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

tbf this is not a uniquely British attitude

(haha i just noticed that "wile out" is still the jukebox's no 1 single of the year so far! and "get low" was THE anthem of sónar this year, no contest, heard it about 943834394 times)

We got curt refusals from Gay Dad and Terris.

Dorian, did you ask the drummer?

(the uniquely british attitude is to hate on people even more if they DO take over the world)

Commercial failure is not the same as artistic failure but it's failure nonetheless

Ooh, ooh, I got a USA one!

49. Johnny Cougar.

if the media and public hadn't turned on those nme acts, the country could have been taken over by nme indie acts & ms dynamite and the lex could have been happy.

Lex OTM. And I doubt Ms Dynamite lost the label money, whereas famous flops like Brinsley Schwarz, Moby Grape, Fischerspooner, etc lost a packet. Imo, if someone's had one acclaimed, strong-selling album and a handful of hit singles then they shouldn't be in this thread.

Nicole - no, we asked Cliff and one other member but didn't work through the whole line-up - either we didn't have the contact details or we didn't have enough time, I can't remember exactly.

48 : VV Brown

Oh, god, elephant in the room time:

47. The Woodentops

haha. were they that hyped ?

46 : CHAKK - MCA funded them to build hi-tech studio/FON records etc. Sly and Robbie on production. no-one bought the album.

[but i'd still love a cd copy .. ]

(fwiw when i interviewed ms dynamite earlier this year, she basically said she deliberately took a few years off to be a mother, and now her son's at school she's able to devote herself full-time to music again)

Is that Chakk record any good Mark? Just asking as a Moloko fan...

A lot of money was spent, I believe. (re: The Woodentops)

And great things were expected. So many people I knew were "this is going to be big"

But I'd say, no one liked them enough to go buy.

75% 'wanted' not enough to break the threshold.

(i suspect that's true of many female artists who "disappeared", too; and ms dynamite also said that motherhood didn't just affect the time she could devote to her career but, w/r/t her genuine flop second album, how much she was committed to even making the music - she said she'd go into the studio and wonder how her son was instead of thinking about the music)

re chakk : honestly. no.

the band shot their load with the early 12" records (Out of the Flesh and They Say 12") which were great distorto-funk.
but, as an album of its time, i still play the odd track when in the mood.

she said she'd go into the studio and wonder how her son was instead of thinking about the music

Hmm. Everyone else who has a kid and a job has to get by somehow.

hello "Bosstown Sound"

45. Beacon Street Union
44. Ultimate Spinach
43. Orpheus

42. Robbie Williams (in the USA)
41. Nikka Costa

40. The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band

39. Rosie Vela.

Nikka Costa's a good one. She had a ton of money thrown at her more than once iirc. What was her claim to fame again?

38. O-Positive (1990; Epic) | "Most popular artists aren't interested in doing anything worthwhile. I don't want success on any terms. I don't care about being a guy in leather pants with no underwear. We just play what we like, we don't try to write songs for anyone else. We haven't really worried about how we're going to be received."

Imagine that.

sophie b hawkins got the most hype ive ever seen in the uk, 3 or 4 weeks a row on top of the pops all for getting no higher than #23.

Nikka Costa is the daughter of Don Costa (arranger for Sinatra etc...)

Sophie B. Hawkins is mortally otm #1.

i just cant recall any more hype in the 90s on anyone else

Wow, no mention of?

37. Jimmy Ray

its one thing being hyped up by the nme to a 100,000 readers at most, but sophie b hawkins was on adverts, every chat show, every music show, every commercial radio/r1 A playlist ,all the papers, those totps performances despite not even being in the top 20 and it still didn't crack the top 20.

Ha completely forgot about Jimmy Ray - he was all over MTV for about two weeks.

Hmm. Everyone else who has a kid and a job has to get by somehow.

well, she did get by!

polyhex says sophie b hawkins had two top 20 hits - i remember both (and still play "damn i wish i was your lover" occasionally), had no idea of the hype though! i guess it's similar to the florence & the machine hype now...always thought florence was a c-rate SBH.

ha, speaking of F&tM, my wife is now obsessed with them/her after the VMAs this year, going so far as to call her performance the best of the evening

36. Max Q

xp: I think that there were a number of mainstread media calling f+tm the best performance of the evening too.

mainstream

lots of industrialish stuff in the wake of NIN that got sorta this treatment, but not enough hype to get them a number imo (lookin at you spahn ranch, etc.)

(stabbing westward & filter?)

Filter was actually successful, though

Stabbing Westward... well they had their fans

those were both reasonably large bands with hits, HGN.

xp

Actually maybe Sister Machine Gun and/or Machines of Loving Grace are the best examples of what jjj's talking about?

Stabbing Westward had a couple of big radio songs on the first record.

theres a slurry of grunge/ska failures too to be mined for gold here, speaking of which

35. Goldfinger

Gravity Kills maybe? I dunno, that kind of stuff is never really hyped over here (NIN aside, obv).

xposts

hahaha i just remember course of empire. that didnt go well.

lol I have a Gravity Kills CD5 that I think I've played once

swing industrial fusion HOW CAN IT POSSIBLY FAIL xpost

so dan & jj fell bigtime for lol major label industrial @ college?

this surely isn't a secret to, like, anyone?

nah i worked at a record shop so i got to watch it fall flat on its face over and over again