Sunday, November 23, 2025

Preview: The Unlikeliest Hit

On January 4, 1992, Billboard magazine released its weekly top 10 featuring songs from Michael Jackson, Paula Abdul, MC Hammer, Color Me Badd, and something called Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.



Figure 1: Historians continue to debate whether this is Marky Mark or a theoretical member of the Funky Bunch


On January 6, 1992, Tori Amos (known only to music insiders for fronting a forgettable faux metal band called "Y Kant Tori Read") released an album consisting of seemingly just her voice and a piano called "Little Earthquakes". 


Figure 2: A woman and a toy piano about to change the music industry


That album has gone on to sell over two million copies.


Why?


Coming soon, from the same person behind the once minimally popular blog "Battling the Current", a new adventure into that brief sliver in time when Generation X influenced what became popular and the unlikely hits that it produced. From outsider artists to surprise superstars to some of the best one hit wonders of all time EC will examine just why a small generation created possibly the widest range of musical stars and how it just as quickly disappeared.

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