That was great. Thanks so much!
Thomas Dolby moved away from his early sound when he moved to America. Astronauts & Heretics starts with zydeco and jumps around genres but is always fascinating. “I Love You Goodbye” is a standout.
Speaking of soundtracks and obscure, Joe Jackson did a soundtrack album for the obscure movie Mike’s Murder. The music wasn’t used in the movie, but an lp was released. A killer side of uptempo pop songs - “Memphis” is his hardest rocker - and a b-side of atmospheric instrumentals.
There is a big category of acts with hardcore cult following, and a couple of fairly successful singles that really should be bigger:
Spiritualized, Songs in A&E(Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space got a lot of music-press plaudits, but I prefer the follow up album)
Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America
Malcom Middleton, Into The Woods (better than anything he did with Arab Strap IMO)
Heh. I saw them in a concert in a bar here in Chicago about – shit, when was their heyday – ten years ago? Fun 60s-style girl pop!
My local favorite is Bad Is Beautiful by the Bad Examples. Great lyric-based story-telling pop from our perennial bar band (I hate to call them that, but that is the venue you will most likely see them.) I’m generally not one who cares too much about lyrics, but there’s a quality to Ralph Covert’s lyrics that I immediately identify with – sentiment without over-sentimentality – and great melodies. Plus a hell of a band backing him up. Probably the band I’ve seen the most live, although it’s been about a decade since I’ve seen them (and they do still play.)
Also did a great Randy Newman cover album. One stand out is Cowboy
Jona Lewie, On the Other Hand There’s a Fist (there are different versions of this album, you want the one with The Fairground Ride on it).
English guy who plays New Orleans-style boogie woogie piano; gets signed to Stiff Records and produces something suitably weird. After 40 years I still can’t figure out where he’s coming from, but I keep listening.
Since this one didn’t sell, he modified his approach and had a couple of Big in England* singles, but it wasn’t the same. Too bad.
(* Like saying “Number One in Delaware”, nothing against England, or Delaware, you may find this impressive but you aren’t required to.)
Tears for Fears, Seeds of Love.
It’s in my top ten greatest albums of all time. And this is coming from a hardcore prog rock fan.
The National “Boxer”, 2007.
That’s the one with Eddie Van Halen playing on it. Good album, but I prefer Aliens Ate My Buick because of the wistfully sinister “Budapest By Blimp”. Thomas Dolby is probably the definition of underrated.
I’ll nominate Be Bop Deluxe’s 3rd album, Sunburst Finish.
Be Bop Deluxe fans, you know what I’m talking about. “Life in the Air Age” and “Ships in the Night” were sort of AOR FM hits back in the day, but the real jewel on the album is Crying to the Sky with not one but two beautiful Hendrix-inspired solos.
Gaslight Anthem. 59 sound. Serious Springsteen love.
I’ll nominate Chicago’s first album. Aside from Terry Kath’s miserable attempt to imitate Jimi Hendrix, it’s got a bunch of great songs.
I really like “Late” on Trip Shakespeare’s Across the Universe
How about the over the top Gowan’s album “Strange Animal” featuring Criminal Mind
Also there’s any number of great Split Enz albums.
Speaking of which…here’s a lovely song from the end of Electra Glide in Blue
Springsteen vs The Clash by way of The Replacements is a potent mix. And “Ain’t supposed to die on a Saturday night” is the best Springsteen line that he never wrote.
My favorite “great album nobody else has ever heard of” album is “Fun” by the British power-pop band The Candy Skins. They had another album that was nowhere as good, and AFAIK this, “Wembley”, was their only official video, at least from “Fun”. It doesn’t do them justice. I found out about them because the album was in heavy rotation on my college’s radio station during the summer of 1993.
Here's another song, "Everybody Loves You", used as the soundtrack for a memorial video.
Several years ago, I stumbled onto “Fountains of Light” by the late 1970s prog band Starcastle. Amazing, simply amazing. (A decade later, their drummer graduated from medical school.)
I don’t know why the video is an hour in length; the whole album is just under 40 minutes. And what a 40 minutes they are!
That incident prompted this thread.
Minutemen - Double Nickels On the Dime
Mission of Burma - Vs.
Hoodoo Gurus - Stoneage Romeos
Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians - Element of Light
Shovels and Rope - O’ Be Joyful
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Ju Ju
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement
John Doe - The Westerner
Indeedy do! It’s a very rough and raw recording since they hadn’t hit anything big yet (and thus had no budget), but the talent is there.
Assuming you want obscure because they are simply unknown, allow me to offer 3 from the 1980s:
Wire Train - …in a chamber, an overlooked gem from 1984. I was lucky enough to see them open for Big Country at FAU. I still have the cassette I bought at Peaches the next day. I have two copies of the CD re-release that a guy arranged in the late 1990s, too. Fantastic dreamy psych pop, lots of chorus and echo and inscrutable lyrics here.
Tar Babies - No Contest is an SST release from 1998. Jazzy, funky-as-fuck , tight-but-loose in a way that 99.999% of bands can only ever hope to be and rocking like there’s no dawn coming. The link is to 4 of the 8 tracks from this album; I guarantee the rest is worth listening to if you like those songs.
Universal Congress Of - Prosperous & Qualified is another 1998 release on SST (it was a good year, eh). More funky jazz, this time centered on the interplay between the Joe Baiza’s unique guitar sound & runs and saxman Steve Moss’s agile wailing. Punchy, low-down funky, dirty filthy jazz… this band is responsible for both of the two best concerts I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen thousands of concerts.