Riffing off of his article, “The Top 10 Bands That Never Had a US Top 40 Single” in the latest edition of Campus News, Darren Johnson records an edition of the “Drive Time Podcast” from the road where he comments on and plays the best-placing song from “bands that deserved better.”
“These aren’t band’s bands — the kinds of bands people politely call ‘influential.’ No, these are bands that had the goods, packed concert halls in their day, and really tried to have a radio song — it just didn’t work out, for reasons I explore in the podcast,” Johnson said.
Johnson sought out advice from DJs and other people in-the-know in compiling the list, and was surprised that these bands never had their names mentioned by Casey Kasem:
- The Ramones
- Bob Marley (with out without the Wailers)
- Morrissey (with out without the Smiths)
- Black Sabbath (though front man Ozzy Osbourne did have commercial success as a solo artist, Johnson felt that “Iron Man” was such a standout song, Sabbath should have placed higher with it)
- The Violent Femmes
- The Replacements
- King Crimson
- Courtney Love/Hole
- Doug E. Fresh, Slick Rick and the Get Fresh Crew
- And … a band you can only hear about by listening to the podcast!
“It seems even cult and counter-culture bands eventually had a hit single — think the Grateful Dead and “Touch of Grey” — but not these bands. They were selling out arenas and moving albums. They had the right sound, the right look, and quality videos and record labels, but, still, it never happened for them,” Johnson said. “In this podcast, we celebrate these bands and will play their highest-charting songs.”
Don’t miss this special CampusXM and Drive-Time Podcast!
You can download the podcast via this link, or find Drive-Time Podcast on iTunes.
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