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Pop Culture Isolation / Music

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    Specific Hip-Hop examples 
  • An inverse hip-hop example is from the east coast rapper Jadakiss when he asks "Why my buzz in L.A. ain't like it is in New York?"
  • Three 6 Mafia lampshade this with the album title Most Known Unknowns.
  • Ellen DeGeneres touched upon this when Tupac Shakur died, noting that the mainstream media were more interested in her coming out of the closet.
  • Anything Macklemore did before The Heist is fairly unknown unless you are from the Seattle area. Even fewer people know anything about Ryan Lewis, his producer, besides his name.
  • Wiz Khalifa, despite being one of the biggest names in the rap world is primarily known to pop audiences for "See You Again", his hit song from the Furious 7 soundtrack. This, despite the fact that he also had a #1 hit with "Black & Yellow" and did a few memorable guest verses on other hit songs like Maroon 5's "Payphone."
  • Most people born after MC Hammer's prime will have a hard time naming any songs of his other than his 1990 smash breakthrough hit "U Can't Touch This". Maybe "2 Legit 2 Quit", but that's as far as it goes.
  • Most people who aren't fans of Missy Elliott or heard of her during her prime will have a hard time naming any songs of her's other than her 2002 hit "Work It". Maybe "Lose Control" or "Get Ur Freak On", but that's as far as it goes.
  • Depending on which audience you're apart of, the Far East Movement are either one of the most recognizable Asian-American names in hip hop, or the guys who did "Like a G6" (for which they're remembered as a One-Hit Wonder for).
  • Anything Coolio did outside his 1995 smash hit "Gangsta's Paradise" is fairly unknown unless you're a classic hip hop fan (though some may be able to remember his Breakthrough Hit "Fantastic Voyage"). Even fewer know anything about L.V., the featured vocalist on that song, other than his stage name.
  • Three 6 Mafia are best-known in the mainstream for their club hits like "Stay Fly" and the solo career of Juicy J, but in hip hop circles, their early mixtapes and albums are far more acclaimed, being recognized for their influence on Crunk, Trap, and Horrorcore.

    Specific Pop Music examples 
  • This heavily divided radio market might be at the heart of why Anastacia has had almost no luck breaking into the U.S. market. A massive success all across Europe and Asia, she is still a relatively unknown in the U.S., despite the fact that she herself is from Chicago. It's believed that since American terrestrial radio is heavily format-driven and sharply divided, there isn't really a place for her eclectic sound to fit. Essentially too soulful for A/C stations, and not urban enough for urban radio stations, and not poppish enough for top 40, and not rockish enough for rock stations. No one can really seem to figure out what to do with her.
  • This played a part in the development of Whitney Houston's Broken Base, as Clive Davis intentionally invoked this when he was marketing her by primarily sending her songs exclusively to adult contemporary radio stations, who's listeners wouldn't necessarily pick up a copy of something like Marvin Gaye's What's Going On?, instead of urban radio stations.
  • New Edition when contrasted with New Kids on the Block. This is believed to be why the latter was created in the first place. Maurice Starr was apparently very Genre Savvy.
  • Similar to the New Edition and New Kids on the Block example, there was Pat Boone who used Covered Up as a way to market black music to whites.
  • Robyn had a "urban mix" for "Do You Really Want Me" for urban radio stations. She also counts in another way in that some think she's a new artist, but she's been around since 1995.
  • *NSYNC: Though they were meant to be the slightly R&B-tinged analogue to the Backstreet Boys, this trope combined with the But Not Too Black trope was how they were marketed by their handlers. They didn't start courting urban audiences till the Celebrity album.
  • This likely played a part in Mariah Carey's Broken Base. When her music became more urban and less adult contemporary, her fans criticized the inclusion of Hip-Hop. Some even went as far as blaming the change on the insecurities she had regarding her cultural background and ethnicity.
  • Mark Ronson: In the UK, he's a very successful producer; in America his only claim to fame is being the official lead artist on "Uptown Funk", a song almost universally associated over there with Bruno Mars.
  • Rita Ora is a megastar in the UK, but in the US she's only known for three things: 1. singing the chorus in Iggy Azalea's major hit "Black Widow", 2. appearing in Fifty Shades of Grey, and 3. being a Suspiciously Similar Substitute to Rihanna.
  • Hozier: Is he either a well-respected Irish singer-songwriter, or the guy who sang "Take Me To Church"? It depends on what audience you're part of.
  • PSY is either one of the biggest music stars in Korean history or guy behind one of the biggest One Hit Wonders of the 2010s depending on whether or not you're a fan of Korean music.
  • Andy Grammer and Rachel Platten are both popular singer-songwriters on the adult pop radio scene, but outside of that format, good luck naming any songs by them other than "Honey I'm Good" and "Fight Song," respectively. That being said, many people do remember Grammer from two minor 2011/12 hits, "Keep Your Head Up" and "Fine By Me". and may be familiar with Platten's follow-up, "Stand By You", but mainstream audiences likely won't recognize anything else of theirs.
  • Although she has a cult following, Elle King is known to mainstream audiences only for her smash hit "Ex's & Oh's", which became the biggest rock crossover hit of the 2010s by a female not named Lorde or Billie Eilish, and probably the closest hard rock has ever gotten to crossing over during the decade. In fact, most people are more likely to know that she is the daughter of the polarizing comedic actor Rob Schneider than name any song of hers other than "Ex's and Oh's".
  • Although she was fairly popular in the UK, Natalia Kills is known internationally only for her career-ending scandal on the New Zealand version of the The X Factor. The same can be said about her husband Willy Moon.
  • The British pop group Steps, which was and still is absolutely huge in the UK and Ireland, but is virtually unknown anywhere else. The divide is illustrated by their debut album Step One, which charted at no. 2 in the UK, but only made it to no. 79 in the United States.
  • Although they have a cult following of sorts, Eurodance group Aqua are solely known to mainstream audiences for their infamous 1990s dance hit "Barbie Girl".
  • Scatman John: Was he a musical genius who let his Speech Impediment translate into a truly impressive talent for Scatting and made a great attempt at using music to bring about empowerment in his listeners, or the guy who sung "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)"? It depends on what audience you're part of.
  • Savage Garden are either one of the most underrated pop artists of the 90s or the Aussie duo who sung "I Want You" and "Truly Madly Deeply", depending on whether or not you're Australian or a fan of them.
  • Vanessa Carlton is known to her loyal following of Nessaholics and certain critics as a musical genius, thanks to her main priority of being personally happy with her records regardless of industry trends. To the general public, she's known only for "A Thousand Miles".
  • Chicago had several bands who scored several hits on the WLS and WCFL charts, but barely had an impact anywhere else in the country:
    • The Ides of March are seen outside of Chicago as a One-Hit Wonder with 1970's "Vehicle". In Chicago, they had three other hits (with "L.A. Goodbye" being as big of a hit there as the aforementioned "Vehicle"). Other songs such as "Superman" and "Aire of Good Feeling" also received substantial airplay on Chicago radio.
    • The Cryan Shames never hit the Billboard Top 40; their highest charting song, "Sugar And Spice", only made it to #49. However, the band scored 8 Top 40 hits on Chicago radio in the late 1960's.
    • The New Colony Six are known nationally as Two-Hit Wonder ("Things I'd Like to Say", "I Will Always Think About You"). On Chicago radio, they had 17 Top 40 hits between 1965 and 1972.

    Specific R&B examples 
  • Beyoncé basically had a Distinct Double Album (I Am... Sasha Fierce) for this - one side being the soft pop ballad and the other being urban jams. She released "If I Were A Boy" mainly for pop radio and "Single Ladies" for the urban market. Ironically, the biggest hits from the album were only the urban songs.
  • Chris Brown balanced his F.A.M.E. album to have pop and urban singles and released the poppy "Yeah 3x" to pop radio to compliment "Deuces".
  • Usher had 9 chart-toppers, yet a more general audience might only know "Yeah!", "OMG" or "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love" (which wasn't one of those chart-toppers, and even that itself is an example, as most younger people might only know "Revenge", CaptainSparklez's Minecraft-themed parody, mainly thanks to Memetic Mutation).
  • In 2010, Kelly Rowland released three singles, each for different market - "Commander" for international (i.e. non-US) audiences, "Rose Colored Glasses" for American pop radio, and "Grown Woman" for the urban market.
  • Ne-Yo's 2010 album Libra Scale sent "Beautiful Monster" to pop stations and "Champagne Life" and "One in a Million" to the urban format. R.E.D. sent "Let Me Love You (Until You Learn to Love Yourself)" and "Forever Now" to pop radio and "Lazy Love" and "Don't Make 'Em Like You" to urban audiences.
  • CeCe Peniston might have been the prototype, with one foot in house music, and the other in R&B/New Jack Swing.
  • Similarly, reggaeton artists sometimes will record English (or partially English) versions of their songs in order to avert this trope.
  • The death of R&B singer Aaliyah completely gutted the Hip-Hop and R&B community with huge outpourings of mourning and tributes. When it came around to the mainstream media to react, most of the entertainment news outlets (that primarily cover white celebs) didn't even have her death as the top story, and they had to use Gladys Knight (Aaliyah's former aunt and close family friend) in order to make her more relevant to that audience.
  • Robin Thicke had been a household name to R&B audiences for many years but he is known to the general public almost exclusively for "Blurred Lines". Then he became Overshadowed by Controversy thanks to that very song.
  • John Legend is either a well-respected R&B singer-songwriter or the "All of Me" guy, depending on whether or not you listen to R&B radio.
  • To R&B fans, Bobby Brown is a legend in the New Jack Swing genre, and is recognizable both as a member of New Edition and for songs such as "Every Little Step" and "My Prerogative". To the general public, he was Whitney Houston's drug-addicted ex-husband.
  • TLC were one of the biggest girl groups (or girl trio, in this case) of the 90s. In modern times, most members of the general public would have a hard time naming a song by them other than "No Scrubs". Maybe "Waterfalls", but that's as far as it goes.
  • Justin Bieber circumvented this early in his career, having one foot in R&B/hip-hop and another in mainstream "teen idol" pop music. As he grew up, he abandoned the "teen idol" side to cater more to urban audiences.

    Specific Rock examples 

    Other Music Examples 
  • The Mexican-American singer Selena might also count. How many knew of her before she died? Right after she died, and her murder was being covered nonstop in the press, People magazine put out an issue with Selena on the front — but only in the Southwestern US. (The rest of America got a cover with the cast of Friends.) They were probably figuring the only people who were interested in reading about Selena (AKA Latinos) were all living in that area. Except that issue not only outsold the Friends one, but also went through several reprints. It ended up spawning only the third full commemorative issue in that magazine's history, and led to the creation of People en Español. The people at the magazine grossly underestimated not only mainstream interest in Selena, but also the significant consumer power of the Latino community.
  • Da Yoopers. Extremely popular in Michigan (particularly the Upper Peninsula, from which their name is derived) and Wisconsin, where countless stations will play "Second Week of Deer Camp" around hunting season in November, and "Rusty Chevrolet" around Christmas. Outside of maybe one or two stations here or there playing their songs and novelty song enthusiasts who may recognize them, they're almost total unknowns. It probably doesn't help that many of their songs are local in nature, and that they've always been on limited distribution on their own label.
  • Unless you were a member or were a band kid in school, you have probably never heard of the Blue Devils, Carolina Crown, the Bluecoats, the Cadets, Santa Clara Vanguard, Phantom Regiment, the Cavaliers, the Boston Crusaders, the Blue Knights, or the Madison Scouts. In case you're wondering - they're drum & bugle corps.
    • Even within the drum corps fanbase, there is a lack of familiarity with the all-age circuit (as opposed to the above junior corps, where the maximum age is 21), since it is primarily a Northeast regional phenomenon. However, a number of corps from outside the region (Minnesota Brass Inc., Atlanta CV, San Francisco Renegades) have made inroads into that circuit.
  • Amongst the general public, Nat King Cole is acknowledged as a great singer, for classics like “Unforgettable”. Amongst musicians, it's understood his real contribution to music was revolutionizing jazz piano playing. This is to the extent that his brilliant innovations provided a bridge towards a style of piano playing that fit bebop.
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic doesn't exist unless you're a geek, you lived during The '80s, or both.
  • Avant-Garde Music: Few artists get some general fame outside their niche. And even then it's usually more for being interviewed or being subject of a news report or documentary, rather than the music itself.
  • Not very many Americans will be able to name a Daft Punk song other than "Get Lucky," as it was their only hit there and most of their other international hits came more than a decade earlier. They'll probably be able to name "Robot Rock" or "Around the World" as well, but that's as far as it goes.
  • James Newton Howard is a respected name as a composer. Outside of that audience however, he is only known for being the actual lead artist of "The Hanging Tree" from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 soundtrack — assuming they know that it's not actually Jennifer Lawrence.
  • Electronic Music group Clean Bandit are superstars in the UK. In the US, they're known for "Rather Be", "Rockabye", and nothing else.
  • Disclosure is a weird case. They're massively popular in the UK, but to general audiences are known primarily for "Latch" and are seen as a footnote for what is essentially a Sam Smith song. However, they are also known for another song stateside, "Magnets", which was their one alternative radio crossover, but only because it featured Lorde. They're a odd example of a one-hit wonder with two different songs on two different formats stateside — neither of which is associated with them.
  • Avicii is absolutely massive in the EDM scene, but to general American audiences he's only recognized for two songs: "Levels" and "Wake Me Up!"
  • Major Lazer is a huge name in the world of EDM, enough to even get its own TV show. To the general public however, the only songs from them that most people can name are "Lean On" and "Cold Water" (not helped by the fact that the latter got as big as it did due to a feature from Justin Bieber).
  • Most mainstream audiences knew who Skrillex was and what he looked like before "Where Are U Now", but far fewer of them actually knew his music. Diplo even more so, as he was virtually unknown in the mainstream (despite being a behind-the-scenes producer of many hits) and people are generally far less aware he is a member of Major Lazer than for doing this song (as it as credited as "Skrillex & Diplo" rather than by their collaborative name "Jack U", and like "Cold Water" above, got as big as it did due to Bieber).
  • J-Pop, as stated above, is stuck in its home country. Doujin Music gets hit with this trope much harder in that even J-Pop fans don't know much about it. For instance, Chata is hailed as the queen of doujin music, but she is only known within doujin music enthusiasts.
  • Ylvis are one of the most popular comedy duos in their native Norway. Internationally, they're known almost solely for their 2013 viral hit "The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?)".
  • The Zac Brown Band has had many country radio hits, but rock audiences have generally been exposed only to "Heavy Is The Head", their hard-rock collaboration with Chris Cornell. While casual audiences are generally at least somewhat familiar with Brown's country hits, "Head" is almost completely unknown outside of the rock fanbase.
  • Banda and the closely related Norteño are everywhere in northwestern Mexico and areas of the United States with a high population of Mexican-Americans of northwestern descent, and fans will proudly blare the music out of their cars—even if you don't listen to it, you'll know about it. (Banda is a type of Mexican ensemble band, and Norteño is the polka-sounding music with accordions and trumpets, and often the grita, a characteristic high-pitched laugh often found in traditional Mexican music.) If you don't live in northwestern Mexico or those areas of the United States, you might not have even heard of these genres before.
  • Most people who aren't fans of Latin music will be hard-pressed to name any song by Luis Fonsi not named "Despacito".
  • On a website where haters of Teen Titans Go! listed reasons why they hated the show, a lot of people said that the episode title "Hey You, Don't Forget About Me In Your Memory" was one of the worst ones given to an episode of the show and made no sense. It actually does make sense, since the episode was a spoof of The Breakfast Club and the title is a reference to Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)", which is the movie's theme song and is virtually unknown to those who don't listen to 80's music or classic hits radio stations, fans of How It Should Have Ended note , fans of Victorious, Bob's Burgers, Regular Show, The Good Wife and The Goldbergs note  and people who watched the ads on certain kids' shows in the 90's. note  Then again, this is also a case of generational and cultural divide, as most members of the Teen Titans Go! hatedom were either born long after the film had faded from the public conscience or didn't know of the prior examples (or a combination of both).
  • Trance has this combined with Public Medium Ignorance in the USA. To the non-electronic American listener, it's generally written off as "that cheesy European club music that got big in The '90s". Even following the aftermath of the American Electronic Music craze (and the subsequent Newbie Boom it experienced) during the early half of The New '10s, trance is still relatively niche compared to its harder sounding brethren, even when taking its influence on the modern EDM sound into account.
  • Even newscast music has this, mostly among TV/news geeks. They can identify what music package or image campaign a station used, where it originated, and who composed it (such as industry legend Frank Gari), whereas most people would ignore this type of stuff entirely.
  • Nigerian guitarist Bombino said that when following an invitation he recorded a song with Keith Richards and Charlie Watts, he thought "who are those crazy geezers?", given The Rolling Stones and other white rock artists aren't as known in Africa as Black musicians like James Brown, Michael Jackson, and Jimi Hendrix.
  • Jazz singer/bassist Esperanza Spalding won the 2011 Grammy for "Best New Artist". Being barely known outside of the jazz community, there were many social media posts along the lines of "WTF WHO IS THIS CHICK AND WHY DID SHE TAKE JUSTIN'S GRAMMY?".
  • The Pogues. Extremely popular in the UK and Ireland, where they are regarded as legends of Folk Punk and where countless radio stations will play "Fairytale of New York" around Christmas. In the US, they're almost total unknowns outside of the alternative rock fandom.
  • Anything Norah Jones did after her breakthrough debut album Come Away with Me is fairly unknown outside adult-alternative audiences.
  • Arlo Guthrie is influential in folk circles, however most people in the mainstream would be hard-pressed to name any of his songs besides "Alice's Restaurant" or his Covered Up version of Steve Goodman's "City of New Orleans".
  • BMS music. To elaborate, BMS stands for "Be-Music Source", a file format for beatmania simulator songs. Since the conception of beatmania simulators, there have been regular contests for musicians to produce original tracks for these simulators, and it is where a lot of modern Rhythm Game musicians got their start. A big part of what makes BMS music unique is that because they are made for beatmania sims, they have to be keysounded, i.e. the song comes with a backing track and by hitting notes, you play the rest of the sounds, which helps players develop further understanding and insight about these tracks and how they are produced. Later BMS songs even get whole music videos that rival commercial music videos in production values. If you're playing a rhythm game made since The New '10s by an Asian developer, chances are a lot of its songs are by BMS musicians, or were originally made for BMS contests, due to the relatively cheap or zero costs of licensing themnote  (compared to mainstream big-act music in particular) combined with a lot of BMS musicians being rhythm game players themselves. The more successful BMS musicians, such as t+pazolite and Sakuzyo, have gone on to produce whole albums of tracks not made specifically for rhythm games. But outside of the rhythm game community, the significance and pop culture permeance of BMS musicians drops to nearly zero.
  • This trope can apply to Signature Songs as well. If an artist is popular in more than one demographic, it's highly likely that each group has their own opinion of what that artist's signature song is.
  • Older Than Television: R&B of the 1930s and 1940s was generally known only to black people due to segregation. This isolation was made clear by a name given to R&B back then — "race music". The same happened to Jazz, Blues, and Rock & Roll. Records that would play on R&B stations would never get played on pop stations and vice-versa, and this was also the case with country stations (though country was not as isolated as the "black" genres due to it being considered a "white" genre). This led to the practice of popular songs in each of those genres being covered in the other styles so they could get more airplay, with the most infamous cases involving R&B and Rock & Roll records being covered for the pop market by Pat Boone and other white artists in watered-down versions; this practice died down when Top 40 radio (which played the hits, regardless of genre, as long as they were selling well) came along in the late 1950s.
  • Western popular music itself has this, with respect to all other kinds of music. It used to be the case (up until the 1960s or so) that any non-fiction book about "music" was about Western classical music. Nowadays, "music" is generally taken to mean Western popular music, whether it's mainstream pop, rock, hip-hop, R&B, indie or dance music. If you ask someone whether they like music, and they say yes, the chances are that they mean they like Western popular music, and probably don't mean classical music (be it from the Western tradition, the Indian tradition or from somewhere else), any kind of traditional music, or jazz of any particular flavor. These latter musics in turn tend to have fans that are a little more eclectic, because the musics themselves are more of an acquired taste, but they too have plenty of fans that literally never listen to anything else.
  • Australia hosted an entire scene of rock and pop bands in The '60s that are virtually unknown not only outside the country, but outside the baby boomer generation. Groups like The Easybeats, The Twilights, The Masters Apprentices, Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, and solo acts like Normie Rowe, were rock royalty in Australia, but barely made a dent outside of the country; the two major exceptions being The Easybeats (featuring George Young, brother of Angus and Malcolm Young) and their 1967 international smash hit "Friday On My Mind" (the first Australian rock song to be such), and folk band The Seekers, who had several international hits like "I'll Never Find Another You" and "Georgy Girl". Bands like The Loved Ones made music that was critically acclaimed on a more artistic level, but again are virtually unknown outside the country. Russell Morris released "The Real Thing" in 1969; considered an Aussie psychedelic classic, it's only success outside the country was charting in a handful of local American cities and not on the Hot 100. In the case of the Easybeats, Twilights and Apprentices, they spent prolonged periods in the UK, but apart from getting to interact with more notable musicians and recording some material, did not break through commercially and were at times screwed by their own managers, and returned to Australia ultimately disillusioned. Most of these bands were covered extensively in the Go-Set magazine which can be read here. It wouldn't be until at least the latter part of The '70s and The '80s when Australian rock and pop music would start gaining lasting international recognition, with bands like AC/DC, INXS, Divinyls, Crowded House, Midnight Oil, Men At Work and solo acts like Kylie Minogue generating some of the decades' most iconic songs.
  • Most pop-culture music trends start out this way. Punk Rock (the American version, at least) started out in lower Manhattan sometime in the mid-1970s and slowly gained a following in other big cities across the country before finally breaking through to the mainstream. Similarly, Hip-Hop began in the Bronx and only gradually spread throughout the rest of New York and then to Los Angeles before going nationwide.
  • The British parallel concerns a cultural establishment - including big radio and TV names - who are based in London, consider the London scene is all and everything (and dismiss the rest of the country as "provincial"). Therefore they fail to notice what's going on outside London and only register it either when it moves South or it gets too big to ignore. Examples: "Northern Soul", a specific sort of soul beat popular in Wigan and the North-West, so popular that people from all over came north to join in, but largely ignored by the establishment. Or the way northern groups were ignored - the myth grew that Punk Rock was solely a London creation and bands from other parts of the country were simply imitating. (as the British provinces are of course populated by people incapable of creativity.)
    • A modern example is the rise of Garage, Grime and Dubstep music. Whilst not unheard of elsewhere, it surprises many how popular they are in inner-city London.
    • Lots of bands in Sheffield were early adopters of synths and other electronic influenced music in the late-1970s but they stayed underground until The Human League, Heaven 17 and ABC suddenly hit the mainstream in the early 1980s. In general the Sheffield synth-pop scene often gets overlooked in histories of UK music.
  • In the early half of The '90s, Grunge was very popular among young white youth. But young blacks and Latinos for the most part were oblivious to it. The Lollapalooza tour helped bridged the gap a little. The reason hip-hoppers were oblivious to the grunge movement was because Hip-Hop was going through what some would call a Golden Age renaissance. Nostalgia Filter aside, most fans believe 1994 alone crushes everything that came out in the past decade. Some argue that that era was a really, really good time period for Hip-Hop and its fans. So basically, many Black/Latino youth were preoccupied by their own cultural rise.
  • Some say this trope created rockism.
  • During the documentary Pump Up the Volume (a docu-series about the rise of House Music, Techno and the Detroit/Chicago/New York scenes), one of the interviewees was discussing the backlash against Disco around that time. There was a bonfire where people were standing in a line throwing in disco records, similar to Chicago's Disco Demolition Night. He began to notice that most of what they were burning wasn't disco, but just black music in general. He even saw one guy with a Marvin Gaye record in his hand. This is also a double example, as around this time, house music was only thriving in Chicago and the New York underground.
    • The same documentary noted that Chicago House music first really took hold in the UK in Northern discos (such as the Hacienda in Manchester), then via DJs playing on holiday destinations like Ibiza, and finally becoming mainstream by reaching London.
    • Many listeners dismissed disco as "too black" or "too gay" or both, making it the musical sub-genre equivalent of a Twofer Token Minority.
    • On a similar note, how many urban black people can tell you the difference between Aerosmith and Alice in Chains? Keep in mind, rock is almost non-existent on black radio, so the popularity of these bands probably flew over their heads (unless you include the general mainstream media which is biased toward rock anyway). Or how about the fact some blacks got into rock thanks to bands like Faith No More and Living Colour during the late 1980s, and Nu Metal during the late 1990s and early 2000s due to them incorporating Hip-Hop, Funk and rhythm, or soulful vocals in Corey Glover's case? There's also the fact that some suburban whites can't tell you the difference between Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and Run–D.M.C. To outsiders, rap music might as well all be the same. Similarly, many white people were introduced to Hip-Hop through bands like Beastie Boys, Rage Against the Machine, Limp Bizkit, and Linkin Park because they combined rock with rap.
      • There's always a segment of black people with a vested interest in rock music (most notably producing Derrick Green, Darius Rucker (who later transitioned to country) and the aformentioned Living Colour as a result), at least stemming from the fact that rock came from black singers such as Chuck Berry. But not as much as Hip-Hop and R&B.
  • A funny sub-example of this trope is that of singer Dionne Farris. Ask a white suburban person what song they know by her and they'll almost always say "I Know" (a Pop/Alt/rock song). Ask black urban music listeners and they'll say the song "Hopeless" (which is a downtempo soul song). The contrast is jarring, and funny.
  • Another example is modern FM radio, which is heavily divided up between genres, instead of the heyday of Top 40 radio on AM station in The '60s that could vary from rock to pop to R&B.
  • In general, if you're not a hardcore meticulous Hip-Hop connoisseur who actively seeks out artists on your own, you probably missed out on a lot of regional acts, as radio from each region had different and diverse playlists. So whoever was popular in the Northeast might not be as popular in the Southwest. For better or for worse, it's different now though, as most stations tend to follow a very strict playlist. And for the most part, they're more or less the same around the country, likely because most radio stations are corporate owned now instead of privately owned. Queen Latifah said if it wasn't for rappers like N.W.A, she wouldn't have known what life was like in south central LA.
  • Go to a few rock concerts and you'll see a sprinkle of a few African-American audience members, but not a lot. In the documentary Afro Punk, some of the black rock fans that were interviewed said that they didn't always feel accepted, or when they did get accepted, it felt like it was for the wrong reasons to them. This, along with rock's origins in black music, eventually led to the formation of the Black Rock Coalition.
  • When Eminem's third album The Eminem Show was released, two different singles were promoted at the same time on different genre stations. "White America" was mostly played on the rock stations, while "Cleaning Out My Closet" was played on hip-hop stations.
  • There's a lot of guitarists out there who are revered and recognized and put on a lot of top guitarists list. Guitarists like Steve Vai, Eddie Van Halen, etc. But you'll be hard pressed to see more "cult" guitarists like Vernon Reid, John Petrucci, Mick Mars, Tosin Abasi and Ernie Isley mentioned or listed, though. Some exceptions to the rule include Brian "Head" Welch and James "Munky" Shaffer, as well as the "politically correct" choices of Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Hazel.
  • This trope possibly explains the sub-culture division among black Generation X'ers when it comes to black music. In the beginning, when hip-hop was in its infancy in the early eighties, only a handful of people were caught up in the culture of Hip-Hop, while the majority of other listeners were still into the post-disco/R&B new wave funk scene. This explains the cultural schism of Gen X African Americans regarding the hip-hop culture, and why you have Generation X hip-hoppers and hip-hop artists, and Gen X'ers who are outside the culture, despite having been young adults around the genre's inception.
  • It can still be true today with R&B. Everybody knows Usher, Alicia Keys, Beyoncé, and Rihanna but very few people know India.Arie, Maxwell, Musiq Soulchild, Luke James, etc. outside the African-American community.
    • During the early half of The New '10s, this trope was also the reason why many black R&B/Pop artists released two singles at a time: one for pop radio and the other for the urban market. R&B suffered a serious downturn in popularity at the time before rebounding with post-R&B later in the decade, see the R&B folder for examples.
  • It is fiendishly difficult for Japanese Pop Music and Korean Pop Music (and for that matter, any artist/band from a non-English speaking country) artists/bands to cross over to American shores. Even Utada Hikaru (who is American) has had a difficult time despite switching up the production of her second U.S. album, and she's one of the most popular music artists in Japan and still has the worldwide record for most albums sold in a week. Both she and BoA tried for U.S. success, but couldn't expand beyond the people who already were fans. The only K-Pop artists most Americans are familiar with are BTS and Psy (the latter only for one song), and maybe Blackpink. Between both of the genres however, K-Pop has a slight edge over them as the genre went from being popular among just Asian-Americans to a huge overseas fandom within just a few years, while J-Pop at the moment is stuck in its own nation and niche fandom.
  • Instead of making a straight dance song, a lot of singles from the early-90s on come with dance mixes to get play in clubs and on dance radio shows, adding in bigger beats and a beginning drum track for transitions. Depending on the release, these tracks might be included as a bonus track on an album, on the single, or only on a special "DJ Mix" single. This means if you don't hear it in a club, you probably won't hear this version at all. This was even done in country music, where songs already suitable for line dancing had the beat jacked up and an extended bridge.
  • A main cause of Covered Up, where an artist in one genre covers a song from another.
  • Country Music is also affected by this. According to one survey, 38% of American adults are country music fans... but 25.4% of that group only listens to country music. While the stereotype of country music listeners being exclusively down-market blue collar types is no longer true, regional and demographic appeal does vary. Some urban markets have few to no country stations, with New York City not having one for years until 2013, when a commercial owner bought Family Radio's east coast flagship and converted it to the homogeneous "Nash FM", a format which only plays the same few "new country" songs. And with that, little to no knowledge of any country act who hasn't crossed over into pop (e.g. Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum). On top of that, country is also one of the whitest genres by far — Charley Pride, Darius Rucker (yes, the guy from Hootie & the Blowfish) and Mickey Guyton are about the only black country artists who have had any long term success.
    • On the religious side of this, Gospel Music, often called Southern Gospel to distinguish it from the very different-looking and sounding Black Gospel, has this in spades. At one time, it was the most popular form of Christian music outside of church hymns, but these days, it is distinctly a niche market and one that is hemorrhaging fans at an alarming rate as it primarily appeals to people who were young when the genre became popular. But ask a Southern Gospel fan and you'd get the impression that it's still the only "real" Christian music out there, and the current groups (most of which perform mostly in churches to crowds of less than a hundred) are super-stars that everyone knows about. The groups themselves usually have side-jobs because performing in this genre doesn't pay well, and often break up due to not being able to so much as break even. If you're a Southern Gospel fan, you likely believe the Inspirations, Ernie Haase & Signature Sound, Gold City, the Kingsmen† , the Nelons, Karen Peck & New River, Greater Vision or the Booth Brothers are incredibly popular. If you're not, you likely have never even heard these names before, even if you're a regular church attendee.
  • For that matter, Christian Music is virtually unheard of outside the niche that listens to it, which is usually very religious. Names like Steven Curtis Chapman, Chris Tomlin, Jeremy Camp, Hillsong, Third Day, TobyMac, MercyMe, Aaron Shust, Matthew West, Building 429, Casting Crowns, Newsboys, Tenth Avenue North, and Brandon Heath are household names to Christian music fans, but have had virtually no mainstream impact (not counting MercyMe being a One-Hit Wonder in the mainstream for their Signature Song "I Can Only Imagine"). Stryper and Skillet both averted this trope when they gained popularity with secular rock fans, and TobyMac's previous group DC Talk gained attention from alties when "Jesus Freak", thanks to it's obvious Grunge influence, crossed over from Christian radio to secular alternative rock radio.
  • There are a few country artists known for exactly one song in the mainstream despite being very popular to its core audience: examples include Lonestar's "Amazed", Brad Paisley's "Accidental Racist", Toby Keith's "Red Solo Cup", Maddie & Tae's "Girl in a Country Song", Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now", Florida Georgia Line's "Cruise", The Band Perry's "If I Die Young", Cam's "Burning House", Thomas Rhett's "Die a Happy Man", Lee Ann Womack's "I Hope You Dance", Jerrod Niemann's "Lover, Lover" or Hunter Hayes' "Wanted". Rascal Flatts have two mainstream hits, "What Hurts The Most" and "Life is a Highway". It also doesn't help that among these, neither "Accidental Racist" nor "Life Is a Highway" was a single (although the latter did get some airplay).
  • As far as the United Kingdom and America are concerned, pop music in languages other than English does not exist. The fact that many English speakers have a hard time with foreign languages doesn't help.
    • Very, very occasionally in the past, songs in French (The Singing Nun's "Dominique", Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin's "Je t'aime... moi non plus", Stromae's "Alors en danse"), German (Kraftwerk's "Autobahn", Nena's "99 Luftballons"), Italian (Drupi's "Vado Via"; Domenico Modugno's "Nel blu, dipinto di blu"/"Volare"), Japanese (Kyu Sakamoto's "Sukiyaki"), Spanish (The "Macarena", Los Lobos's cover of "La Bamba", El Chombo's "Chacorron"), Punjabi (Panjabi MC's "Mundian To Bach Ke"), Sanskrit (several songs by Kula Shaker) or ecclesiastical Latin (Steeleye Span's cover of "Gaudete") have hit the British charts. These average about one a decade, discounting things like the Beatles' "Michelle" (the French bits are a bit pidgin). Usually the only way to get a true international hit is to be completely instrumental (Darude's "Sandstorm") or only have limited English within a song (Eiffel 65's "Blue"). In the 2010s, PSY's "Gangnam Style" (and to a lesser extent, "Gentleman") and Luis Fonsi's "Despacito" were the only major foreign language hits in anglophone countries, and in 2020 it's just been a handful of songs by BTS. Prior to that, the last foreign-language hit was probably O-Zone's "Dragostea Din Tei" (a.k.a. the "Numa-Numa" song, sung in Romanian) in 2004.
  • Social media activity during Eurovision is split into two categories: Europeans (and, rather curiously, Australians) talking about it, and Americans asking "What the hell is Eurovision and why is everyone talking about it?"
  • Music fan communities. For example, in 2014, 90% of the time pop artists' fan followings came up in the news it was either Justin Bieber's Beliebers or One Direction's Directioners (usually only the latter). You almost never heard about Little Monsters, KatyCats, Smilers, Hooligans, etc. unless you were an avid fan of pop music or part of a fandom at that time. This was mostly because the former two fanbases were significantly larger than others. Male idol singers and boy bands (i.e., The Wanted, Big Time Rush, Austin Mahone) were disadvantaged in that the most popular acts typically had so tight a monopoly on the teenage girl demographic that it's almost impossible for any of their peers to break through. Older male acts and groups (i.e., Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake, Maroon 5) typically don't/didn't cater to a rabid teen audience and are instead fueled by their universal appeal. Female acts (i.e., Katy Perry, Rihanna, Taylor Swift) have a similar mass-appeal factor, but boys don't idolize musicians the same way girls do, the female demographic they do appeal to is nowhere near as enthusiastic for female music idols as for their male counterparts, and the remainder of their fans are gay males, which makes up less than 3% of the population.
  • Boy bands have been a huge worldwide phenomenon since the 1990s, but most such artists don't make it far outside their home country. While American boy bands have generally had the most success abroad, just two international groups were able to achieve superstardom over there — South Korean BTS and British (with a token Irish member) One Direction. The only other group who comes close is the Australian quartet 5 Seconds of Summer, but even then they blur the line between a boy band and pop-punk act, only broke through by piggybacking off One Direction's popularity by opening for them on tours, and aren't nearly as big as either the former two are. Unless you count the other K-Pop boy bands that were part of the Korean wave, none of whom come close to the popularity of BTS, every other foreign boy band to have had a hit in America ultimately ended up a one-hit wonder.
  • In the Southern United States, aside from major cities, it's possible to drive for hours without encountering anything but country stations on the radio.
    • Somewhat related, is the launch and sudden, inevitable failure of alternative rock stations in these areas. This is largely due to the tech-savviness of that demographic as they were early adapters to innovation such as Internet radio, while country and hip-hop demographics are less likely to have internet connections.
  • This is the case any time artists commit Genre Adultery. It's hard to sell a new genre to your fanbase who is only used to the genre you are known for doing.
  • It's virtually impossible for rappers from international markets to get any sort of following in the US. Only two British hip-hop artists have gotten hits there in the span of twenty years — Stereo MC's with their Top 20 song "Connected" in 1993, and Tinie Tempah with "Written in the Stars" in 2011. Both are one-hit wonders despite their popularity at home. The rest are completely unheard of, which includes the popular UK genre Grime. Mention that genre to Americans, and you'll like be met with puzzled looks. Only two international rappers have had continued success stateside — Drake and Iggy Azalea. However, they did so by imitating American hip-hop culture. The results couldn't have been any more different — the former's Canadian nationality has become a footnote while the latter's popularity hit rock-bottom less than a year after she first became famous, mainly for pretending to be American.
  • Outside of Oceania, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who can name a New Zealand artist that isn't Lorde (maybe Keith Urban, who was born in New Zealand, will get a mention, but he's more associated with Australia).
  • Electronic Music and its many different subgenres have been mainstream in Europe for a longer time than in America, to the point where pure EDM songs can become pop hits. In the US, it's popular enough to have a vocal fanbase and the biggest names can draw in huge crowds, but reception outside the fandom can be very polarizing. Additionally, names that are big in EDM won't ring a bell outside the audience. For example, most people have at least heard about David Guetta, Calvin Harris, Skrillex, Zedd, Daft Punk and Deadmau5 (even if they've never listened to their music or only know them by association with the pop stars they'd collaborated with), but mention names like Alesso, DJ Snake, Diplo, Clean Bandit, Steve Aoki, Disclosure, Armin Van Buuren (noted as having been crowned the #1 DJ in the world for a record number of five times), or Tiësto to people not into that music, and they're likely to be stumped.
  • Unless you count Gene Simmons, no Israeli musicians have ever made it big worldwide. While the country's Eurovision winners (Izhar Cohen, Gali Atari, Dana International and Netta) and a few other occasional acts (like Ofra Haza, Asaf Avidan, and Dennis Lloyd) and some French-Israeli names (like Yael Naim and Lilly Wood and the Prick) scored one global hit apiece, they never charted again outside of their homeland. Other names, like Rita Farouz, Sarit Hadad, Shlomo Artzi, Eyal Golan, Ethnix, and Teapacks, while huge in Israel and fairly well-known to the international Israeli, Jewish, and Hebrew-speaking communities, are almost completely unheard of anywhere else.
  • Unless you count Mike Shinoda, Fresh Kid Ice, apl.de.ap and MC Jin, no Asian-American rap/hip-hop artists have had long-term success. Other Asian-American hip-hop acts such as the Far East Movement have scored one urban/crossover hit apiece, but they never charted again afterwards. Some other Asian-American hip-hop artists like The Fung Brothers (who are mainly known as foodie YouTubers) have cult followings at best, but usually end up being No Hit Wonders.
  • You'd be hard-pressed to find an American country music fan who knows of the existence of Australian country music artists. Artists like Slim Dusty, John Williamson, Joy McKean, Chad Morgan, Smoky Dawson and Reg Lindsay are considered legends in the Australian country music scene but are next-to-completely-unknown among American country music audiences. An American country fan would be able to name Keith Urban (who was born in New Zealand but moved to Australia at a young age) or Sherrié Austin, who both began their careers down under, but that's it.
    • Similarly, the Country and Irish scene of Ireland is next-to-completely-unknown to American audiences. Performers like T.R. Dallas, Nathan Carter, Margo, Una Healy, Larry Cunningham and Daniel O'Donnell have seen success at home in Ireland (and occasionally in the UK) but ask an American country fan if they know who they are and expect to receive blank stares.
  • Paris By Night is a wildly popular overseas Vietnamese music variety show among Vietnamese people in places overseas such as North America, Europe or Australia and back home in Vietnam (despite it being banned there as a "reactionary cultural product" by the government). Live performances often sell out and Paris By Night DVDs are part of Vietnamese households worldwide. If you were to ask someone who is not Vietnamese "What is Paris By Night?", however, you would very likely hear something along the lines of "Paris during the night" as the vast majority of non-Vietnamese people would not have heard of it.
    • Likewise, artists and public figures who made their name on the show are usually only famous among overseas Vietnamese communities and/or back home in Vietnam
    • The same could be applied to other Vietnamese musical programs (such as Trung Tam Asia or Van Son) and any artists and public figures who made their name on those shows.
  • The record store Music Millennium is only known to the people of Portland, where it's only location is. Even though there are tourists, it's not as popular of a destination as you would think.

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