Popular Artists Whose First Song Wasn’t a Hit

[HeyHeyHey]

I can think of a few off the top of my head like Kenny Chesney and Alan Jackson. Who are some others?

[.indulgecountry]

Tim McGraw and Reba McEntire fall under this as well. It took both of 'em a few album eras to get going.

Sara Evans also notably flopped with her debut album.

[ky24941]

A lot of the big 80s and 90s artists had their first single or first several singles flop. A few I can think of are Alabama, Steve Wariner, Ricky Skaggs, Keith Whitley, Randy Travis, Patty Loveless, Pam Tillis, Lorrie Morgan, Neal McCoy, and Shania Twain. Before they were solo artists, Collin Raye and Keith Urban were apart of bands that had all their singles fail and Kix Brooks & Ronnie Dunn's solo singles pre-Brooks & Dunn all failed as well.

[bigfan101]

Kip Moore and Miranda Lambert were the first one to came to mind.

[kamala 2024 truther]

Dolly Parton falls under this. Her VERY first single "Puppy Love" was released in 1959 (when she was 13!) and didn't even try to do anything. It was like that for nearly the entire next decade, with a number of early singles (one featuring Bill Owens and another featuring the Merry Melody Singers) not making a dent on the charts. Later on in 1966 "The Little Things" from her debut record Hello, I'm Dolly (which would be released later on in September 1967) also failed to chart, before "Dumb Blonde" finally sent her to the Top 40 and "Something Fishy" took her even higher, to the Top 20.

[recordyear]

Honestly it might be easier to list popular artists whose first song was a hit.