FoxxyBrown1111 said:
Battle Beast ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LSHF73w_eo&index=1&list=PL-FHfRYVatWGSO9bfXG8zuviax2TTzsys
Just another great group that gets no attention outside of music fans. Better than any rap or pop "musician", yet they earn 1/1.000 of them. A sad world, people falling for $hit every single time again (like cry baby C. Aguilera, or whatever she´s spelled)...
The problem with power metal and similar is that it's cheesy as all hell and, no matter how much technical skill it includes, the imagery and iconography of the style makes it difficult to take seriously and always kills mainstream crossover possibilities. These guys at least seem to have some catchy stuff, which a lot of metal bands seem not to do these days, which often just leaves a lot of technically gifted fret****ery that serves no purpose.
But I would argue that your definitions of pop could be refined to explain your point. Brian Wilson is a pop musician, but he is better known than Battle Beast with very good reason. I suspect he's not the kind of guy you're attacking here though
There are also some really great hip-hop albums, it's just that, much like with metal in recent years, a lot of them have been buried under an avalanche of bad approximations of the same thing. I don't tend to go out of my way to check out a new hip-hop act because of having to wade through so much rubbish to get to the good ones. But when I do chance upon an album like the first J5 one or Liquid Swords it just makes it all the more enjoyable.
I am listening to
Tim Maia - Azul do Cor do Mar. Simple, elegant, and beautifully written.