10 Bands Who Justifiably Should Have Been Huge

The music industry is a funny old business, littered with so many artists that you thought were nailed on to be huge but for some reason to fall by the wayside. There are a variety of reasons for this; internal tensions, over-indulgence on the naughty stuff, ego and sometimes plain old record company politics, where a new A&R man decides that act 'X' on the roster doesn't fit the bill, so their masterwork becomes bottom of the priority list. You know the story, a band generates a huge buzz, they're the best thing since sliced bread and are set for global domination, but it either goes horribly wrong or just doesn't happen. They don't get the predicted Grammys or Platinum albums and then seemingly disappear off the face of the earth or just remain at cult level, adored by their hardcore followers but never getting past that initial fan base. The point of this piece is to celebrate some of those bands that didn't quite scale the grand heights, and to remind you of their charms. This isn't a clutch of obscure bands; some of them have headlined festivals, had hit singles and sold plenty of albums. However where other bands cracked it and rose to stratospheric fame and success, these bands never reached the truly giddy heights that they should have, they should all have been selling out stadiums. In a nutshell the stories have one of three narratives, either the band couldn't handle the expectation, they didn't look or act like huge stars or they didn't have that breakthrough hit song that would have propelled them from the clubs to the arenas. There are some tragic tales here, but there also some who are happy to be away from the trappings of fatal fame and the hideous tricks it can play on the mind. The last point to make before we dive in is that all of these bands are incredibly wonderful and fully merit at the very least your attention, as who knows you may find a brand new love here that you couldn't imagine having in your life.