Countdown 100: Bands that got megahyped that failed spectacularly...

73 RPLA
The RPLA Debacle

72. Canibus

71. Mick Jagger solo

78, yep.

The biz being so london-centric, a whole host of pub rock bands got signed because they worked well in a pub, but outside of that, no-one cared. none got megahyped though, aside from the Brinz, as mentioned. Oh, Dr Feelgood did, but hey: Success or what?

70. Theaudience

I didn't realise Deaf School got megahyped - they were a brilliant band!

69. Lone Star.

68. S*M*A*S*H

67 Blue Rondo a la Turk

66 Animal Nightlife

65 King

64. Funkapolitan

63. Ultrasound

63 already 82.

63. FMB

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/lottery-win-inspires-failed-band-to-reform-514521.html

62. Campag Velocet

^ been done

62. Slade (in the USA)

61 : Tiny Dancers

the sheer extravagence on the promos etc (and weren;t they famously one of the last big ££ signings prior to the big EMI shakeup), but did anyone buy the album ?

60. Northern Uproar

59. These Animal Men

do american mags not hype up anything?

I'm trying to remember the last actually hyped American band that had zero success; even The Click 5 had like one hit song.

I don't know if Christiana DeBarge was actually megahyped but she performed on So You Think You Can Dance once and then was never heard from again

even big n rich sell records right?

they sell FUCKTONS of records!

58. Andrew WK

^ yeah!

Not sure I understand the meaning of the word "megahyped" in re: half these bands

57. Dave Matthews Band (in the UK)

but dmb were never hyped in the uk. Probably never even written about. Noone outside of ilm has probably heard them in the uk!

I remember a huge poster campaign! 'Who is Dave Matthews?'

56. clap your hands and say yeah

55. kula shaker

Andrew WK was fairly successful. WTF

I remember a huge poster campaign! 'Who is Dave Matthews?'

That really worked, didn't it?

^ a million selling album is a failure?

John Mayer is consistently regarded as the hit singer over here, except his hit total is one album on the chart here for 1 week.

Check: Dreamworks roster circa 2000. Cupcakes (industry hype), Palo Alto (Rick Rubin producing)...

Kula Shaker did alright!

54. Joe Lean and the Jing Fucking Jang Fucking Jong.

^ thanx for nothing there, mike

^ had erased them from my memory till then

In the interests of useful info rather than self-plugging, here's a piece I co-wrote five years ago where the likes of Orlando, Birdland and Brinsley Schwarz explained what went wrong. We got curt refusals from Gay Dad and Terris.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2005/jan/28/2

I have a promo copy of Joe Lean's unreleased debut. It will be worth literally pennies one day.

Oh man, World of Twist :(

Any band that gets megahyped in the US is already popular. Milli Vanilli is probably the closest I can think of to a group that turned hype into spectacular failure.

Proteges and familiar relations of successful artists/industry-folks have that big push and fail in the U.S. all the time.

I have a promo copy of Joe Lean's unreleased debut. It will be worth literally pennies one day.

I have an ultra-collectible six-track promo CD of the self-same lost masterpiece! Unfortunately, it is unplayable on any CD player which I possess.

where the likes of Orlando, Birdland and Brinsley Schwarz explained what went wrong.

Birdland were successful! They brought me and my wife together.

so in the US, hype from indie mags doesn't count as hype? cuz that's just what most of the UK examples are.

32 Birdland Sleep With Me Single Feb 1990

Well, the hype I was originally alluding to was the "big spend on advertising"...

Can you buy good coverage from the UK indie mags?

Answers on a postcard...

there must have been loads of hype for garage and jungle acts too

Jay Electronica is a great pick for the niche level of hype he got

Jimmy Ray was hyped? Moreso than those other 90s one-hit-wonder acts like Marcy Playground or the “This is the story of a girl who cried a river and drowned the whole world” band?

Obie Trice
Lupe Fiasco

Did anyone care about Obie once?

Normani (after all that hype her debut album only got up to #91 on the album charts. oof.)

Canadian version, circa the turn of the millennium:

- J. Englishman
- his sister Esthero
- Robin Fucking Black
- Jordy Birch's Fun Machine

I knew I was forgetting one:

- Adam Cohen

Lauryn Hill

I joke I joke

The concept of this thread is a bit confusing to me. Usually when an artist is getting megahyped is at the peak of their fame - which is accompanied by a massive hit single or album -, and failing miserably implies not following it up with a great single or album. So this makes every one hit wonder and artist that failed to get a successful follow-up album eligible for this thread. And that makes pretty much 99 out of 100 artists eligible.

Some artists do fail upwards where their follow up albums/singles are huge financial failures but are adored by critics or viceversa.

Mika hosted Eurovision in 2022

Isn't MIKA's mega year and then subsequent dropoff pretty consistent with other BBC Sound Of/BRITs Critics Choice Award types? Makes me think of Emeli Sande, James Bay, La Roux (who I don't think held either of those titles and is obviously the best of this bunch but)

MIKA had no fewer than six songs I must have heard a hundred times in 2007 and early 2008 though. Man he was big.

And yeah I haven't contributed to this thread til now because I feel like it can be interpreted from so many different ways or at least enough that I feel the list is endless beyond endless.

Actually I do want to mention Jonathan Wilkes. Such was Robbie's cultural cachet at the time that his mate could get a deal with Virgin amid a lot of forced publicity but the first - and only - single failed and it was curtains for him.

https://www.nme.com/news/music/jonathan-wilkes-1374575

ROBBIE WILLIAMS‘ flatmate JONATHAN WILKES has reportedly been dropped by his record label after failing to breach the Top 20 with his debut single ‘JUST ANOTHER DAY’ earlier this year.

The singer, whose career was launched with a flurry of publicity around his friendship with Williams and an intensive promotional campaign which included a Los Angeles video shoot and US junkets for journalists, may yet attempt to pursue a pop career in Europe, according to The Sun newspaper.

The single only reached Number 23 in the UK charts in March. Today’s (July 30) Sun, quotes an insider at record label Virgin, whose offshoot Innocent Wilkes was signed to, as saying that bad timing was to blame for his lack of success.

This might qualify for the other thread actually.

Wilkes then went on to host You've Been Framed! for under a year before the show got rid of having a visible host or set altogether.

“We were very disappointed with Jonathan’s chart position and it was just no longer right for us to continue our relationship with him. The timing was not right for him but it has been an amicable end of the contract,” they said.