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This discussion really underscores that FZ fans are very particular and discerning in their musical tastes, but also very different. I think critical listening to music gives insight, but of course, varying conclusions are drawn.

I did not follow Big Audio Dynamite, and actually got into the Clash much more years after they broke up. I did like Sandinista! when it came out though...

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If we're dumb . . .
Then God is dumb . . .
(An' maybe even a little bit ugly on the side)

I did not, I will have to check it out, thanxs!

Blues Traveler. They did some great songs but you would think that having an incredible talent like John Popper on harmonica, they would have been bigger than they were.

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Hey, pass me the dog food.

Captain Beefheart & his magic band
The Mothers of invention
Gentle Giants
Camel
Van der graf generator
Blood Sweat & Tears
13th elevator floor
Procol Harum
Fairport Convention
Gong
Soft Machine (MAYBE?)

I would have thought that one could argue that both these bands exceeded their potential, if anything. Unless you're talking about the careers of band members after they left the band.

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The more I learn, the less I know.

This could only be argued on the commercial success, the talent and skill would be exceeded...

I meant in terms of commercial success & critical acclaim.

It's very cool to get to learn some of these bands that everyone has posted, because I don't seem to know that many of them
I'm quite young, but I started my music listening career late. I've still come across at least one band that I believe didn't live up to their full potential:
Mother Love Bone - an old Seattle band from back when grunge was rising. Their lead singer died after the first album, but that album absolutely kicked ass (in my opinion). They weren't that grunge inspired, but had a straight on rock n' roll attitude, I think, and they did really good without sounding like the rest. The band eventually recruited a new singer and changed their name to Pearl Jam
Sticking on the grunge note, another band that could have done better, given some other more appropriate circumstances, is Alice in Chains, another Seattle band. The lead singer, Layne Staley, was a drug addict and basically screwed it all up after a few albums. He became a straight out junkie, and that broke up the band. They could also have done alot better, if he was on top form.

The Ruts.

(I too don't agree that Wire didn't live up to their potential. Their first three albums are excellent. I don't think you have to have released a long list of great albums to be deemed to have lived up to your potential.)

Blue Cheer.

All these people passed away to soon I'll agree with that. But pretty much all of them left their mark. And the Allman Brothers are still playin' Great Music!
And the late-great FZ left us sooo much Great Music!

UFO - when they lost Micheal Schenker in the late 70's, they tried to carry on. It did not work for me.

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ahhh...something to savor

I agree. I pretty much stopped listening to UFO after Schenker left. I was a big Schenker fan so I ended up following his career after UFO and there were certainly some highlights but he never had a better singer or writing foil than Phil Mogg. In fact some of the MSG vocals (especially Gary Barden on the live stuff) are outright painful. The best MSG album was Assault Attack with Graham Bonnet singing and Martin Birch producing. But Schenker was/is such a head case that nothing good could last forever.

Phil Mogg loved to fight. Just like Roger Daltrey. Phil punched MS one day, and he quit. I would have too. Saw UFO open for B.O.C. in '78. Then in '79 with the new guitarist. We walked out, but VanHalen and Aerosmith were on the bill.

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ahhh...something to savor

Pretty much. Waters made Floyd. Gilmour was a decent blues guitarist and Wright was okay, but Mason really wasn't a great drummer. He's got nothing on anyone who played with Frank. In fact, no one in Floyd could cut it with FZ, not even Roger. However, as far as bringing unique ideas and bringing them together conceptually, Roger was Pink Floyd. His solo albums prove that.

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"Who tortured you and made you listen to Yes?" - Roger Dean

I saw them at the Golden West Ballroom in my hometown in Norwalk in the mid 70's (76/77), as I said before we would work weddings on Saturday and as part of are pay a free pass for that nights show. The opening act was a new band called Van Halen, don't know if you ever heard of them...

Waters did not make Floyd - Barrett did. Waters then wrote a lot of songs about Barrett and made himself a career. The self-obsessed dreadfulness that is the "Final Cut" reveals what a Pink Floyd totally controlled by Waters sounds like.

At least Gilmour made sure that Syd got his royalties...

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The more I learn, the less I know.

Syd really did little to 'make' Floyd. He was only on one album, afterall.

By the way, "The Final Cut" is my favorite Floyd album...

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Come visit my Progressive Rock forum at: http://zombyprog.proboards.com/index.cgi? ... its good for your health, national and otherwise!

"Who tortured you and made you listen to Yes?" - Roger Dean

I vote for Waters...

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The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true Art and Science. - Albert Einstein

asia.

steve howe, john wetton, carl palmer, geoff downes.

saw them on the tour for their first album at the palladium in 1982. paid good money to a scalper for great seats.

disappointing album, and one of the most disappointing concerts i've ever attended.

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I can't tell when you're telling the truth.
>I'm not.
How do I know anything you've said to me is...
>You don't.

Oh yeah, totally. With a lineup like that, they should've been phenomenal. But no.

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Come visit my Progressive Rock forum at: http://zombyprog.proboards.com/index.cgi? ... its good for your health, national and otherwise!

"Who tortured you and made you listen to Yes?" - Roger Dean

Aha, that's really the criteria. It all depends on whether you see the "Final Cut" as a Pink Floyd album or a Roger Water's solo outing. For me, personally, Waters' lyrics are the least attractive part of Pink Floyd. I find them cliched and thematically and conceptionally very repetitious. Either he's moaning on about the death of his father ("The Wall", "The Final Cut") or he's writing songs about Syd ("Brain Damage", most of "Wish You Were Here", "The Wall"). Basically, the more control he gained over Pink Floyd in terms of writing credits the less I like them. Up until "Animals" both Gilmour and Wright were pretty prolific. "Saucerful of Secrets", "See-Saw", "Remember A Day","Up The Khyber", all of the second side of "More" "The Narrow Way", "Sysyphus", "Careful With That Axe, Eugene", "Atom Heart Mother", "Summer 68", "Fat Old Sun", "Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast", all of "Echoes" apart from "San Tropez", all of "Obscured By Clouds" apart from "Free Four", Breathe", "On the Run", "Time", "The Great Gig In The Sky", "Us And Them", "Any Colour You Like", "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", "Wish You Were Here" all have either sole or joint writing credits for either Wright or Gilmour with Waters). For me, after "Wish You Were Here" and Waters' complete takeover, it's downhill all the way. I even prefer the two "Waterless" albums to the "Final Cut" - but that's just my taste.

Waters does, however, make for an entertaining interviewee. Here's him on Barrett's influence:

"He was a visionary, he was an extraordinary musician, he started Pink Floyd...well, Syd and I started the band together but if he hadn't been there, nothing would have happened. I'd be working for an architect... I might be my own boss by now, I probably would, but I wouldn't be doing the work that I'm doing, I don't think. He was the key that unlocked the door to rock 'n' roll for me"
(1987)
(Quoted in: Lost in the Woods: Syd Barrett and the Pink Floyd by Julian Palacios, p. 282)

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The more I learn, the less I know.

TRAPEZE featuring the great Glenn Hughes

put out 3 albums 2 of which are amazing (Medusa and You Are the Music... We're Just The Band)

Around the time of that 3 record they were starting to get big in America especially in the south. They were HUGE in TEXAS but Hughes left to join Deep Purple and the band continued without him. They were never the same.

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Harvey Mandel
The Noisettes
Liz Phair

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Plastic people. Oh baby now. You're such a drag.

If you can start naming individual guitarists and/or artists I'll say Shuggie Otis. From what I've read Shuggie's drug use/abuse curtailed the bright future he may have had.