Artists/bands that were once quite popular, yet nowadays are mostly ignored in canonical history books

Crystal Gayle feels like a good one.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich.

^how big were these guys at the time? i've only recently become aware of them which seems weird.

The Guess Who. They they might have sold more records than anybody except the Beatles and CCR in 1970. They weren't much of a critic's band then--Christgau and Bangs liked them--zilch now, I think (i.e., they don't show up in Pitchfork or whatever decade-lists). They still get radio play here because of Cancon regulations, but I'm guessing airplay in the States has narrowed to one or two songs, if that.

Re: blooze, White Stripes, Black Keys, even Red Fang heavy influence. But “the blues” v much fading outside cult circles, and its general influence on pop/rock music - even R&B! - very muted these days.

Re:diamond, let’s take that fucker to another thread.

Neil Diamond: The Works

I’d be interested to hear (over there) from those of you who are just hearing Neil Diamond for the first time.

They still get radio play here because of Cancon regulations, but I'm guessing airplay in the States has narrowed to one or two songs, if that.

The Guess Who is extensively discussed in the Starr/Waterman/Hodgson Rock: A Canadian Perspective and I think any Canadian pop/rock history book. "American Woman" def still known in the US but idk what their place is in US rock history books, although they played the White House in 1970.

Any Canadian pop/rock history book, definitely. But they were commercially huge beyond Canada in '69 and '70, and I don't think there's much cognizance of that today anywhere else.

they played the White House in 1970

So did Vikki Carr, speaking of the unheralded

Best-selling band in the world in 1970 iirc? xp

"These Eyes" is very popular. Lots of people know "Undun" and "No Time" and "No Sugar Tonight" but most probably couldn't identify the artist.

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich.

^how big were these guys at the time? i've only recently become aware of them which seems weird.

Did I mention them? 14 Top 40 singles between 1965 and 1970 - quite a long span by 60s standards - 8 Top 10 singles, one No. 1.

Does Faithless count as a more recent example?

There's a few late 70s / early 80s hard rock bands like this, often formed by members of more famous bands. I'm thinking particularly of Gillan and the Michael Schenker Group - Gillan had two top 3 albums in the UK and a string of hit singles, and when was the last time you heard anyone reference them? I don't even think Classic Rock magazine talks about them much. MSG had a top 5 UK album iirc too, not to mention that widely-used abbreviated version of their name. More importantly, both bands' patches would regularly turn up on battle jackets, although not often the centrepiece tbh which might tell its own tale.

Also, and this is more vague, there's a certain kind of boogie-woogie blues sound that was prevalent in British rock music in the 1970s but largely killed off by punk and synthpop. You know how Thin Lizzy sounds bluesy, but Depeche Mode doesn't?

Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson weren't!

Ah, ok. Since the main guy seems to be an icon in Ireland I assumed the whole band was from there.

The Guess Who.

I've come across this name before, but I've always assumed it was some early iteration of The Who, I had no idea they were a separate band!

One of them left to form Bachman-Turner Overdrive of "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" fame.

The entire folk-rock movement that followed, with bands like Steeleye Span and Renaissance etc, died a death, and I don't think I've ever read a long-form article on the subject.

There was a masssive* revival of interest in this sort of thing about 10-15 years ago - articles in Mojo, compliations by Bob Stanley, club nights by Peter Paphides, reissues of Vashti Bunyan, Fairport, Shirley Collins, Nick Drake; Rob Young's book as mentioned, even threads on ILM!

*ymmv, obv.

Does Faithless count as a more recent example?

― octobeard

They're still huge on the festival circuit but yeah they're not really in the pop canon.

Can't take credit for "sad boner", delightfully coined over here http://www.alexandraerin.com/2016/06/why-ianmacks-boner-is-the-saddest-boner/ and discussed at the time on Metafilter. The boi who was the inspo used this line in his Huffington Post confessional: "I grow closer to a particular woman, Mya. We speak in poetry and myth" , which is quite Dimondesque.

Not forgotten exactly, but compared to airplay at the time, Lenny Kravitz’ has basically fallen off a cliff.

Also Living Colour. Literally no idea of the last time I heard them incidentally.

funny enough I just pulled that LP off the shelf this week. probably wound up staring at the front & back covers for like 5 minutes

Whatever happened to Trouble Funk? (They got small, y'all, got small...)

Vernon Reid still seems like a revered figure though

The "Cult of Personality" riff is included in this popular instructional book: https://www.amazon.ca/-/fr/Jeff-Schroedl/dp/1458436780/ref=sr_1_10?adgrpid=70613046670&gclid=Cj0KCQjw6eTtBRDdARIsANZWjYa16-pOqF1qPdaLt7dpkQzIa62zob-_4KmfjBTMKP76hBWLVgr9ILUaAqIaEALw_wcB&hvadid=338538813096&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9000676&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=b&hvrand=11054436455274185026&hvtargid=kwd-492179087952&hydadcr=29054_11768646&keywords=hal+leonard+guitar+method+book+1&qid=1572445237&sr=8-10 .

Maybe Chicago? You seldom hear about them any more.

Ha, "25 or 6 to 4" is in the same book. It was in I, Tonya as well and I think The Good Place? Surely Chicago still gets frequent airplay? I think they are generally discussed in American rock history books, at least for their jazz-rock period?

Going down the list of best selling bands/artists of all time posted somewhere upthread, Chicago was the first band that I didn't really know what they sound like.

Mike Skinner probably couldn't get arrested these days. I still like those first two Streets album quite a bit.

I don't believe that you've never heard one of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_of_Chicago:_40th_Anniversary_Edition
xp

Chicago, or as we call them in the UK, that band that had a hit with "If You Leave Me Now".

ok, I've heard "If You Leave Me Now", didn't know it was them.

Now listening to "The Very Best of Chicago" (the things I do for this board) and none of this other stuff rings a bell.

yeah I can see britishes not getting with lyrics like "Saturday in the park, I think it was the 4th of July"

The 80s ballads are still adult contemporary dentist's office/grocery store staples, I think?

Well, they couldn't get arrested in the UK tbf.

There was recently a documentary about Chicago. They also have a dedicated Russian cover band.

http://leonidandf.com/

There seems to have been a chasm between UK and USA in the 70s.

Eagles, Chicago, Boston, Linda Ronstadt, Bob Seger all of only minor importance in UK

Glam rock, (UK-style) punk and weird cultural detritus like Showaddywaddy, Bay City Rollers and Brotherhood of Man all did very poor business or none at all in the USA.

US and UK charts were very different up until when? The 90s?

I would say the Eagles sold plenty of records in the UK, the others not so much.

Oddly, I remember hearing Chicago blasting in a pub in Liverpool in 09, I think bc I was with a bunch of pop music scholars who were commenting on it. "Hard to Say I'm Sorry", I think? But yeah, I thought silverfish was in Canada. I only heard of Brotherhood of Man bc of relatives in India, tbh. I still don't think I've heard them.

xxp later than that even, but there was at least agreement that madonna, prince, michael jackson, etc. were the biggest stars from the 80s onwards

I know eagles sold a reasonable amount of records, but can't remember hearing anything apart from hotel california being played anywhere

Bay City Rollers had a bunch of Top 40 hits in US and Canada, incl #1 in both countries with "Saturday Night", but you don't hear them much now.

Bay City Rollers had a #1 single in the US, which strangely wasn't even released as single in the UK, and seemed to have been pretty well known.

(xp)

Ha, "25 or 6 to 4" is in the same book. It was in I, Tonya as well and I think The Good Place? Surely Chicago still gets frequent airplay? I think they are generally discussed in American rock history books, at least for their jazz-rock period?

― No language just sound (Sund4r), Wednesday, October 30, 2019 10:28 AM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Those two placements -- I, Tonya and The Good Place -- are the only two times I've heard that song broadcast in the last decade. They've largely disappeared from "classic rock" radio, though something like "Saturday In The Park" might get play on an oldies station. They only really get discussed/namechecked alongside Blood, Sweat & Tears when the brief fad of rock-bands-with-big-horn-sections comes up.

Meanwhile, they've* been touring with Earth, Wind & Fire, whose songs never disappeared from the airwaves, and whose horn section was never as stupid and clumsy as Chicago's.

*Out of the original lineup, they're now down to two horn players and the keyboardist.

xp that is very strange, can't say I've ever heard Saturday Night, but interesting that they managed that at the tail end of their uk chart career

xxxxp

I am in Canada. I guess I just don't pay much attention to the music in supermarkets and dentists offices. I'm familiar with plenty of classic rock from the radio, but soft rock/adult contemporary stuff is kind of a blind spot I guess.

What's weird about this chicago album is that so far there have been two songs where at the start I'm pretty sure I've heard it before and then it turns into something else. For 25 or 6 to 4, there is a green day song that basically uses the opening riff, for saturday in the park there is another song that I can't place that sounds similar.