Smash hit bands/artists who, if they had quit after the first three (or more) albums, would be virtually forgotten

I was thinking about the long gestation of Split Enz and how they didn't achieve any real success until their fifth (!) album, and how that wouldn't really happen today. (That is, for anyone who isn't willing/able to finance & release albums themselves on a micro/indie level. I'm talking about artists with commercial ambitions.)

On another level, Tom Waits comes to mind: if he had thrown in the towel anytime up to Heartattack & Vine he would remain in our minds a cult figure for jazzbos and fedora-hipsters only.

I thought of someone else the other day, but forget who. Oh, yeah! Fleetwood Mac!

There must be tons of examples.

stretching a point re: "smash hit" but KMFDM are probably an example of this

My first thought was Radiohead, but they'd have had to quit after 2 albums.

Pulp are probably the most glaring example of this. I'd go so far as to say they'd have been completely forgotten.

hum...Kraftwerk?

Another one I thought of (altho our definition of a smash has to be mauled) is Guided By Voices. Anytime up to B1K they'd be all but unremembered outside of Dayton & environs.

My first thought when I saw this thread was Lil Wayne, even if 500 Degreez is pretty good.

REM had a lot of critical success early on, so they'd still be remembered, but as an 80's cult indie band on part with, say, The Replacements?

i thought Lucinda Williams would be a good example, but it seems her previous work (that is before Car Wheels on a Gravel Road) did get pretty good reviews, judging from Wikipedia.

Simple Minds! (only hipster electro lovers would remember them fondly.)

this works for OMD as well, probably.

this works well for Midnight Oil too. i don't think their first three albums were even released in the U.S.

if elton john had quit after three albums he would have become THE hepcat name-drop for the freakfolk/mojo magazine crowd 30+ years later.

reviews ≠ success. Lucinda's a good example.

^that was xxxxpost.

i also like the amount of time she took just to get there (15-20 years or something) there must be more country/folk singer though with similar careers.

last year i reviewed a Nic Freitas album, i thought it was a fresh and great debut, turned out to be his 4th. no success yet though :(

Mott The Hoople
The Lemonheads

And a lot of acts from non English-speaking countries. (Jean Michel Jarre, for starters)

this works for OMD as well, probably.

Thee of their biggest ever hits were from their third album.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, kind of.

Kind of speculative, but the Beatles? Part of a short-lived teen musical fad in the 60's that never really lead to anything.

After three albums, The Beatles were already the first British band to make it really huge in the USA, and they had already completely turned the UK charts upside down and started a British Invasion of the Billboard charts.

Plus "A Hard Day's Night" (the UK version) is a fantastic pop album, perfect in every possible way!

The Beatles would be thought of as excellent pop craftsmen rather than world-changing innovators.

"Thee of their biggest ever hits were from their third album."

i apologize. i'm too u.s.-centric sometimes. architecture & morality didn't make much of a dent in the states. (though me and my friends loved it). junk culture was the first album to really get noticed here. (though prior to that, "enola gay" got actual commercial radio play as well as a ton of college radio play in the u.s.)

and, needless to say, crush and the pacific age were the albums that sold in the states. they exist here as the "so in love" band.

Bruce Springsteen

Hmmm, also wondering if anyone would have bothered to break "Lady" if Styx had quit in 1974.

Although I guess he would be a better argument for two albums, since Born To Run was pretty darn big.

wasn't born to run his third album though? i'm afraid you'd still spend your drive-time two for tuesdays with the boss.

born to x-post

If BOC hadn't recorded "Don't Fear The Reaper" would they still be remembered as anything but a rock footnote?

what if this was all they wrote:

1991 Yo Yo Buddy Yup Yup Word To Ya Muthuh
1991 Girls! Girls! Girls!
1991 Untitled Tape 3

Taboo VI: The Homecoming - cassette (Shrimper, 1991)
The Hound Chronicles - cassette (Shrimper, 1992)
Hot Garden Stomp - cassette (Shrimper, 1993)

Aren't the Lemonheads virtually forgotten now?

BOC would have been stoner gods on the basis of their first three albums, but only to a select group of stoners. it's true. the other side of the coin is: a band that puts out a huge hit on their first album and then makes ten more records that nobody ever buys.

the lemonheads? probably. the mighty lemon drops are virtually forgotten now.

Little Stevie Wonder

lemonheads are pretty much in the same boat with soul asylum and the goo goo dolls. nothing, nothing, nothing, SUCCESS!

David Bowie

Sort of along those lines, do you get to count Lou Reed's Pickwick years...

Talk Talk

Shakin' Stevens - first single released in 1970, first hit wasn't until 1979, and then only #24.

Alice Cooper

Flaming Groovies

xpost. Love it to Death was #3, right? (I'm Eighteen).

Talk Talk

Wrong! The first album isn't half bad, and the next two are genius.

Whether the first three albums are good or not really isn't the question though.

"If BOC hadn't recorded "Don't Fear The Reaper" would they still be remembered as anything but a rock footnote?"

Have you not heard the first three albums? The answer to your question is holy fuck, no. "Reaper" isn't even representative of what they did. I totally hate when people equate that song with BOC.

Flaming Lips

Chumbawamba
Golden Earring

"Have you not heard the first three albums? The answer to your question is holy fuck, no. "Reaper" isn't even representative of what they did."

I have (don't particularly care for them.) I'm aware it's not particularly representative. It's also by far their most recognizable hit and probably a large reason why most non-music dorks have heard (and heard of) the band. It's not hard to imagine that if BOC had packed it in after album three that they would be remembered by only a few music dorks (i.e. virtually forgotten.)

How good the records are makes no difference obv. Clearly everything Simple Minds record up to and including New Gold Dream was better than "Don't You (Forget About Me)", but the simple fact is that most people (in the US esp.) remember the band for that and not Empires and Dance or Reel To Reel Cacophony. Them's the breaks.

Had U2 quit after War, they'd be slightly more famous than the Undertones or Teardrop Explodes.

oh, two albums

I wasn't around to know, but did any early Peter Gabriel songs get much play aside from "Solsbury Hill"?

If we are speaking the first three albums, "Games Without Frontiers" and "Biko" surely did.

Plus he would have been known as the ex-Genesis singer anyway.

Hall & Oates

They'd be a one-hit wonder known only for She's Gone because their first and third records flopped.

Was "Rich Girl" from the fourth?

Rich Girl is on 5th. Sara Smile was on 4th.

underworld, if they'd stopped before born slippy (dubnobass was their third album)

Bonnie Raitt

Yo La Tengo

Kid Rock

John Hiatt

Billy Ocean

Rick Springfield

AC/DC

Screaming Trees

Dixie Chicks

Whitesnake

The Beach Boys

...whose second album hit #2 in the U.S., and whose third album hit #7?

Robert Cray

maybe Deep Purple
maybe the Commodores

Right, but would be mentioned about as often as Jan & Dean if that's all they did

Rick James

maybe the Gap Band (though "Burn Rubber On Me" on their third album is the best thing they ever did)

yo la tengo and smash hits don't seem to fit together

my thoughts exactly

some might say they're on their way to being forgotten, too

Rick James

I think you're forgetting how popular "Mary Jane" in certain circles.

Right, but would be mentioned about as often as Jan & Dean if that's all they did

Maybe. The "Surfer Girl" were the first indication that there was more to them than just primitive sun and surf though.

The "Surfer Girl" album was the first indication, I mean

whitesnake reminded me of:

scorpions

and if kiss had stopped at dressed to kill (and never put out a live album) i wonder how they would be remembered...

Soul Asylum.

xp And nah, didn't forget Rick James's "Mary Jane." As a couple other people on this thread have suggested, "one song that hit #41 on the pop chart 31 years ago" and "virtually forgotten now" are not mutually exclusive categories. (Actually, "You And I" in 1978 was an even bigger hit -- went to #13 -- but I still suspect Rick's worldwide fame since wouldn't have happened without Street Songs.)

Omigod! We, like, totally forgot about Rush!

also xp: I assumed Yo La Tengo was somebody's idea of a joke. (But if you're going to talk "bands who only ever had smash hits among rock critics," a much more sensible choice would probably be the Mekons.)

I assumed Yo La Tengo was somebody's idea of a joke.

Not meant to be a joke. Sorry, I wasn't taking "smash hits" literally. The mention of Flaming Lips made me think of another band that toiled in obscurity in the 80s and then had a minor breakthrough in the mid-90s and is now considered an indie rock mainstay. But you're right, YLT has never gotten as popular as the Lips have, even if they've appeared on Gilmore Girls.

Btw, aren't there jam bands who have done this -- who put out self-released records for cult hippies for years, only to get signed later to a major label and have actual hits? Not that I want to research it.

Also:

Urge Overkill

Greg Kihn
Grace Jones
Kansas

Judas Priest

Nazareth

Kraftwerk

(ah, looks like somebody above beat me to them.)

J. Geils Band

Alex Harvey

Teenage Fanclub

Uriah Heep

(maybe--their albums did go gold eventually.)

The Who

(didn't hit the top ten til Tommy in the US)

Kix (who had more actual hits, at least in the States, than Alex Harvey and Teenage Fanclub combined. Though I'm really not convinced any of three is especially unforgotten, even now.) (Did Harvey or TC have hits in the U.K.? I honestly don't know.)

SAHB had a couple of hits. Never heard of Kix!

It did take Alex Harvey about 20 years to have a hit, of course.

Queensryche (though amazingly, their third album Rage For Order charted three places higher -- #47 to #50 than their fourth album Operation Mindcrime. But Mindcrime is what they're still remembered for, even by people who care about metal -- and "Silent Lucidity" later, of course.)