you can still shitty ass one hit wonder bands going back to the mid 90s if not earlier. fucking color me badd is probably playing a world tour right now, slaying leggy czech girls and smoking thai weed (and likely losing money for someone and themselves).

if you have done anything remotely successful, you can play your crap for an audience somewhere it seems like (thank you, indian casinos!).

any which way, i do understand the spirit of your question and would posit an artist that i like but, um, cmon. tom petty. he has a strange appeal to me, i find his music very pleasant but not in a totally bland way. i've even seen him perform a couple times. but let's face it, he basically has one song in his entire catalog and everything about his music is sort of simple and muted. maybe i am selling him short and maybe it's a less is more kind of deal but this guy has lasted forever, had a ton of hits, crossed over into other things and made A TON of money.