Anyone have any songs that they were sure would be hits when they first heard them but never ended up hearing them on the radio?

Came up with this thread after downloading a stunting video that I really liked and figured it was from the song that really grew on me, enough to find out which band it was and then finding the CD on ebay and ordering it.

That song was Gigolo by a Norwegian band called The Crash. (The Crash: Melodrama)

See if you can find these songs (I'm sure you know where to look for the ones available) and this goes to show how P2P does sometimes help the artist, as I bought the CD after hearing it from download, and I would have never heard of this band if I hadn't.

Here are a couple I thought would or should definitely make it big (all songs in English even though some bands are based in Europe).

1. Artificial Joy Club - Sick & Beautiful from the mid 90's. (Artificial Joy Club: Melt)

2. Intwine - Cruel Man (Dutch band, the song was for a short time fairly big in the Netherlands but I doubt it ever made it to the U.S. Was from the soundtrack to a fairly good movie called the Dominee.) (Intwine: Perfect)

3. I saw a local band perform live a couple times recently at the Paradiso in Amsterdam (probably the most famous place for live bands to perform in Amsterdam) and think they have a good chance of making it big, especially after hearing them do a cover of Linkin Park's Numb that sounded even better than the original and also a new original song they said was the first time they've performed it called Slide (neither available yet for download from their site, but they have others for free). The band is called EVENi www.eveni.net They kind of have a No Doubt feel and probably could be marketed similarly...

One that was a big hit in Europe, but I don't know if it was heard in the U.S. (I've been living in Europe for a couple years), Tim Deluxe (feat. Sam Obernik) - It Just Won't Do (Tim Deluxe: The Little Ginger Club Kid). Another huge hit here that I'm sure made it to the U.S. just because of the music video was Benny Benassi - Satisfaction (Benny Benassi - Hypnotica).
By the way, did Sophie Ellis Bextor make it big in the U.S.? Her first album was great (Sophie Ellis Bextor: Read My Lips).

If you like Alternative Grunge Rock I suggest you download the song/video for Cruel Man by Intwine from their website http://www.intwine.nl/intwine_eng.html
You can download the whole video for free, after clicking on the icon, you will get a menu and select audio/video and then click Watch it.

Anyway, another really good song if your interested that had some success in Europe, but appearently didn't make it in the U.S. (as far as I've heard) was a Dandy Warhols songs Bohemian Like You (The Dandy Warhols: Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia). I was just reminded of this song after watching a very interesting documentary called Gig! I suggest you check it out.

Another funny fact is how big Robbie Williams is here in Europe, but in an interview he said that living in L.A. was great because he is rarely recognized their as he hasn't really made it in the U.S. But here every other song and video seems to be his for the last couple years, and their really isn't anyone else that comes to mind that is as big as he is here in Europe.

Bosstones-So Sad To Say...and actually that whole album was really good production wise...too bad it wrecked em basically!

Also, the local band FLIPP in minneapolis was really awesome...cant believe they never found their audience nationally!!

Wow. I could probably list 1000 songs that fit your criteria. As you can tell from my username, I'm a huge Gary Numan fan. He's had exactly ONE hit here in America ("Cars", of course), yet has had 24 top 40 singles in the UK. Any one of which (and many other album tracks) could have been huge here. I could say the same about Ultravox, Sparks, a-ha and a million other bands.

In junior high and high school in the 80's, I thought a local band called The Judy's would make a splash at some point.