Success meaning not only selling well and generally being known, but also having continual success, not just being an one-hit wonder.
I’d have to say Ultra Bra. Of course, they’re generally unknown outside Finland, mainly thanks to them singing in Finnish, but inside Finland they were huge. Their album Kroketti stayed on the Finnish top-ten list for an year, and in the nineties their songs were rather omnipresent - I’d have to say that after Beatles, they’ve got the most songs I knew before I started to seriously listen to music.
What do they sound like? It’s rather hard to describe, so I’ll let this article speak for me:
If you’re talking about a hit singles kind of band, I’d say The Cure. They’re pretty unconventional compared to most bands that have been a continuing success for twenty+ years. They have a big new multi album deal and a nu-metal guy producing their new record, so I don’t expect the hits to stop anytime soon.
If your measure of success doesn’t include hit singles, I could name a thousand punk/indie bands that have stayed successful in their field for a decade or two (or three, in the case of Hawkwind) Butthole Surfers and Sonic Youth come to mind.
Frank Zappa was pretty succesful, and since he still releases CDs posthumously, his success has continued into this century.
Well, it SOUNDS silly to say they were unconventional, seeing as how they sold tens of millions of records, sold out thousands of hockey arenas, and still dominate “classic rock” radio… but Led Zeppelin was a mighty unorthodox, conventional band.
Don’t believe me? Well, answer this: does “Whole Lotta Love” sound like a top ten pop single to you? Well, it WAS!
Does “Hats off to (Roy) Harper” or “The Crunge” sound like the work of a band trying to go megaplatinum? Well, they did.
Robert Plant has often said that he and his bandmates never expected to make so much money, because their music was FAR from radio-friendly. And I think he’s right. But their music has been so commercially successful, people forget just how risky, unconventional and innovative much of it was.
The Cure hasn’t broken up and they are indeed putting out a new album (hopefully.)
If we’re talking about popular bands that don’t seem to have much of a commercial appeal but still sold loads of albums, what about System of a Down or Tool?
Radiohead and Tool are both fair choices. But I’d add Bjork, who’s been continuously weird, shifting her collaborators, and working in different styles. After the bizarreness of Sugarcubes, she’s been through a few odd dance-collaborators, to the point where she no longer makes anything like dance music. And although Selma Songs wasn’t a big hit, it was still big enough for something so massively strange.
(Um, but Led Zep are cock rock with pretentious touches, and thus guaranteed to sell well. They were always a huge albums band. And before anyone mentions REM they got shit and famous as soon as Stipe started enunciating his lyrics. IMHO.)
When exactly did this happen? Sometimes you can understand what he says, sometimes you can’t, and I don’t think that there is a specific line separating the two. For instance, the album Monster came out after REM were massively famous, but I dare you to tell me you understood the lyrics to “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”
Alice Cooper. You could have blown me away when I heard “I’m Eighteen” was on the top 40 charts. A group of men in dresses (who first recorded for Frank Zappa’s Bizarre Records) making top 40? Granted, they changed their image somewhat for “I’m Eighteen,” but I never would have believed it if someone had told me it would happen.
For a band whose music was heavily influenced by cool jazz and was named after a dildo in a William Burrough’s Naked Lunch, you would think that Steely Dan would’ve been never more than a low-level cult favorite. However, their records sold surprisingly well and they had a lot of radio airplay.
I’m also surprised a band like Dire Straights was as popular as it was.
David Bowie was pretty unconventional when he broke through in the 70’s.
Also, Nirvana was a major departure from what was offered on pop radio in the early 90’s.
Well, that goes without saying! Hey, how 'bout Wall of Voodoo? They were pretty weird. “Mexican Radio” was probably the closest they came to a normal song.
<two cents > The whole idea behind Zepplin was to be huge and make lots of money. Page was no dummy, he knew what he was doing. He built the band up from the ruins of the Yardbirds and pretty much wrote the book on how to market rock and roll, what with the occult mystique, the mudshark legends, a frontman prancing around like a big pussy to turn on the teenage girls and middle aged houswives. Led Zepplin didn’t have an original musical idea until the fourth album, when they turned into Spinal tap. “Whole Lotta Love” might have been a big radio hit, but “Psychotic Reaction” was a bigger hit years before, and it has a way more chaotic break in it. </ 2 cents >
Einsturzende Neubuaten come to mind. But they really didn’t have success as far as selling records goes, but their recognition and influence should also be taken into account.
How about They Might Be Giants? I don’t know what your measure of “achieve success” is, but TMBG has been around since the '80s and puts out new stuff regularly – and their style is definitely weird and unique.
I nominate The Breeders - Kim and Kelley Deal’s band. They had a pretty big hit about 10 - 12 years ago, Cannonball which was very catchy and poppy. But the album it was on (can’t even remember the name) was waaaay out there…