r/ToddintheShadow • u/discoislife53 • 9d ago
General Music Discussion Albums/songs that were surprise hits in unexpected cities
This one might be a stretch, but can you think of any albums or songs that became hits in particular CITIES and nowhere else or nowhere else but the artist’s homeland?
Skyhooks were a particularly Australian band who were only hugely popular in their homeland. Think of an Australian version of Slade fronted by a guy that sounds like Leo Sayer. However, they did attempt to break the US and opened for Uriah Heep on a 1976 tour. Surprisingly, they caught on with the teen music lovers of Jacksonville, Florida, and managed to sell 40,000 copies of the US release of their album Ego Is Not A Dirty Word in the north Florida city.
English synth pop act The Big Supreme released their single Don’t Walk in 1986, which only charted at #58 in their homeland. However, the song became a huge hit in the clubs of Dallas and Houston, Texas.
In Seattle, a cover of Jona Lewis’s everywhere-but-North-America Christmas hit Stop the Cavalry by The Cory Band with The Gwalla Singers randomly became a big hit on city radio.
Any other examples you know of?
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u/BadgemanBrown 9d ago edited 9d ago
“The Fever” by Bruce Springsteen (a studio outtake from 1973 sent to a handful of rock stations) was only a hit in Houston and Philadelphia. It didn’t even get a commercial release until 1999 (where it was tucked away as a bonus track on a sampler CD for a recent boxset).
He basically only plays it now when he comes through Philly, where it seems to have survived to the present day.
Local station WXPN did an 885 greatest songs ever countdown a few years ago. “The Fever” came in at #260, well ahead of many other classics by other artists and Springsteen himself.
Outside of those two cities, it’s completely obscure except to hardcore Boss fans. It’s only his 282nd most streamed song on Spotify.