Have you come across bands online you thought were great, but had no following?

I'm not sure I lived in a time when clear channel didn't own everything. But when our classic rock station blacklisted dust in the wind (among many others) because of 9/11 it was pretty clear radio had no balls left.

There's a volunteer station here that's pretty cool, the dj's just play whatever they want. Sometimes you like it sometimes you don't but it's always interesting. You could shuffle 20 rage ac/dc zeppelin and floyd tracks and get a clear channel station. None of those artists is at all bad in my opinion but if I had to hear another black dog/comfortably numb/girls got rhythm medley during drive time again I'd probly shoot myself.
 
I know what you mean. In LA there was this station that EVERY fucking day had this show called Get The Led Out.

I couldnt listen to anything by Led Zeppelin for years!
:D
 
Did you grow up in Western MI Easlern? If so, I can vouche for him that his music options really were that minimal. I came from closer to Detroit and there was only the ones I listed...the western part of the state would most likely have less options. And when you're a kid/early teen, you don't even know that those other things exist to seek them out.

Southeast MI actually, between ann arbor and toledo. Toledo was all we could get in, lots of numetal and worship, not really my thing. It's a little better on the west side actually, there are at least four universities out here and a pretty cool volunteer radio station so they shake things up pretty good. It's like random how good a region's stations will be, new buffalo had my favorite station, lansing has a real good one, chicago I never found anything I liked. Can't say anything about detroit, I haven't heard a radio there in like 10 years.

Oh yeah I remember the days when I spent three hours of pay at the grocery store to buy an album I *might* like. And all my decisions were informed by singles I caught on mtv. Never again.

Anyway, first world problems lol
 
The radio has always been only one of many places where music can be discovered, even before the internet.
 
The radio has always been only one of many places where music can be discovered, even before the internet.

My best source for good stuff in my formative years was the older brothers and sisters of my friends. No internet, radio and MTV were a joke, so those high school and college kids turned me on to good shit that you couldn't find through standard methods. I mean, you just weren't buying Husker Du albums at K-Mart.
 
My best source for good stuff in my formative years was the older brothers and sisters of my friends. No internet, radio and MTV were a joke, so those high school and college kids turned me on to good shit that you couldn't find through standard methods. I mean, you just weren't buying Husker Du albums at K-Mart.

I started a new high school when I was 14 and there was this dude in my English class that rocked a spiky leather jacket and a purple mohawk. He was a couple years older and had stayed back a couple times. I thought that was so cool, lol. I literally read the band names right off his jacket, Black Flag, Crass, DK, Subhumans, DRI.. Got a crash course in punk from that delinquent dude.. the record stores even in the suburbs just starting to have a punk/indie section, the URI radio station played all indie stuff after 9pm. Even MTV had 120 minutes which was better than nothing.. that was in like 1987.
 
I started a new high school when I was 14 and there was this dude in my English class that rocked a spiky leather jacket and a purple mohawk. He was a couple years older and had stayed back a couple times. I thought that was so cool, lol. I literally read the band names right off his jacket, Black Flag, Crass, DK, Subhumans, DRI.. Got a crash course in punk from that delinquent dude.. the record stores even in the suburbs just starting to have a punk/indie section, the URI radio station played all indie stuff after 9pm. Even MTV had 120 minutes which was better than nothing.. that was in like 1987.

Yup, that's about how it was. 120 minutes wasn't terrible. I had this one friend named Matt. He had a way older sister that had just started college and she brought back Dead Kennedys records, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Big Boys, Dead Boys, Minutemen, JFA, all kinds of badass shit that killed mainstream radio forever for me. Loverboy is pretty tough to tolerate after you've listened to The Exploited.
 
I just remembered something else re weird and home made music pre-internet- I went to a summer camp when I was around 12 and the counselors there were these older high school kids.. and there were these two guys, one played guitar through all these stompboxes and the other played synth. They made these home made ambient "albums" by setting up their stuff and improvising for like an hour while they recorded it on a boom box. They had recorded like 5 albums like this onto cassette and hand-made covers for all of them. My 12yo mind was BLOWN. At that age I didn't know about krautrock or space hippie bands like Tangerine Dream yet (and I'm not sure they did either) but these guys were making home made albums that sounded nothing like anything on popular radio and I was immediately their biggest and most awkward fan.

And before that, I remember the Dr. Demento show.. nationally syndicated in, maybe the early 80s (?).. he was a record collector and ex-roadie for Canned Heat and Spirit whose Sherman Oaks home partially collapsed at one point under the weight of his enormous vinyl collection. His whole schtick was finding songs that were too far out for mainstream radio. While he played a lot of novelty music, he also played plenty of stuff that was just "weird" for the time. Zappa and Weird Al (back when he just played accordian and had some guy beating on a suitcase with him) were regular guests, he played the Holy Modal Rounders regularly, I think the first time I heard Suicidal Tendencies' Institutionalized was on that show. Me and my friend listened to that show religiously and taped it the old fashioned way with the tape deck leaning up against the stereo speaker.. then I found out that record stores had these huge catalogues of stuff, most of which they didn't stock.. but you could special order it and in as little as 3 or 4 weeks have a copy of some hard-to-find gem that no one else on the block had. :)
 
And wholey crap, how can I forget Maximumrocknroll.. that shit was widely available all through the 80s.
 
Here's the thing with places like Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Reverbnation..etc....and this is strictly my take.

Just about everyone who goes to these places are people who are there to promote and post their own stuff.
Some may through other musician sites and social media be able to drive a lot of hits to their pages, and then you get the so-called "following"...but that isn't just about how "great" they sound...it's just interwebs hits/likes...same shit you see on Facebook.
I mean...when you see someone with 10,000 likes/friends...do you really think they actually have a fanbase of that size that follows them around?
It's a lot of click-through stuff...and the funny thing...it's become some sort of "gauge" by many, who think the number of hits is directly related to how "great" they are.

Which is why you also have really good sounding music, with almost no hits.

Some of these folks spend countless hours generating "friends" and "likes" and "hits" on the interwebs...but honestly, at the end of the day, what does it really mean to the artists?
How many are directly seeing some sort of windfall from all those "friends/likes/hits"...?

The other thing...everyone who posts music, is mostly interested in their own music.
Sure...we all take a listen occasionally, but at the end of the day...we tend to be more focused on what we are doing (if we are doing anything) than following other artists as a "fan".
Not to mention...there are WAY too many artists posting stuff, so it's not unusual for many to also go by unnoticed, regardless of music quality...which goes back to what I said above...you need to spend a lot of time on the interwebs cultivating all those "friends/likes/hits" if they mean something you.

With You Tube...all you need is to post a really dumb video, the stupider the better...and they will flock to it. :D

At least that's my take.

All that said...if you want to have an "artist" thread with links that people add when they come across something really good...that's fine. :)
It should probably be in the Marketing/Promo forum though...
I pretty much agree with where you're going on this. There are a lot of good bands out there. Some of them could even be considered great, and nobody knows about them. Sometimes it's just luck, one way or the other. Other times, it's one member of the band has his own following or groupies, so any band he's in is seen as great, whether it is or not. There are thousands of good bands that have come and gone with no following at all, just because of the sheer numbers of bands out there.

Anybody been to Fandalizm? It was started by a guy who codes for Facebook. He goes by the name of Pud, I think. And it's connected to Facebook. Fandalizm is an OK place to hear bands, but it is also a place that is full of cliques, here people will become friends and start a clique where everybody "likes" everybody's music...kind of a 'you pat my back, I'll pat yours' sort of thing.

There is a coveted icon thing...a flame icon that shows your song has enough likes to be considered worth listening to. Many use that icon to listen to bands there. Unfortunately, because of the cliques, the system is flawed. There are great bands on there that might have a few of these icons on their songs and there are some totally lousy bands/singers who have literally hundreds of total crap songs, all have that icon on them.

One guy just sits down and turns on his video camera and records something he just made up...just something maybe a minute or two in length. He's not even a good guitar player or singer, but because he's in a clique, everything he posts gets enough likes to get a flame icon. He's got literally hundreds of these little "gems" posted. Every one has that flame icon on it. If you check out some of his friends on there, they also have quite a few songs posted and each of them have that flame icon, too. Some are OK, but none are really that great, not great enough to receive so many likes.

Any web site is going to have a system where you can "like" something. Sometimes it's just happenstance that you come across a great song and you want to recognize the band for it. Sometimes, it's an inside job where they have enough friends to "like" something, even if it's total crap.

On Fandalizm, that coveted flame icon doesn't get you anything. It might get you more listens to your song, and maybe they will listen to other songs you've posted, but when it's all said and done, there's just thousands of good bands out there and without something else going for you, you're rarely going to become known, let alone famous enough to make any money. I guess it turns out to be an ego thing, more or less, but the cliques spoil it for other bands looking for someone to hear their songs.

It's unfortunate, but there will always be good bands that never get heard. Being good just isn't enough, any more. You have to have that complete package, the look, the correct personnel, that special or unique sound and to be in the right place at the right time.

Have you heard of the band KANSAS? They came from Topeka, Kansas. You know how unlikely it is that a band from a relatively small town in Kansas is going to make it as big as they have? They knew it and even made a documentary of their story...the mistakes they made along the way and the sheer luck that helped them, too. First, you have to be a great band. But it takes so much more.
 
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Not so much bands online, but occasionally local bands used to blow me away with a track of their own. Sadly, nearly all of those bands sank without trace and their songs went with them. One such band was called "Cable" - not the Cable that had three indie albums but a different one that split up in 1992. They had a song called "Game Over" that I regard as the "Greatest Song You've Never Heard". :D One crappy demo tape exists of this song; I've tried to clean it up and restore some dynamic range to it:



Recently I decided to re-record the song and the singer has agreed to sing it again 24 years later. I've almost completed the backing track, Frank just needs to record his drums.

How many awesome songs like this one have just completely disappeared? Very, very sad.
 
Not so much bands online, but occasionally local bands used to blow me away with a track of their own. Sadly, nearly all of those bands sank without trace and their songs went with them. One such band was called "Cable" - not the Cable that had three indie albums but a different one that split up in 1992. They had a song called "Game Over" that I regard as the "Greatest Song You've Never Heard". :D One crappy demo tape exists of this song; I've tried to clean it up and restore some dynamic range to it:



Recently I decided to re-record the song and the singer has agreed to sing it again 24 years later. I've almost completed the backing track, Frank just needs to record his drums.

How many awesome songs like this one have just completely disappeared? Very, very sad.

Wow, yeah, good point. Local bands completely blew my mind for a very long time, though I was lucky enough to live in a big college town with a pretty thriving scene.. alot of our bands became pretty well known nationally and overseas, though we're in a bit of a lull right now.
 
Bubba . I dig the tune.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of instances like that probably.

I have a similar situation. Got a whole album of great (in my eyes anyway) songs all done on 8 track cassette. The band split up in 94 only to reunite just this year.

The songs have held up over time and some are being re-recorded.

I eagerly await the new recording of yours.
:D
 
Little Purple Circles

I have been listening to Explorer at least one full time through every week or two since Supercreep posted it a year ago. I would say that I have heard the full thing from start to finish at least 40 times now.

https://homerecording.com/bbs/gener...ur-music-publicity/full-album-explorer-382137

It is absolutely brilliant. It is my single favourite album of the last 5 years. Every note of every song is beautifully crafted. The writing, the arrangement, the performance, the lyrics, the themes, the vocals, the dynamics, etc, etc, etc. These songs and this album are pure art. Found them here, on homerecording.com. Awesome.

If I was an AR guy, I would go to bat for these guys. If I was a record company exec, I would put my own money up for them. No hesitation.

This release was a "musical life changer" for me.

Carry on...
 
I was going to say something about the date of this thread and the post....

But that is quite impressive! :)
 
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