Bands with hit singles that were not hit singles

[Dannyalcatraz]

ok, something heavier, but these guys were great live also ( again dating myself ;p )


I dont think they ever got much radio play other than the above song

Marc Storace had a great voice!

The songs I heard most on the radio were “Screaming in the Night”, “Eat the Rich” and their cover of “Ballroom Blitz”.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Soul Coughing brought us a fusion of alternative and jazz sensibilities. Great musicianship, but egos- and America’s ambivalence towards jazz kinda doomed them. Still, they generated a bunch of buzz before they flamed out.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Morphine gave us a lot of killer music before Mark Sandman’s passing. But not everyone remembers Treat Her Right, the band he had shortly before Morphine broke. They had a pretty solid hit with this song:


But they didn’t move tons of records, and they didn’t pull big crowds. Soon after their debut album, they were at SXSW, shopping for a new label. They broke up before that happened. But, as mentioned, we got Morphine.

 

[Art Waring]

Soul Coughing brought us a fusion of alternative and jazz sensibilities. Great musicianship, but egos- and America’s ambivalence towards jazz kinda doomed them. Still, they generated a bunch of buzz before they flamed out.

They are really solid actually, thank you for sharing them! I instantly thought of another band when I heard this for some reason from the alt-jazz style, but probably a bit stranger and not to everyone's taste.

 

[Art Waring]

Ok but back to the subject, probably the two bands that were truly exceptional, and were probably too unapproachable for most people at the time, or even today, but have wrought works of amazing beauty. Depending on your tastes of course...

-Pigface: Can't emphasize just how unique this collaboration was, but with the passing of Mark Atkins [Drummer/ Vocalist] the lead member, the core project ended before its time.


I hope you are sitting down...



-The Sleepytime Gorilla Museum of Natural History: Hard metal eminently combined with violins and a classical approach towards something never quite seen before or after.

 

[MGibster]

The Skatt Bros. were a band that formed in Los Angeles in the late 1970s but didn't have a lot of mainstream success in the United States. "Walk the Night" appeared on their first album in 1979 and proved to be an underground hit in gay bars. Like many people, I never heard of it until it appeared on the soundtrack to Grand Theft Auto IV in 2008. It's a pretty good song, and I'm a bit surprised it wasn't more of a mainstream hit.


The Skatt Bros. had another hit that was a bit more campy and gained a lot of popularity in Australia. "Life at the Outpost" ought to be right up there with the Village People's "YMCA," but it never got anywhere here in the United States. The folks in the video are not members of the band, they were models hired to lip sync. Check out that Star Trek pinball machine though. It's all real, baby.

 

[Art Waring]

Fields of the Nephilim: Often referred to as the Pink Floyd of the goth scene. Ethereal guitars with Sumerian imagery.

 

[Ryujin]

These guys never really took off but I remember hearing this song A LOT. The lyrics aren't exactly deep, but at least it's seasonally appropriate

 

[Ryujin]

I really doubt that the group Toronto got any airplay outside of Canada. It's a pity, because their sound was the epitome of late '70s rock.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

These guys never really took off but I remember hearing this song A LOT. The lyrics aren't exactly deep, but at least it's seasonally appropriate

They’re still around and kinda on the cusp of breaking big. They had 3-4 solid albums and had a lot of award nominations, with a few wins. Then took a several year hiatus- I don’t recall why. They just released a new album this September.