Yeh, that one.
I remember in my youth they being top 5 in my rotation.
For some reason they are forgotten not just by casual listeners, but former fans as well.
In fact, some time ago I tried to play old record "Look at Yourself" - their classic.
I really could not wait to finish. Something about their sound and Byron vocals made them totally outdated and practically unlistenable for me.
And I love and still play huge number of bands of that era, in fact my favorite.
Go figure.

 

I think Grand funk is the epitome....... Didn't they break attendance records of some kind?
Never a mention even in 77 or 78 where I lived........For me a hard rock band doing "Locomotion" is unforgivable. Maybe others feel the same......Seems like a legacy killer to me......

 

I don’t know about that. Monster was a solid album, the only one of theirs I ever bought and listened to. It seemed like the band was taking themselves less serious at points on it, and just rocking out (and it has some good rock songs on it, of which “Bang & Blame” is one).

If anything signalled the end for them, it was a return to super-serious posturing again on their following record. Coupled with the rise of Radiohead, who were gaining serious traction in ‘95 with The Bends.

I think it was also that many of their older hardcore fans of the early 80’s were aging out of the mainstream.

I have a few times pondered the disappearance of REM from the conversation, as they were one unavoidable band for a period of five years or so (I did just get a sealed copy of one of their comps on LP for literally a few dollars for my friend back East though).