Could've Been A Contender.......bands that could've been / should have been

I'm trying to get hold of some stuff by this lot, sadly overlooked indie-pop from 1990



Then there's (The) Cardiacs. Epic pop and a great video from 1988.



I may have mentioned The Plague Monkeys before, but here's the video from their most amazing track... this lot should have been huge. Very Cocteau's.

Anyone remember Skin Games? I have an album and a few singles of theirs. The singer was a kind of Kate Bush sound-alike and they wrote some catchy and unusual songs. I went to see them live at some club in North London and there were a total of about six people there. Half the band came and sat at our table afterwards for a chat!

I’m going to nominate this band for the list.

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Originally Posted by Beechwoods

Big Star seemed to flash brightly in the late 80's when everyone fell in love with Teenage Fanclub and realised that Bandwagonesque sounded just like Big Star. Alex Chilton came out of retirement and they toured for a while. I've never checked them out personally, mind...

Here's a few thoughts...

Dinosaur Jr should have been bigger than Nirvana.
Pale Saints should have been bigger than My Bloody Valentine.
Mick Softley should have been bigger than Donovan.
Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come should have been bigger than The Crazy World...
The Shamen with without Mr C should have been bigger than The Shamen with Mr C :lol:

Not sure if this was what you had in mind, but it's an interesting theme to explore!

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Chilton passed this year, so that's likely the last from them. They did an album in the 80's "Live in Columbia" (Missouri) that was pretty cool. Their first 2 were the best output from them, IMO. Very unique and super-catchy. I sure wish more groups sounded like them.

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Originally Posted by Beechwoods

Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come should have been bigger than The Crazy World...

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Part of the attraction for me is being more underground. 'Galactic Zoo Dossier' & 'Kingdom Come' are superb albums.

Elliott Smith

A sadly relatively unknown singer/songwriter. Why do so many of the breed lead such tragic lives? Depression/alcohol/drugs & then finally died from stab wounds.

He left some great music behind though.....



Five fully formed albums and one almost finished when he died, then released posthumously, another double made up from unreleased recordings and a best of 'Introduction to....'

Give him a go if you haven't already

Hi Chris - welcome back.

Elliot Smith is new to me: sad and thoughtful. He reminds me in some ways of 'Brighteyes'. I was surprised to see so much of his stuff lodged on YouTube. Not sure if I'll invesigate him further, but logging on to YouTube did provide a pleasant diversion: there were several Nico tracks listed, so I listened to some of those as well. ;)

Regards

Hi Barry it's nice to be back here!
Bejeezus there's some stuff to plough through since I've been gone though!

I love the Elliott Smith albums - his guitar playing reminds me a little of early Paul Simon and 'The Marble Index' by Nico was one of his favourite albums - he's said to have played it exclusively for months!

Silver Sun.

Like the Beach Boys meeting the Ramones. And miles better than Weezer.

Pete

hmm .........yes, nice one Pete, I think I'll be playing some Silver Sun later today, thanks for the reminder.