Irish bands who made it here, but were good enough to make the grade elsewhere?

NIMAN

Over the years I have listened to and bought music from quite a few Irish bands who I thought were very good, but who never seemed to crack it outside of Ireland.

The likes of In Tua Nua, Republic of Loose, Cry Before Dawn, The Devlins, Jack L, An Emotional Fish (I'm sure I'll think of more later).

So is there any Irish artist(s)/band that you really think should have made it big?

elastico

NIMAN wrote: »

Over the years I have listened to and bought music from quite a few Irish bands who I thought were very good, but who never seemed to crack it outside of Ireland.

The likes of In Tua Nua, Republic of Loose, Cry Before Dawn, The Devlins, Jack L, An Emotional Fish (I'm sure I'll think of more later).

So is there any Irish artist(s)/band that you really think should have made it big?

Legend has it something happens song "parachute" was ready to go big but it got banned because of the gulf war.

Anesthetize

Republic of Loose are rubbish anyway so it's not surprising that they were never popular elsewhere. The same goes with bland pop-rock bands like The Blizzards and The Coronas - bands with nothing to offer the world.

I'm more interested in the opposite - Irish bands with a large following abroad but far from being household names here. Bands like Primordial for example. This is mainly due to the Irish music press being absolute idiots.

loyatemu

That Petrol Emotion should have been bigger - they had a number of near-misses on the British charts

lewisdhead

Stars of Heaven should have had more success. Also I recall a Limerick band called Woodstar, had a bit of a Mercury Rev thing going on, I think they could have made a name for themselves.

loveroflight

The Mamas Boys were incredible. Pat McManus still is!!!

Micky Dolenz

Aslan.

Cortina_MK_IV

I'm with you on Cry Before Dawn but also Aslan, however that was probably down to Christy's problems.

The Golden Miller

Anesthetize wrote: »

Republic of Loose are rubbish anyway so it's not surprising that they were never popular elsewhere. The same goes with bland pop-rock bands like The Blizzards and The Coronas - bands with nothing to offer the world.

I'm more interested in the opposite - Irish bands with a large following abroad but far from being household names here. Bands like Primordial for example. This is mainly due to the Irish music press being absolute idiots.

Metal bands will never have a big following here outside a niche market. No big surprise there really. And also, they are alright, nothing to write home about.

Did the Thrills "cut the grade" elsewhere?

loyatemu

The Golden Miller wrote: »

Did the Thrills have "cut the grade" elsewhere?

the Thrills had a number of UK hits, probably one of the more successful Irish bands of the last 20 years.

I don't know but honestly, I can't see many of the bands listed here as having any kind of appeal to an international audience outside Ireland.

Aslan for example, I personally really dislike them but to be 100% neutral here and stick to the OP's original question, I honestly don't believe it's unfair or surprising that they wouldn't be popular anywhere other than here. As for Christy's (*cough*) "issues", there was bigger dope fiends than him sold millions of records worldwide.

Likewise with groups like In Tua Nua, you don't have to like or dislike them to agree they were talented musicians, I just don't see any reason why anyone would be confused about why the UK and US record buying public are missing out by not making them go platinum. There must be a million bands fusing rock music with the trad/folk music of France, Spain, Russia, Italy, or whatever, and I'm sure many of them are great. It just doesn't surprise me that they won't be popular outside their own countries. Sure there's The Pogues but that would be the exception.

On the other hand...
I was in Gambia last week on a holiday. Went to visit a nature reserve, a sanctuary for snakes and reptiles in the middle of the African jungle on the border with Senegal. The park manager there is from Sierra Leone, and on hearing I was Irish asked
"Do you know Daniel O'Donnell?"
"You mean the singer?" I replied, "aamm... yes, I know who he is, yeah".
"I love his music"
My jaw dropped! :eek:
"Yes" he continued, "him and Mary Duff, listen to them all the time".

(I swear to God I am NOT making this up! )

tipptom

Always thought that the Sultans of Ping could have had a better crack at England with a bit of luck and timing.

rojito

Did The Frames ever gain any kind of traction outside of Ireland? I know it is said they are popular in the States but I lived in London for several years around their "peak" and no one had ever heard of them.

SterlingArcher

Director.

https://youtu.be/2YwfrUqCvYQ

Fr Tod Umptious

Growing up and listening to music in the late 80s early 90s I recall that there always seemed to a search on "for the next U2".

And throughout that time bands like In Tua Nua, Microdisney, A House, Something Happens, etc all came and went without making an impact.

Looking back I think that there was too much pressure on bands to become internationally recognized.
It was almost a legitimacy thing, you were not good enough if you were not popular outside Ireland.

I remember when I first moved to the US in the mid nineties I was as stunned to see that The Cranberries were so popular in America, well in the north east where I was at least, I thought they were desperate.

But at the end of the day as the other posters story from Africa shows, its the likes of Daniel that's selling the records and filling the concert halls abroad.

loyatemu

tipptom wrote:

Always thought that the Sultans of Ping could have had a better crack at England with a bit of luck and timing.

They had a few hits and were on the cover of the NME, that's not bad for a novelty act.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Did Kerbdog ever make an impact overseas?

ger vallely

I love Bell X1 and I cannot understand how they are not huge. They ought to be more popular than the beige Coldplay. Their lyrics are quite humorous by times and often bordering on mildly genius! I love their voices and I honestly think they ought to be far more recognised outside this country.

kunst nugget

ger vallely wrote: »

I love Bell X1 and I cannot understand how they are not huge. They ought to be more popular than the beige Coldplay. Their lyrics are quite humorous by times and often bordering on mildly genius! I love their voices and I honestly think they ought to be far more recognised outside this country.

Their lyrics make me cringe. They are just awful and a lot of what I heard from their later albums was second rate Talking Heads.

Carpenter

Stepaside

ger vallely

Kunst nugget- ah I guess each to their own, eh? But having bought their albums and seeing them live I think they are great musicians and performers. But if they don't float your boat that's fine by me!

The Golden Miller

ger vallely wrote: »

I love Bell X1 and I cannot understand how they are not huge. They ought to be more popular than the beige Coldplay. Their lyrics are quite humorous by times and often bordering on mildly genius! I love their voices and I honestly think they ought to be far more recognised outside this country.

They are hit and miss. For every good song on one of their albums, there's at least one boring/bland song. In saying that, many bands made it bigger with hardly any good songs

fiachr_a

Gavin Friday is the one that should have been more successful abroad. His solo albums are quite good.

Anesthetize

fiachr_a wrote: »

Gavin Friday is the one that should have been more successful abroad. His solo albums are quite good.

I've never checked out his solo stuff. The Virgin Prunes had a cult following outside of Ireland. And if I remember correctly, it was Gavin Friday who told Kevin Shields of MBV to get out of Ireland if you want to have some sort of success.

MadYaker

Jape are great, they don;t seem to have a huge following here or abroad though

endacl

The Cranberries. How dafuq did they even make it out of Limerick?!?

worded

The devlins - I will still be waiting

Great track

chefvortivask

Aslan could have been a huge band worldwide, phenomenal ability. Only thing holding them back was Christy Dignam's public image and struggle with the bottle, but as a songwriter and musician he was up there with the best.. shame they never really cracked the global scene

tipptom

endacl wrote: »

The Cranberries. How dafuq did they even make it out of Limerick?!?

Aw Cmon,they made some classic tunes,Zombie and Salvation are great songs still.

endacl

tipptom wrote: »

Aw Cmon,they made some classic tunes,Zombie and Salvation are great songs still.

No. Just no.

fiachr_a

worded wrote: »

The devlins - I will still be waiting

Great track

Was going to say them. Not well know even in Ireland. Some great songs - Everything comes around.

selous

Cactus World News, Blink.

Or did they make it anywhere,
I have the CWN album on vinyl and Blink on cassette,

Eugene Norman

The Pale.

Flint Fredstone

Richie Kavanagh. Genius.

Ezra Wibberley

ger vallely wrote:

I love Bell X1 and I cannot understand how they are not huge. They ought to be more popular than the beige Coldplay. Their lyrics are quite humorous by times and often bordering on mildly genius! I love their voices and I honestly think they ought to be far more recognised outside this country.

+1 on this.

Sure some of their songs don't have genius lyrics, but they have more than enough solid tracks on each album (six of them at this stage, with No. 7 to be released in 2016) to warrant being more successful than they are. Most successful bands have a few great tracks per album (sometimes just one, the lead single) and a few that are passable and sometimes a few that plain flop.

Bell X1 won't go hungry but likewise they'll "never be proper famous" to quote a line from one of their songs. Shame really, but at least it means I get lots if chances to see them play around Ireland.

Deagol

Can't believe no-one mentioned The Stunning yet?!

Kirk Van Houten

Agree on The Devlins and the previous poster on the Stunning.

Would add The Frank and Walters to the list as well.

brianblaze

Bell X1 and JJ72. JJ72 came close with Snow but can't wrap my head around why BellX1 aren't bigger than anyone else from here in the last 15 years.

GetWithIt

The Redneck Manifesto

mr_edge_to_you

On the basis of their Heartworm album, I thought Whipping Boy were going to be massive.

Still one of the greatest albums ever.

riffmongous

I never really gave Aslan any attention beyond crazy world but this thread made me finally give them a decent listening to and now I think they are great! What a sad story Christy has though

Said in an earlier post that I see no reason why anyone should expect a lot of the names being mentioned here would have any appeal outside of Ireland. I'm not dissing or slagging any bands here, I'm just pointing out that a lot of them are basically addressing Irish audiences from an Irish point of view. Love them or hate them, I just don't get it why anyone seriously can't understand why 90% of Irish music has zero appeal/relevance to record buyers in the US and UK.

Some slightly off-topic examples (non Irish). I love The Clash and The Jam. But in no possible way would I ever expect The Jam to be even remotely successful in America while The Clash remain hugely popular there even still to this day. Likewise I really love The Who and The Kinks, but never in a million years am I surprised that The Kinks never made it in the states, good and all as they are. The Who on the other hand made music (like The Beatles and The Stones) that didn't focus on their own local neighbourhoods.

A couple of Irish bands who I genuinely think could have been bigger abroad:

Therapy? OK, pretty big in the UK and playing 4 to 5 thousand capacity venues. But at their peak in the 90's I really thought they could do better in the US. I mean I'm not really into that kind of music myself, but I can at least agree that if you like the type of thing that these guys do then they do it really well. In my opinion they are certainly no worse than let's say Soundgarden who sold millions.

Whipping Boy. Did a really good performance on the BBC on Jools Holland which has a pretty big audience. Jools called them "a new band from Dublin" despite playing for seven years at that point. Anyway, most people seem to agree Heartworm was a great record, including Nick Cave. Whipping Boy started a huge tour with The Bad Seeds in support of Heartworm, except they got fukced off it shortly afterwards because of Fearghal acting the gom. Don't know what he was up to, but if it was enough to get guys like Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, etc so worried back in the 90's then it must have been bad. They lost momentum after that, got dropped by Columbia despite the reviews, and had already broken up as a group by the time their third album came out.

Golden Horde. Inexplicably stuck with Mother Records when Mother Records didn't do a goddamn thing for them in return. Took too many years to get the first "proper" LP out, got some big name producers in to do it, end result was just stunning, jaw droopingly brilliant album, but FFS it never went further than Larry Googan

Eugene Norman

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Said in an earlier post that I see no reason why anyone should expect a lot of the names being mentioned here would have any appeal outside of Ireland. I'm not dissing or slagging any bands here, I'm just pointing out that a lot of them are basically addressing Irish audiences from an Irish point of view. Love them or hate them, I just don't get it why anyone seriously can't understand why 90% of Irish music has zero appeal/relevance to record buyers in the US and UK.

Some slightly off-topic examples (non Irish). I love The Clash and The Jam. But in no possible way would I ever expect The Jam to be even remotely successful in America while The Clash remain hugely popular there even still to this day. Likewise I really love The Who and The Kinks, but never in a million years am I surprised that The Kinks never made it in the states, good and all as they are. The Who on the other hand made music (like The Beatles and The Stones) that didn't focus on their own local neighbourhoods.

Hmm. A lot of the Irish bands mentioned don't focus on local affairs and just sing generic love or political tunes.

Nor does that stop American rap. Where exactly is Compton?.

And in fact the cranberries reference 1916 in Zombies which didn't stop its success. U2 wrote Sunday Bloody Sunday.

So that's not the reason. It might explain why the saw doctors aren't going to go large but it's insufficient for the other bands.

Fr Tod Umptious

Breaking the US has a lot to do with luck.

There are thousands of radio stations catering to hundreds of local areas and demographics, getting heard and noticed on a national level is a real shot in the dark.

fiachr_a

The problem with most Irish bands is that they didn't do enough recordings. If The Fall were from Dublin they would have spilt up in 1981 after two albums, reformed in 1997 to release another two, and then end up doing one or two gigs each year, in Whelans.

jossys_giants

loyatemu wrote: »

They had a few hits and were on the cover of the NME, that's not bad for a novelty act.

what an arsey comment. Top band, and absolutely blistering live

loyatemu

jossys_giants wrote: »

what an arsey comment. Top band, and absolutely blistering live

I like the Sultans, but they were a novelty act - their biggest hit was about a jumper. It's not a diss, but they were never likely to end up playing stadiums.

Anesthetize

jossys_giants wrote: »

what an arsey comment. Top band, and absolutely blistering live

That's not necessarily a bad thing. They're a fun band with some fun songs. But at the end of the day they were a novelty.

selous

Weren't they (Sultans of Ping F.C) quite big in Japan, selling out a lot of venues.

Anyone mentioned Wilt yet, think I seen Kerbdog earlier, I thought Wilt were quite good though.

fiachr_a

selous wrote: »

Blink.

Or did they make it anywhere,

They've a new 'Best of' CD out called Catch that moment.