Artists whose media profile is out of all proportion to their irl popularity

or: the hardest working agents in showbiz

Paloma Faith: fuck off, nobody bought your records even when happy shopper Winehouses were all the go

Sophie Ellis Bextor: you had one rubbish hit a long time ago, why are you suddenly on the BBC 24/7?

tempted to say Lewis Capaldi but i bet the wee cunt's sold a few million on the sly to radio 2 listeners

He's sold a veritable shitload, truth be told.

Amanda Palmer, though she does seem to have a sizable group of people who are willing to send her money.

Laurence Fucking Fox

I dunno if Amanda Palmer's media profile is high anywhere except on ilm where people ought to know better?

I guess any profile at all is disproportionate

just judging by twitter and a few news websites there, I guess she probably isn't known to the general public that much.

Rita Ora

Oh yes, I literally have no idea what a Rita Ora record sounds like

Grimes

How popular is FKA twigs, sales-wise?

Rita Ora was an answer in the NY Times crossword puzzle today, which must have confused many US-based solvers

Rita Ora

dua lipa kinda (sorry)

camila cabello
h.e.r.

Rita Ora has 16 million Instagram followers and 13 UK top 10 hits. I don't know what counts as popular to you.

dee snider

Scott Ian from Anthrax.

Hmm, Tom Waits?

Insane Clown Posse

so many ok-to-dire semi-popular “indie” bands in the 90s-00s were deemed automatically worthy of respect and thoughtful criticism for some reason, in comparison to the really popular rock or anything else around at the time. a lot of things have and haven’t changed

I recall some recent ILM discussion about this regarding Joe Budden. Managed to make a career out of one album and hosting a podcast.

Ciara (probably more due to being married to Russel Wilson)

Christina Milian

Dua Lipa’s kind of the opposite of this. With all the pop hits she’s had she should be a household name. But so many listeners know the songs but not the singer.

Maybe Wilco? I feel like Wilco is a band people always mention but do they have fans? I don't know if I've ever physically seen one of their albums or heard one of their songs. (OK I have one of the albums Billy Bragg recorded backed by them but that's different.)

Hmm, I'd say they're one of those grandfathered-in bands like Pearl Jam that will never not sell out large venues no matter how many records they sell or don't sell.

Jessica Simpson

Going back to the 90s, Luke Haines seemed to be on the cover of every music paper going due to talking a good interview, even though no-one gave a flying one about any bands he was ever in.

Aphex Twin?

moby

He's had one top 20 hit (Windowlicker) and a couple of top 20 albums (SAW II, Syro) in the UK, I think? And outside of UK not even that much.

(xxpost)

Moby has had numerous hits in Europe since 1992. Maybe his media profile is out of portion in the US? But not here.

Guayaquil (eephus!) at 1:37 6 Mar 21

Maybe Wilco? I feel like Wilco is a band people always mention but do they have fans? I don't know if I've ever physically seen one of their albums or heard one of their songs. (OK I have one of the albums Billy Bragg recorded backed by them but that's different.)


I saw them last year during one night of a three night stand at a 2500 capacity theater

Kanye has reached this point

can't believe nobody's mentioned the Insane Clown Posse

Surely ICP is the opposite of this thread?

(as in, they anchor their own annual festival, but not because the get written up in the New Yorker)

you're right, I'm not sure why I mentioned them

Although they're a popular band, I always felt that Kiss's media profile was out of proportion to their actual popularity. They're basically journeymen who crank out a huge number of records that sell to their base in solid numbers but p much never at the multiplatinum level of an Aerosmith or Bon Jovi. In terms of radio staples, they're no Tom Petty or Foreigner.

I can't hum or name a single Kiss track offhand tbh. I certainly can't say the same for the other acts you mention.

re: Rita Ora - I get that she is famous (although I've never met anyone irl who would say they "like" her) and has had hits, but the way she's been elevated from reasonably successful UK chart act to celebrity guest judge and movie star seems like a bit of a mystery to me. Plus there was that hilarious thing where she said she would release new music if she got 100k retweets and only received 2000.

They're basically journeymen who crank out a huge number of records that sell to their base in solid numbers but p much never at the multiplatinum level

Could just as easily describe Insane Clown Posse

she said she would release new music if she got 100k retweets and only received 2000

Ouch.

M.I.A has only ever had one top twenty single in the UK.

ICP's media profile isn't really because of them or their publicist - people just love to write about them. KISS on the other hand are ruthlessly commercial

one band that might be the opposite of this would be They Might be Giants, they haven't really had a "hit" per se in about 20 years and nobody really writes about them as anything more than a cult band but they've still sold out pretty much every time I've seen them & draw a surprisingly young crowd for a band that started in 1982

the 1975 version of mumford and sebastienlab might be the ilm version of this equation

I guess Autechre fits, there's just endless discussion about them everywhere online but I've yet to meet a single fan - the guy at the local shop is only vaguely familiar and has never stocked their records

TMBG have seemed to me to appeal to a lot of "left brain" types who possibly have more comedy albums than music ones.

For whatever reason they reach people who aren't otherwise engaged in music.

I don't like KISS much other than Destroyer but the diehard fans they have are positively INSANE

Also "I Was Made for Loving You" was in Luhrman's Moulin Rouge

There was also a movie with Ed Furlong called Detroit Rock City.

I feel like they have a huge, devoted fanbase, their shows do well...idk if they fit this thread?

XP As discussed over in the "Legacy Song" thread, "I Was Made..." was huge in Europe, and in many of those markets still the track they're most known for.

The film opened in 1,802 theaters on August 13, 1999 and earned $2,005,512 in its opening weekend, ranking number 13 in the domestic box office.[4] By the end of its run, it had grossed only $4,217,115 with an additional $1,608,199 from international sales, bringing its worldwide total gross to $5,825,314. Against an estimated $17 million budget, it was a box office bomb.[2] To KISS and rock fans, the film is considered a cult classic.

I mean it was a shit movie that didn't exactly break bank, sure, but one of their more iconic songs inspired the movie title.

I mean is Gene Simmons on The View? how high is their media star that we think it's that much greater than their real popularity?

like the director of the last play I was in actually missed a rehearsal to see KISS

how high is their media star that we think it's that much greater than their real popularity?

Their own comic book series, three different Gene Simmons reality TV series, Kiss-themed pro wrestler, Scooby Doo film, frequently referenced in 'period' TV shows as mentioned above as iconic definitive band of the era, iconic logo and image whose presence seems to far exceed the band's music, ...

I think a contributing factor is they are a crappy band pretty much

I have been listening to “rock” and “classic rock” radio since I was seven, in the midwest and northeast US. I have heard Kiss exactly twice: “Beth” once around 1978 or so, and “Rock ‘n’ Roll All Night” in 2012.

As much as it pains me to say this, their media profile is analogous to that of the Who:“Oh, that’s the band that smashes their instruments! / paints their faces!” “Didn’t they do a rock opera / horror film?” “Jeez, how many ‘reunion’ tours are they gonna do? And how many drummers have they gone through?” But record sales were always far lower than said profile, neither band having had a US #1 single or album (Kiss had two top ten singles, the Who only had one).

i heard KISS on the radio all the time. I don't like them but it's not like they're Van Der Graf Generator in terms of mainstream exposure

none of their albums were like, Thriller sellers, but 14 of them went platinum. that's....pretty impressive.

They also “hold the title as America's No. 1 Gold record award-winning group of all time, having earned 30 Gold albums” — for whatever that’s worth.

I don’t know why anyone would expect a band’s “media profile” (whatever that means) to precisely map upon their sales anyway; but I don’t think KISS’s profile is “out of all proportion.” Obviously they’re skilled self-promoters.

I assume the band with the biggest ratio of articles written : albums sold is the Velvet Underground or something.

That's what I was getting at, though. They have a devoted base who buy what they put out and they crank out so many records that can reach gold and sometimes platinum status but rarely more than that. I've heard them more than twice in my life and they're an enduring band with mainstream popularity, although not on the level of an Aerosmith (25 gold, 18 platinum, 12 multiplatinum [up to 11x platinum), 1 diamond). I just don't see them as the populist juggernaut some would have you believe or what one might guess from their presence in media. I've had to explain to Brits that they don't actually dominate the airwaves in any real way. xps

I mean, I don't think it's an injustice that Lou Gramm doesn't have his own reality show or that no one makes comic books about Tom Scholz. I'm just answering the question.

part of the reason Boston never had a bigger presence is they disappeared for 7 years at a time

Their music has a huge presence, though!

I do agree btw that media coverage does not need to line up with sales and probably shouldn't. I'm usually a Zappa defender on this board.

I assume the band with the biggest ratio of articles written : albums sold is the Velvet Underground or something.

Sonic Youth's media presence was also always out of proportion to their sales tbh.

Wow, I didn’t know Rihanna was in this upper echelon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists

She’s like the reverse of this, no? Obviously she’s famous, but not like the others in her tier, or even some of those beneath her

It is extremely hard to impossible to find halfway reliable international sales figures and Wikipedia is often bad but even looking at their own numbers really quickly without a calculator, I'm not sure I see how this would add up to 250M: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rihanna_albums_discography#Studio_albums

That's 8 albums. Even if I assume that "worldwide sales" are meant to not include the US, UK, or other numbers they cite separately from "worldwide", that's about 12M sales for the best-selling one of them.

They cite two sources for the 250M figure, which are actually almost the exact same article by a music correspondent for The Independent, just reposted on the BBC site, about Rihanna receiving an ambassadorial position on behalf of the govt of Barbados. The number is mentioned in passing.

So no, I don't buy that she has more "total certified units" sold than any other artist in history. Her "claimed sales" might rival Elton John, Madonna, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin, and be that close to Michael Jackson, but I'm sceptical of the claim. Her Wikipedia profile may be out of all proportion to her irl popularity.

Oh I guess Drake actually has more "total certified units" acc to that page. There's some weird stuff in there about how streaming is getting counted in certified units that might make it even harder to track tbh.

They also “hold the title as America's No. 1 Gold record award-winning group of all time, having earned 30 Gold albums” — for whatever that’s worth.

I don't know what anyone's real-life popularity is anymore, the yardsticks (like streaming numbers) don't resonate with me.

I also don't think there's any source for streaming numbers other than the streaming services themselves.

Does Tim Burgess qualify? The Charlatans haven't had a top 40 hit since 2006 and their albums seem to disappear from the charts after a couple of weeks. His last solo album scraped the top 40 last year (when album sales were at an all time low) but Tim's listening parties and his dedication to that haircut seem to keep his profile relatively high.

NPR darling Regina Spektor.

Robbie Savage.

Ed Balls.

Harry & Meghan.

Loathe as I am to wade into this thread where there are apparently people who in all sincerity don't believe that DUA LIPA is that popular, once you make the leap into Saturday night prime time TV then people are first and foremost engaging with you as a TV personality and therefore at a level of fame where trifling things like the popularity of your music don't really matter. That's as true if it's Rita Ora (multiple number one singles and at least one big album) as someone like Alesha Dixon.

Amanda Palmer is usually the correct answer to this question though.

Same goes with people like Jamie Cullum really, I guess once you make it into the regular Jools Holland continuum then all bets are off.

jack white and Courtney Love

Bez and to a different extent Shaun Ryder

Matt DC otm about Dua Lipa and Rita Ora etc. These are huge commercial radio staples and I know people half the age of most on this board who are obsessed with them on a Madonna-style scale

I was under the impression Rita Ora was considered generally to be massively unlikeable as a personality and even more so after her lockdown breach

breaches

Why Rita Ora fits this thread and Dua Lipa (obviously) doesn’t:
Dua Lipa is what Rita Ora (was) intended to be and never came even close to becoming: an international superstar from the UK in the post-Rihanna musical landscape.

sure, she’s had plenty of UK hits (international *solo* hits much less so), but the context here is that you can be the UKs most successful female singer of all-time by just being Jess Glynne.

Yeah this thread doesn't come from a place of hard measurements so much as that sense you develop that certain artists - and this is v different in different countries with different media landscapes - are relentlessly hyped by big media outlets out of all proportion to "organic" public interest, while recognising that there are a thousand caveats there. The platonic is example still Paloma Faith who I just assume has a close relative high up in the BBC

See, I've never heard of that person. I bet you've never heard of Serena Ryder, who is endlessly hosting Canada Day events, Juno Awards shows, CBC specials, etc, and gets huge amounts of play on CBC Radio but idk where else. We've tried to figure out who her connection is before.

Yeah maybe one of the defining features of the people I'm thinking of is every country has their own

Scotland has Michelle McManus.

Solange.

once you make the leap into Saturday night prime time TV then people are first and foremost engaging with you as a TV personality and therefore at a level of fame where trifling things like the popularity of your music don't really matter

I guess I thought this was in part what the thread was about.

Feel like there's a band of soda loving fans we're missing.

Azealia Banks