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Also, I believe the answer to the "success" question can be found in the acknowledged fact that they "put out 8 albums". Platinum or Gold records aside, NO RECORD COMPANY is going to put out 8 of your albums if they're not selling.
Not to derail completely, but those 8 albums were released by 3 different record companies, (A&M was 1-3, MCA 4-7 and Giant records #8) That actually supports my stance; the labels gave up on them after a few records because they weren't successful.
Look at some crappy band like Anvil.. They have like 15 albums, they suck, hardly sell any albums, but some label is releasing their music. After a few albums that label says ok we're done, and Anvil finds another label. repeat. # of albums released =/= indication of success.
It's all relative; you could say that Anvil is successful, hell they've got 15 albums over almost 40 years and are still going... that's successful right? But they probably still tour in vans, and no doubt they all have crappy day jobs because there is no income from Anvil. If that's considered 'success' in the music biz, I'd rather be in the office.
No way of knowing, but I bet these guys in Oingo Boingo still had day jobs. They never toured (just the random shows in So-Cal), and albums that sell 100k-300k don't generate hardly any money for a band, let alone a 7-9 piece band. Bands get pennies from albums sold, so even say 25 cents for 9 dudes from a gold album is ~$14k a year.
Day job while you're in a band =/= success.