Flashes in the pan by year, 1984-2009

I've been trying to come up with a list of acts that were big in the UK one year, and achieved some sort of respect from critics or the music industry before rapidly dwindling away. Brit and Mercury awards and nominations seemed a good starting place. 1984-2009, fairly arbitrarily. Massive UK bias to all this, but I wasn't deliberately ruling out international acts. Maybe the UK is more prone to flashes in the pan than the US anyway.

1984, 1985, 1986 ?
1987 - Terence Trent D’Arby
1988 - Fairground Attraction
1992 - Tasmin Archer
1993 - Apache Indian
1993, 1994, 1995 - ?
1997 - Finley Quaye / Propellerheads
1998 - ?
1999 - Macy Gray / Gomez
2000 - Badly Drawn Boy
2001 - Dido
2002 - ?
2003 - The Darkness
2004 - Keane / Joss Stone
2005 - KT Tunstall
2006 - Corinne Bailey Rae / The Fratellis
2007 - Kate Nash / Mika
2008 - Duffy / MGMT / Glasvegas
2009 - La Roux

I started out in 1984 with Frankie Goes To Hollywood, before deciding they didn't quite fit, perhaps because they were SO big in 1984, and also because I guess Rage Hard wasn't a total flop in 1986.

Can anyone help fill in the blanks, or suggest better ones for the other years? Feel free to step outside the time range too. And would be interested in equivalents in the States or elsewhere too.

oops -

I left out 1989, 1990, 1991, plus 1993, 1994, 1995 - ? should be 1994, 1995, 1996 - ?

Dido actually had a pretty decent career in the States during the '00s. And on a similar note, KT Tunstall's two hits are still in pretty regular rotation on our Adult Contemporary Radio (despite the fact neither of them being super huge on the charts upon release).

Would Elastica be a good mid-'90s pick? Or Republica?

Yeah, I was a bit unfair on Dido. She had two top 10 hits in the UK in 2003 too. Just felt so omnipresent in 2001 and I guess part of the motivation for this list was just being able to evoke a year with an artist.

Elastica is an interesting one - they felt like an indie act to me, rather than a mini mainstream sensation, but maybe that distinction says more about my blinkered outlook at the time. Tricky knowing which year to put them as, though: 1994 or 1995? Republica is a good shout, but 1997 seems well covered already!

1984 - Nik Kershaw
1985 - King
1989 - Roachford?
1990 - Adamski

Nik Kershaw did have a couple of hits in 1985, but they were off the second of the two albums he released in '84. After that though _________________________

1999 was THE year for flashes in the pan it feels

Terrence Trent D'arby has apparently put out about 10 lps under a new name Maitreya something.
There wasan article on him in the Guardian last week or just before that.

1989 - Lil Louis

1996 - Baby Bird

2002 - Ms Dynamite

1994 - Crash Test Dummies

1990 - Deee-Lite

1998 - Catatonia

1996 - Mark Morrison

These are some great suggestions. Particularly like Roachford.

2002 - The Vines

1985 - Charlie Sexton

1993 – Spin Doctors, Stereo MCs. I wouldn't say Apache Indian counts at all – he was more of a one-hit wonder.

1988 – Bros, The Christians. Again, Fairground Attraction had one big single and that was IT.

1995/1996 – Robson & Jerome

1987 - Colin Vearncombe aka Black

Only just noticed he died after a car crash last year.

1988 - Tanita Tikaram

Feel like, to count, you need one mega-selling album that was never really followed up. And on that note...

1998 - The Corrs

2005 - James Blunt

1984 - Dead Or Alive (did have a bunch of hits besides the obvious massive one but down the dumper three years later)
1988 - S Express (done within a couple of years)
1990 - Betty Boo?
1998 - Talvin Singh (although it seems like a disproportionate amount of the UK names that come up are BME artists :( but maybe this is too tied to BRITs/Mercury recognition)
2002 - The Coral and pretty much every charting NME-hyped rock band at the time

Some of the Mercury Prize winners here were barely a flash, did Talvin Singh even sell that many records?

Talvin Singh's name still seems to get brought up now and again in my circle for some reason. Is he still releasing music?

Yeah, seemed unfair to say Talvin Singh because that felt like the Mercury judges really striking out on their own. Maybe ditto a bit with Roni Size.

it seems like a disproportionate amount of the UK names that come up are BME artists

This has occurred to me too, but it seems like it's a particular kind of BME artist that the record industry gets behind in these flashes, often ones that don't get much traction with BME audiences.

Talvin Singh seems like one of those people who stays busy with any number of projects, one or two of which occasionally intersect with the zeitgeist. Less of a flash in the pan than a slow bake.

(crap analogy time)

In any case I apologise re/to Talvin and will seriously consider listening to his second album 'Ha' someday.

Feel like, to count, you need one mega-selling album that was never really followed up.

Not sure if it there has to be a mega-selling album: even a clutch of top 20 singles would work for me. Tanita Tikaram is just the kind of thing in the pre-Britpop era. That kind of respectable artist who weren't cool in the NME's eyes, were probably available in the Britannia Music Club, might be one of the 12 CDs (or cassettes) the ILM proverbial 12 CD-owning person had, you know.

Can't get my head around Tanita Tikaram being only four years older than me.

I wouldn't say Apache Indian counts at all – he was more of a one-hit wonder

Yeah, you're right. Was swayed by him getting a Brits nomination for Best British Male.

Someone on Facebook suggested McAlmont and Butler for 1995.

"Some of the Mercury Prize winners here were barely a flash,"

maybe if Gaz Coombes had won it in '15 he wouldn't gone on to have a platinum selling hit album and become the global superstar he is now. Take note alt-J!

Tanita T was in the year above me in my sixth form college; I wish I had some scadalous anecdotes to share but I got nothing

iirc The Corrs still play arenas, they're prob more one for the thread that's words to the effect of 'you dgaf about them but they're actually as big as their heyday if not bigger'

I guess a lot of them still play to big crowds but on the basis of one album? It's not as if successive Corrs albums have gone top 10 and hung around all year is it?

yeah it is actually

four of their albums have gone top two in the UK apparently

The follow-up to Talk on Corners had 'Breathless' on it - a big hit!

1984 - Nik Kershaw
1985 - King

Absolutely yes to both of these. Although Kershaw became more of a back-room songwriter (he wrote 'The One and Only' for Chesney Hawkes) and we all know that Paul King became a VJ on MTV Europe...

Corrs have a new single out, their sounds hasn't evolved much in 20 years.

1993 has a trio of Brit soul divas; Des'ree, Dina Caroll and Shara Nelson. Most sad that Shara Nelson never capitalised on the success of Massive Attack.

1991 - Beverley Craven

1998 Cornershop, maybe?

Also 1991 - Shakespears Sister

Des'ree had a hit at the end of the nineties too with 'Life'. Think that album was quite big as well?

1994 - Stiltskin
1996 - Babylon Zoo

Also 1994/1995 - The Outhere Brothers

1988 - Edie Brickell (unless you're Paul Simon)

franz ferdinand

You could basically put almost every UK indie band who released their debut album from 2004-2008 in this thread, tbh.

1998 - Air

2002 - Damien Rice

1988 - Edie Brickell (unless you're Paul Simon)

― Lee626, Wednesday, October 11, 2017 9:54 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They had a couple of hits between 'em in 2014 iirc.

1987 - Curiosity Killed the Cat

2016 - The 1975 (pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease)

1988 - Tracy Chapman
1998 - Asian Dub Foundation

1994 - Stiltskin
1996 - Babylon Zoo

one-hit wonders but never "big"

i was gonna say damien rice but i guess he had two more albums that did okay? huge uk-usa discrepancies here; let's hear what the mongrels have to say

1996 - Los Del Rio (best selling single ever?)

1984 - Thompson Twins

Tracy Chapman had a #3 hit in 1995.

I was surprised to find out it only went to #95 the UK. It won the Grammy for Best Rock Song and was nominated for Best Song and Best Record.

2000 - Sonique

1990 - Alannah Myles

To be fair, she probably is considered a national treasure in Canada.

G'night and good luck next year

1998 - B*Witched

I can't claim they got respect from the critics but them achieving four number one singles within 10 months to having it all be over less than a year later makes them one of the ultimate flash in the pan cases.

1989 - Bonnie Raitt

I'm about to fight you!

1996 - Los Del Rio (best selling single ever?)

Bing's "White Christmas" is still the biggest seller ever, but I think Macarena is somewhere in the top 10 or 20.

C&C Music Factory gotta be in here somewhere (was that 90 or 91?)

Seems like there were a few in 1996 (along with the ones already suggested). You could include Fugees here if you forget their solo careers. Robert Miles had three big top 10 singles that year and then had just one other modest sized hit a year later. At one point you could have said Peter Andre, but for some reason the public decided to give him a second chance almost a decade later (he's had eight albums since that revival!). R&B boybands Damage and 3T were pretty big that year too. How about Alisha's Attic? Their album hung around for ages.

2002 - Daniel Beddingfield (his sister would have her own flash in the pan moment two years later), Gareth Gates, Samantha Mumba.

1996 - Los Del Rio (best selling single ever?)

Bing's "White Christmas" is still the biggest seller ever, but I think Macarena is somewhere in the top 10 or 20.

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Wednesday, October 11, 2017 8:47 PM (forty-four minutes ago)

I'm talking global, not the USA.

So was I.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_singles

I think I actually did a poll of these at some point too...

POLL: The 11 best selling singles ever

re list of best selling singles - what a weird collection!

1990 : EMF - Unbelievable.

surely !?

1998 - Air

― kornrulez6969, Wednesday, October 11, 2017 11:18 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL WUT

The original post is pretty obviously about *album* artists not one-hit-wonders, so I don't like Los Del Rio really counts here. Then again if Asian Dub Foundation (two albums that reached #20) are being mentioned then I'm not sure what's even being discussed any more.

I was completely wrong about the Corrs though, I guess the all-consuming hugeness of Talk On Corners wiped everything else from my memory.

Yeah, in my head it's definitely about the act's status in that year, rather than being defined specifically by an album, but one-hit-single wonders are probably not fodder for this.

I think it's a whiff of respectability that links them: Brit and Mercury approval is a big indicator, the sense that this is an important new force in the music industry. Not sure EMF really had that.

point taken re albums vs singles.
the schubert dip' album was a hit, but didn't really dominate 1991 when it was released.

1997 - Natalie Imbruglia

Speaking of EMF - 1990: Jesus Jones (certainly in the UK, I recall much music press chin-stroking about their sampling and other modern wonders)

Stereo MCs and The Shamen maybe?

XP - I guess then The Wonder Stuff and PWEI too?

I wouldn't count PWEI or the Wonderstuff. They were just popular bands who were of their time. They had pretty big followings and released multiple albums and singles over a few years.

It's definitely about that thing where an act is all over the place, all over TV, talked about in ecstatic and revered tones, a huge amount of marketing and possibly a big hit single or album, but forgotten about within months with hardly a glimmer of a comeback.

in the US how about Hootie & The Blowfish?

Their flash sustained itself for four years at least, perhaps longer depending on who you ask.

Would the KLF had been mentioned already were it not for their late 80s years of relative obscurity? That would rule out several other 90s acts itt tho. Also I guess people tend to think of acts that had some sort of brief mainstream acclaim without being ILM-friendly.

didn't dwindle away so much as forcibly remove themselves from the picture

KLF don't count as their legacy never really went away

I don't think these one-three hit wonders really hit the bill. Was EMF really promoted as a "career" band, or taken seriously by critics? Some of these are puzzling, like Corinne Bailey Rae, who made great follow up records but was kind of forgotten by the industry, if not by all critics.

Lisa Stansfield?

I was thinking her, maybe, but her songs still get played all the time on commercial radio where I'm from.
Tracy Chapman? Sinead O'Connor?

I guess this thread throws into question exactly how long the popularity of an act should last. Some acts are just so right for their time and place that they naturally enjoy a short shelf life. Most continue to release a few more albums but they never sell as well as their debut and they never get the press they had at the start

Darius Rucker has a big career in country
I bet most of these "flashes in the pan" can still draw theater crowds that would be the envy of whatever indie rock bands are Pitchfork darlings these days

1984 - Thompson Twins

Their hit-making run started in 1983 in the UK and continued through 1985. They were still big enough in '85 to perform on the US Live Aid stage.

Some of these are puzzling, like Corinne Bailey Rae, who made great follow up records

Her husband died a while after the release of her debut, and her career seemed to lose all its momentum while she took time out.

I had no idea. Definitely strike her from the list.