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by Zachary Vora

Editor's Note: The following is excerpted from "Denver Music and Other Anomalies," which appeared in FM02 | FEB-MAR 2008.

The Fray came out of nowhere in 2006 to sign with Epic Records, sell two million copies of their debut record How to Save a Life, and top singles charts in six countries. And while other Denver artists have recently inked deals with major-label monoliths, they’ve fallen far short of The Fray’s commercial accomplishments.

Emo-core band Drop Dead, Gorgeous made headlines in the fall of 2006 by signing to Interscope Records on the strength of their MySpace friend count. At the time, Drop Dead had gathered over 100,000 digital followers. But as Interscope soon found out, being "Dressed for Friend Requests" (an actual Drop Dead song) doesn’t always equate to record sales: Drop Dead's major label debut Worse Than a Fairy Tale came out of the gate hobbling, selling less than 5,000 copies and garnering lukewarm reviews. AbsolutePunk wrote "the lyrics are cheesy, the vocals can get on [one’s] nerves, and some of the songs start to blend. We’ll put it this way: it’s not going to change the world." And at a recent Cervantes’ concert, Drop Dead sold less than three hundred tickets total—a miniscule number for any major-label artist.

A similar fate has befallen The Photo Atlas, one of Denver’s critical darlings, who in 2007 signed to Stolen Transmission, an imprint of Island/Def Jam Records. Denver music journalists gushed over The Photo Atlas' Stolen Transmission deal; not even a year later, Stolen Transmission had been dropped from Island/Def Jam.

In a striking parallel to the The Photo Atlas' story, Denver band Vaux was picked up by Lava Records for their 2005 "career-defining masterpiece" Beyond Virtue, Beyond Vice. Before Beyond Virtue was released, however, Lava was swallowed by Atlantic Records, who put Beyond Virtue on hold. After two years of label limbo, Vaux was dropped by Atlantic and broke up.

With so many next big things playing around town, Denver journalists have begun predicting a greater major label A&R presence at local shows. For those labels who are unfamiliar with the city’s hidden musical gems, the Denver Post publishes an annual Best Underground Bands list—a who’s who of Denver’s musical elite, as compiled by local music experts.

According to this list, the top five Denver bands of 2007, in order, were: Born in the Flood, Hot IQs, Nathan & Stephen, Ian Cooke, Everything Absent or Distorted (A Love Story), Bright Channel, Cat-A-Tac, Laylights, Porlolo, and The Swayback.

In this article, Post writer Ricardo Baca wrote, "Born in the Flood being voted the number one band out of 313 is the whipped cream on top, and a deal with a major label could very well be the cherry." Additionally, Hi-Dive booker Ben Desoto is quoted as saying, "I expect Born in the Flood to have a major-label deal soon." And of Born in the Flood's album If This Thing Should Spill, Westword music editor Dave Herrera wrote, "Spill is simply brilliant."

Brilliant or not, If This Thing Should Spill’s positive Denver-only press has done little to impress major labels. Though they’ve been called "extraordinary," "exciting," "talented," and, yes, "brilliant" by local outlets, the Post’s aforementioned top five musical artists in Denver have reaped little to no media exposure outside their home town (the notable exception being the Hot IQs, who were once Spin.com’s band of the day and have been reviewed in a few minor blogs). Furthermore, not one of the Post’s top three artists of 2004, 2005, or 2006 have experienced even mild national success, much less serious consideration from a major label.

And while the bands that have been signed to a major label have been lionized at home, they’ve been vilified abroad. Take, for example, the aforementioned Photo Atlas. According to Stolen Transmission’s website: "Ask anyone from Denver about The Photo Atlas and they’ll heap on the praise: Westword proudly predicts that 'No, Not Me, Never is by far one of the year’s finest discs... the effect is seismic on the dance floor’ (while) the Post’s John Moore also proclaims, ‘Ask anyone Denver's most likely breakout band for 2006 and you'll be told the irresistible young waif punks The Photo Atlas.’’

For critics outside of Denver, however, No, Not Me, Never was "a lot like watching someone repeatedly slam into a wall at full speed," an album where "every song (sounded) like the one before it," that found "The Photo Atlas spreading themselves too thin across the musical spectrum."

Herrera—a man who is by his own account "a notoriously picky bastard" who’s "not willing to give music a free pass just because it comes from here" and who ignores the "woefully mediocre"—is perhaps best known for his championing of The Fray, a band called "moribund," "emotionally strained" and "really bad" in other publications.