by Caroline Sullivan for guardian.co.uk 

From next big heroes to nigh-on zeroes - what happened there? How did the press get it so wrong? For that matter, how did it get it even more wrong with other notorious next-big-things-that-never-were, such as Gay Dad, Menswear, Lewis Taylor, Terris, and the High? (The last name may not be familiar, but these baggy-era hopefuls were once lauded by the Guardian's Film & Music editor as "better than the Stone Roses", which didn't save them from returning to obscurity almost as soon as they had emerged from it.)

The short answer is that the music just didn't connect with the public (except in the case of Lewis Taylor, who acquired an enraptured fan base that raved about him but just wasn't large enough to push him into the mainstream). But beyond that is a multiplicity of reasons, and here I would like to list some of them...

Tell-tale signs of why some bands are doomed to be filed under: to be forgotten

1. They find themselves plastered across the cover of the NME months before they even set foot in a recording studio.
2. They appear on Top of the Pops before their first single is released.
3. They are the subject of a vigorous PR campaign to rival that of Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House.
4. They have been previously employed as music journalists and use their industry contacts to gain widespread media exposure.
5. They are the current darlings of a short-lived and insular London clique.
6. The are overtaken by a much more commercially appealing rival in the same genre.

Last week, Capitol Records released the first compilation by the Vines, the Australian garage rockers whose star blazed briefly in 2002. The label called it The Best of the Vines, rather than Greatest Hits, because there was no getting round the fact that the band - who left Capitol last year after disappointing sales on three albums - haven't really had any hits to speak of.

Most of their singles slunk into the lower reaches of the Top 30 and right back out again, and even the song that's considered their anthem, Get Free, barely made an impression on the charts.

Menswear (or "Menswe@r" as they preferred it): a group with links to the then predominant Camden Britpop scene, Menswear were championed by Melody Maker, which put them on the cover before they'd released a record, but the band was reviled or ignored outside their North London clique. They appeared on Top of the Pops before their first single was released, but such was the irritation they and their dandyish togs generated outside their insular circle that even TOTP could only help the single get to No 49.

Terris: Welsh, ploddishly rocky and, according to the NME, "the first new stars of 2000", the hapless Terris came along just as the search started for something new and millennial to get excited about, and they were somehow adjudged to be it. Had NME not featured them on the cover months before they were ready, they might have carved out a prosperous career as second-tier Feeder/Stereophonics types.

Lewis Taylor: fans of this white English soul singer - and there are many - express disbelief that he hasn't been more widely recognised. On his message board, his more ardent followers classify themselves as "LT Have My Babies Maniacs" and spend much time discussing his talent, which seems to have slipped through the cracks in the wider world. Why did he fail to make it after critics and his label predicted Jamiroquai-sized success for him in the mid-90s? It might have had something to do with his being a muso rather than a Jay Kay-type showman, or arriving in the middle of Britpop, when nobody wanted to know about soul singers. He was the right singer at the wrong time.

And the High: These Mancunians weren't bad, but their home city was already overstocked with bands just like them.

Average user rating

   (0 vote)