Bands that came up fast (and then stayed big).

Who are these bands? I mean who came up out of nowhere and maintained some kind of big-gig, hit album status. I was watching YouTube footage from 1992 of Suede who seemed to go from playing to 15 people in pubs to the fastest selling debut album of the decade within a year. I'm sure there are plenty of much faster rising bands who then became much bigger, stuck around for longer, or bands who maybe didn't even play the toilet circuit much; The Smiths are one, Arctic Monkeys another.

Does Hamburg exempt The Beatles?

Oasis I think

Do bands like Cream or Fugazi count, seeing that the band members already had followings?

Lol you know bands like Cream and Fugazi love that scene

So many British bands

Much rarer in the U.S. (for obvious reasons)

Do bands like Cream or Fugazi count, seeing that the band members already had followings?

― blonde redheads have more fun (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, February 4, 2017 10:52 AM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I was wondering the same about Zeppelin, but the "hey that guy was in the Yardbirds"/"isn't that the arranger from Donovan sessions?" contingents couldn't have been huge.

Pixies seemed to have little history before C'mon Pilgrim then suddenly be large.
Did they take longer after that point?

The early 90s had a bunch of fake "indie" bands that were carefully marketed by the majors:

Weezer
Smashing Pumpkins
Stone Temple Pilots

I want to add Pearl Jam to that list to but they were a more special case due to Mother Love Bone/Temple Of The Dog connections.

sort of surprising in retrospect Weezer wasn't mentioned in "Range Life" but I guess they went big a little later than the Pumpkins and STP, right about the same time as Crooked Rain

Crooked Rain was released before Weezer's first single, so in retrospect it would've been more surprising if Weezer were mentioned in Range Life.

So this genre of band is, effectively, "nature kids - I - they don't have no function"

Pixies seemed to have little history before C'mon Pilgrim then suddenly be large.
Did they take longer after that point?

They were large in the UK maybe, but not the US -- none of their singles charted here, and their highest charting pre-reunion record (Bossanova) topped out at number 70.

you're right, I forgot CRCR came out pretty early in 94

re Pixies, yeah, they were never bigger than college-radio big, at least in their first go-round. Were they actually popular in the UK before Doolittle?

They were never that popular in the UK either fwiw.

Correction, "Doolittle" was a Platinum Record in the UK, but then it was a Gold Record in the US too.

Boston is likely the best example of this. Boston was the first band in history to make their New York City debut at Madison Square Garden and the band in fact didn't even play live (save for a live audition to get their record deal) until after the album was even released and it took off pretty fast as far as I know, eventually becoming the best-selling debut album (eventually eclipsed by GNR).

Correction, "Doolittle" was a Platinum Record in the UK, but then it was a Gold Record in the US too.

Certified gold 6 years after it came out and 2 years after the band broke up, so sort of the exact opposite of this thread concept....!

YES to Boston tho xp

Strokes didn't have to do anything, not even being able to play their instruments above par, to be hyped into this status already when they first came up. It was all buzz that shot them to fame.

Arcade Fire the canonical latter-day example for me. Also maybe The Strokes, but they didn't quite meet the sustain criterion.

wu-tang clan

Roxy Music? Played only a handful of gigs before their debut album was released.

MGMT
Vampire Weekend
Fleet Foxes
Bon Iver

Steely Dan, maybe? The Police, surely. 50 Cent?

Interesting to think about what counts as ''fast'' and what counts as staying huge. MGMT were gigging around for a few years, but the debut album was bascally as big as they ever got... and then that was kinda it for them in terms of widespread awareness.

But I'm also thinking of someone like Ludacris, where there's the obligatory period of local popularity and struggling to get noticed, one album doing well regionally... and then blowing UP in a single album to a major, major star. Does that kind of time in the trenches disqualify, or are we just looking at success once they actually get a recording career going - the opposite of an REM ''each album does a little better'' slow snowball career?

Gay Dad

Grand Funk Railroad were not total nobodies before, but still…

First gigs: May '69
Debut album: August '69 - charts #27, goes Gold
Band is unstoppable thru '75 (6 Platinum, 4 Gold albums)

The Police were a grubby, late to the party punk band for a while before they hit paydirt.

Arcade Fire came to mind first, though their new record could be a dud.

Steely Dan, maybe

steely dan for sure. formed in either 1971 or '72, debut album came out in '72 and yielded two big pop hits. slight slippage with their second album, commercially speaking, but with their third, released 17 months after their first, they scored their biggest-ever hit. and then kept going steady and strong, and still growing, from there.

Vampire Weekend is a better example than MGMT:

VW formed in 2006,
3 big singles in 2007, opened for Animal Collective at sold out Webster Hall two-night stand
Huge since 2008 debut LP critically and commercially,
Sold out Barclays in 2013

i guess i would define staying huge as playing arenas/amphitheaters... MGMT definitely don't have the cultural relevance they used to, though it's not all downhill (Congratulations is Tusk-esque, lots of people love it. the 2013 s/t - their most recent record - i think passed just about everyone by). but they haven't downgraded venues... i think that could very well happen whenever they put out another record. but VW definitely are staying huge.

madonna

that stage where you think they aren't popular anymore but are actually way more popular than they were when they had "buzz"

^^^ perhaps relevant also.. lot of those acts could still play arenas just cause they have a large and loyal fanbase - not sure if that counts as hugeness though. otoh you have, say, Weird Al who imho might just qualify for the current thread though his concert bookings, I imagine, have never come close to arena-size. huge pop-culture presence, ppl who don't keep up with music know who he is etc.

Oh yeah that Elvis Presley guy

steely dan for sure. formed in either 1971 or '72, debut album came out in '72 and yielded two big pop hits. slight slippage with their second album, commercially speaking, but with their third, released 17 months after their first, they scored their biggest-ever hit. and then kept going steady and strong, and still growing, from there.

― fact checking cuz, Saturday, February 4, 2017 5:19 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

These dudes had a similar trajectory, down to the years of "Break Up" and "Reunion":

http://media.philstar.com/images/the-philippine-star/entertainment/20160125/Eagles-Poster-Rollingstone.jpg

The Cars: First Gig on New Year's Eve '76...Signed in '77...Debut released in June '78.

I was living in Nashville when Kings of Leon popped up out of nowhere, nobody in town knew who the fuck they were. They just materialized out of thin air.

Eh, Arcade Fire had a debut ep (the one with 'No Cars Go') and were a steadily touring/opening band for at least a year before Funeral. I saw them open for the Constantines in 2003. Hype rose up in Canada on the basis of that/college radio.

I imagine alot of boy bands fit this trope; either they get big fast or you never hear of them, and if they get big they often stay big for a few years. A longer run, though, is difficult for obvious reasons.

Westlife