Bands that could have been bigger than they were

[Guest combat_rock]

I think the real reason that Sublime is a love/hate band are because while they had a light breezy sound and generally dumb lyrics about partying and getting fucked up; they were able to cover a wide range of influences while still being a generally easy listen, and Bradley Nowell was a hell of a singer (not technically, but he was really great at showing emotion. The Kurt Cobain of his genre if you will). When compared with 311 and Sugar Ray (or Jimmy Buffet), they actually become the heavyweight of lightweight bands. Which is cool, because sometimes there's nothing wrong with music just for parties or chilling out.

 

Anyway, one band that I'm suprised haven't been bigger was Social Distortion. They got pretty big with their self-titled cd, but other than that, not so much. And there's really a lot of songs on Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell and White Light, White Heat, White Trash that could've been hit singles.

[Guest The Winter Of My Discontent]

Wow...two pages in and no mention of Sublime?  Color me surprised.

Somone explain the canonization of Bradley Nowell. The guy has become just as revered as Kurt Cobain in my generation, but at least I can understand the icon status attained by the latter.

Easy.

 

He had the smoothest and most harmonic voice in one instant and on the other hand he could bust out a decent flow.

 

Sublime, while totally mindless, had the greatest feel good summer time music that crossed over many different genres. Punk, reggae, jazz, hip hop, rock - you'd be getting all of that in a Sublime record. Robbin' the Hood would probably be their most eclectic yet least heralded album. It showed Nowell at his creaive peak and most inventive. Incidently it was the time where he was the deepest in his addiction. He just threw everything he had out, and it was amazing. Had the man lived, I could say with some confidence that we would not be thinking of him as a mere on trick pony. He had so much more to offer, and some of his Doin' Time remixes on Second Hand Smoke was signalling a new(er) sound for the group. I'll say that Sublime was at one time my favourite band ever, that has changed over the years, but I still see the creative madness that the man showed briefly in his short musical career. Its just sad that his musical legacy has been somewhat tarnished by his martyrdom and lackluster posthumous releases.

 

Its unfair to judge Nowell by his acoustic material as it was never meant to be released, and was done so at the insistance of MCA to finish out their contract.

 

PS. I always senses more of an authenticity from Nowell's heroin addiction pleas than the most popular Layne Staley work. It was the subject matter, aside from chillin in the LBC, that Nowell would continously allude too. The fragility of the acoustic Pool Shark conveys a defeated man. It was a short 1 min. 20 seconds - a ridiculously short time for Nowell to impress upon his listener his dire situation; something it took Layne Staley an entire career to do.

[Guest The Winter Of My Discontent]

And I'll touch on the Lemonheads.

 

In the context of mainstream music, they were cursed from the get go. They weren't ever about the music, or anything they were doing creatively. It was about Dando's sexiness and Mrs. Robinson. Soon thereafter, it all degenerated into a gigantic gong show about his drug addiction.

 

Based upon music alone, they showed brief signs of genius. But Dando could never stay focused long enough to make any noteworthy albums like his "alt country/rock" counterparts.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Well, here's one not so much about public appeal, but literally short lifespan: the Exploding Hearts. These are the guys who, a few months after their album Guitar Romantic started to get press, died when their van flipped. Uncanny pop sensibility, retro power-pop sound; I'd compare them to the Buzzcocks, but everyone's already done that, so I'll just say that they were really good at what they did. Can't think of many bands who could make a song just over two minutes seem so layered and substantial.

[PLAGIARISM! 0]

They don't blow me away or anything, but the Libertines could have been the biggest band in Britain, easy.

[Skywarp! 0]

It horrifies me that 311 are still around. I shudder to think what would have happened if they'd caught on in the UK.

They're huge in Japan, though.

[nl5xsk1 0]

point is, 311 will NEVER be mentioned in the same sentence as the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Kiss, Aerosmith, the Stones, etc. etc. fucking Saliva has sold million of records and headlined shows dude, come up with a better point...

Sorry it took me like 3 days to respond to this, I don't have a computer at my new apartment yet, and thus can only post at work (or if I go to a friend's house) ...

 

Lushus, how can you compare ANY current new band to the Stones or Beatles or Led Zeppelin (or the others)? Those bands are like the upper echelon of music. Other than maybe a band like U2, there's not a band out there that will reach that level. People can circle jerk over Nirvana until they're blue in the face, but truthfully they've already failed to reach that level, and it's only been 10 years since they broke up. To compare a band like 311 to the Beatles is like saying that today's authors are comparable to Shakespeare or Hemingway: there just isn't anyone right now that will earn a spot on the immortals list.

 

Anyway, one band that I'm suprised haven't been bigger was Social Distortion. They got pretty big with their self-titled cd, but other than that, not so much. And there's really a lot of songs on Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell and White Light, White Heat, White Trash that could've been hit singles.

 

I agree with you on the band, but not on the era. I'm surprised their actual punk stuff (e.g. Mommy's Little Monster & the 1945 EP) didn't get more acclaim. MLM is a very good punk album, and Mike Ness definitely had the street cred to be a bigger punk icon. Maybe Prison Bound was just too country/non-punk and it killed their momentum.

[Black Lushus 0]

point is, 311 will NEVER be mentioned in the same sentence as the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Kiss, Aerosmith, the Stones, etc. etc.  fucking Saliva has sold million of records and headlined shows dude, come up with a better point...

Sorry it took me like 3 days to respond to this, I don't have a computer at my new apartment yet, and thus can only post at work (or if I go to a friend's house) ...

 

Lushus, how can you compare ANY current new band to the Stones or Beatles or Led Zeppelin (or the others)? Those bands are like the upper echelon of music. Other than maybe a band like U2, there's not a band out there that will reach that level. People can circle jerk over Nirvana until they're blue in the face, but truthfully they've already failed to reach that level, and it's only been 10 years since they broke up. To compare a band like 311 to the Beatles is like saying that today's authors are comparable to Shakespeare or Hemingway: there just isn't anyone right now that will earn a spot on the immortals list.

 

maybe I misinterpreted the direction this thread was heading...it seemed like we were getting to the point of deciding who could have been as big as those bands...my bad...im starting to reach Choken proportions here, i better chill for a bit...

[Steviekick 0]

The Circle Jerks - Why is Black Flag so revered but the Jerks are not?

Because Black Flag came first. I think also the fact that Henry Rollins became so big and overshadowed collectively everything the other Black Flag alumni did.

 

Samhain - same question as above, but with the Misfits instead of Black Flag?

 

I think that is because after the nature of Samhain was that it was a transitional band for Danzig. Samhain kinda evolved and just turned into Danzig. It was his band and he was writing the majority of the music, and when the lineup changed he just took over. The reason why Misfits is considered > Samhain is because a lot of Misfits fans don't really like Danzig as a solo artist and they just discount Samhain.

[Guest krazykat72]

Helmet was a band far ahead of it's time, and while they had some modest hits (Unsung, In the Meantime, Wilma's Rainbow) they never really got the recognition they deserve. Hopefully, the new album (Size Matters coming out in September) will be really good.

 

Squeeze was a great pop group that unfortunately broke up at the height of their popularity ('82) and when they tried to re capture it in '85, they were never able to. Glenn Tilbrook is still making really good music and putting on *great* live shows.

 

-Paul Jacobi-

[nl5xsk1 0]

How about Monster Magnet? Spine of God and Dopes to Infinity are AWESOME albums that get next-to-no love. Even Superjudge and Tab are very good.

 

Even the later songs that went big never really propelled them to any lasting fame.

 

Dave Wyndorf = = the most underrated musician today.

[Anorak 0]

Spine Of God is one great big fuzzed up gem of an album. Wyndorf's lyrics always make me smile, he's the shameless spaced out rock god spouting the hilariously dumb with the wickedly cynical. Rarely has a band picked a more perfect album title for themselves than they did with Dopes To Infinity.

 

I thought Ooberman might have made it big in British indie circles at least if not the mainstream but it never happened. They were as twee and student appealing as Belle & Sebastian but in a somewhat more goofy & overeager sort of way that kind of left them in a funny middle ground where even twee guitar pop lovin indie kids wouldn't adopt them because they lacked that self-conscious air of detachment. Their sound was also a bit more upfront and immediate as well so that didn't give them a cultish appeal to fall back on either (that's grown ever so slightly after their demise, most people struggle to recall them). Shorley Walls should have been 'the' song for them but it didn't work out. B&S have pretty much had this particular cul-de-sac of British indie tied up for years as a result, a band like Gorky's Zygotic Mynci sang in Welsh about wizards too much to challenge despite being totally great and releasing stuff for longer. Some people despise B&S and their 'club' of fans but Ooberman seemed to inspire total love or hate with their happily bouncy childlike innocence. If they just could have broke big in time the whole world could have had chance to sit on either side of that fence.

[Guest combat_rock]

point is, 311 will NEVER be mentioned in the same sentence as the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Kiss, Aerosmith, the Stones, etc. etc.  fucking Saliva has sold million of records and headlined shows dude, come up with a better point...

Sorry it took me like 3 days to respond to this, I don't have a computer at my new apartment yet, and thus can only post at work (or if I go to a friend's house) ...

 

Lushus, how can you compare ANY current new band to the Stones or Beatles or Led Zeppelin (or the others)? Those bands are like the upper echelon of music. Other than maybe a band like U2, there's not a band out there that will reach that level. People can circle jerk over Nirvana until they're blue in the face, but truthfully they've already failed to reach that level, and it's only been 10 years since they broke up. To compare a band like 311 to the Beatles is like saying that today's authors are comparable to Shakespeare or Hemingway: there just isn't anyone right now that will earn a spot on the immortals list.

 

Anyway, one band that I'm suprised haven't been bigger was Social Distortion. They got pretty big with their self-titled cd, but other than that, not so much. And there's really a lot of songs on Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell and White Light, White Heat, White Trash that could've been hit singles.

 

I agree with you on the band, but not on the era. I'm surprised their actual punk stuff (e.g. Mommy's Little Monster & the 1945 EP) didn't get more acclaim. MLM is a very good punk album, and Mike Ness definitely had the street cred to be a bigger punk icon. Maybe Prison Bound was just too country/non-punk and it killed their momentum.

Yeah, but I thought the point of the thread was who could be more commercially succesfull, not critically. I mean, Social D has a lot of cred in the punk community, in any era. As for mainstream critical praise, it's really irrelevant. I mean, Rolling Stone pretty much stamps every punk album that comes out with three stars (unless it's REALLY weaksauce like New Found Glory, then they'll give it the two or two and a half rating).

[PLAGIARISM! 0]

There's no real reason Tindersticks aren't huge, come to think of it.

[snuffbox 0]

How about Monster Magnet? Spine of God and Dopes to Infinity are AWESOME albums that get next-to-no love. Even Superjudge and Tab are very good.

 

Even the later songs that went big never really propelled them to any lasting fame.

 

Dave Wyndorf = = the most underrated musician today.

No.

[PLAGIARISM! 0]

Monster Magnet are OK, have always been OK and will never be anything more.

[Anorak 0]

Spine of God is too much fun to be just ok.

[DCMaximo 0]

I thought Ooberman might have made it big in British indie circles at least if not the mainstream but it never happened. They were as twee and student appealing as Belle & Sebastian but in a somewhat more goofy & overeager sort of way that kind of left them in a funny middle ground where even twee guitar pop lovin indie kids wouldn't adopt them because they lacked that self-conscious air of detachment. Their sound was also a bit more upfront and immediate as well so that didn't give them a cultish appeal to fall back on either (that's grown ever so slightly after their demise, most people struggle to recall them). Shorley Walls should have been 'the' song for them but it didn't work out. B&S have pretty much had this particular cul-de-sac of British indie tied up for years as a result, a band like Gorky's Zygotic Mynci sang in Welsh about wizards too much to challenge despite being totally great and releasing stuff for longer. Some people despise B&S and their 'club' of fans but Ooberman seemed to inspire total love or hate with their happily bouncy childlike innocence. If they just could have broke big in time the whole world could have had chance to sit on either side of that fence.

The problem with Ooberman was that for every truly great song (Blossom's Falling, Shorley Wall), they had some TERRIBLE records (Bees and Sugarbum), which made you want to really hurt them. My housemate loved them, but he's liked a lot of poor indie.

 

Some bands who never quite made it:

 

Far- with so many modern bands remorselessly stealing their sound (Finch, Hundred Reasons etc), it's really sad that the greatest band of their genre BY FAR are long forgotten, only remembered by a select few

 

Ruby Cruiser- should've become huge on the UK. Wrote fantastic indie songs and their semi-concept album "Twelve Short Stories", about life in a small backwards town, was clever and funny in equal measures

 

Liberty 37- A staggeringly overlooked band who, inspite of fantastic reviews of both their albums, never managed anything more than a small fanbase. Lead singer Ishmael (who is one of the nicest musicians I've ever met), not only had a great, versatile singing voice, but wrote really intelligent lyrics, backed up by a band who could be pretty heavy when required, while still knowing how to keep the melody in the foreground.

[Anorak 0]

There were definately some throwaway tracks off that first Ooberman album but I don't think you make the same criticism of the Running Girl album. They were really progressing in the right direction before they went up in a puff of smoke.