Most Anonymous Top 10/Top 40 Hitmakers

[Deleted]

This has been on my mind for quite some time. Since I saw that "Don't Tell 'Em" by Jeremih was in the Top 10, and it gave Jeremih a 3rd top 10 single, I got to thinking, "he's doing all this and yet he's not even that famous". Now I know the main reason why is up this high is mostly because of DJ Mustard's production and the fact that it references a big dance hit from the 90's, but facts are facts. I never see Jeremih being talked about or in tv shows, or in any media circuits, and not even among the biggest names in R&B, so he's basically someone that's under the radar that manages to get Top 40 hits, if anything he might mostly be known for being a relative of one of the members of the failed "Day 26" group from "Making The Band". Which brings me to this interesting question, based on your opinion, what you've seen, who are among the most anonymous Top 10, Top 40 hitmakers, that make you say "yeah, they constantly make hits, but they're not really famous" or "I never hear much of these artists outside of the radio despite having several hit songs". One or two-hit wonders don't count, they have to at least had 3 major hit songs in the Top 40, and it can be past or present.

[when the pawn...]

Jeremih was in Day 26?!?!?!

[Deleted]

no, Jeremih is the cousin of Willie from Day 26.

[YourFaveIsAFlop]

Jason Derulo. He is no where near as famous or successful as his single positions indicate

[surfy]

People still talk about him and recognize him a lot though, so I wouldn't say he fits this category, a person I think would be more fitting would be Paramore... if you're a casual music listener, you would probably refer to them as the "Ain't It Fun" band... shame too.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

I thought of Jason DeRulo, and Jay Sean came to mind too. I forget how many hits he's had.

[surfy]

Jay Sean, who is that???

[Deleted]

Oct 29, 2014 19:40:20 GMT -5 surfy said:

Jay Sean, who is that???

he's a singer signed to Cash Money Records (Lil Wayne's label), and best known for "Down" and "Do You Remember" which were big hits, and to a smaller extent "2012". He was a big part of that electro dance pop movement of the late 2000's and the beginning of the 2010's. He stopped being relevant once the electro pop craze died down, but is still signed to Cash Money.

[surfy]

Oct 30, 2014 0:01:22 GMT -5 @billboardfan1 said:

Oct 29, 2014 19:40:20 GMT -5 surfy said:

Jay Sean, who is that???

he's a singer signed to Cash Money Records (Lil Wayne's label), and best known for "Down" and "Do You Remember" which were big hits, and to a smaller extent "2012". He was a big part of that electro dance pop movement of the late 2000's and the beginning of the 2010's. He stopped being relevant once the electro pop craze died down, but is still signed to Cash Money.

Lol, I know who he is, I was just mocking his lack of a household name! "Down" was my jam! :)

[lyhom]

Flo Rida.

[YourFaveIsAFlop]

Oct 29, 2014 19:36:10 GMT -5 surfy said:

People still talk about him and recognize him a lot though, so I wouldn't say he fits this category, a person I think would be more fitting would be Paramore... if you're a casual music listener, you would probably refer to them as the "Ain't It Fun" band... shame too.

I would bet money if you showed his picture to 10 people, 6 wouldn't know who he is without linking him to one of his hits

[Luckie Starchild]

How about Cathy Dennis? She had four Top 10 hits.

[Dielawn]

Despite this being identical to the thread I tried to start...

Karyn White
Cathy Dennis
Taio Cruz
Richard Marx (seriously shocking how many hits this guy had)
Rick Astley (before YouTube)

[johnm1120]

Kid Rock (nowadays he's pretty much known for marrying Pamela Anderson)
Uncle Kracker (He shows up every few every with a random hit)

[HolidayGuy]

No only did Cathy Dennis score a handful of her own hits, but she co-wrote two of the biggest, most acclaimed pop tracks since 2001. And, most probably wouldn't know it.

From her era, a couple that scored multiple hits- Tara Kemp, Londonbeat, Jesus Jones. Probably a lot that score more than one hit, that few, in general, remember.

[Verisimilitude]

Kim Carnes, especially for how humongous "Bette Davis Eyes" is.

[mkarns]

Oct 31, 2014 0:00:01 GMT -5 Dielawn said:

Despite this being identical to the thread I tried to start...

Karyn White
Cathy Dennis
Taio Cruz
Richard Marx (seriously shocking how many hits this guy had)
Rick Astley (before YouTube)

Re Taio Cruz, someone should include him as an answer to a music trivia question as to who had the longest running song ever on American Top 40, without giving the song's title (maybe its date.) Everyone remembers "Dynamite" but not so much who sang it, probably because he doesn't sound much different from many other recent R&B/EDM/pop hitmakers.

[Dielawn]

Oct 31, 2014 8:37:07 GMT -5 HolidayGuy said:

No only did Cathy Dennis score a handful of her own hits, but she co-wrote two of the biggest, most acclaimed pop tracks since 2001. And, most probably wouldn't know it.

From her era, a couple that scored multiple hits- Tara Kemp, Londonbeat, Jesus Jones. Probably a lot that score more than one hit, that few, in general, remember.

Touch Me (all night long) is a classic, wasn't that a big number one back in the day?

[HolidayGuy]

^No. 2 Hot 100, No. 1 CHR/Pop.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Disagree with too many of those. With the older acts, you're going to have a natural degree of recognition loss as young people grow to become the main music audiences but I think names like Ace of Base or Jewel are recognizable by people who listened to music in those eras. Otherwise, you may as well throw in George Michael, Sting, Heart, or whomever from decades past that teens and 20-somethings today aren't going to know.

[Deleted]

being a person that grew up in the 90's, and knowing a lot of people that grew up in the 80's and seen a lot of music shows based on the 80's and 90's, I can tell you not many people I know that grew up in that decade would recognize these people. Growing up in the late 90's, I can tell you Jewel was only semi-popular, I didn't know who she was and I was listening to the radio and watching MTV a whole lot in the late 90's, but I remember her songs. She wasn't really as big as her chart success indicated, especially since she came out at a time when the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, N' Sync, Hanson and Britney Spears were all over the media, she might mostly be remembered for being part of the Lilith Fair movement which was a big thing. Same with Ace Of Base, they were never as big as their chart success indicated. And I've seen videos from older year end charts, and people have commented how shocked they are that most of these artists had several hit songs. I'm sure if I asked a lot of people, even those that grew up in the time period, not many would recognize them without linking them to their songs.

[Deleted]

Nov 1, 2014 7:39:06 GMT -5 @billboardfan1 said:

being a person that grew up in the 90's, and knowing a lot of people that grew up in the 80's and seen a lot of music shows based on the 80's and 90's, I can tell you not many people I know that grew up in that decade would recognize these people. Growing up in the late 90's, I can tell you Jewel was only semi-popular, I didn't know who she was and I was listening to the radio and watching MTV a whole lot in the late 90's, but I remember her songs. She wasn't really as big as her chart success indicated, especially since she came out at a time when the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, N' Sync, Hanson and Britney Spears were all over the media, she might mostly be remembered for being part of the Lilith Fair movement which was a big thing. Same with Ace Of Base, they were never as big as their chart success indicated. And I've seen videos from older year end charts, and people have commented how shocked they are that most of these artists had several hit songs. I'm sure if I asked a lot of people, even those that grew up in the time period, not many would recognize them without linking them to their songs.

Like Max, I would disagree with a lot of this. I grew up in the 90s too, and Jewel ('omg did you know she lived in her van before making it?!') and Ace of Base ('they're like the nu ABBA!!!') were very well-known where I was from. If Spice Girls/BSB/NSYNC/Britney/Hanson/et. al is your barometer of 'well known' then hell, damn near nobody is really that well known. Those aforementioned people were on a stratospheric level of celebrity at their peak.

Loss recognition is a big thing to keep in mind. The 80s heads I have seen or heard talk about them are always waxing poetic about DeBarge, and they will often mention how sad it is that their legacy is not remembered except when a current artist wants to sample one of their songs for the gazillionth time. The group may be anonymous now, but that wasn't the case when they were actually making hit music. And I think that's the issue I have with this thread, we can't really speculate on who was 'anonymous' back then with a high degree of accuracy because we weren't around back then; and even those we can speculate on, we're going to disagree - because obviously we grew up in different environments and have different recollections.

To me, a lot of people you named weren't anonymous, they were just forgotten by younger audiences after they peaked and fell off. R&b/rap artists in general are tricky to gauge. just because pop fans don't recall them or didn't know them much back then, doesn't mean they're anonymous within their genre. A group like Silk for example, I would be very surprised to know they even had any top ten Hot 100 hits, but they were very popular in r&b circles. So how do you measure that? That's more of a 'people that I didn't know had crossover success' thing, not 'people that I didn't know had that much success anywhere.' Pop fans certainly seem to have forgotten the plethora of hits Blackstreet had, but 90s r&B fans definitely remember them, though there's admittedly an argument to be made that Blackstreet was really remembered more for being the second Teddy Riley group. Teddy's star was always bigger than the other members, even though they all shared lead vocals. But trust me, Blackstreet as a whole was not anonymous in r&b.

And how can you say 'Does anyone remember this guy' about Ja Rule? People TOTALLY remember that guy. In particular we like to remember him so we can make fun of him since he fell off so hard. We do him and Ashanti so wrong, now that I think about it, pretending they weren't ever A-list. There were the definition of dominant from 2000-2002. They just packed a lot of their hits into a very short span of time.

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

Nov 1, 2014 7:39:06 GMT -5 @billboardfan1 said:

being a person that grew up in the 90's, and knowing a lot of people that grew up in the 80's and seen a lot of music shows based on the 80's and 90's, I can tell you not many people I know that grew up in that decade would recognize these people. Growing up in the late 90's, I can tell you Jewel was only semi-popular, I didn't know who she was and I was listening to the radio and watching MTV a whole lot in the late 90's, but I remember her songs. She wasn't really as big as her chart success indicated, especially since she came out at a time when the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, N' Sync, Hanson and Britney Spears were all over the media, she might mostly be remembered for being part of the Lilith Fair movement which was a big thing. Same with Ace Of Base, they were never as big as their chart success indicated. And I've seen videos from older year end charts, and people have commented how shocked they are that most of these artists had several hit songs. I'm sure if I asked a lot of people, even those that grew up in the time period, not many would recognize them without linking them to their songs.

I grew up in the 90s and everyone knew Jewel and they still know (of) her. Her popularity on pop radio was high for a short time (97-98) but her timespan ranges from 1996-2002 across just 7 Top 40 hits. Ace of Base's range is from 1993-1998, also with just 7 Top 40 hits. I'd be willing to bet that most people would know who Jewel was if you asked "do you know who Jewel is?" and while they might not remember many of her songs, they'd likely be able to name You Were Meant For Me or Hands. Same with Ace of Base, though I suspect The Sign would be the only one they could name offhand.
I'm sure most would be surprised if you followed that up with "did you know Jewel/Ace of Base had 7 Top 40 hits between (their respective years)?" but they'd still know who both were. The same applies to me and my surprise when I hear Olivia Newton-John had as many hits as she had when I could probably only name 3 or 4 at the most.

[Luckie Starchild]

Oct 31, 2014 23:56:32 GMT -5 @billboardfan1 said:

Dionne Warwick (way more remebered for her hosting "Solid Gold" and the Psychic Hotline than her music, though you might hear "That's What Friends Are For" once in a while, though you wouldn't know it was her, you'd only know the featured guests)

Dionne Warwick? For realsies? :o She's a legend... everyone knows her and her voice.

[surfy]

I still hear about Jewel all the time... I don't know how you could say she's unknown. PUHlease

[.indulgecountry]

Gavin DeGraw

[YourFaveIsAFlop]

Nov 1, 2014 13:12:55 GMT -5 @antigonerising said:

And how can you say 'Does anyone remember this guy' about Ja Rule? People TOTALLY remember that guy. In particular we like to remember him so we can make fun of him since he fell off so hard. We do him and Ashanti so wrong, now that I think about it, pretending they weren't ever A-list. There were the definition of dominant from 2000-2002. They just packed a lot of their hits into a very short span of time.

Ja was the Pitbull/Flo Rida of the early 2000s. He was the go-to rent-a-rapper, had his own hits, and was everywhere.

Then he disappeared.

[Deleted]

Nov 3, 2014 14:23:26 GMT -5 YourFaveIsAFlop said:

Nov 1, 2014 13:12:55 GMT -5 @antigonerising said:

And how can you say 'Does anyone remember this guy' about Ja Rule? People TOTALLY remember that guy. In particular we like to remember him so we can make fun of him since he fell off so hard. We do him and Ashanti so wrong, now that I think about it, pretending they weren't ever A-list. There were the definition of dominant from 2000-2002. They just packed a lot of their hits into a very short span of time.

Ja was the Pitbull/Flo Rida of the early 2000s. He was the go-to rent-a-rapper, had his own hits, and was everywhere.

Then he disappeared.

Yeah. Murder Inc. self-destructed, he got ethered by 50 Cent, then he went to jail. Not necessarily in that order; I forget the timeline. But the 1-2-3 punch did him in, I guess.

[popstop]

I feel like I have this problem with bands - some of them seem interchangeable to me - All-American Rejects, the Killers, Cobra Starship ( though maybe the latter doesn't meet the threshhold) are some that come to mind.

[Luckie Starchild]

How about Jennifer Warnes? She had three Top 10s and two Number 1s (i.e., two more number ones than Bruce Springsteen, Backstreet Boys, Shania Twain, etc.)