Bands with hit singles that were not hit singles
Succeeding, though.
I don’t know you or where you were when those bands were out, but they were definitely NOT considered mediocre by rock fans of the day.
Hard rock and metal releases tend not to do well on the charts. As I pointed out earlier in this thread, Motörhead- one of the most revered bands in heavy music- only had 9 songs chart in the Billboard top 200, of which only 4 cracked the top 100. Two of those made it into the top 50, and none of which cleared the top 20. The highest hit 22.
“Aftershock” is their highest charter at 22nd…and “Ace of Spades“ isn’t any one of those other songs.
For sake of comparison, Aldo Nova’s “Fantasy” hit 23rd on the Billboard 200.
Fastway’s debut album hit 31 on the Billboard albums chart, with one one song from it hitting 14th and another hitting 35th. Their 4th album- the soundtrack for Trick or Treat- hit 35 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
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well Burroughs is weird, sure. Not understanding the point.
Those are lousy songs by any standard. Maybe there good within the genre, but theyz’re boring outside of it. Do, you, with your deep metal knowledge, really think those are the best representatives of the possible pop aspects of that scene? I surely hope not because they sound like awesome local metal bands I have to pretend have a chance to be big, but they don’t, cause they’re boring, but I’m friends with them so I have to pretend.
My hope with this thread was that we’d get pop sounding songs from people’s deep cataloge of genre stuff. Not what happened. Like, I’m deep into this scene everyone craps on, but here’s a song that will change your mind.
Once you’ve gotten past competency with instruments & composition, music appreciation and taste is pretty subjective. For example, I like rap, but I found your selection (Keith Murray) to be a 2nd rate version of Bustah Rhymes (whom he did perform with). In the context of his contemporaries, he wasn’t all that special. But I basically kept my opinion of him to myself (until now).
So, in the context of this thread, your post basically has this kind of energy:
Those songs & bands were pretty well received at the time. Individual members of Fastway had great careers BEFORE that band, and several did afterwards as well.
When you compare them to local bands you’re hearing now, you’re discounting the fact that they did it 40 years ago. And that’s missing a big factor in the music profession. Being among the first to do something matters. Innovation matters.
Because as time goes on, much of what was once innovation that only a few could even dream of doing becomes the new benchmark for mere competence. There’s preteen guitarists out there who can play substantial chunks of EVH’s catalog as well as he could. The bass techniques Jaco Pastorius and Bootsy Collins pioneered in the 1980s can be heard in HS battles of the bands.
A friend of mine is a jazz pianist. He’s got a few albums to his name. As the joke goes, he’s “big in Japan”. I watched him play the Jazz standard “Take Five”- a song famously popular in spite of being written in 5/4 time- in 3/4, 4/4, 6/4 and 7/4 on the fly as the signature changes were called out. He teaches piano and plays for a church choir.
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Are you asking me to post some? What do you consider pop/indie metal?
Or are you asking permission? Because you don’t need any.
