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

Seeing ellaguru's post about Lone Justice made me think of Johnny Winter. His Columbia contract was at the time the biggest for a new act, but--while he did alright--he probably didn't pay commercially like the next Hendrix or Clapton like they thought he would.

Mind Funk

I remember them being pretty hyped - can anyone confirm?

yes

20. Northern Line

i guess veruca salt belong here too?

"Seether" was inescapable.

Mind Funk LOL OMG

I'm sure there was a slew of post-Spice Girls under-performing girl groups, but I'm struggling to remember any.

Replace one Northern Uproar with The Railway Children to keep the numbering in line.

Alan McGee had a whole string of overhyped nomarks - kind of glad I can't remember any of them.

Does Velvet Revolver count?
Jesse Camp and the Lower East Side dumbasses or whatever?

xxxp: I dunno - maybe they were good, but I saw a lot of advertisements for them and was almost convinced, but never bit the bullet.

19. Zwan

18. Macy Gray

Good call on Zwan. "Billy Corgan, that chick from A Perfect Circle, some guy from an indie band--how can they lose?"

Anyone remember the major label boyband response to Britpop called "Catch"?

To date, Gray has released five studio albums, one compilation album, and one live album, with her fifth studio album, The Sellout, released on June 22, 2010; and has received five Grammy Award nominations, winning one. She has appeared in a number of films including Training Day, Spider-Man, Scary Movie 3, Lackawanna Blues and Idlewild.

not sure what bit of that is failing spectacularly.

I bet even the lex doesn't
xp

Catch had a truly terrible song called "Bingo" didn't they? c.1997?

yeah that's them. cant even resemble the song tbh

McGee and Horne could fill this whole thread with blagged flops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33SjUj4J5BU

not sure what bit of that is failing spectacularly.

see e.g.

http://www.cleveland.com/homegrown/index.ssf?/homegrown/more/macy/grayarea.html

and no single has cracked the US top 100 since the debut.

xpost -- That is one ugly freezeframe.

Northside

xxxp Ugh. That track was on what seemed like constantly when I had a summer job in an industrial laundry in Bristol. Great days.

20. Northern Line

Ziggy did pretty well on Big Brother.

Thanks Herman, I had successfully suppressed all memories of that Catch song.

18 Wheeler (lol david keenan)

maybe these, maybe not exactly "mega-hyped", but
17. Biff Naked
16. Fiona
15. Phranc

14. Jonathan Fire*Eater

13. Sammy

12. Nellie McKay

Oh God, the Medicine label.

13. Kelly Osbourne

and no single has cracked the US top 100 since the debut.

She's had more success in Europe, where the first three albums charted well. She still gets a good bit of press when she has a new release. I can appreciate from a singles point of view that she's a one hit wonder but she's been 'successful' enough to keep doing what she does. I don't think anyone in Northern Uproar made five studio albums. Even the link you posted has her opening for Bowie 5 years after her spectacular failure.

12. Los Lobos

11. Mind Over Four

Northern Uproar reminded me a band i saw on the same NME tour

12 Fluffy

Make that

10 Fluffy

9. the firm (jimmy page and paul rodgers' 80s-collaboration)

8. 60 ft dolls

12. Los Lobos

? the purpose of this thread has lost me. Bands with decades of output got megahyped then failed spectacularly?

9. The Beatles - all that hype then nothing for 40 years. You don't even hear them on the radio any more.

12. Los Lobos

? the purpose of this thread has lost me. Bands with decades of output got megahyped then failed spectacularly?

at the time rolling stone, other american music press made them out to be the best rock'n'roll band in america, blah blah blah. in contrast to how much they were hyped, what avg person would know any of their output other than the la bamba cover?

Los Lobos became a long lasting cult band, which is more than you can say for Lone Justice or other similarly-hyped peers.

May as well rename the thread 'one hit wonders' if we're going to write off decades running artists as failures because they had a hit. I thought we were looking for something else here. Los Lobos were active for over ten years before La Bamba and are still active more than 20 years later.

Did Kix have a long lasting successful career?

i think of lone justice as being more of a cult band than i do los lobos

i'm thinking levels of failure as commensurate to levels of hype

los lobos just a one hit wonder if they hadn't been heralded at the time as second coming of "real" american rock'n'roll

afaict this thread pretty much instantly devolved into 'hey let's just name some bands we remember from when we were teens' so I wouldn't really sweat it xp to onimo

Faust. From the point of view of Polydor who were convinced they had the new Beatles and Virgin who must have lost a lot of money on The Faust Tapes.