Bands/Artists who were huge and now mostly forgotten

Nope. Still touring those huge arenas in the afterlife. At least he should be - he was a class act. Perhaps not up there with Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra, but I liked him a lot. Especially the material he recorded in the 70s. His voice and singing just got better as he got closer to that fateful day in October 1977.

You´re right - he was huge in the time period leading up to rock´n´roll, and then he was forgotten or relegated to an easy listening sort of a career. (And that´s not meant as a put-down.) But do yourself a favour, and listen to his 70s albums. Pure class 90% of the time. And there was a great live album from the London Palladium among those studio albums. Well worth seeking out.

 

Really? I still hear almost ALL of his big hits: "Hurts So Good", "Pink Houses", "Authority Song", "Lonely Ol' Night", "Small Town", "R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A.", "Cherry Bomb"...heck even "Your Life Is Now" and his cover of "Wild Night".

 

Jackie Wilson - now mostly known for a Van Morrison lyrical reference, if he’s known much at all.

 

Parliament/Funkadelic

Marshall Tucker Band
Charlie Daniels Band

 

11 straight gold or platinum/8 top ten albums, 2 number one singles; they're the most successful and yet least respected of the Detroit-area bands.

 

Del Amitri had some radio airplay during the 1990s, including a 1995 #1 chart hit in the U.S. with the single 'Roll To Me.' After that, the band became largely forgotten in the U.S. and many fans and listeners were unaware they continued until the early 2000s. Today, Del Amitri remain popular in Europe and are reuniting for a 2018 UK tour.

Del Amitri performing live on Letterman

 

Jewel, O'Conner, Loeb, Phair, Crow, Vega, Merchant . . . pretty much all the Lilith Fair crowd.

 

It's because he's got such a long way to go, till he makes it to the border Of Mexico. To wit- he rides, as does the wind....

 

War

Been huge in the 70s with multiple #1 albums on the Billboard charts and thanks to Low Rider even somehow popular here in Austria, while nowadays basically no one ever mentions them anymore.

 

a lot of the female 70's singers/songwriters probably apply, Melissa Manchester, Janis ian...etc

 

I read that and thought, "The serial killer?!" but then I remembered that was Joel Rifkin.

 

Wouldn't that more be like a one hit wonder?

 

This isn't going to be popular round here, but I'm based in the UK where The Grateful Dead have hardly any presence at all these days. If they ever did. I know their reputation is huge, but I never hear them in bars and their music is rarely used in films or TV shows - which really helps a band transcend generations. Maybe it's a different story in America?

 

The Smashing Pumpkins. People have forgotten how massively popular they were in the 90s. They outsold many of their current peers, sold out arenas around the world, got played on MTV. The remastered/expanded reissues of the classic albums only attracted die-hard fans - and they were quite exciting (3 bonus discs for "Mellon Collie"!!! ).
I always think that, had Billy Corgan died in, say, 1999 (which i'm glad DIDN'T HAPPEN) his talents and creativity would have been more "obvious" to some people...And there's enough drama and tragedy in the story of the band and in Billy's life (abuse, depression,eating disorders, drugs, death) to make an exciting narrative for Joe Schmo. A la Cobain. Now it's all ignored - the music, the story, everything, except by the fans. And this guy has gotten older, which hardly ever gets romanticized.

 

And it bugs me. I love songs with cowbell! Always have. As a child I had Mötley Crüe's first album, heard Rita Mitouko's "Marcia Baila"...all cowbell heavy, and i loved the sound. As for "Don't Fear the Reaper", it's funny, because my introduction to it was the cowbell free live version from "Some Enchanted Evening". For years the only BOC album I had!

 

GFR was the first act I thought of for this thread. And so far, reading through the replies, still the best most convincing answer.

 

lol I know...some folks just aren’t into music and records like we are. I experience something similar hanging with my wife’s family. They’ll have like a dozen CDs in a case in the living room collecting dust. And that’s IT! And they’ll go to all these country and western concerts by bands I never heard of.
We’re a special group of people here.

 

In my life time from what I can remember (I'm 21 BTW)

T.I
Ke$ha
Avril Lavigne
Lil' Wayne
The Black Eyed Peas/Fergie
Nelly Furtado
Akon
Mackelmore
Ashanti
T-Pain
Chris Brown (for obvious reasons)

All seemed inescapable at one point but are largely forgotten now and it hasn't been very long at all. They seldom get mentions anywhere.

 

Me too! People take me for this music specialist because they basically...don't know much about music You"re lucky if you come across albums in people's homes now.

 

Also to address the OP a lot of the artists you all may think have 'lasted' aren't all too popular outside of their demographic.

I wouldn't put The Who in a category with bands like The Rolling Stones or The Beatles, before I joined this forum I didn't know who they were and most of my friends even if they were aware of them wouldn't be able to name a song. This doesn't take away from their legacy but it's a point I just want to make.

 

Are you guys kidding, or just not aware of what the general public is doing? Eric's show at Hyde Park in London this summer is completely sold out - general admission, VIP packages, hotel packages, early entry packages, etc. - 55,000 tickets gone. Meanwhile, tickets are available at most price ranges for Bruno Mars' show at same venue the following weekend. This guy doesn't belong in a thread with Three Dog Night and Average White Band.

 

The parameters of "huge" and "mostly forgotten" seem to be very elastic.

 

I don't know where these guys went...They were almost as good as Uriah Heep.

 

You can put the Gin Blossoms into the Spin Doctors/Blues Traveler 1990's bag as well. I always thought they were the coolest of the lot there for awhile.