Underground artists who tried for the charts and made a pop album

Apologies if this has been discussed, I didn't see an obvious thread.

Reading about the upcoming Robert Lloyd documentary informed me of a solo pop album he released that I hadn't known about. It's not bad, one of the singles "Something Nice" is particularly great. It got me wondering about underground artists that made a clear stab at making a pop album. Off the top of my head:

Robert Lloyd - he of the decidedly uncommercial Nightingales
Carl Marsh - of Shriekback, he tried twice, once as a solo artist and again as Happyhead, who actually had a minor hit
Sophie Ellis Bextor - of brit-pop band Theaudience, she succeeded wildly in crossing over to the charts
Captain Sensible - of the Damned, he had great chart success that he didn't really know what to do with
Jason Ringenberg - of Jason & The Scorchers, his first solo album was on a major had a radio-friendly country sound
Robbie Fulks - made an album for a major, shaving off his trademark clever and edgy lyrics, he later wrote a song about his time in Nashville, "Fuck This Town"
Lloyd Cole - solo albums on a major culminated with "Bad Vibes" which knowingly has a song "Can't Get Arrested". He also wrote a song about this later, "Tried To Rock"

Probably should include David Johansen's Buster Poindexter incarnation, too.

Gotta be a ton more!

Beefheart’s Unconditionally Guaranteed?

Pere Ubu's Cloudland?

The Undertones weren't exactly underground, but I'd say they were at least as off to the side as some of your examples. So: Feargal Sharkey.

To qualify, do the artists have to have back-pedalled on their attempted sell-out? Or can it be a gradual but permanent change of aesthetic focus? Do they have to be trying to make "real pop" rather than "art-pop"?

I'm thinking about PJ Harvey, Destroyer and Sparks in relation to these questions.

There's Goblin's 1982 album Volo, which was their attempt at making a pop album, granted very little of the band's original members were involved:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQY6WTT7bzo

Liz Phair is sort of an obvious example

IIRC, Katharine Whalen from the Squirrel Nut Zippers made mainstream Pop album or two after she left the band.

I always thought Strange Angels was Laurie Anderson's attempt at getting a radio hit.

https://s9.limitedrun.com/images/1122054/FARAGE1440.jpg

Edwyn Collins, "A Girl Like You," too.

It didn't work, but thread title was sorta the premise of Tamaryn's Cranekiss, one of the best albums ever.

I dunno if it they were trying to aim for the charts, but the Japanese experimental folk/prog collective Geinoh Yamashirogumi (best known for doing the soundtrack for Akira) released an album in 1979 where the B side has them doing disco versions of popular Japanese songs of the time, including a couple of anime series theme tunes. None of their albums before or after that one have anything like that.

Iggy's Blah-Blah-Blah felt like one of these, especially coming after the demented-sounding, non-charting Zombie Birdhouse.

Lou Reed, maybe? "Rock and Roll" and "Sweet Jane" were possibly attempts to generate a hit (do not interpret that as a pejorative--two of the VU's greatest songs); "Walk on the Wild Side" and his albums from that time frame in general tried to latch on to glam (with an implied "I invented this"); and then, in '78, at the height of double-live album mania, he puts one out and says "I do Lou Reed better than anybody" (the album itself obviously not smoothed over for commercial success). He seemed to have real a love-hate relationship with the idea of commercial success.

Does the Butthole Surfers' "Pepper" count?

Not sure about entire albums but Psychic TV's "Godstar" was surely an attempt to get GP-O into the charts.

xpost Pepper is a great example

No idea if this counts but in the 80s ECM staple Shankar tried his hand at pop success with The Epidemics (and Manfred Eicher's blessing).

Peter Maxwell Davies, "An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise"

Joseph Beuys’ single.

He seemed to have real a love-hate relationship with the idea of commercial success.

the 2nd half of the decurtis bio (only one ive read) is peppered with anecdotes from the 80s and 90s about lou complaining to label execs that they werent pushing his singles hard enough, that he felt he was giving them goldplated guaranteed smash hits, if only theyd pushed the radio or TV harder

I remember seeing the “I Love You Suzanne” video as a kid, before I knew who Lou Reed was; that was my first exposure. (I think I thought he was also the “I Wear My Sunglasses at Night” guy.)

The only thing I'd say about "Pepper" is that to me it's a typically weird song by them--catchy, but still weird--that came along at just the right moment, when pop radio was looking for "alternative" (or whatever it was called at that point in history) hits to cross over. The Meat Puppets had a minor hit around the same time, and there were others. So I don't know if there was a conscious effort of trying for the charts; you might be right, I don't know.

The Dream Syndicate edged into this area with Out Of The Grey and Ghost Stories but how much of that smoothing of the corners was intentional idk.

Beethoven - Wellington's Victory

do tegan & sara post heartthrob count or is this only for things that feel like one off aberrations?

I'm not sure how long they were underground, but R.E.M. had pop-friendly singles and charting albums from the start. Their big move for pop album success was Green.

We've Got A Fuzzbox And We're Going To Use It

Although I find the designation "underground" a little overstated in this and many of these cases.

Well, they had the massive pop makeover, for sure.

Richard Youngs "Beyond The Valley Of Ultrahits"

Chumbawamba "Tubthumping"

Scritti Politti

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Some of these acts y'all are posting aren't really "underground" -- though maybe we're operating with different definitions? Are we talking the aesthetics of their previous/normal music ... or like, "this person wasn't popular before and then they had a hit"?

Chumbawamba "Tubthumping"

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Laurie Anderson is a good example ( I wouldn't call her "underground" -- she was playing concert halls)

YMO weren’t exactly underground but they’d been making some weird and pretty experimental music before returning for Naughty Boys, one of the most shamelessly pitch perfect pop albums ever made, which immediately hit #1

Beethoven - Wellington's Victory

― Left, Saturday, February 6, 2021 8:52 AM (one hour ago

hahah

Er, wasn't their very first single a massive pop hit? What was the "underground" part of their career?

The part before booking up with Trevor Horn. Have you heard what the sounded like?

Actually, see also Propaganda who were doing EBM covers of Throbbing Gristle.

Tuomas, not putting out records actually bolsters "underground" status sometimes IMO ;-)

Cabaret Voltaire - Groovy Laidback and Nasty.

Sheffield underground electronic / new wave acts The Future, The Human League / Vice Versa

to

Sheffield pop acts The Human League, Heaven 17, ABC

Alan Vega's Saturn Strip album
Davey Henderson forming Win after the Fire Engines
Lawrence forming Denim after Felt

Edward Ball of TVPs/The Times/O-Level etc
Managed three top 75 singles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIuWS1qHnRc

John McKeown (The Yummy Fur) and Michael McGaughrin (V-Twin)'s band 1990s were something of a surprise after previous form
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EURfmrWJcPY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QRaVG6XymA

in with a bullet at 94.

Oh hang on, Black Box Recorder, obviously...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP-2VLQEv4c

The only thing I'd say about "Pepper" is that to me it's a typically weird song by them--catchy, but still weird--that came along at just the right moment, when pop radio was looking for "alternative" (or whatever it was called at that point in history) hits to cross over.

Oh, come on. It was as blatant a ripoff of Beck's "Loser" as possible, and sounded nothing like anything the Surfers had done before. Slick video full of kitschy "ironic" showbiz stuff...it was a guided missile aimed straight at radio and MTV. I'm sure a million people who'd worked with them for years up till that point responded by asking, "Wait...so you could have done something radio-friendly at any time, all along?"

I should add there's tons of punks who hit the charts later - Billy Idol, Simple Minds, etc. Unclear if 'new wave' becoming mainstream is more a case of the public's tastes changing rather than artists doing something different in an attempt to become popular.

I don't think "Pepper"'s any more or less poppier than "Gary Floyd." I would love to have been at the band meeting where Gibby let everyone else know they were now going to be taking on the Backstreet Boys: "Guys, the college radio thing was fun, but I've got bills to pay--we're going to be making hit singles from now on."

xp Wd guess Autobahn since that was a big chart hit and they also started looking like a pop group at that time. Funny idea of a pop album though.

I know. A somewhat accidental hit at that, and Radioactivity was maybe even less pop again. But they had come from a pretty far out place and moved in the direction of pop. I'd say The Man Machine was a pop album.

Robbie Fulks - made an album for a major, shaving off his trademark clever and edgy lyrics, he later wrote a song about his time in Nashville, "Fuck This Town"

for the record, Fulks wrote, recorded and released "Fuck The Town" *before* he made the album for the major (Let's Kill Saturday Night).

he worked in Nashville for a few years, gave up on it and moved to Chicago, wrote "Fuck This Town" and put it on South Mouth (released by Bloodshot, 1997), then made Let's Kill Saturday Night and released it through Geffen Records in 1998.

(also, imo, Let's Kill Saturday Night is great ... not as great as Country Love Songs or South Mouth, but great.)

dammit ... first reference to the song should be "Fuck THIS Town"

lol was gonna guess Computer World

See, at least 3 pop albums! Case closed ;-)

And here's me thinking "Autobahn" after the first three experimental albums (the third not so much, but).

No-one putting in a word for Trans-Europe Express as the sellout pop move I see.

Not sure if "underground artist" is quite the term for Philip Glass, but Songs From Liquid Days was a definite attempt to cross over to a non-classical/experimental audience. Don't think it worked mind.

Glass had already made inroads to that audience by that time, I'm pretty sure he would have been the only contemporary classical composer selling CDs to certain kids in my high school in the 80s.

Age Of Chance : Mecca

after Steven E left, they recruited a different singer, and totally tried to make a Pop album (under the guidance/pressures from the record label), featuring none of the noise/samples/chants/guitars of their earlier material.
other than the minor hit, 'Higher Than Heaven' (video was on the chart show), the album bombed, and has since been disowned by the band.

Which leads us on to.. Chakk. Who tried to sell out and blew it massively.

Or blew it on a studio I suppose, which is not so bad.

David Cunningham

yeah, was going to mention the CHAKK saga, but not so sure that the album was actually that much of a stab at pop chart hopes.
for all its faults, its still a very strange album, and was never going to end up being accepted as a pop album.
whereas Mecca, clearly was.
the difference between the earlier AOC material and Mecca is staggering.
there is literally nothing to connect the Mecca era to anything the band had done previously.

Talking of Sheffield, didn't the Comsat Angels do this too?

Magma's 1984 album Merci might or might not be an attempt to turn the band into a jazz-funk chart behemoth, kind of difficult to tell.

xp Comsat Angels did indeed make the attempt repeatedly - "Land" and "Seven Day Weekend" definitely was a stab at the charts, even re-recording the excellent "Independence Day", and when those failed to improve their fortunes they changed their name to Dream Command and REALLY removed anything post-punk and released "Fire On The Moon". (Yes, they did release a good album on Island right before the latter)

Was Philip Glass ever limited to an avant-garde/classical audience, tbh? By all accounts, he certainly wasn't by the time of the Glassworks Walkman mix, several years before Liquid Days.

Isn't Albert Ayler's New Grass a bit like this? Still slightly skronky but largely an R&B record with vocalists all over the place. I think he cited pressure from the label to pursue the youth market. I don't think it worked, but if we're talking about intent...

talk talk, but in reverse.

listen listen

David Lowery leaving Camper Van Beethoven to form Cracker.

looking at comments up thread. I think Davy henderson's Win started out doing freeform material before tehy went pop. I remember being intrigued by something I was reading in the NME at the time, think it was NME anyway but a music press from the time 83ish.
Have wanted to hear the show described ever since.

I heard "Red Red Wine" on the radio today (which I like fine)--UB40? I see their first three albums charted high in the UK, but they weren't a blip in North America until they had a big pop hit.

"weren't even"

SPK - Machine Age Voodoo

but they weren't a blip in North America until they had a big pop hit.

And that didn't even come until five years after it was recorded and charted other places.

Eve's Plum were on a major, but couldn't get arrested. Then Vitamin C popped off after they broke up.

UB40? I see their first three albums charted high in the UK, but they weren't a blip in North America until they had a big pop hit.

.............

And that didn't even come until five years after it was recorded and charted other places.

I was confused by this at first, but I see what you mean--it was re-released in the States in '88 and hit #1. I meant the first time--it was still a pretty big hit all over in '83.

Their first single went to #4, sold a quarter of a million in three months, was #1 in New Zealand, and was the first fully-indie release to go top ten in the UK. It's hard to pinpoint the underground period that they made a drastic change away from in order to sell out.

Well, they were perceived as being 'actual reggae' alongside the 2 Tone Ska phenomenon at the time.

Whereas 'Red red wine' was much more pop style.

Their 'roots' style was getting less sales until they moved into cover versions at which point they became much bigger.

I don't blame them, they obviously wanted to keep their jobs, but.

I've never really listened to them but they were certainly considered a serious reggae band on their first two or three albums.

yes but

Their 'roots' style was getting less sales until they moved into cover versions at which point they became much bigger.

First album: #2, platinum seller.

Second album: #2, platinum seller.

Third album: #4, gold seller. Hardly a drastic collapse that rebrands them an underground, non-charting band!

Fourth album is the first LoL covers alb - the LPs between LoL and LoL2 still go #3, #14, #8, #12, and sell silver, gold, gold and gold. (and the #14 one was still "serious reggae" enough that it was the likes of Pato Banton and Dillinger versioning tracks off the previous two albums)

I have their singles compilation with the white cover, but I haven't played it in 35 years. My dim memory was that they were a harder or sparer reggae band on that, whatever commercial success they'd had (which I noted in my first post), and that "Red Red Wine" seemed like an obvious bid to make a pop single--what Mark G. said, basically. Which seemed in keeping with the thread's idea.

These calls are very subjective throughout this thread.

I think the term "underground" makes the thread concept somewhat murkier. Even White Light/White Heat made it to #199 in Billboard. Truly underground is, I don't know, Henry Flynt or something, and they tend not to make pop albums.

Aswad had a perhaps steeper trajectory than UB40 from roots to pop-reggae. I don't know if there was a single specific point where they aimed more for the charts.

Flynt's colleague Yoko Ono was involved with pop hits, though.

gasping to #199 on the charts once is slightly lower than #2 on the charts, twice in a row, with your first two albums!

“Trying for a pop single” is not a change of tactics when your first single already went to #1 and sold a quarter of a million copies in three months, and stayed in print long enough to pass a half million

Recording a tenth reggae cover on your album of ten reggae covers, which you’re doing because you’ve been too busy from all of your continuing success and popular tours to write more songs, is very unlikely to be a calculated move to have a pop single, whether or not it fits your previous tactics

A couple of things from the Wikipedia page on the album, and then I will cry uncle and exit.

The band defended their decision to make an album of cover versions, stating that they had always wanted to make reggae for a wide audience. Robin Campbell said, "We actually set out in the first place to popularise reggae. That was our intention."[4] His brother Ali added, "What we want to do is play heavy dub reggae. But if we came straight out doing that, it would never have gotten on the radio. We commercialize our music all the time; it's been a series of compromises."

I guess you can take that two ways--that Labour of Love was no different than what they'd always been doing, or that it was the latest and newest in a "series of compromises."

Reviews of the 2015 deluxe edition remained positive, but lamented that Labour of Love didn't have the intensity of the band's earlier, more political, records. Ian Harrison of Q said of the album, "It's still quality, but it's hard not to mourn the earlier militancy".[12] Lois Wilson of Mojo agreed, observing that "Revisited now, it seems caught up with nostalgia...On the back of Labour of Love's huge international success, UB40 became reggae's world ambassadors and their focus shifted; they'd make political records again but never anything as potent as Signing Off or Present Arms, instead relying on the surefire hit potential of further cover albums".

Again, interpret as you wish. The sentence after the ellipsis indicates the change came after Labour of Love, but it also draws a line that separates two of their albums before Labour of Love.

If you don't live in fear of being imprisoned or executed for your music, you're not truly underground imo.

unless your band practises in your Mum's basement

Celtic Frost - Cold Lake

And before then CF were recording true roots reggae.

good call on SPK, that's a great example of this

I think they dropped the Surgical Penis Klinik stuff for that one iirc

lol yes

https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.1604391008.7502/poster,840x830,f8f8f8-pad,1000x1000,f8f8f8.jpg

(they only added Surgical Penis Klinik for one foreign reissue of one 7" after three as SPK. added SoliPsiK for their fourth, SepPuKu for their fifth, System Planning Korporation for the first album, Sozialistisches Patienten Kollektiv to a reissue of the second album, etc)