Could've Been Hits?

[hawk11]

What songs do you feel were top qualilty, radio friendly and had the potential to be hits yet seem to be unknown or don't get enough recognition.

Here's some of mine :

Thirty Days In The Hole - Humble Pie
Shine On - Humble Pie
Anyone For Tennis - Cream
Rock And Roll Queen - Mott The Hoople
All The Way From Memphis - Mott The Hoople
How Many Horses - Dust
The Bangin Man - Slade
Let's Call It Quits - Slade
Ride in the Sky - Lucifer's Friend
Theme For An Imaginary Western - Mountain
Nantucket Sleighride - Mountain
Hangin' Around - The Edgar Winter Group
River's Risin' - The Edgar Winter Group
20th Century Boy - T.Rex
Dear Jill - Blodwyn Pig
Teenage Rampage - Sweet
Wig-Wam Bam - Sweet
Highway Song -Blackfoot
Blister on the Moon -Taste
Evil Woman - Spooky Tooth

 

[Cosmic Harmony]

All The Way From Memphis - Mott The Hoople
20th Century Boy - T.Rex

Both of these were in fact top 10 hits.

 

[aeroplane]

I find this hard to answer. For me, you really have to immediately rule out anything that the artist played live or still plays live on a regular basis, even if it wasn't necessarily a "hit" single. Going all over the country (or the world) with lesser known material in a setlist is going to help get it some recognition in a hurry.

Also when I was still on the air, I used to play stuff on my programs that I swore up and down never got played on the radio. Songs that were pretty obscure. Then I'd be listening to various "competing" radio stations a couple days later and hear the exact same song.

Either I understated the popularity of those particular songs or perhaps the "big" stations had spies listening to my shows regularly hoping to pick up a few playlist ideas

Personally, the tunes I think fit the bill here are ones that a well-established band recorded with a short-lived lineup (one or more "new" members) for albums that just happened to contain good material. The stuff that some bands refused to acknowledge after getting some of the "originals" back into the band.

Since I hate to spoil perfectly good threads, here are a handful of tunes I really liked that never went anywhere.

Meatloaf: Amnesty is Granted
Dokken: Drown
Motley Crue: Flush
Guns N' Roses: So Fine
Steppenwolf: The Wall
Foreigner: Ready for the Rain
AC/DC: Two's Up
Aerosmith: Darkness
Alice Cooper: Cold Machines
Poison: The Scream
Deep Purple: Soon Forgotten
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Money Man (admittedly a guilty pleasure tune)
Judas Priest: One Shot At Glory

 

[runningshoes]

Pinky - Elton John

Probably would have been had it been released as a single.

A real treasure