Best band never to release a truly great album?

Rosstaman, all on your list (w/the exception of BBA, whom I don't care about anyway - sorry!) released quite great ablums, IMHO ("great" not meaning flawless, which doesn't apply in artistic endeavors). Just what don't you like about "Seconds of Pleasure" or "I Just Can't Stop It" or even the "Blind Faith" LP, if you do indeed think that these are great groups?

I think that most bands deserving to be called great during the age of album rock had to make at least one or two great ablums, almost by definition. But I'll list some bands that I think, for various reasons, seemed stymied from making the album(s) they *really* could have made (although the shortcomings of their recorded work are probably a part of what endears them to their fans):

The Velvet Underground
The New York Dolls
The Flamin' Groovies
The Chameleons
Motorhead
The Pretty Things
Moby Grape

I hesitate to list actual punk groups like The Damned and The Dead Boys, although the criteria might apply, because the punk aesthetic was really antithetical to the crafting of great albums, and money was also lacking practically by design. And if you get into all the groups who lacked money because of how far underground they were (no major labels), you could list deserving bands all day long.

Then there are also the interesting cases of artists who only got one chance to make a big album in their prime, and basically delivered the goods, but bad timing or lack of a hit single doomed them to go nowhere - The Remains and Gene Clark come to mind.

And how about the groups that did achieve renown, got to record a few big records that generally fell short of the mark (and would have qualified them for this thread), lost their audience, but then went out with a genuine masterpiece of a swan song that didn't get noticed at all - like The MC5 ("High Time"), or The Zombies ("Odessey and Oracle").

Bomarc, I thought of The Yardbirds, but they actually did release what I consider to be a great album in Britain, "The Yardbirds" (aka "Roger the Engineer"), but like a lot of British invasion acts, their original releases got chopped up and re-glued to make different LP's for the US market.

As far as the MG and VU thing goes, if you and Fish reread my post, you'll see that I stipulate that all the great groups released great albums, and I consider these to be among them. What I listed instead, was bands who I didn't think actually got to make the record they *could've* made under different circumstances. In other words, what we've got is worth treasuring, but we don't know what we're missing. Fate (and record labels) didn't smile on all bands the way The Beatles had it. But as I said, fans (like me) find the flaws endearing. I was taking the topic off on a tangent a bit, though.

Trey, I'm afraid you're gonna have to make your case why, if you don't consider Now!, Out of Our Heads, December's Children, Beggar's Banquet, Let it Bleed, or Sticky Fingers (and possibly even 12 X 5, Aftermath, Exile on Main Street, or Some Girls) to be great albums.

This would be indicative of why Roy Buchanan, whatever anyone may think about him as a guitar player, was not actually one of the "greats" as an artist....

Yes, subjective to be sure. But someone who only thinks The Stones were responsible for 25 good tunes in their career is isn't much of a Stones fan to begin with. Maybe it's time to go and check out something beyond "Hot Rocks"! :-)

P.S. - My girlfriend is the same way about The Beatles. I sometimes can't understand how we could possibly have become a couple!

Broke down and spent a couple hundred to see them play the local arena on the "No Security" tour a few years ago. We sat in the nosebleed-seats, snickered at the satin tour jackets selling for the same amount as both our tickets, endured The Corrs as an opening act, and tried not to take Mick's schtick too seriously. The band seemed to play fine, but the sound was predictably atrocious by the time it reached our ears. The whole proceeding seemed very cold and businesslike. In the end my reaction to finally having seen one of my favorite bands ever, a touchstone for my own musical leanings as a player - and a group that I see as really the progenitors of a hell of a lot about the rock & roll era that has defined the style and substance of what I and my generation find motivating about the form itself - was one of having had my wallet very professionally lightened. Talk about no satisfaction... This was my first and last arena show since the mid-80's, and from now on it's strictly the clubs for me, where I've always gone to find succor. When I need Keith and Brian and Charlie and Bill, and yeah, even Mick, well, that's what my system and collection are for. (For Ronnie, better listen to Rod and The Faces, though...)

Well, "Roger The Engineer" may not have been totally thought out beforehand, but it certainly wasn't a random compiling of odd tracks, either. A lot of it was basically written as it was being recorded, and together with the previously written tracks, was totally recorded within about the space of a week. This makes it pretty unified, IMHO, even if charmingly (or amazingly) off-handed in its spontaneity, not to mention more than a little dirty behind the ears. And I liiiikes it that-a way!