MAJOR Label - MINOR Success

[heaven&hell]

We all love these great indie bands that never got a chance to put an album out on a big label.

What about the bands that did have a chance at the big time with the big label, producer and budget but for whatever reason didn't scale he heights of the Motley Crue's, Bon Jovi's, and Def Leppard's of the world.

 

Bands that had the opportunity but never acheived platinum sales due to poor choices by music buyers, bad label support or just bad luck.

 

Bands like:

Tyketto

Y&T

Black N Blue

Vain

Lillian Axe

Riot

Wildside

Rough Cutt

Babylon A.D.

Baton Rouge

The Scream

Kik Tracee

Sweet F.A.

 

 

I'm sure some others here can name so many other bands that were on big labels that should of done better but didn't.

[Fat Freddy]

Love/Hate

Crimson Glory

Raven

Princess Pang

Bang Tango

 

and too many others to list...

[heaven&hell]

Love/Hate

Crimson Glory

Raven

Princess Pang

Bang Tango

 

and too many others to list...

 

Oh Hell Yes on Bang Tango and Love/Hate for that matter.

[rob62972]

BLUE MURDER

[Geoff]

Assuming we're including major labels in Europe as well I'd say these to start off, agreeing with Wildside also:

 

Sven Gali

Treat

Bonfire

Casanova

Blue Tears

Danger Danger

SR-71

Vain

Kane Roberts

Fate

[Geoff]

Oh... and of course Sleeze Beez. How 'This time' is not the biggest selling single of all time I'll never know.

[heaven&hell]

Assuming we're including major labels in Europe as well I'd say these to start off, agreeing with Wildside also:

 

Sven Gali

Treat

Bonfire

Casanova

Blue Tears

Danger Danger

SR-71

Vain

Kane Roberts

Fate

 

Now I didn't include D2 since I wasn't sure if they had a platinum album or if they just went gold.

Their two videos from the debut, "Naughty Naughty" and "Bang Bang", both got a lot of play on MTV.

 

Totally backed on Kane Roberts, especially with Saints and Sinners.

 

As for bands like Cassanova, Bonfire and Treat, I'm not sure what if any of their albums ever got released in America, so that could of been some of their problems right there. Now that I think about it I'm pretty sure that Bonfire had some of their stuff released here.

[SamboraRocks86]

Dangerous Toys?

[heaven&hell]

Oh... and of course Sleeze Beez. How 'This time' is not the biggest selling single of all time I'll never know.

 

"Stranger in Paradise" from the major label debut got quite a bit of play on MTV and "Heroes Die Young" got a little play too. I'm not sure how many copies that sold over here but they should of been bigger then they were especially with the release of 'Powertool'.

[Fat Freddy]

On the heavier end...remember when all the majors started snapping up thrash/power bands in the hopes of finding the next Metallica?

 

VoiVod

Prong

Rigor Mortis

Powermad

Sanctuary

Helloween (released the two SEVEN KEYS albums thru RCA, at least in the US)

[SamboraRocks86]

id say that Helloween and Voivod were pretty succesful as id heard them before i came on this forum...

 

whereas i didnt have a clue who Kane Roberts and Sleez Beez were, not to mention D2

[Fat Freddy]

id say that Helloween and Voivod were pretty succesful as id heard them before i came on this forum...

 

Both did great #'s for their indie label (Noise Records) but by major label standards, both bands were catastrophic failures. Helloween did OK on the two SEVEN KEYS albums on RCA, but then they signed a big money deal with EMI and released the god-awful PINK BUBBLES GO APE and CHAMELEON CDs, both of which sold approximately ten copies apiece. Fortunately they got their sh*t together when Andi Deris replaced Michael Kiske, they went back to metal indie-label land and are still with us today.

 

VoiVod were and are a great band, however, they didn't sell records worth a squirt of piss while they were signed to MCA. NOTHINGFACE (which had a minor hit single -- their cover of "Astronomy Domine" by Pink Floyd) was their best selling album of that era, and it did about 75,000 copies. For a major label, that's chicken feed. Wanna hear ironic? The opening acts on their NOTHINGFACE tour were the then-unknown Soundgarden and Faith No More. If that tour had happened a year later, VoiVod would've been at the bottom of the bill, not the headliners.

 

Two other bands that flirted with major labeldom to little or no result... Warrior Soul (why they didn't come to mind immediately for me, I dunno) and Trouble.

[heaven&hell]

id say that Helloween and Voivod were pretty succesful as id heard them before i came on this forum...

 

Both did great #'s for their indie label (Noise Records) but by major label standards, both bands were catastrophic failures. Helloween did OK on the two SEVEN KEYS albums on RCA, but then they signed a big money deal with EMI and released the god-awful PINK BUBBLES GO APE and CHAMELEON CDs, booth of which sold approximately ten copies apiece. Fortunately they got their sh*t together when Andi Deris replaced Michael Kiske, they went back to metal indie-label land and are still with us today.

 

VoiVod were and are a great band, however, they didn't sell records worth a squirt of piss while they were signed to MCA. NOTHINGFACE (which had a minor hit single -- their cover of "Astronomy Domine" by Pink Floyd) was their best selling album of that era, and it did about 75,000 copies. For a major label, that's chicken feed. Wanna hear ironic? The opening acts on their NOTHINGFACE tour were the then-unknown Soundgarden and Faith No More. If that tour had happened a year later, VoiVod would've been at the bottom of the bill, not the headliners.

 

Two other bands that flirted with major labeldom to little or no result... Warrior Soul (why they didn't come to mind immediately for me, I dunno) and Trouble.

 

I'll agree that Helloween should of been bigger.

I think those two Seven Keys albums did sell a few hundred thousand copies in Germany.

[Fat Freddy]

I'll agree that Helloween should of been bigger.

I think those two Seven Keys albums did sell a few hundred thousand copies in Germany.

 

Yea, but Helloween could take a dump, squeeze it between two paper plates, and it would STILL sell 100,000 copies in Germany.

[aMetalhead1966]

Shotgun Messiah-Shoulda been HUGE..IMO...

Racer X

Phantom Blue-Best Female metal group ever..IMO..

Warrior

Dirty Looks

EZO,Anthem and Loudness-all shoulda and coulda been huge...

Cats In Boots

[heaven&hell]

Shotgun Messiah-Shoulda been HUGE..IMO...

Dirty Looks

Cats In Boots

 

Backed on all of those.

How was AC/DC huge and Dirty Looks couldn't get arrested?????

 

 

also for me:

Banglore Choir

Roxy Blue(in a time where DLR era Van Halen was missing this band filled the void)

Cold Sweat

War Babies

Icon

 

and keeping with Joel Ellis/Cats in Boots theme:

HEAVY BONES-This band ruled IMO and Gary Hoey's guitar playing kicked ass too.

[SamboraRocks86]

were Gotthard a Major label band?

[heaven&hell]

were Gotthard a Major label band?

 

They might of been on a Major in other coutries but I don't think they ever had any releases out over here or world wide for that matter but I could be wrong. If you go over to the main site it should say what label their releases were on. Either way they were good enough to do better then they've done.

[Jez]

were Gotthard a Major label band?

 

They might of been on a Major in other coutries but I don't think they ever had any releases out over here or world wide for that matter but I could be wrong. If you go over to the main site it should say what label their releases were on. Either way they were good enough to do better then they've done.

 

 

They were on BMG/Ariola in Europe up until 'Lipservice' and from then on Nuclear Blast.

[aMetalhead1966]

Icon

 

and keeping with Joel Ellis/Cats in Boots theme:

HEAVY BONES-This band ruled IMO and Gary Hoey's guitar playing kicked ass too.

Backed on both here...ICON Shoulda been HUGE...Damn that first release is a Classic...

and the others are pretty good too...

[eaglesfan3000]

LEATHERWOLF I guess Island Records spent all their time and money with Anthrax.

 

TREAT no thanks to a lesser talented band in Europe...they took all the spotlight in the US market.

 

KEEL/GUIFFRIA MCA lable who knows what happened there.

 

I think a lot of it has to do with radio stations playing the more air friendly type stuff.

[heaven&hell]

Icon

 

and keeping with Joel Ellis/Cats in Boots theme:

HEAVY BONES-This band ruled IMO and Gary Hoey's guitar playing kicked ass too.

Backed on both here...ICON Shoulda been HUGE...Damn that first release is a Classic...

and the others are pretty good too...

 

If your into Keel and Judas Priest there's no reason why someone wouldn't love the debut ICON.

The follow up was much more commercial but had so much potential for radio with stuff like 'Frozen Tears'.

 

My personal fav is "Right Between the Eyes", it has a great mix of ballads and rockers and killer stuff like "Holy Mans War".

[heaven&hell]

KEEL/GUIFFRIA MCA lable who knows what happened there.

 

I think MCA dropped the ball on almost every Hard Rock band on their roster.

[Fat Freddy]

KEEL/GUIFFRIA MCA lable who knows what happened there.

 

I think MCA dropped the ball on almost every Hard Rock band on their roster.

 

I'm told that in the music biz, MCA stands for "Musician's Cemetary of America."

[eaglesfan3000]

KEEL/GUIFFRIA MCA lable who knows what happened there.

 

I think MCA dropped the ball on almost every Hard Rock band on their roster.

 

No shit I think Lillian Axe was also on the MCA lable.