Oh yeah, and NRBQ. What a great band. They made a joke of their anonymity in “NRBQ at Yankee Stadium,” IMO their best album. The cover has the band sitting in the stands in the otherwise deserted stadium.
Brick and BT Express. Funk should have taken over the world.
Breaking with the list of really cool bands that didn’t quite make it, I’m kinda surprised that Robbie Williams isn’t the undisputed world heavyweight champion of pop music. He is a megastar in the UK, but when I lived in the US noone had heard of him.
He’s got the best producers, songwriters and promoters of pop music that money can buy, star quality out the bazoo, yet he doesn’t seem to be able to pull himself together and step up to Justin Timberlake/Britney Spears status.
Nah, that would ruin it. If he made it big he’d never come to my town again. 
A couple of British bands from the 70s that never quite caught on in the US, Camel and Nektar. And while a lot of former members of Genesis seem to have had pretty successful solo careers, unfortunately Steve Hackett was not one of them.
The Cult enjoyed moderate success in 1989 with their Sonic Temple album, but in my opinion there are few bands who do it as well as they did in many of their later works (The Cult - 1994 and Beyond Good & Evil - 2001).
Similarily, the guitarist from The Cult, Billy Duffy was briefly in a group with Mike Peters of The Alarm. The band was called “Coloursound”. I suggest you did it up if you like good (but not crazy heavy) rock.
And for the love of Og, why has The Tea Party not broken yet in America? They’re huge in Canada & Australia, but last I heard hadn’t made much more than a blip on the US radar.
Their earlier stuff is very earthy and rich in tone and harmonics. A little later on they melded a techno sound with hard driving rock and added a very middle eastern flavour. Incredible stuff, especially their live show. The lead singer / guitarist Jeff Martin makes a guitar makes sounds I never thought were possible from simple wood and nickel strings.
I always thought Giant should have been more successful. They had one minorish hit–“I’ll See You in My Dreams” (with an even more minor hit with “Stay” later on), but they were a late '80s/early '90s band come too late. Too bad. The vocalist was excellent.
OK, OK, I’ll concede that Little River Band was bigger than I gave them credit for. I STILL think they’re underrated, though.
As for Robbie Williams, I think perhaps he is not well-promoted here in the States because we already have too many wackazoid personalities hoggin’ the limelight. I mean, he can hardly compete with the King Of Pop, but from everything I’ve read about Williams, he is pretty far-out in the things he says and does. I think I heard most recently that he was actively promoting drug use, refused to sleep without the lights on and … I can’t remember, but something else weird. He has a great voice, though.
I agree with you on Cowboy Mouth. I have seen them in concert about 15 times all over the country, ever since I started at Tulane in 1991. However, they are primarily a concert/show band. Their concerts are incredible but that is hard to sell over the radio. Also, they have something like three lead singers with very different styles. Fred is the main one but the others are great to. Still, it makes it hard to pin them to a style. I think that is good but I can see why it is hard to market. The did have a minor hit with “Jenny Says” but they have a lot of other great songs that don’t fit well into the standard nationwide radio formats.
Can’t blame him for a lack of trying – he had that video where he ripped off his skin!
I realize this is going back a ways, but then so does Reeder. Perhaps he’s thinking of Eddie Cochran. 
…split enz.…definitely split enz.
Damm the Falklands War, timing, and leaky boats!!!
Uncle Tupelo.
Eclipsed by Nirvana, but every bit (and more) great!
Ahemmm -
as great. As great. It’s early.
Agreed. I saw them in concert once. Never before or since have I seen a band with such enthusiastic energy. It’s really hard to even put the experience into words. All I can really say is that if a band can get a miserable bastard like me smiling and bouncing around, they must be doing something right!
I love Split Enz (the early stuff, too!), though I would think they would qualify for “making it”…they had some hits, even in the States.
yeah, Cowboy Mouth will get you dancing. just stepped in to mention a great pop band called Too Much Joy.
Urge Overkill…I still have no idea how these guys didn’t make it as they put out one of the rockiest albums chockloaded with radio-friendly hits that I have ever heard (Saturation) AND they have a song on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. I would also say Aimee Mann for quite a while, although I think she’s developed a solid core audience post-Magnolia and Liz Phair who was driven to the desperation of her last album to become more famous and still isn’t all that well-known.
I will second Fountains of Wayne, Urge Overkill and Big Star.
I would say The Stooges should have been bigger. Sure, Iggy has gone on to greatness but they were really nothing at the time, comparatively. I suppose drugs were responsible for that. I also blame Tony Visconti for promoting Bowie and putting very little effort into the Stooges.
I also nominate Television (also significant in retrospect but under-appreciated at the time) and The Dictators.
I think Brainiac could have potentially been leaders of the current indie rock trend had their singer not died when he did.
And it might not be too late for them yet, but I think Spoon is ridiculously overdue for commercial success. They’ll have a new album in May on a somewhat bigger label though, so that might change this year.