Why do you think UFO are not as big as they should have been?

I love Phenomenon!

That was my first UFO album. It grabbed me immediately ...

 

UFO's major "problem" is that they never had That One Major Single that broke them on commercial radio and helped push them to another level. They had plenty of great songs, but none of them managed to get the push/have the appeal of a "Don't Fear the Reaper" or "The Boys Are Back in Town", and so they lingered in that B-level status where a lot of people seemed to know about them but not so many had actually heard them.

 

You beat me to it, Dudley! No great commercial success with albums or singles.

 

Great band that I'm ashamed to admit I didn't really discover until 10 or so years ago. I knew they were influential for a lot of younger hard rock/metal bands but they were not well known here in the states in the 70s; except for a brief window in time when they managed to co-headline with BOC?! Anyway, after I discovered them, I couldn't believe how great they were. I have most all of UFO's albums now and they had a really consistent run with Schenker and I *love* the first couple of Chapman era albums "No Place To Run" and "The Wild, The Willing & The Innocent". Really, Doctor Doctor alone should have made UFO a household name.

 

I've always been of the opinion that Strangers In The Night is the greatest live hard rock album of all time.Lights Out/Rock Bottom is the live album guitar solo of all time.

 

Aa a massive fan I think they should've been a lot bigger. Why weren't they...well at a crucial time Schenker left and after the live album they released the rather tepid "No Place To Run" and the limp single "Young Blood" as an introduction to the Chapman era these were not that god. If they had've come out with TWTW&TI or even Mechanix straight after Strangers I think the momentum may have continued.

Also around the early 80's the breakthrough of a bunch of new bands like Def Leppard, Iron Maiden, Saxon etc were taking their audience away and infinging on their melodic hard rock territory.

Of course in a matter of 3 years the band disintegrated in a fizzle in Greece and it was all over (for a while!!)

UFO should've been at ;least as big as Boston, foreigner, Journey etc....

 

UFO the album Lights Out was # 23 on the Billboard hot one hundred. "Love to Love" "Electric Phase" "Alone Again Or" "Lights Out" and "Too Hot To Handle" were all FM radio staples. Just from ' Lights Out' there are other great songs from various UFO albums from the 70s.

 

No way....I love Scorpions but UFO beat them in spades as far as vocals, melodies and riffs go.....

 

Not really. The big difference is that Boston, Foreigner, Journey were aiming for Top 40 success.

 

Lacked creativity? Sorry but after that opening statement I couldn't take your post seriously!!!

 

This band as other of the 70's could not survive the 80's, especially after everything that came with Punk, New Wave, Synth Pop, MTV ... They were a very good band, with a large base of fans but did not fit in changes that brought the decade of the 80's (As happened with others)

Somehow people's tastes changed and suddenly this type of music was moved up into something close to nostalgia.

That happened with many bands, some disappeared and others were transformed into something totally different from what they were...

 

It doesn't matter who was aiming for the charts UFO had the songs just didn't get the push...being on Chrysalis hardly helped matters!

 

They are still great live considering their ages. It would be great if MS rejoined them for one last hurrah.

 

Any six stringer would agree with me that they must have their a** wired tight when playing some of Mikey's solos from Force It among others. Talk about intense.

 

They can't fly.

 

I knew of UFO only from reading about what other bands such as Metallica and Iron Maiden liked. They didn't get played much on FM radio. I don't recall seeing them on MTV. I finally picked up the Strangers in the Night CD a couple years ago, and it rocks. But as others have said, they were overshadowed by so many other hard rock bands.

 

Freaking loved these guys. Consider myself so lucky to have seen them on the Lights Out tour.

Phil + Michael one of the all time classic teams. Great run these blokes had... Surely one of the coolest hard rock bands ever. Maybe too smart, or maybe too British for their own good? Wouldn't be the first time in rock and roll history.

 

Ah, yes, a perennial impenetrable, this one - not unlike the same question when fired in the direction of Thin Lizzy - and BÖC, of course (certainly outside of the US.)

They were heroically self-destructive as has been documented to death but I think Jimmy's point about the audience being 'stolen away' by 'Maiden & co is highly pertinent.

For my own part, I'll happily testify to what with hindsight was unforgivable, period disinterest, as my young head was removed from the body of Rush and Rainbow type mid-late 70s classicism and supplanted vigorously upon the spike of 'Eddie's' Metal calling.

Probably a case of wrong place/time because the best of their stuff from 1974-81 is emphatically a match for an awful lot of what has come to be lionized from the hard rocking tomes of others throughout that period and as the great Bear hath decreed, Schenker was axe-wise, almost holy.

 

Going back to the original question I think the answer has less to do with the band, it's simply the huge competition in those days.
There were so many great bands around in the early 70s and the kids didn't have much money then. Most could only afford singles and albums were something special for birthday or X-mas.
And then you would play safe and go for Zeppelin, Sabbath or Deep Purple....all of them being a bit more exciting in various ways.

 

Back "in the day", there was not room for dozens of bands with a somewhat similar sound.

Consequently, only a few dozen bands of one type of sound, ever gained any real traction.

Looking back from today, barely a handful remain well known.

Just simply how it was back then.

Today there are hundreds of bands in every niche of the "Rock" genre that all have a small but not tiny fanbase.

 

Too much forgettable material, even on their classic Schenker era albums.

Strictly 2nd division, IMO.

 

LSP, commercially, they might not even be regarded as second tier; others who once played the enormodomes were, by the turn of the last century, struggling with record deals and finding audiences aboard ships selling 'classic rock cruises;' no names, please, it's too painful!

None of this diminishes the brilliance of what came before and with the greatest of respect, I'll have to take issue with the charge of what amounts to sub optimal in the creative department and the idea that a few so-so numbers wreck the gig.

At its peak, UFO material rollicks along with the best of the best.

 

As much as I love UFO, I think the weak link may be Phil Mogg. Not vocally though.

From his name to his looks to his stage persona he was never going to reach the level of a Robert Plant, Freddie Mercury, or David Lee Roth.

Losing Schenker at their peak certainly didn't help either.

Great band though. Phenomenal live too!

 

Iss because they only had the one good lp.

Rest was mediocre.

 

I can't get into the Vinnie Moore albums at all. To me, they don't sound much like UFO anymore. The "Show Time" DVD makes the UFO classics pedestrian, IMO, so I never had the desire to see the current band in concert. If MS returned, that would assuredly get me to buy a ticket!