Bands you thought would be big ...

[Sits]

Bands you thought would be big ...

Seeing mention of The Big Dish reminds me of Then Jericho, who if memory serves were of a not dissimilar ilk. Their Big Area was also ubiquitous on Radio 1 for a little while.

[Sits]

Bands you thought would be big ...

I tend to experience the opposite phenomenon to this thread's premise. For example on hearing Madonna's Like a Virgin for the first time, I am on record as declaring "well that's her career over."

[Antepli Ejderha]

Bands you thought would be big ...

Nice to see this thread revived after eight years, sad to see some of those regular posters no longer on here.

I thought An Emotional Fish and Grant Lee Buffalo would be huge, neither really were.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

Bands you thought would be big ...

I couldn't work out why Spearmint didn't kick on, myself. I thought 'A Week Away' indicated a bright future, but what did I know?

[Haddock]

Bands you thought would be big ...

The Wild Swans
The Triffids
One Dove
Little Dragon, so far

[Jah Womble]

Bands you thought would be big ...

Hothouse Flowers - they were a band I thought were set to be massive in an AOR-kind of a way: only ever had the one major UK hit, though, and the US wasn't that bothered, so that was that. (They remained big in Ireland, obviously.) Can't say I was that fussed either by them or by their non-global-domination, however.

danielmak wrote:

I think I should have used another term besides indie rock since indie rock conjures a certain sound (e.g., Superchunk or Unwound). Bands are able to gain widespread attention but I meant to reference any type of independent rock band. Most seem to lack the hooks.

Do they though? Alt-J, Temples, Foals, Wolf Alice, etc, etc, are all (debatably) 'indie'-sounding acts with big tunes here and there. They sell albums, but not singles - which I'd maintain is down to the staid, unwelcoming nature of the current pop/Top 40-scene. My point was that there was room for guitar bands in the charts back in the day - even the edgier ones had a sniff. There isn't now. (Can't say I've heard enough by Superchunk or Unwound to make any judgment on their sound.)

[danielmak]

Bands you thought would be big ...

Jah Womble wrote:

danielmak wrote:

I think I should have used another term besides indie rock since indie rock conjures a certain sound (e.g., Superchunk or Unwound). Bands are able to gain widespread attention but I meant to reference any type of independent rock band. Most seem to lack the hooks.

Do they though? Alt-J, Temples, Foals, Wolf Alice, etc, etc, are all (debatably) 'indie'-sounding acts with big tunes here and there. They sell albums, but not singles - which I'd maintain is down to the staid, unwelcoming nature of the current pop/Top 40-scene. My point was that there was room for guitar bands in the charts back in the day - even the edgier ones had a sniff. There isn't now. (Can't say I've heard enough by Superchunk or Unwound to make any judgment on their sound.)

There are a range of guitar-based bands that are topping charts and getting airplay on Top 40 radio in the US: Imagine Dragons, Mumford and Sons, Twenty-One Pilots. But all are corporate bands. My point is that as much as I prefer independent music, I can think of very few current bands not on a major label that *should* be attractive to fans of Top 40 radio. As much as I dig these bands, I understand why these bands wouldn't appeal to the people who buy Mumford and Sons, Justin Beiber, and Pitbull singles from Itunes or stream these artists. I should add that I say this in the context of understanding that corporate labels still control Top 40 playlists in the US (well, 99% of commercial radio in the US) so it's not as if some band or pop singer on an independent label is going to garner national attention. But, again, most of my listening is independent music of various genres and I don't hear the blend of melody and chorus memorability that would appeal to a mainstream audience. Really in the US that hasn't happened since Arcade Fire was on Merge and they got airplay on so-called commercial alternative stations.

[Jah Womble]

Bands you thought would be big ...

It's always happened less in North America than in the UK, methinks. In 1995 (for example), majors were snapping up every guitar four-piece going in the (generally vain) hope that they were the next Oasis / Blur / Suede / Pulp / Supergrass, etc. I mean, none of these were especially 'edgy' bands as such, but they all went from small-ish labels to platinum sales in a few years. (Pulp took a tad longer, but you get the point.)

You're right that those current bands you mention are very corporate (Mumford & Sons - shudder). Those that I mentioned earlier are - I'd venture - far preferable, and in pretty much all cases not really playing straight to the corporates. As I say, they all sell albums, but not singles - which means they and bands like them won't receive the same media exposure as yer pop kids.

[Borracho]

Bands you thought would be big ...

Antepli Ejderha wrote: Nice to see this thread revived after eight years, sad to see some of those regular posters no longer on here.

I thought An Emotional Fish and Grant Lee Buffalo would be huge, neither really were.

I have a clear memory of walking down Henry Street in Dublin city centre some time in 1990 or 1991, and seeing a huge queue snaking out of HMV around the block. It turned out that An Emotional Fish were doing a record signing session inside. They couldn't get arrested outside Ireland though.

About eight years later I found myself in a bar interviewing the singer, who had moved on to other pursuits by then. Amiable enough chap, but a bit odd and with a noticeably inflated sense of his creative abilities.

Now that I think of it, I played football with the guitarist a few times. This is a very small city.

Jah Womble wrote: Hothouse Flowers - they were a band I thought were set to be massive in an AOR-kind of a way: only ever had the one major UK hit, though, and the US wasn't that bothered, so that was that. (They remained big in Ireland, obviously.) Can't say I was that fussed either by them or by their non-global-domination, however.

Hothouse Flowers were terrible. Record company rock in excelsis. They hung around like a bad smell (probably of patchouli oil) for years and years, aided by their members' habit of dating socialites who could keep getting them into the papers.

I went to see the showband version of Chic a while back and their frontman drunkenly invaded the stage during one of the encores, draping his ungainly frame all over Nile Rodgers, who played on with gritted teeth.

[Jah Womble]

Bands you thought would be big ...

An ex bought the An Emotional Fish debut on the strength of the band name alone.

It wasn't very good.

Agree re Hothouse Flowers - typical of the kind of band that was snapped up by corporates in the late eighties. To be honest, I don't know much about them at all. And am happy to keep things that way.

Vicarious Thrillseeker wrote:

I couldn't work out why Spearmint didn't kick on, myself. I thought 'A Week Away' indicated a bright future, but what did I know?

Yeah, they had their moments. Murry the Hump/The Keys I thought might be bigger than they were, especially with Peel championing them and the 'Cool Cymru' (sic) scene in full effect. (They also had a debut EP called Don't Slip Up.)

[Sits]

Bands you thought would be big ...

The Delgados. Hate and Universal Audio are really good albums, must admit I've not heard The Great Eastern.

Or, in "Indie" terms does that count as success?

[Snake Plissken]

Bands you thought would be big ...

I saw These Animal Men as support to Levellers in Manchester and never actively hated a band on a stage as much as them. Real, want to get up there and punch them for being annoying type hate.

Anyway, fast forward a couple of years and my mates band end up supporting some guys called Mo Solid Gold. Who turn out the be a) These Animal Men with the scariest, funkiest lead singer ever and b) absolutely brilliant.

They should have been huge. That singer 'K' - or 'K A Hepburn' should be a star. Can't even find him on Google.

[Combat Wombat]

Bands you thought would be big ...

The Comsat Angels.

When I heard the first album.

When I heard the second I released they wouldn't.

[Jah Womble]

Bands you thought would be big ...

Was that your debut album?

[Stumpy Pepys]

Bands you thought would be big ...

Combat Wombat wrote: The Comsat Angels.

Mark Kermode still reckons the Comsat Angels were the band Joy Division could have been.

[ad hoc]

Bands you thought would be big ...

That Petrol Emotion.

They had everything going for them - already having an "in" being most of the Undertones; being fantastic live, and having some great songs (on both of their first 2 albums).

But, pretty much, nothing.

[Bored Of Education]

Bands you thought would be big ...

Auntie Beryl wrote: The Senseless Things did crack the top 40 a fair few times, but never had a crossover hit, one that reached beyond their original constituency.

I genuinely think that I am not indulging in sour grapes here but I think that they were exactly as big as expected really. As said, they were in the charts, on top of the pops, did a load of good size tours, festival appearances, sold a fair amount of albums and singles etc. Like their contemporaries, they took the Husker Du/Replacements noisy but melodic post-punk and made it a bit poppier and palatable and then worked very hard gigging it all over the place.

[Gangster Octopus]

Bands you thought would be big ...

Stumpy Pepys wrote:

The Comsat Angels.

Mark Kermode still reckons the Comsat Angels were the band Joy Division could have been.

He also thinks that they were from Sheffield. They weren't. They were from Rotherham.

[Jah Womble]

Bands you thought would be big ...

The Comsats had their moments, but they were no Joy Div. (Ditto, The Chameleons.)

TPE were a good live act and put out some great singles - V2, It's a Good Thing, Big Decision - but I think were somehow too anonymous for the crossover. (Agree largely with Bored re Senseless Things.)

The Stitched Back Foot Airmen - they should've been massive, obviously.

[Third rate Leszno]

Bands you thought would be big ...

Sits wrote: Seeing mention of The Big Dish reminds me of Then Jericho, who if memory serves were of a not dissimilar ilk. Their Big Area was also ubiquitous on Radio 1 for a little while.

Yes - I went to see The Jericho a couple of times and was convinced they were going to be as big as Simple Minds. I also thought Thousand Yard Stare were going to be a bigger success (in indie circles, at any rate) than proved to be the case.

I'll also hold my hands up and confess to having JJ72 on my iPod.

[Various Artist]

Bands you thought would be big ...

Third rate Leszno wrote: I'll also hold my hands up and confess to having JJ72 on my iPod.

Did anyone else ever come across a briefly popular online game in 1999-2000 where you (virtually) bought and traded 'shares' in bands? I've no recollection what it was called, but a load of friends in uni were hooked on it and got me into it for a few weeks or months either just before or either side of the turn of the millennium. This was where I first came across JJ72, and a couple of other almost-weres whose names escape me for the moment but, if I heard them now, I'd immediately think of that game.

It was quite a surreal notion, really: you'd login in the morning to check on your portfolio and find that shares in JJ72 were spiralling down so you'd rush to divest yourself of your stock in them, and invest in ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead (that was one of the ones I was trying to remember) whose value was on the rise, or perhaps take a punt on buying low into this new Radiohead-like act you'd just heard some good initial hype for called Coldplay.
I have no idea how the mechanics of the 'stock exchange' worked or whether there was any causal link with the acts' real-world fortunes in terms of their fluctuating value (i.e. was it best to stick all your 'cash' into Oasis and expect steady but unspectacular returns, did new artists appear when they entered the Top 40?), nor how wide the genre net was spread, e.g. if you could invest in All Saints or the Artful Dodger or Andreas Johnson, say. But it was oddly diverting for a bit in its own peculiar way.

[Jah Womble]

Bands you thought would be big ...

Don't (really) remember that, but I do recall the NME jumping on the 'fantasy football'-bandwagon around 1995 with a game called - I think - Supergroups.

Basically, you had an amount of money and fashioned a band from existing (mainly Britpop) groups, your performance then based on the following week's chart performance, TV appearances, column inches, etc. (I seem to recall a guy whose band was, rather unimaginatively, called The Slapheads won it before they killed it off. F*ck knows how I remember these things.)

[gjt]

Bands you thought would be big ...

There was an independent online game called Popex, run by one of the mods off Popbitch, and the BBC ran their own (with a slightly wider purview) called Celebdaq (which according to wiki used lots of the same software)

[Crusoe]

Bands you thought would be big ...

Jah Womble wrote: Don't (really) remember that, but I do recall the NME jumping on the 'fantasy football'-bandwagon around 1995 with a game called - I think - Supergroups.

Basically, you had an amount of money and fashioned a band from existing (mainly Britpop) groups, your performance then based on the following week's chart performance, TV appearances, column inches, etc. (I seem to recall a guy whose band was, rather unimaginatively, called The Slapheads won it before they killed it off. F*ck knows how I remember these things.)

I played that. Think I had Louise Wener, Justin Welch (Elastica), someone from Blur and someone from Suede.