Records that deserved to sell millions but didn't.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

Now, I'm not talking about your favourite records that didn't sell. No matter how you cut it, Nick Drake was never going to outsell Elton John. I'm talking about great records with hit potential all over them, great singles, dynamics, the lot. Records that deserved it, but never sold the millions deserving of them.
Here's a few,
The Boo Radleys - Giant Steps
Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque
Big Star - #1 Record, Radio City
The Go-Betweens - Liberty Belle...., 16 Lovers Lane
Eighteenwheeler - Year Zero
Mercury Rev - Deserter's Songs
The Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro
The Aloof - Sinking
Deus - In A Bar, Under the Sea
Tindersticks - Second album, Curtains
Sloan - One Chord to Another
Super Furry Animals - Radiator, Rings Around the World

I'd also include Generation Terrorists, Everything Must Go and This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours, which were big sellers in Europe, but never sold the millions they deserved to sell in the US.

What about you lot?

[Beware the Beast Man]

1. Kyuss- "Blues for the Red Sun"

Awesome album, awesome band, big favorite of critics, but never got the recognition they deserved.

EDIT: This came out in 92, during the "grunge" explosion. They really could have given some of those bands a run for their money, but their original label folded and couldn't afford to promote them.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

2. Good call. Same thing happened to Rocket From The Crypt.

They originally came out around grunge, and were buried. 'Scream, Dracula, Scream' is still rockin'.

[drumwolf]

10. ...and the same thing also happened to Tad as well.

Tad were part of the same original late-'80s/early-'90s Seattle/SubPop scene that Mudhoney, Soundgarden and Nirvana came out of, but they were the heaviest of all of them and were actually very similar to Kyuss. They left SubPop to go to a cheesy record label connected to the majors, got no promotion, and saw their career end with a whimper. Too bad, because they were far superior to many of the "alternative" bands that got much more success.

Mudhoney themselves were another band that deserved to get far more success than they did. Although, on a positive note, unlike all of the other aforementioned bands, they're still together and back on SubPop.

[Beware the Beast Man]

18. I wholeheartedly agree with Mudhoney

They were grunge, in the truest sense. The only thing that kept them from getting big is that they really tried to distance themselves from the whole "grunge" moniker, and a few of their albums (namely Piece of Cake and My Brother the Cow) suffered because of it.

[Philostopher]

3. Ah, well --

at least Josh Homme is laughing all the way to the bank now. They've re-released some if the Kyuss stuff, haven't they?

And I'm only familiar with a handful of SLB's bands, but I agree on the ones I know. I wonder, though, if it doesn't have to do with being out of step with what's easy to promote, having the stuff ignored. I know Super Furry Animals and Sloan do kind of insular power pop that's difficult to categorize -- the same thing happened to Jellyfish back during the hair metal era. Their stuff sounded a lot like Sloan's, with a more marked psychedelic influence, and it all sank like a stone in water unless you listened to a lot of college radio back in that part of the '80s/early '90s.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

7. I'd add Spilt Milk and Bellybutton to my list. Great records.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

4. Congoes - Heart of the Congoes

Iron & Wine - the creek drank the cradle
Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left
John Coltrane - Om

[Wickerman]

5. Dumptruck - For the Country, Feelies - The Good Earth

Scud Mountain Boys - Massachusetts
Mercury Rev - Deserter's Songs :thumbsup:
Yo La Tengo - Painful

to list a couple

[Screaming Lord Byron]

8. Agreed. The Pernice boys should've sold some more discs.

[Gothic Sponge]

6. Love Manic Street Preachers

Off the top of my head:

Ride - Nowhere
Poe - Haunted
Lisa Germano - Happiness
Straitjacket Fits - Melt
Mary's Danish - Circa

I know have more, but i can't think. :think:

[Screaming Lord Byron]

11. Nowhere is a great record.

Poor Ride, they peaked on the first album.

[mac56]

9. "Heat Treatment" by Graham Parker and the Rumour

"Toucan Do It Too" by the Amazing Rhythm Aces

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

12. Devil's Workshop by Frank Black & the Catholics - did that sell big?

I enjoy it

[Screaming Lord Byron]

14. Probably not. None of his solo stuff was particularly successful.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

19. I don't know if I think it should have sold millions but

I like it

[DenverDem]

13. Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons-Conscious Contact

Several unheard hit songs on this unpromoted album.

<http://www.jerryjoseph.com/conscious_contact.shtml>

[T_i_B]

15. VAST

Visual Audio Sensual Theatre and Music for People by Vast are both great albums, and yet they never sold and nobody else seems to have ever heard of Vast. Troublegum by Therapy? should also have been a mega seller by rights if you ask me.

I should also mention Asian Dub Foundation at this point. Great albums, and they are even better live!

[Screaming Lord Byron]

16. Therapy? were a great singles act.

Agreed on the ADF, storming live act.

[bbernardini]

17. Anything by The Samples, Stuart Davis or Mike Keneally!

The Samples put Dave Matthews on the map, yet DMB gets all the credit, when The Samples kick their ass.

[Beware the Beast Man]

20. Wilco "Summerteeth"

This got a lot of critical praise, but I don't think it was a huge seller, hence their removal from Reprise. Another bad choice was making "I Can't Stand It" their lead-off single which, IMO, is one of the weaker songs on the disc. The rest of Summerteeth is classic.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

21. Yeah, same goes for 'Being There'

[Donkeyboy75]

27. Yep, but "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" was too 'weird' to deserve

to sell a million copies. But I love that disc.

[tigereye]

23. they played a lot of songs from that when they were here

recently. Really nice.

[Donkeyboy75]

26. "Shot in the Arm"

is my favorite off of that album

[Commendatori]

22. Riot: Fire Down Under. Blue Oyster Cult: Secret Treaties.

[tigereye]

24. Norah Jones and Diana Krall

just kidding.

Seriously

In my fantasy world:

anything by Luna
Moxy Fruvous- Bargainville ( I love these guys! great album)
anything by Lucinda Williams, Baltimore Consort, Betty Carter, Steve Earle, The Old 97s, Scrawl ( He's Drunk), Beat Happening, and Yo La Tengo would be fine by me!

[chaska]

25. Many a Todd Rungren song, but 'Can We Still Be Friends' comes to mind.

[dolo amber]

28. Anything and everything by

Richard D. James. ;)

[Screaming Lord Byron]

29. Oh yeah!

[Chovexani]

30. London After Midnight - Psycho Magnet

London After Midnight is one of my favorite bands, they're a Goth rock outfit which just totally kicks ass. Think Marilyn Manson, only with talent (meow). The song "Kiss" off the Psycho Magnet album has radio single written all over it. It's criminal that only Goths know about this band. They also did an adorable cover of "Sally's Song" from Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas that I love.

A much more well-known band that I also love, the Smashing Pumpkins...their 2nd to last album (if you don't count Machina II), Adore, is woefully underrated. I think it's their best next to Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness. To this day I'm not really sure as to why it flopped...I suppose because it has a more electronic and even darkwave-ish sound as compared to Mellon Collie. I guess to people expecting more stuff like "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" & "1979", "Ava Adore" and "Daphne Descends" were kind of jarring. :shrug: It's a damn shame, that is such a good album.

[jukes]

31. javetta steele

bagdad cafe/calling you.




her voice gives me chills.