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Bands that served as their style's only representative on the charts

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    Bands that served as their style's only representative on the charts

    The Chart Music thread and the reminiscing about charts past made me think of some acts that had a hit or two or three that didn't really sound like anything else on the charts but can't really be said to be "novelty" acts nor were they really the only one of their kind out there - just the only one that broke through.

    The one that comes to mind is The Stray Cats. Rockabilly, which of course began in the 50s, started a bit of a revival when Elvis made his comeback in the late 60s. But, as far as I know, the Stray Cats were/are the only rockabilly band to make much of a dent in MTV or the charts, at least in the US, in the 80s and nobody else of that kind has done it since. But they're hardly unique, either then or now. There are loads of rockabilly and psychobilly bands around and I guess it has a cult audience. (I like a lot of it)

    And maybe he isn't the only Jamaican or reggae-influenced act to ever hit the charts, but Bob Marley is by far the most famous. I'm pretty sure nobody else comes close. He didn't spear head a big reggae explosion, as far as I know. It was just him, pretty much. Or at least, he's the only one who continued to move records well into the 90s and beyond.

    Are there other examples of bands whose presence on the charts were just the tip of the iceberg for a whole genre but didn't really bring anyone else with them?

    #2
    I think that this works differently in the US and UK, as do many things musical.

    My recollection/sense is that both genres were much better represented over there.

    Marley is interesting, not only did mainstream US audiences have no interest in reggae beyond him* they also had very little time for anything of his other than the hits off Rastaman Vibration and No Woman, No Cry.

    A possible analog is that Falco's Rock Me Amadeus and Der Kommisar were the only exemplars of that school of Europop to make an impact chez nous.

    * The label that my father worked for spent a lot of money, time and effort trying to make Peter Tosh happen here without success. This was very much a thing in the US business, with big labels trying their best to rip off successful styles and formats.
    Last edited by ursus arctos; 11-08-2017, 02:13.

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      #3
      Yeah Reggae was pretty huge in the UK, even pre-Marley. Its popularity grew out of bluebeat/ska among mods in the mid-60s. Reggae was their musical successor and became the the sound of choice for skinheads at the turn of the decade — who, in many cases were the younger brothers of mods. This was several years before Bob Marley gained wider popularity.
      Last edited by Amor de Cosmos; 11-08-2017, 02:09.

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        #4
        Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post

        A possible analog is that Falco's Rock Me Amadeus and Der Kommisar were the only exemplars of that school of Europop to make an impact chez nous.
        Yes, with the note that After the Fire also had a minor hit with Der Kommisar. I'm not sure who recorded it first. I used to know that, but it's one of the many bits of trivia that has left my brain in recent years.

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          #5
          Falco was first

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            #6
            Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post
            Yeah Reggae was pretty huge in the UK, even pre-Marley. It grew out of the Bluebeat/Ska its popularity grew out of bluebeat/ska among mods in the mid-60s. Reggae was its musical successor and became the the sound of choice for skinheads — who, in many cases were the younger brothers of mods. This was several years before Bob Marley gained wider popularity.
            Right. But perhaps there was some other style that only had one or maybe two representatives on the UK charts. I was going to guess maybe country, but listening to Chart Music has shown me that a number of country artists have hit the UK charts.

            Maybe "jam bands" would be an example. Did the Grateful Dead ever do anything in the UK? What about Phish or String Cheese Incident or Dave Matthews Band (the acceptable face of that shit).


            Ska - or mostly ska-influenced pop and punk - had a moment here in the late 90s, with Rancid, Goldfinger, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and a few others getting play on stations like WFNX in Boston and, I suppose, KROK and a few others - commercial stations that played what used to only be played on college stations. And No Doubt "crossed over," as they say, though the stuff that hit for them wasn't as ska as their earlier stuff.

            And that did have a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats effect for bands like the Pietasters, Toasters, Specials, Allstonians and others. It certainly was the thing that made me want to buy albums by The Selector, etc.
            Not chart success, perhaps, but filling bigger venues, etc. Then that faded from popularity.

            I suspect little or none of that stuff broke through in the UK.

            Likewise, Swingers ushered in a brief fad of "swing" music that didn't last long either, but I think there were a couple of chart hits from that.
            Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 11-08-2017, 02:26.

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              #7
              I looked it up. Dave Matthews band had multiple #1 albums in the US, but no albums in the UK did better than #59, according to officialcharts.com.

              The Grateful Dead likewise never did anything in the UK charts, but they might qualify as an example of this "iceberg" phenomena in the US, because despite their massive following and long career, they only had one song in the top 40, and that was "Touch of Grey" in 1987, relatively late in their run.

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                #8
                Yeah, The Dead were one of those exceptional acts that gained a substantial and long-lasting reputation in spite of having little if any chart success (Iggy Pop's another.) In both cases they were exceptional live acts. It was all about performance — in quite different ways. The Dead — in their early days — also carried the flag as the hippest and most "authentic" of the mid 60s San Francisco bands. They lived together, played together, dropped acid together. Even if you'd never seen or heard them, and few in the UK had until well into the 70s, you still rated the idea of them if nothing else.

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                  #9
                  The other one that I thought of is the Georgia Satellites. "Keep Your Hands to Yourself" got to #2 in the US and the album its on got to #5 (I had it on cassette. I got it Cincinnati. I remember) But its not like the were riding a wave of popularity for southern rock or bluesy guitar-driven rock. It just sort of came and went.

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                    #10
                    Erm, are you saying that The Selecter, and The Specials didn't have hits in the UK, HP? Or did you mean the Rancid types? The latter made very little progress here, although I vaguely remember a semi-hit for the Bosstones.

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by Gerontophile View Post
                      Erm, are you saying that The Selecter, and The Specials didn't have hits in the UK, HP? Or did you mean the Rancid types? The latter made very little progress here, although I vaguely remember a semi-hit for the Bosstones.
                      No, I know that they were fairly popular in the UK. Though I always get The Specials mixed up with The Selector.

                      I'm saying that they probably gained a few American fans in the 90s after punk bands, along with the Bosstones, Save Ferris, Reel Big Fish and some others, suddenly popped up on the radio and brought ska to the attention of Americans who probably hadn't heard much of it before. And some of those Americans became interested in checking out their influences and thereby discovered older ska bands like the Selecter as well as more obscure American ones like The Allstonians. On the other hand, many Americans probably just read an article about the "ska fad" in Entertainment Weekly and concluded that ska means No Doubt and The Offspring (who weren't ska at all, but I do recall seeming them called that in some article around that time).

                      It was sort of like how bands like Cream probably helped bring more fans to the old bluesmen that Clapton talked about so much. But not a ton.


                      I wouldn't expect that many of those American semi-ska bands would do much in the UK. To UK fans, they probably just sounded fake.

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                        #12
                        Going back to The Stray Cats, interestingly their Wikipedia page says their recording career actually began in the UK. As is covered in the Chart Music podcast, rockabilly revival records and bands (Shakin' Stevens, Showaddywaddy, Darts and a fair number of others) were a regular part of the UK chart scene from around the mid-70s to the early 80s. So over here The Stray Cats slotted into that, albeit with, as I recall, an added whiff of American authenticity.

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                          #13
                          Any minor popularity or even just name recognition Reel Big Fish had in the UK most likely came off the back of the appearance of Sell Out on the soundtrack of FIFA 2000 - it was their biggest single here, reaching the dizzying heights of...



                          #62.

                          NOTE: That was in 2002, some three years after said FIFA was released and six years after the song was originally recorded.

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                            #14
                            Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                            I think that this works differently in the US and UK, as do many things musical.

                            My recollection/sense is that both genres were much better represented over there.

                            Marley is interesting, not only did mainstream US audiences have no interest in reggae beyond him* they also had very little time for anything of his other than the hits off Rastaman Vibration and No Woman, No Cry.

                            A possible analog is that Falco's Rock Me Amadeus and Der Kommisar were the only exemplars of that school of Europop to make an impact chez nous.

                            * The label that my father worked for spent a lot of money, time and effort trying to make Peter Tosh happen here without success. This was very much a thing in the US business, with big labels trying their best to rip off successful styles and formats.
                            Ursus, I'm wondering if your dad worked for the rolling stones as they signed tosh to their label in an effort to break him. They even played and sang on his first album for their label too.

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                              #15
                              Other than Manhattan Transfer, I'm struggling to think of another vocal jazz/cabaret/pastiche group that enjoyed (reasonably) sustained success on the British charts. (That doesn't mean that there isn't one - just that I cannot off the top of my head think of one.)

                              The UK market for bands like Showaddywaddy, Darts, Shaky, Matchbox, Rocky Sharpe & The Replays, The Jets, etc, would indeed have been very different from that of the Stray Cats. While those groups would've been selling to the mainstream pop market (and appearing at 'end of the pier'-type venues), Brian Setzer and his pals had a considerable following among the post-punk circuit: authentic rockabillies were also buying their records and they'd have had a good crossover with fans of more uncompromising proto-psychobilly acts such as The Cramps or The Meteors.

                              In terms of 'jam' bands - which I'd argue is too loose a description/genre to be included here anyway - Little Feat also made some headway in the UK during the seventies, as did The Black Crowes a couple of decades later. (I don't think anybody gave a stuff about Dave Matthews in the UK.)

                              Country acts have long been well-represented in Britain: for example, Jim Reeves, John Denver, Tammy Wynette, Kenny Rogers and J J Barrie all had UK number ones during the sixties and seventies.

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                                #16
                                The Flying Pickets must be another for this.

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                                  #17
                                  Originally posted by 3 Colours Red View Post
                                  Any minor popularity or even just name recognition Reel Big Fish had in the UK most likely came off the back of the appearance of Sell Out on the soundtrack of FIFA 2000 - it was their biggest single here, reaching the dizzying heights of...
                                  #62.
                                  NOTE: That was in 2002, some three years after said FIFA was released and six years after the song was originally recorded.
                                  Reel Big Fish, along with Less Than Jake, have a sizeable and loyal live following in the UK, even if their records don't chart. They'll play Academy venues when they tour here, or get reasonably high slots at festivals. They aren't my thing really but I've seen them both and they are decent fun live.

                                  I get the impression, from reviews I've read in the past, that Dave Matthews Band gigs in London are populated mainly by US expats.

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                                    #18
                                    Laurie Anderson for avant-garde minimalism

                                    Dave Brubeck for modern jazz

                                    Pavarotti for Italian opera

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                      On the other hand, many Americans probably just read an article about the "ska fad" in Entertainment Weekly and concluded that ska means No Doubt and The Offspring (who weren't ska at all, but I do recall seeming them called that in some article around that time).
                                      The Offspring definitely went down the ska-punk route with "Ixnay on the Hombre", before settling for a stream of novelty hits to keep the money rolling in. Shame, as "Smash" and their debut album is good old foot to the floor punk.

                                      Would The Levellers count? The period from about 1992-1996 they were pretty big by any standards - still hold the record for the biggest crowd at Glastonbury and all that - let alone that sort of punk/folk/hippy niche.

                                      Would also suggest Nine Inch Nails - plenty of industrial electro/metal out there but no-one comes close to them in terms of sales.

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                                        #20
                                        Pentangle cornered the folk-jazz market. There were other chart folk bands, obviously, but not as sophisticated or jazzy.

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                                          #21
                                          The Untouchables were another US band that jumped onto the ska thang: given that they hit in the UK with Free Yourself during 1985, they might even be the first American act to play ska, or at least to find commercial success doing so. (The best, however, were Coloring Lesson who recorded the great Mea Culpa Blues (1997).)

                                          Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post
                                          Would The Levellers count? The period from about 1992-1996 they were pretty big by any standards - still hold the record for the biggest crowd at Glastonbury and all that - let alone that sort of punk/folk/hippy niche.
                                          You could be right there - from that time, I can only really think of Back To The Planet, who, despite also having a big traveller following, clearly got nowhere near the commercial success of The Levellers.

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                                            #22
                                            I got high with the Untouchables once.

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                                              #23
                                              The B52s must have been the only successful exponents of whatever it was that they did. They may have been the only exponents of it full stop.

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                                                #24
                                                Mrs Mills for music hall piano singalongs?

                                                I genuinely can't lump Chas'n'Dave in with Mrs Mills; there was a lot more to them.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Russ Conway or perhaps Winifred Atwell might have a shout there, I'd say.

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