What is the most famous musical artist you've never heard?

Friend (commenting on music at party): "What a loss."
Me: "Who is this?"
Friend: (look of disgust on face): "Tupac, man."

http://www.rockonthenet.com/artists-t/2pac_main.htm

tupac started as a digital underground dancer, no? my girlfriend, who was in high school at the time, distinctly remembers seeing "california love" (the song with dre/zapp yr talking about in the first post, chuck) on mtv around 95/96. i have vague recollections of seeing the video for "i get around" too, but i wasn't watching much mtv in those days.

Until a few days ago I'd never heard Flipper but Dave Q's constant reference induced me to check them out and I'm very glad I did.

Well, nevermind then.

Tupac was huge in Atlanta, and I know he had hits in Iceland and Italy before he died ("California Love" was still all over Italian radio when he died), so I'm pretty sure he had hits in America.

i have never heard toni braxton either (she was just being interviewed on the teevee.)

Also, you don't strike me as a particularly "guitar power pop" kinda guy (I wonder why?), but hey man Big Star's pretty dang good.

Same with Charley Patton. Except, yeah, he's not "guitar power pop."

Dat Nigga Daz probably doesn't really count as famous but I remember people saying at the time how he was the one who was 'really' behind the success of The Chronic, Doggystyle, etc., and so I always found it amusing that his record did absolutely nothing in terms of sales or airplay.

Toni Braxton is what Anita Baker would've sounded like if Babyface had gotten ahold of her.

given their ubiquity, i can't say that i've NEVER heard a backstreet boys or n'sync song, but if i did, no one sent me the memo and now that i've finally heard the vines i can die a happy man.

*gack*

Never really heard the Flying Burrito Brothers.

Chuck, unless you are 5 years old which you are not, 2Pac did too have a hit in your lifetime, California Love still gets airplay to this day never mind back in the day. It's also just about the greatest single of the '90s, so hope to it and go buy the greatest hits already, cowboy.

(see what I did there)

Haha that description would make me want to listen to it if I didn't know it.

You may have heard Meatloaf on the theme song to the 1987 Special Olympics (feat. Brian May from Queen).

https://mindlessthefirst.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/img612.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ud0tLwcfG4

Haha, I remember that comic ad

Until today I'd never listened to a Blue Oyster Cult album. I knew 2 or 3 songs from radio or elsewhere. I maybe should have started with the debut, or perhaps Agents of Fortune, but I opted for Tyranny and Mutation because I liked the title. Holy crap, this is great weirdo garage rock psych prog metal. Gonna move on to others.

Tyranny and Mutation is my favorite BOC album and they're probably my favorite rock band.

Well, they were. I only listen to Iron Maiden now.

Zeppelin is almost a different animal. They didn't even bother releasing singles after the third album, right?

Wrong!

MEAT LOAF WAS THE VOICE OF HORNY, INSECURE TEEN BOYS EVERYWHERE
The late superstar’s ‘Bat Out of Hell’ remains a ridiculous, incredibly honest portrait of what it’s like to be young and full of hormones you can’t understand or control

https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/meat-loaf-rip

I didn't read all of this but LOL

idk I always found his performance a bit "how do you do fellow kids"

The album is pretty stupid because teenage boys are pretty stupid, but it’s also kind of beautiful because teenage boys — at least the good ones — possess an awkward beauty buried underneath all that pimply awkwardness.

I still hear all the big hits from that, but that's still only ... three? Sweet Child, Paradise City, Welcome to the Jungle?

Mr. Brownstone, It's So Easy and Night train get play too

TIL that Easy/ Brownstone were released as a double A side in the UK before any singles were put out in the US

It's So Easy, really? Do they bleep it? I don't hear those songs at all here.

Re: Zep, hmm, there's something hinky going on with their singles. I think they only officially released ten, maybe? Maybe promo only? Maybe no singles released in the UK? Something like that.

Zep and Metallica are the classic rock radio bands for whom charts and singles are irrelevent

Yep. Yet "Fool in the Rain" got as high as #21 in 1980.

Josh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin_discography#Singles

OK, so maybe 10 officially released, about one per album, and the rest promo? In the US at least. How about the UK? Maybe that's where they never officially released any singles?

Isn't "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" from the pov of a near-suicidal older man trapped in a marriage with someone he hates, looking back wistfully? I never thought of it as a hormonal adolescent rush at all.

I was expecting him to have a more heavy metal sound

I never thought of it as a hormonal adolescent rush at all.

lol it literally has a sports announcer giving play-by-play of backseat sex

It just seems very wry and distanced from the experience to me, compared to something like "Whole Lotta Love". It makes sense that it's an older guy reflecting on it. Totally a subjective impression.

oh yeah, it's more in the Springsteen vein of "Here's this crazy night I had hanging out with people who are now all dead or working shit jobs."

otm

Pink Floyd are the AOR staple band who it's often said released no singles between Point Me at the Sky in 1968 and Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 in 1979 (but that's totally untrue)

growing up in Boston, you can bet that I heard both Boston and The Cars on classic rock radio constantly in the 90s. my favorite Boston cuts are "Rock & Roll Band" and "Smokin'".

Zep and Metallica are the classic rock radio bands for whom charts and singles are irrelevent

As Dave Marsh pointed out in his 1001 Singles book, it doesn’t matter that “Stairway” or “Brain Damage/Eclipse” weren’t released as 45s — radio treated those songs as singles anyway. And the airplay of these non-single “singles” directly resulted in those albums scaling the irrelevant charts. (And Metallica had six top-40 singles in the US.)

(xxp) I don't think they did in the UK? Ditto LZ.

always dug Foreplay/ Longtime and partic this one from s/t:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV3pR87L-T8

can't believe it's been 15 years(!!) since Delp passed :-/
what a talent

Trivia: An alternate version called "Foreplay/Fiveplay/Long Time" was released on a 1976 promotional album called It's A Knockout. It was a little longer than the original version and contained some alternate lyrics.

I had this, don't know if I still do. Never realized there was any difference in the recordings.

I've heard rock stations do those daily "Get the Led Out" blocks or "Metallica Monday" where they played a bunch of non-singles.

xp to Tom D. that might be right, actually. They def released a bunch of singles in Europe and America during that time, but the only UK one I know of is a radio promo of Money.

oof my rock station offered Get the Led Out blocks for yeeearrrs

Yeah I've heard my local classic rock station play Led Zeppelin II in its entirety on more than one occasion

Feel like my classic rock station never played Heartbreaker without immediately following w Living Loving Maid and Immigrant Song always followed by Hey hey what Can I do iirc

Isn't "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" from the pov of a near-suicidal older man trapped in a marriage with someone he hates, looking back wistfully? I never thought of it as a hormonal adolescent rush at all.

You may be describing Bob Seger's "Night Moves".

Re Metallica, the pre- and post-Black Album bifurcation of their career kinda fascinates me. Like, there are millions and millions of people for whom Load and/or ReLoad were their introduction to the band.

And there are those, like me, who have heard almost nothing they released post-Black Album

Some FM stations used to play whole albums in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, but that lasted maybe 3-4 years tops. There’s definitely Get The Led Out (my personal favorite is RockIt To ZepTune), but during most of the day — and when these albums were new — FM or “classic rock” radio programming in the US was/is no less “singles” oriented than top 40. It’s just that some of the “singles” weren’t physical singles.

Interestingly, possibly the first LP regularly played in full on the radio didn’t have any single songs extracted from it, for either radio or jukebox purposes: James Brown’s Live At The Apollo.

xpost That reminds me of that podcast about They Might Be Giants where the hosts didn't really like anything before John Henry.

that podcast about They Might Be Giants where the hosts didn't really like anything before John Henry.

This is so bizarre I think I need a link

I don't think I've ever heard Drake

No way

I've definitely never heard Drake, except for whatever songs he appeared on on the Weeknd's trilogy of early albums.

how do you know?

Because I don't get exposed to music involuntarily that often. I don't listen to the radio; when I'm out in public, I'm wearing headphones; the only exception to that is the grocery store I shop at, which plays mostly 80s New Wave and/or "classic rock".

Probably some kind of '70s prog - maybe Yes? I know the name Rick Wakeman but I'm pretty sure I've never actually heard them.

from the 80s but "Owner of a Lonely Heart"?

That's Yes?! Well shit.

Some FM stations used to play whole albums in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, but that lasted maybe 3-4 years tops.

When I was listening to the classic rock station in Austin during the late 90s-early 2000s they ran the "Seventh Day Six-Pack" every Sunday night: starting at 9 or 10 they'd play six full albums into the night. I specifically remember them playing Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Goes alongside Rush where the only song I know I've heard is "Tom Sawyer."

didn't get that much exposure to country growing up (unless you count stuff like the Eagles and Bon Jovi). I often hear the argument that people disdain country music because they associate it with a particular demographic but that wasn't even the case because I barely knew anyone at all who listened to it for a long time. I didn't associate it with anyone.xp

Tbf I guess my parents sometimes watched stuff like Dolly Parton and Crystal Gayle on TV.