Shannon Curfman. Supposed to be the next big… something. Look her up. 'Cause I’m sure you never heard of her.
Donovan spent his whole career in the shadow of Bob Dylan and was never taken quite seriously outside that narrow range. I’ve heard him speak rather mournfully about it.
And yet, she’s sold millions of records, tours regularly now, and has tons of critical acclaim. She’s not a huge star, but she is a star.
Lol.
Moby Grape’s self titled debut in 1967 saw Columbia records release five singles simultaneously. It’s a well regarded album but didn’t sell…short, well crafted songs were not what was coming out of San Francisco in 1967. Coupled with drug problems and bad luck, it’s a tale of could-have-been.
A year later MGM tried to promote the "Bosstown Sound" with groups like Ultimate Spinach and Beacon Street Union.Sade definitely doesn’t count. Every album she/they have put out over 27 years has hit the Top 10 in the US, and they are certified at about 20 million albums in the US alone. The issue, though, is that they’ve only had 6 studio albums in 27 years, and just 2 in the past 20 years. The last 3 studio albums were released in 1992, 2000, and 2010. (There were 2 greatest hits and 1 live album as well.)
I would put LeAnn Rimes in there, although she had hits for several years after the beginning of her career. But given how loyal the country fanbase usually is, it’s interesting that she hasn’t had a gold album since 2005. But she kind of did that to herself by courting pop radio too strongly (and by becoming a tabloid fixture).
Looking at the Grammy nominees for Best New Artist, there are a bunch of artists who essentially vanished after that first album (Neneh Cherry, Paula Cole, Joan Osborne, Michelle Branch, I would add Vanessa Carlton).
I wish Katy Perry had been, at most, a one-hit wonder.
An artist who I’m glad has been more successful than I predicted is Beck. I’m actually not a particular fan of his, but back when “Loser” was a hit I bought the Mellow Gold album (on cassette!). I remember thinking that Beck was a pretty talented guy and that it was a shame he was doomed to be a one-hit wonder best known for what was basically a novelty song. While I don’t think he’s ever had a bigger hit single than “Loser”, Beck has had a long and successful career and several of his later albums did sell more copies and/or reached higher chart positions than Mellow Gold.
I hesitate to say this, but Janelle Monae might count. Upon release of her first album (in 2010, I think), serious critics thought she would be a changing force in popular music. Perhaps her influence has been deeper than first meets the eye, but I’d say she’s instead settled into a medium-popular niche and is unlikely to take things much further than that. A perfectly respectable career in the making, but not a game-changer on the level of, say, James Brown or Stevie Wonder.
Who?
Alannah Myles?
I was around in 1984, and they weren’t. I wasn’t a fan then, but they produced hit after hit and they’re talent as songwriters was obvious. Outfits like Simple Minds did not. U2 is more comparable in impact if not in style to Duran Duran.
Who, by the way, turned out to be surprisingly talented. John Taylor’s too good a bass player for pop.
The person I came her to mention…I remember reading an article in Jr High, in one of those magazines like Dynamite…may have been Dynamite, where the writer was saying that it was sad how a once star like Elton John was trying to stay relevant by attaching himself to the rising star to Kiki Dee.
Of course I know… " you can’t get the sound from a story in a magazine… Aimed at your average teen"
Beck is one of those artist that I’m always surprised is still around, even though I like his stuff. My most recent such moment was discovering he wrote a lot of the songs for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (I think everything by the Sex Bob-Ombs).
Way back in the Dark Ages of my youth, John Prine was supposed to be the next Dylan. His first album was brilliant, but he never followed up.
[Emphasis added]
Absolutely agree. The youtube videos of DD songs with just the bass track, etc…, blew my mind when I first heard them. E.g., Girls on Film.
Wasn’t Jakob Dylan supposed to become a bigger star than he is today?
Maybe so, but ye gods is that kid (I went to college with him, so I still consider him a kid) a dick. I’m unsurprised.
Folk-rocker Megan/Megon McDonough (Chicagoland; early 70s). Lots of albums; few hits.
I didn’t think she was all that bad. Nervous, yeah, I could see that.
I don’t think so. I’d say that most Counting Crows fans aren’t “testosterone-laden,” we seem more laid-back, and I’d say the gender split’s probably 50/50. I think it was a case of the crowd more anxious to hear the band they really paid to see (we’re kind of a fanatical fanbase like that), and were impatient to the point where they wanted to hear something more than a chick and a piano. Adam Duritz, the lead singer of Counting Crows, is known for turning a 4-minute song into one twice that length with ad-libbed verses, the fans go nuts for that shit. I think that’s what started it all. It could have been almost anyone, not her specifically.
Interesting thread. Beck (mentioned as someone who outlasted the initial 1-hit wonder expectations) just won Album of the Year, of course.
And I’m pretty sure Adele’s “brief mega success of 2011-2012” was actually still on the charts when this was active in late 2014 and probably still close to charting now. It was even in the top 100 around 2 months after the last post, 189 weeks after its release. It would be difficult to match that success again, but she’s now a full 7 years into her multi-platinum recording career.
I definitely would have predicted U2 to outlast the Go-Gos. U2 is a ‘political’ band, while The Go-Gos were a punk band forced to do pop.
I would NOT have predicted U2 to last so long. Just longer than the Go-Gos.