Bands with potential that they never fulfilled

[AlexS]

I think [Van Halen] were in fact bigger in the US than in Europe.

My Spanish cousin, who lived with us in the U.S. for a year and went to high school with me in the late 80s, has told me that Van Halen -- who he learned about during his time in the U.S. -- are not well known in Spain at all.

 

[Perun]

My Spanish cousin, who lived with us in the U.S. for a year and went to high school with me in the late 80s, has told me that Van Halen -- who he learned about during his time in the U.S. -- are not well known in Spain at all.

It's true. They're not exactly obscure in Germany, but nobody there would think of them as the superstars they are in the US. Hardly anyone could associate more than one or two songs with them.

 

[CriedWhenBrucieLeft]

Is this not the story of a whole pile of US bands from that era?

 

[Perun]

It is, but I'd say that Van Halen are a bit of an extreme example of this.

 

[CriedWhenBrucieLeft]

Maybe, but I don't think anyone would describe VH as huge in the UK either. At any point.

 

[Perun]

It works both ways, though. It always amuses me that nobody in the US has ever heard of Robbie Williams.

 

[CriedWhenBrucieLeft]

Indeed, but if if you take a band like Bon Jovi, they sell out stadiums in the UK too. So they're genuinely huge (or were) both sides of the Atlantic. Not that this really has anything to do with the thread topic.

 

[Perun]

Of course there are counter-examples. Bon Jovi is huge everywhere. Many other bands are, too. And there are American bands that are huge in Europe but not in the US, like Alter Bridge.

 

[CriedWhenBrucieLeft]

Of course there are counter-examples. Bon Jovi is huge everywhere. Many other bands are, too. And there are American bands that are huge in Europe but not in the US, like Alter Bridge.

Yeh, but my point is if you want to name someone who is big everywhere, talk about, for example, Bon Jovi. Don't talk about VH or Dio.

 

[Black Abyss Babe]

A band that never fulfilled their potential? White Spirit. A world-shatteringly brilliant debut album and then they just disappeared.

On the one hand, fate is inexorable. On the other, I can't listen to that one amazing tour de force without a certain wistful sense of what might have been ...