Acts that sold well but didn't really have a following

Seemingly any band that plays guitars can get a bit of a fanbase

not true in my experience

you gotta make the right faces

I thought that was more of a bass thing.

https://gui✧✧✧.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Joe-Bonama✧✧✧@2000x1500-696x✧✧✧.j✧✧

ugh

how about Lou Bega? where my fellow Lounatics at?

Lou Bega's one of those performers where I wouldn't be surprised if he had a huge following in Switzerland or Denmark or somewhere like that.

A little bit of Margrethe in my life, a little bit of Elinor by my side, A little bit of Rigmor is all I need, a little bit of Lærke is what I see

Dude is probably raking it in doing Cameos

Surely the true answer to this is rapper’s mates. Memphis Bleek has two gold albums. Cappadonna’s debut sold 130k in its first week. Obie Trice went gold with his first album, sold 250k on the second etc etc

https://hiphopwired.com/playlist/barbra-streisand-is-a-memphis-bleek-fan-allegedly/

Stuff like Mr Mister, Cutting Crew

Yes they have fans but relatively anonymous studio dudes immediately coming out of the blocks with Top 10 singles and albums isn’t the best route to fan longevity

I'm definitely a Cappadonna fan

Lou Bega's one of those performers where I wouldn't be surprised if he had a huge following in Switzerland or Denmark or somewhere like that.

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, February 12, 2024 1:05 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Lou Bega is from Germany so probably there

Cappadonna has been vindicated by history, The Pillage is considered an underground classic now

Bleek and Obie are maybe the best examples yet, especially because their sales were largely due to their association with an era-defining all-time popular rapper (Jay and Em)....Young Buck might be another good example...Shyne, etc.

though I see a lot of stuff where rappers who are really popular now can't sell tour dates, I know there was that Lil Baby/Nicki tour that got cancelled

That reminds me of Suzanne Vega writing recently about how her management booked a huge tour after "Luka" was a big hit, and barely anyone showed up to the first show or two... so they canceled the rest.

Fun looking at the Spotify monthly listeners numbers for these.

Looking at that cohort of 90s-10s rappers, we have...
Obie Trice 1.9M
Young Buck 905K
Memphis Bleek 440K
Shyne 272K
Cappadonna 151K

Obie would def be a lot less popular without Dre and Em on his top tracks.
Odd that Shyne and Cappadonna are essentially as Spotify-popular as things like David Sylvian, Marie Osmond and The Blow Monkeys. Bless.

is anybody listening to Freeway these days?

Freeway is a god

Shyne is in the House of Representatives in Belize and I think the head of his party he's probably not sweating it anymore

i have friends who are Maroon 5 and Matchbox 20 fans, though in both cases it's more like "I really like their hit songs/that one album they did" rather than a hardcore following

the one band I have a hard time believing having any serious fans despite having big hits is Smash Mouth

I have a friend who I shit you not is an obsessive fan of Dada the "Dizz Knee Land" song

I feel like it’s more that people are fans of a certain era of radio than a specific group

but he likes their albums and deep cuts and shit and had travelled to see them, crazy he's gotta be the only one

Some others with lowish monthly Spotify numbers—

Missing Persons 188.6 k
Romeo Void 107.6 k
Book of Love 75k
The Call 92 k

Even Husker Du, who never had a hit, streams higher than those guys

311 absolutely have an obsessive following. They do fan cruises almost every year, although this year they're doing a festival in Vegas instead. And my 50something brother-in-law is such a big fan that when my sister bought him one of those MAME arcade cabinets full of 1000 games last year, she got one decked out in 311 artwork instead of any actual game images.

There are probably still teenagers who fall into 311 once they start smoking dope, but I'm positive these cruises are 95% people in their 40s and 50s spending a weekend away from their kids.

love the 311 arcade cabinet, hope it ends up in a museum 100 years from now

have never met a Supertramp Superfan, or really anyone who was familiar with anything beyond the hits, but they were a pretty big deal for a minute right? maybe it's different in Europe, full disclosure I am a Supertramp Superfan

my local sports talk radio station was in a tizzy when one of the younger hosts declared 311 better than the Beatles to the chagrin of the older hosts

I know a dude who's a huge Supertramp fan.

Supertramp was an Album band as well as a Singles band

supertramp were also studio ringers like Mr mister, cutting crew

the parody of them in Fear of a Black Hat

this was p good iirc (aimn)

When I was selling off someone's dad prog CD collection a few years ago Supertramp fans were probably the most obnoxious people to deal with, along with Judie Tzuke megafans for some reason.

OK Go is an interesting answer, Omar. People love their videos (understandably) but I am not aware of anyone I know ever buying and listening to their recordings.

And I say this as someone who owns multiple Cake albums.

I once met a guy who's number one absolute favourite musician was David Lindley...

Did the Insane Clown Posse have a following ? I can't find any source

I seem to remember reading something about it on ILM but it was a very brief mention and lost to time. Something bout jigglers or something?

AZ is another one of those "rappers mates", apparently he had 4 number one albums on the Rap charts in the US?

Also dance acts that didn't have a DJing career - like 2 Unlimited, Cappella, Twenty 4 Seven, Haddaway, Snap!, Cascada, Alcazar, Technotronic, Alice Deejay, Rednex - a couple of big selling hits, but people clearly were more interested in the songs than in following the people making them.

A lot of those acts were more than just one-hit wonders, but would it be fair to say that you'd have to have had at least two or three popular albums to qualify for the thread?

Rednex are a franchise now I think - you can literally start your own Rednex band and hire yourselves out for corporate dos etc

I'm sure that's right... Although looking at their wiki I can't see much about it. Is this a thing? I know Linkin Park are like a venture capitalist firm or somethig now

AZ has a follower because he’s one of the all time great rappers

A following

I have a friend who I shit you not is an obsessive fan of Dada the "Dizz Knee Land" song

AZ is an absolute monster

last two albums are great and even got reviewed on Pitchfork

And I say this as someone who owns multiple Cake albums.

― Sane clown posse (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, February 12, 2024 11:01 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Cake are sort of the opposite of this, they somehow remain weirdly popular despite the fact that they haven't released an album in 13 years and haven't had a hit since 2001

Met a girl once whose favourite band was Cake, I said "oh, I like The Distance" and she said that was the only one of their songs she didn't like. Still don't think I've fully recovered from this tbh.

I was in that camp too! I got into them because a friend had Prolonging the Magic and every song from it started getting stuck in my head. it was a few months later that I realized "oh, they did *that* song"