Well,"Like a virgin" was all over MTV,which is surely wasn't the case with "I will follow"..or even "New years Day".And she was playing arenas with her second album "True Blue".
As for Culture club,of course i'm not comparing U2 to Boy George in terms of music quality,but like it or not ,he..(or she, take your pick) was more popular than U2 were with Boy.Now was it tougher to be big in rock format rather than pop?,maybe.
The fact of the matter though, is that U2 with their first 3 albums had their niche in college radio,while Coldplay was already on commercial top 40 radio with "Parachute".Particulary with the song "Yellow"
Dude, you sound like a Young'un so we'll forgive your selective inaccuracies. Still, let's establish a few facts:
First, "New Year's Day" was a UK top 10 hit in 1982/83. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" was also a top 10 US hit on the Rock chart (no, not the mainstream chart). I'm not arguing with your point that Coldplay has a crossover international hit with "Yellow" on the first album, I'm just establishing the facts!
"Like A Virgin" is not from Madonna's first album -- it's from her second. Her first album already had top 10 hits in the USA.
True Blue was her third album.
VintagePunk's point that Michael Jackson took off after
Thriller is incredibly wrong. The album before that,
Off The Wall, was an absolutely massive blockbuster (although even that technically wasn't his first album). In any case, has anyone heard of the Jackson Five and The Jacksons?
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make about Boy George and U2...? I mean, you can't really compare pure teenage pop to U2. What you can say is that a group that can conquer all markets/demographics with a single can more easily sell albums. This is not necessarily a good thing, however. I think the U2 camp understood this and, though frustrated back in '80 to '86 that they hadn't had a #1 hit like several of their (crappier) peers, they also knew that going by it honestly would probably pay off in the long run. Indeed, they've lasted a bit longer than Culture Club did!
The
real issue, as I see it, is: Would
Boy have been re-titled
Boy George had George O'Dowd replaced Bono as singer? Further, would the line in 'God Pt. II' have read: "Instant Karma Chameleon's gonna get him if I don't get him first?"
Perhaps I need to start a new thread for these issues I have opened up...