Don't really know the answer to this one, though I do think it's interesting how, when a record fails (or underperforms, anyway), artists always claim the record company didn't promote it enough, or properly.

And I think it's so hard to encapsulate all the reasons why a record doesn't catch on. Sure, promotion is a major factor, but there are also a lot of elusive, lightning in a bottle variables. Where the zeitgeist is, issues with public perception, style, the songs themselves not clicking with the masses somehow in spite of being solid, weird problems with touring, interpersonal band issues, bad serendipity in the timing because maybe something else is all the rage and overshadowed it, etc, it's endless. How many time have we heard these legends about how the linchpin of a band's success was this ONE SPECIFIC THING that acted as a catalyst.

For instance, how Roxette became huge in the US because an exchange student brought The Look from overseas and insisted that a radio DJ play it and after being a pain in the ass he did and you just kind of have a chain reaction because of that one kid who got to the right DJ at the right time. Or how Leppard's Sugar made Hysteria reach a sales tipping point because the strippers caught on to it and started playing it, from where it gained critical mass. I mean, by that time, it was the fifth single or something, and it had sold well, but they hadn't even broke even I believe. It's like how do you know which YouTube videos go viral globally? Sure, you may get 40,000 hits, but then some other asshole's cutesy cat video hit the jackpot for some reason and got 10 million views.

So promotion is key, but so much of it is this elusive convergence of factors or whatever you want to call it. And it's often so self-serving for all the artists to believe, "oh, with a little promotion, I could be huge!". I think the norm is actually the opposite: they promote you big time, spend millions, and you DONT catch on fire. The record business is like the pharma business - you spend millions on 20 drugs, only for one of them to a blockbuster medicine that pays for all the failures. Well, that's not necessarily a relevant model anymore, since it's all fragmented & more independent now.

I think we do a lot of that in the "scene"; fantasize about how the general public would love what we love, if only they heard it, if only mainstream media and radio and other outlets pushed it. And it's such wanking to a degree. No, they wouldn't, because it's dated 80s style music to outside ears. It really is, with some exceptions that are more current; e.g., Butch Walker is more modern than your Danger Dangers, etc.

There are SO MANY stories from bands large and small that blame it all on the label and lack of promotion. They can't all be right; surely many of the people in the record business actually know what they're doing, but there's an alchemy to having a 'hit record' that is so elusive.