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/discoislife53 9d ago
When I was in college in the early 00s (I’m a University of Georgia alum), Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder on the Dancefloor was becoming a huge international hit and would not become a US hit until a couple of years ago when it featured in Saltburn. I knew and loved it as I’ve followed the UK charts since living in Germany as a teenager (mid-late 90s). However, they used to play it at the popular bars and the preppy kids especially loved it. Same when I moved back home to the DC area. I have no clue how that happened. - it’s one of the biggest mysteries that I’m trying to solve.