You may have your favorite neglected microtonal drone guitar album, but let’s take this in another direction. What’s the best accessible pop album that never caught on with listeners and buyers?
Of course that’s a funny question. If it never caught on, what makes it so accessible? What makes you think it is so accessible? Those are exactly the sort of questions which require the high-octane collective intelligence of MR readers. And I do have a nomination:
Pop Said…, by The Darling Buds.
It’s pitched at the level of good ABBA, and yet few people other than my friend Eric Lyon know it. It has only five Amazon reviews and the band found little commercial success.
Another pick would be Pato Fu’s Televisao De Cachorro, which has only two Amazon reviews. It is better known in Brazil, though it still sounds as if it should have serious crossover potential. Some of the songs are in English, too.
What is your nomination? How can such albums fail to take off?
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Anything by Allan Sherman.
I would have picked one of the other Darling Buds’ albums, “Crawdaddy”.
Far Places by The Push Kings (I actually like their eponymous debut better, but the production lacked the slickness to be a true accessible pop album for the masses.
I completely agree – I immediately thought of this album when I read the title of this post, and was shocked to see someone else post it. Actually I think Everybody Else (eponymous debut) may be even more accessible, and is almost as good.
Surfer Rosa by the Pixies. It sold under 500 000 copies, and has been out for over two decades. Not really neglected but certainly not mainstream. If a track hadn’t been featured on fight club I imagine it would be far more obscure. I would like to say that the lyrical material is a constraint with respect to its mainstream appeal, but the content on most popular hip hop albums makes that argument unappealing. Maybe acceptable content is genre specific, actually, that’s probably the case.
I wouldn’t call Pixies pop. And Surfer Rosa isn’t that accessible – especially compared to Doolittle.
The Pixies are hardly obscure, if anything they’ve become overrated. In Boston they are certainly “mainstream”.
The question is implausible. Because markets are efficient it is impossible for anything to be underrated, ever.
MR needs an upvote option.
Even more implausible because you can’t underrate music you have never listened to. How else can you “neglect” an album?
Markets may be efficient, but humans are not. Experiments in social psychology suggest that song popularity is largely determined at random:
http://www.princeton.edu/~mjs3/musiclab.shtml
Only perfect markets are efficient and, as JCG mentioned before, humans are imperfect. Thus, the markets are imperfect.
Why do albums take off or fail to take off? Short answer might be that we are social animals and don’t make these decisions independently and “as a result, even tiny, random fluctuations can blow up, generating potentially enormous long-run differences among even indistinguishable competitors”, according to Duncan Watts (prof. of Sociology at Columbia). He describes an interesting experiment and suggests interpretations here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15wwlnidealab.t.html
“Present Tense” by The Shoes. I remember these guys from the late 70′s. I never understood why they didn’t get more popular:
Tomorrow Night
One of the few reviews for their forgotten album on Amazon says: “Timeless perfect pop that almost everyone ignored” which I think is about right.
Correction: it’s just “Shoes” no definite article. My sister got a hold of my copy of this album way back when and played it until the grooves wore out.
“#1 Record” by Big Star. Incredibly catchy guitar pop — a 1972 Billboard magazine review claimed “Each and every cut on this album has the inherent potential to become a blockbuster single.”
This was sort of my instinct too. There are two axis along which an album can qualify for this honor, obscurity and pop accessibility. This album is really not that obscure but it is sufficiently strong in the excellent accessible pop rock direction to make up for it.
#1 Record certainly was accessible pop that never took off in its day, but hasn’t it “caught on with listeners and buyers”, particularly aging hipsters?
- From Good Homes
- Moxy Fruvous
- The Smithereens
Those are bands. All their albums are good. Pick one up and go to town.
I can’t remember many examples but I remember thinking that a lot of bands make great music, later become popular, and their early music retroactively gets some recognition but not much, because of (e.g.) the biases of radio to not suddenly start playing something novel from 5 years ago.
For example, Ben Folds Five’s self-titled debut… maybe the Decemberists’ debut… Interpol’s debut …
Not like any of these examples would have been huge blockbusters, but if these bands had released such albums after they’d already gotten a following, they would have been much more popular, gotten much more airplay, etc.
Popularity is a function of intrinsic goodness and previous popularity (along with other factors), so many underrated albums simply came out before anyone was paying enough attention.
“I can’t remember many examples but I remember thinking that a lot of bands make great music, later become popular, and their early music retroactively gets some recognition but not much, because of (e.g.) the biases of radio to not suddenly start playing something novel from 5 years ago.”
But then there is the opposite sort of case. Take “Piano Man.” It peaked at #25, but today I bet it gets more airplay than all 24 songs that were ahead of it.
Beta Band’s Hot Shots II
Starfish by The Church
Lovedrive by Scorpions
All Over the Place by The Bangles
She Hangs Brightly by Mazzy Star
The Slider by T. Rex
LOVE the Starfish recommendation. I could listen to that album over and over (and have).
LOVE Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star)
Since I like The Bangles, Mazzy Star and Hope Sandoval, I’ll throw in mine here:
Me and Armini by Emiliana Torrini from Iceland. The first Amazon reviewer nailed the description: folk styled poppy numbers with dark and delicate tension.
Out of Season by Beth Gibbons of Portishead fame
The album _Cold Fact_ by Rodriguez was quickly forgotten in the US after its 1970 release, but it was reissued in South Africa in the mid-70s and went on to become a platinum-seller there.
They still make albums??
Seems to me the album artists who weren’t killed off by disco were killed off by MTV (premiere “Video Killed th Radio Star”) and the CD.
The CD eliminated the hassle of picking out a single from a recording, and killed off the incentive to create a coherent 30-40 minute composition. For those who have never handled an LP, it requires a steady hand and good eye coordination to play anything but the first track and all that follow.
Yes, they still make one or more recordings issued together. Most of which are found on various digital formats.
Albums weren’t killed off. Nor was the incentive destroyed. Grammy Album of the year “The Suburbs” by Arcade Fire is a complete concept album that is best played in order, and has no obvious pop single.
But MP3s did make it easy for the market to skim off the people who aren’t really that into music and give them the pop jingle they crave in a $.99 package.
I think the structure still remains the same. You have evangelists (hipsters, DJs, movie music editors) who really enjoy music and finding new things. These people then filter down the best to their friends (the $.99 mp3 people). Part of what I think happens here, and the reason for the neglected pop albums, is that they are essentially marketeers. They chose the albums with the greatest chance of success to introduce to their friends (since they don’t have time to play every album they’ve listened to). So they’re creating a filter that’s unrelated to the market.
Talk Talk’s “Laughingstock” is the most criminally underrated pop album. Modern Dark Side of the Moon.
Along with “The Spirit of Eden”
While these albums are great they aren’t super accessible. Many songs are long and droning. They also aren’t that neglected given their eccintiricities.
Dolly Mixture’s “Demonstration Tapes”, which was finally reissued last year after being out of print forever. Three British girls whose music sits somewhere between the Beatles, the Shangri-Las and the early punk bands. Great vocal harmonies/counterpoint and brilliant songwriting. (Also the source of my username.)
I’ll also throw out recommendations for Prefab Sprout’s “Steve McQueen” aka “Two Wheels Good” and Game Theory’s “Big Shot Chronicles.” Big Star is a good choice though I’m not sure they’re that neglected in the grand scheme of things.
Game Theory was an amazing band – nice pick. Big Shot Chronicles came out when I was 15 years old and I’ve been a fan of Scott Miller’s ever since. I was lucky to have an “alternative” radio station in my town (WHFS 99.1) and caught the last 1/2 of Erica’s Word while in my parent’s car. Went to Record World the next day and bought the cassette.
Lolita Nation, while far less accessible, was an amazing piece of work. Neglected, for sure. But people who have actually listened to it tend to give it high marks.
Lolita Nation is easily my favorite of theirs and one of my all-time favorites, but I don’t really think of it as an accessible album (although about half of it is).
I think The Faint deserve more exposure. Their latest release, _Fascination_, is a mighty fine pop album.
Just a note, two i’s in that: Fasciinatiion.
Maybe making the album name difficult to spell is a bad idea?
The irony is that the Buggles’ first album, which includes “Video Killed the Radio Star,” is a really good album.
Oh, definitely! I spent a lot of time evangelizing that album, to little avail. You’d think at least Kid Dynamo or Elstree would have caught fire.
Freedy Johnston’s This Perfect World. Bad Reputation is probably the worst ^H^H^H^H^H least great song on the album.
I would vote for “Vulnerable” by Tricky. He self-released it and the title just sounds unappealing, given his usual audience for relatively heavy, intellectual hip-hop. It also is kind of weird and hard to pigeon-hole. It went pretty much completely unnoticed.
It has many extremely catchy, breezy pop songs and I think it is one of his best albums.
Second that… here’s Anti Matter
http://v.ku6.com/show/FFcZjWfNEE4TJnlo.html
Tyler, you have no taste in microtonal drone guitar. Screw Loveless, My Bloody Valentine! Listen to a man’s microtonal drone guitar album!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoliths_%26_Dimensions
How about “Toy Matinee”. One album wonder that was very popular in California when I lived there. Lot’s of radio play too. I saw them in concert and they mentioned something about being “stifled” by the big record company. I think the music business is its own worst enemy at times…
“Per Second Per Second Per Second”, by Wheat
man i totally forgot about Wheat. you picked the wrong album of theirs for this exercise. Hope and Adams all the way.
I love Cheap Trick. Although they gained some popularity in the 80s and still have a cult following, they are underrated.
Their self titled album and Dream Police are great.
Any Slade album from the ’70s.
the77s by the Seventy Sevens
http://www.amazon.com/Seventy-Sevens/dp/B003UY11CO/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_77s_(album)
The Christian Music ghetto did these guys in before they could blow up like the should have.
Songs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04irFfUiepw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBk3oPaq4IA&feature=related
It might be a little too loud and punk to be considered “pop,” but “All Hands on the Bad One” by Sleater-Kinney, while recognized by critics, probably didn’t even sell 100,000 copies.
Here we go Magic’s – Pigeons. Probably the album that I would think most people could appreciate.
Matt Pond PA’s – The Green Fury, Nature of Maps, and Winter Songs. I’m pretty sure all these albums were recorded in NH, a state I lived in for several years, but rarely bothered to explore. The songs seem to bring out the spirit of living in NH and help me return again and again with ease.
Grizzly Bear’s – Yellow House, Really mellow and perfect for rainy days or night time.
Animal Collective’s – Merriweather Post Pavilion. An album I keep returning to for it’s clever songs.
Tyler, I hadn’t previously heard of “The Darling Buds” but maybe it was just the wrong sound for 1988. Grunge was on the verge of blowing up and after that Alternative would take over the radio waves. Maybe people just weren’t interested in another pop album from an unknown artist, however well made.
Oh man how could I forget Lassie Foundation: El Rey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL5G8PMrcL0
And speaking of Promise Rings the band the promise ring should have been famous: Nothing Feels Good was a pop gem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srU0xhkfIFw
I would go with the Chalets album Check In
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS_DBand2No&feature=BFa&list=AVGxdCwVVULXemWmEkpZJ5ymMVD3p7tDHo&index=3
I’ll throw out Aaron Sprinkle. One of the members of Poor Old Lu, an underrated sort-of Christian alternative rock band in the early 90s, he then went on to record two albums as part of Roseblossom Punch, then three solo albums, and now he has formed another band called Fair and recorded two albums with them. He wasn’t the lead singer for Poor Old Lu and so it isn’t really comparable to his later stuff (where he is the lead singer), but in my opinion all of his post-Poor Old Lu stuff is amazing, great catchy pop-rock.
I don’t know how many albums he’s sold, but since his day job is a record producer for Tooth & Nail Records in Seattle, I assume he hasn’t sold that many, so I’d call him neglected and underrated.
If you want a single album, I’ll point to his last solo album, Bareface.
Getting to Tyler’s final question, “How can such albums fail to take off?”
Aaron Sprinkle’s music hasn’t taken off because by the time he was writing catchy, poppy music he was no longer a 20-year-old heartthrob – he was in his late-twenties, married, with a kid, and short and a little pudgy to boot. How many pop-stars like that ever hit it big, no matter their music?
Plus, you know, luck and all that.
In my mind accessible = pop, with the possible distinction that not every single album by a *pop artist* is necessarily accessible. So I can only understand this question as meaning: “among pop artists, which of their albums was most underrated.” If the artist isn’t popular, I don’t think we can call it pop music. And since you ask “why it never caught on with listeners or buyers”, you clearly mean underrated as in not more popular as opposed to critically underrated.
The only genre of pop music I know well is rock-n-roll, so I’m going with the Kinks’ Muswell Hillbillies. It didn’t catch on because it came out in 1971 and here was the competition: Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers, The Who – Who’s Next, Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On, Led Zeppelin IV, Paul McCartney – Ram, John Lennon – Imagine, T Rex – Electric Warrior, The Doors – LA Woman, Jethro Tull – Aqua Lung, Sly and the Family Stone – There’s a Riot Going On, Alice Cooper – Killer, Cat Stevens – Teaser and the Firecat, among others.
I guess you did nominate an unpopular artist. But there’s your problem. An artist needs to get a foothold first. In the case of The Darling Buds it sounds like the style was terribly out of fashion. I suppose that’s the key difference between *pop* and *accessible*. Something can be out of fashion and accessible, but it cannot be out of fashion and popular.
Muswell Hilbillies is a critics’ darling and at least one song “20th Century Man” is a well known AOR rock staple. Village Green Preservation Society is an even better album, and even more obscure today, but again – rock critics and hipsters love it, it has a following. Both albums are still in print. I think Tyler is talking about albums that don’t have even little micro-cults.
Why do some albums take off? The need be good, and they investment in promotions and distribution by the labels.
also check,
*Creative industries: contracts between art and commerce* By Richard E. Caves
I nominate The Lucksmiths’ “Warmer Corners.” They’re an Australian outfit that just folded. Catchy as heck.
Man, I love The Lucksmiths. “Why That Doesn’t Surprise Me” was always my favorite album of theirs, though “Warmer Corners” is also really good.
The Eels – Beautiful Freak
Metric – Fantasies
Bishop Allen – Charm School
And if I were a time traveller to the late 70s from the 21st century I’d totally expect the first Ramones album to be a hit. And as proof: my officemate just said about “Beat on the Brat”, “Catchy! They a UK band? Someone should remix that!”
We’ll forgive his ignorance of the Ramones.
I second Bishop Allen, I’d go for the Broken String though.
Also some of these mentioned are almost polar opposites of what Tyler asked about – Animal Collective? They’re neither accessible nor unpopular.
YOU can forgive his ignorance. I want to beat on the brat.
“It’s pitched at the level of good ABBA, and yet few people other than my friend Eric Lyon know it. It has only five Amazon reviews and the band found little commercial success.”
There already is an ABBA. Albums in revival styles can be real good, but it isn’t a mystery why they are not nearly as popular as the originals.
Agree. No mystery why in 1989 the world didn’t want to hear another ABBA.
Anything by Happy Rhodes, though if I had to recommend one for an introduction, Many Worlds Are Born Tonight. Great songwriting, great voice, a little bit odd in some of the same ways that Kate Bush is but never got her legions of adoring fans. (Her electronic music is even more underrated, especially for the era in which it was made, but not really “pop”.) Subject matter is sometimes a little dark to be radio-friendly, but that doesn’t stop plenty of others albums from taking off.
Trace, by Died Pretty. It should have been the band presentation to the mainstream public, but it’s unknown outside Australia. Zero amazon reviews.
The most obscure pop album I like is Plug In + Play by the Faders.
I suspect it’s waaaaay too poppy for this audience, though.
Big Star is of course the #1 under-appreciated pop/rock band among ordinary listeners, though they’re probably one of the ten most influential bands from the 1970s.
The Shop Assistants (s/t aka “Will Anything Happen” aka “Anthology”)
Let’s Active – Cypress/Afoot (collects their first two albums)
Cocteau Twins – Heaven or Las Vegas
Ted Leo – The Tyranny of Distance
Robyn is still under-appreciated in the US for a more synth-pop sound.
The Yellow Pills series is very good for power pop. I also recommend the recent compilation “Where The Action Is! Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-1968,” which is probably the best in the Nuggets series.
Let’s Active — wow, that takes me back. I loved it but I’m not sure how accessible it was.
I’d nominate Mary Jean & 9 Others by Marshall Crenshaw, who I believe was another North Carolina product.
I was going to say “Anything by Marshall Crenshaw,” but maybe the most unjustly neglected is “Good Evening.” One of its best songs even got left off his “best-of” CD set!
Yes! Third on Crenshaw.
Let’s Active was fantastic. Pure, awesome pop. I just recently loaded a bunch of tracks on to my phone. It still holds up after all these years.
“Forever” by Cracker.
Songs like “Brides of Neptune” are utterly brilliant. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8TYkP0Goio
I’ll 2nd Forever by Cracker.
I like both of Fastball’s follow-up albums after they mutually parted ways with Hollywood Records. Very classicist pop, Beatles-Stones-Costello-Small Faces type stuff – never met anyone who likes classic rock and *doesn’t* like this music immediately, though plenty of people don’t see anything new or exciting in it. Fastball put out a “best of” CD to fulfill their contract with Hollywood & then broke up for a while, so it was easy for casual fans to conclude they’d permanently split. Not so.
You could fill out this post forever, though. There are lots of bands on the same musical level as bands that made it big, who didn’t have the image, weren’t of the moment, or didn’t feel like spending the rest of their lives on permanent tour.
Lots of the bands being named in this post have plenty of underground cache!
I guess I’ll also say that this is very sad music, possibly another reason they never had a big crossover hit (though there are at least as many non-musical factors as musical factors at play here).
^never had another
Wonderful Life – Black
http://bit.ly/m7BhBn
jason falkner – author unknown/can you still feel?
the grays – ro sham bo
jon brion – meaningless
michael penn – resigned
I second the Grays’ Ro Sham Bo (and Jason Falkner solo stuff). Delightful, accessible album by an amazing pop collective that didn’t sell a lick. What with all the producing gigs, his always-popular one-man-shows and such, Jon Brion doesn’t seem too neglected to me, although that is a tasty album.
‘good ABBA’?????
@Tom Noir, the Darling Buds came out in 1988, when fuzzy pop music was pretty big in the UK – bands like the Primitives had some big hits around the time and the Vaselines, Pastels, Shop Assistants, Primal Scream, Wedding Present, McCarthy and the C86 bands were all making a reasonable impact. If anything, there was too much of it at the time, and nothing from that period is particularly well-remembered today.
“nothing from that period is particularly well-remembered today”
It isn’t remembered because it never went over in America. America wasn’t interested in fuzzy pop in 1988. After a sickening decade of new-wave music, America was again ready for loud guitars and male vocalists who sounded more like men than women. Also rap music was starting to gain a big following among white audiences and all the Republicans were listening to Garth Brooks. No market for retro-ABBA stateside.
That’s a good point. Although I think people are reading too much into the ABBA comparison Tyler makes – from what I’ve heard of the Darling Buds, they don’t actually sound much like ABBA.
“Meet Danny Wilson”! (home of Mary’s Prayer)
Red House Painters – Rollercoaster
Victory at Sea – Carousel
Jesus and Mary Chain – Darklands
The Twilight Sad – Forget the Night Ahead
Terry Reid – River
Honeybus was a brilliant baroque pop from the late ’60s that was as brilliant as the Kinks or Badfinger. They had one hit in England, “Can’t Let Maggie Go.” But they never recorded a bad song.
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/honeybus-p18304
So I never heard of them. First thing on Youtube is “Girl of Independent Means”. Jeez, David Bowie ripped that song off pretty comprehensively … (The Jean Genie). Great band indeed, judging by available selections.
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