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Bands that could have been successful, but weren't |
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FatherChristmas 
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 Topic: Bands that could have been successful, but weren'tPosted: July 19 2020 at 05:48 |
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Is there a band you think had massive potential, but were never really popular?
For me, it's Caravan. I don't think I'm alone here... some of their stuff sounds really popular... but wasn't. Apologies if this topic is already covered. What say you?
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"Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence" - Robert Fripp
"I am an anti-Christ" - Johnny Rotten |
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Mortte
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Posted: July 19 2020 at 06:09 |
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Absolutely Procol Harum. Song like "a Salty Dog" really should have been a massive hit, but it was #44 in UK single chart and didnīt chart at all in US. Also their Shine On Brightly & Grand Hotel albums are masterpieces with commercial potential but no big selling, well Grand Hotel was #21 in Billboard. All the way band was much more than "one hit wonder".
Family was also other very great sixties/seventies band, it was popular in UK, but never made it in US. It also had lots of potential, but of course there were people that couldnīt stand Chapmanīs voice.
Edited by Mortte - July 19 2020 at 06:10 |
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ExittheLemming
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Posted: July 19 2020 at 06:37 |
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Assuming the OP means 'much more commercially successful' I'd throw these into the hat but as I don't have any sales figures to back this up I'm guessing: Happy the Man Argent Greenslade Gentle Giant Atomic Rooster Chou Pahrot (brilliant band from Glasgow http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=8062) Refugee Beggars Opera Ange |
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dwill123
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Posted: July 22 2020 at 04:29 |
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Not prog but Seatrain (from 1970) should have been much bigger than they were. Their second album "Seatrain" was the first album produced by George Martin after his run with the Beatles.
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chopper
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Posted: July 22 2020 at 05:00 |
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Depends how you define popular/successful. I would say Caravan have been a pretty successful in their field but most of their music was never going to be mass-market stuff. Maybe some of their shorter songs (Golf Girl etc) might have got in the singles chart back in the day.
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moshkito
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Posted: July 22 2020 at 07:24 |
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Hi,
My thoughts are that after the huge signings that 2 bands got, that the chance of a lot of these bands to get bigger and get some more support, died down quite a bit. I'm not surprised, despite one person here arguing that one band making it big would support 100 smaller bands, and that is the craziest and silliest thing I have ever heard ... no businessman would go spending that profit so easily on propositions that were not quite showing as much as the big bands did ... AND SPECIALLY WHEN THEY HAD TO INVEST SO MUCH AT THE START (RS WAS OVER 100m AT THE TIME!)... and to my ears this is when a lot of smaller bands, that had good names, ended up not being able to get a bit further in the area of support and appreciation of the public ... not to mention the horrible pairings in various concerts ... and Dave Cousins tells us a couple of stories about one Canadian band that tried to make sure Strawbs would have problems ... which is not cool ... but that Canadian band was pulling in some money, and Strawbs wasn't, and because of the MC's and other issues, Dc says they took some abuse. The problem is one of mixing fan bases and hurting one band, regardless ... it might be better appreciated today, than it was then, but still was a problem ... and you ought to look at some of the pairings for King Crimson in the early days ... even more scary ... it's like some folks were trying hard to kill that band! They failed! The band is better know that most these days! ANGE, I am not sure, ever got a chance to play America ... and I think they might have done well, but because they had no support from anyone, their chances of getting here were probably real small. Sadly, they were/are one band that deserved better, were it not for the various videos around that make them sound really bad ... even if the staging stuff was interesting. I think they did really well on a ProgFest here in America, much later, if I remember it right.
Edited by moshkito - July 22 2020 at 07:31 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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FatherChristmas
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Posted: July 22 2020 at 08:14 |
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I'm mainly defining success by commercial success, but also fame - for instance, King Crimson was not very commercially successful but is very famous. What I meant with Caravan is that some of their songs, eg. Golf Girl, Love to Love You and Aristocracy sound like they could have been very popular, as one example, with the folk and psychedelic scenes in the 60s... perhaps they weren't very commercially successful because they were released at the wrong time.
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"Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence" - Robert Fripp
"I am an anti-Christ" - Johnny Rotten |
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Icarium
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Posted: July 22 2020 at 08:21 |
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the Kinks dou to their ban from US did not get that wide audience and US market they yerned yet Ray Davis probably would not have made the most beutifull albums about englishness and london if they had achieved what they sought after in the mid 60s. They are now famous more so for their longevity and good quality of albums and baclcatalogue and their importance is becouse they did things before any other bands did things
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FatherChristmas
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Posted: July 22 2020 at 08:30 |
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Aren't the Kinks one of the biggest bands of the 60s?? Maybe that's just for Britain.
Edited by FatherChristmas - July 22 2020 at 08:31 |
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"Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence" - Robert Fripp
"I am an anti-Christ" - Johnny Rotten |
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AlanB
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Posted: July 22 2020 at 08:39 |
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I saw After The Fire several times back in the late 70s/early 80s. As a prog band they were a bit late in the day and maybe not original enough, but their metamorphosis to a New Wave band should have brought them more success than it did. They had a good live following and some promotion on Radio 1 which got their first single to number 40 in the charts before it dropped out again. Later singles (many better than the first one IMO) all flopped and they eventually got disillusioned and called it a day. Ironically, their last single, a cover version of a Falco song, made it to number 1 in several countries (though it flopped in the UK) after they'd split.
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dr wu23
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Posted: July 22 2020 at 09:58 |
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Bands I think were accessible and had some nice melodies were Cressida, Spring, and Fantasy...all 3 tanked after a couple of lp's.......not prog but 3 pop rock bands that were very good were Big Star, Game Theory, and Jellyfish...all 3 wrote very clever songs filled with hooks and great melodies.
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Catcher10
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Posted: July 22 2020 at 21:17 |
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I would say the following:
Anekdoten Echolyn Kaipa Circus Maximus Tiles Pallas
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moshkito
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Posted: July 22 2020 at 21:58 |
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Hi, The sad thing about these is that they were coming up during the time when all of a sudden we discovered our 5 GODS in this universe! And of course, the new impostors could not possibly have a chance! Sad, really ... Anekdotten and the other band (can never remember their name when I need it!) from the same area, were both excellent, and all many folks could say was that they were KC copies, which just about tells you how much listening was really done! Echolyn ... deserved better ... and sadly it didn't happen ... I can not explain it. And then "progressive" metal comes up really big and these bands took a dive! Very sad!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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AFlowerKingCrimson
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Posted: July 22 2020 at 22:10 |
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Genesis during the Peter Gabriel era(and just before Steve left). They should have been just as big as Yes or ELP but in the US at least they weren't.
Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - July 22 2020 at 22:13 |
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AFlowerKingCrimson
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Posted: July 22 2020 at 22:11 |
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You are probably thinking of Anglagard.
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richardh
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Posted: July 23 2020 at 00:37 |
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always felt that Be Bop Deluxe should have been as big as Led Zep. They were a bit of an enigma though and hard to pigeon hole which is why it didn't really happen. Punk bands liked them but they were still considered the old guard when the great cull of 1977 happened and all prog (and related bands) became instantly 'uncool'.
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Blacksword
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Posted: July 23 2020 at 04:28 |
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A Alan says it does depend how you define 'successful' but if we're talking bands that deserved to be HUGE commercially, then three spring to mind.
Renaissance, The Enid and It Bites. Renaissance and the Enid made near perfect music for a respective run of albums, and both had the components of would could have been a very successful formula. Renaissance had the beautiful voice of Annie Haslam, and the striking piano work of John out. The Enid fused rock with classical in the same way as ELP (but obviously different!), with the occasional ambiance of Floyd. It Bites had the look, the sound, the musical chops, the melodies, but they were simply too prog for pop, and too pop for prog. They tried to prog people without them knowing, but the music press kept pointing out their prog credentials and steering people away. The only magazine that seemed behind them was, bizarrely the heavy metal mag Kerrang! |
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Frenetic Zetetic
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Posted: July 23 2020 at 04:45 |
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YUP.
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"I am so prog, I listen to concept albums on shuffle." -KMac2021 |
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moshkito
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Posted: July 23 2020 at 08:31 |
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Hi, By that time, the US market in the FM radio was already starting to wind down, and it became about songs, not the longer pieces of music ... and the only great example I had, was TLLDOB, when it came out ... on that evening, Guy Guden went on the air and played both albums back to back, and got such an incredible audience attention and reaction that he did it again a bit later! The rest of the station? They couldn't figure out which song to play because there wasn't a "hit" defined for them! Laugh you doggies!
Edited by moshkito - July 23 2020 at 08:31 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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kenethlevine
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Posted: July 23 2020 at 08:52 |
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Strawbs tasted big success in UK with "Bursting at the Seams" but then imploded and had to settle for cult success in North America (especially Canada) for the two follow up albums "Hero and Heroine" and "Ghosts". I could see why the bleak "Hero.." never quite gained a mass audience but "Ghosts" included a lot of that complexity along with some very accessible quirky pop tunes that deserved more recognition. Maybe their potential appeal across the board resulted in limited appeal with any one audience, but they definitely deserved better
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chopper wrote: