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

Ah, well, as I said, I don't want to get into that argument, though I think I might agree with you in terms of your time line and categorization.

Looking at the list again, I'd say both Rush and Priest were sketchy as being 'big' acts in the 70's. Rush probably only started headlining arenas at the end of the 70's with Permanent Waves with Moving Pictures taking them into a larger stratosphere. The early 80's was the time for Judas Priest.

 

I thought it was a girl with a ponytail pushing a guy up against the wall. Or is it two guys?
I guess a discussion like this could only come from great album art. I stand corrected.

 

Hence we are left with five acts which were first leaguers in the 70s: KISS, Nugent, Bad Company, Aerosmith and BÖC.

As for KISS, Aerosmith and Bad Company I was aware of their popularity in that period, but I did not know that Ted Nugent and BÖC were on a higher level than UFO.

 

Wow. If these were the first leaguers, it's no wonder I was into "progressive rock" at this point in the 70's.

Enjoyable read by the way, keep it up guys! I'm learning a lot.

 

Nugent's peak popularity was probably around the time of Cat Scratch Fever. Even by 1980 he was still headlining arenas with the likes of Travers and Manowar opening for him (I know because I saw that show). Agents of Fortune broke BOC to a wider audience and they rode that wave until around Revolution by Night. The difference between them (Nugent & BOC) and UFO? They had hit songs playing on the radio.

 

Come on, Zen, you know that's not an exclusive list; merely of the one's in jay.dee's list. Of course there were many more "first leaguers" than this for the hard rock 70's.

 

What contemporary successful "heavy" bands would you add to the list, which started in the first half of the 70s and were not part of the new wave of heavy/glam metal of the late 70s?

 

Is their a list somewhere? I kind of dropped out of the "heavy" rock by the mid 70's cause either my favorite bands were breaking up or drying up.

 

I do not know, I have just composed mine off the top of my head. That is why I am asking if I missed any important "heavy" acts after the classic hard-rock wave (Deep Purple, Black Sabbath et al) and before the new heavy/glam metal overthrow (Iron Maiden, Van Halen et al).

We need a full picture to evaluate UFO's (allegedly) missed chances.

 

For me it was the by-rote, say-nothing lyrics that held UFO back.
Always loved the sound of the band, though.

 

Nope. Can't say I do.

 

Fascinating analysis.

I've just played Force It (CHR 1074) at a ridiculous volume and whilst not my go-to UFO record, it is absolutely distinctive.

I don't understand a great deal of the negativity going down, here.

Of course, some of it I put down to a tendency to equate various levels of popularity (as measured by 'units shifted' and/or 'legacy propaganda' as regurgitated by what might be termed 'establishment' terms of reference) with actual 'quality' which here is a metric encompassing various slugs of the ability to create original, exciting and usually melodic numbers.

I could take anything by any of the expansive list of Hard & Heavy Rock names and absolutely trumpet a litany of surefire, dexterity-heavy blasts back from Mogg, Shenk & Co. without feeling the remotest shortening in the change dept.

They were without a nanosecond of doubt up there with 'Lizzy, BÖC, Rush and Rainbow, albeit and just like the others - with their own brand of rock sauce.

Indeed, even playing works from the sacred triumvirate and picking the freshest workout recalled from recent visitations therein - 'Child In Time' - does 'Rock Bottom' or 'Love To Love' feel a category below that or frankly, in any way warrant viable criticism of the whole by contrast? Not even remotely.

Maybe it was the Metal collegiate system that schooled me but this is one oeuvre that was from Day 1 held aloft as classic, sublime and unequivocally stellar.

As for the lyrics, they varied in quality, as did those from almost every other major act known to hard rocking man.

 

For everyone's info: the two folks in the middle of this pic are the cover stars of Force It, and according to some scuttlebutt the guy on the right might've featured on the cover of Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (although looking at it again I kind of doubt it).

 

I have found this:

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/JonFox/70s_hard_rock_albums_ranked/

Now if we discard the first wave of hard-rocking acts rising to prominence at the break of 60s and 70s (Grand Funk, Humble Pie, Alice Cooper, MC5, James Gang, Mountain, Cactus, Trapeze, etc), late 70s bands (Heart, Foreigner, Rose Tattoo, Molly Hatchet) and rather questionable/occasional hard-rockers (Queen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ten Years After, ZZ Top, Jethro Tull, Yes, Wishbone Ash, Status Quo, Styx, etc), we are left with four potential additions to my original list: Cheap Trick, Foghat, Bachman Turner-Overdrive and April Wine.

I guess the first two (three?) could be viewed as A-leaguers too in our analysed period (1973-79).

 

Thanks!

From the potential additions, Cheap Trick stands out. I even followed them through the 80's! ...and beyond (more or less).

 

From wikipedia:

In January 1996, Genesis and their second wife, Lady Jaye (née Jacqueline Breyer), relocated to Ridgewood, Queens in New York City.[5] It was here that the couple embarked on what they termed the "Pandrogeny Project"; influenced by the cut-up technique, the duo underwent body modification in order to resemble one another, thus coming to identify themselves as a single pandrogynous being named "Breyer P-Orridge".[78][79] In doing so, the pair underwent $200,000 worth of surgical alteration, receiving breast implants, cheek and chin implants, lip plumping, eye and nose jobs, tattooing, and hormone therapy, while also adopting gender neutral and alternating pronouns.[78][2][80] With this project, P-Orridge's intent was to express a belief that the self is pure consciousness trapped within the DNA-governed body.[78] The couple adopted the term "pandrogyne" because – in their words – "we wanted a word without any history or any connections with things—a word with its own story and its own information."

Hence, why I found your comment ironic.

 

Cool. Thanks for the background info.

 

I consider it great art. The graphic design team was one of the best.

 

ufo needed a couple of hit singles at the right time. also schenker stuffed things up for the band a little.
i really love ufo from force it up to misdemeanor[my favourite ufo album.]

mogg was as good as any lead singer back then imo, and they had great guitarists.

i personally lose interest in a band that have too many members coming and going, especially guitarists.
also i've found the lyrics in some ufo's songs a bit embarrassing and cheesy at times. yeah, i got sick of some of the words they and i got older. not quite as bad as a lot of post bon ac/dc lyrics though.[lets try and use the word 'rock' in the song title!]

 

I find the criticisms of UFO's lyrics quite hard to grasp in the context of the genre they worked in-maybe they were too down to earth but surely there were enough dungeons and dragons, bigtittyassed girls and indeed ufos elsewhere?

The lyrics were always decent and the band pretty much song based which was essential to the fact of why I prefer them to a lot of HM/heavy rock bands....

 

What he said.

I saw them on tour in '79 (AC/DC opened up and blew them off the stage IMO) and Mickey was awol. All night long people (myself include) were yelling out "WHERE'S SCHENKER???". Their momentum totally stalled after that tour. Nothing wrong with Paul Chapman but Schenker is irreplaceable.

 

There's no doubt that Michael had read Ritchie's guide to mercurial axe-smithery and this was always going to be a recipe for disaster, or at least derailment...

(The classic AC/DC tours of the era referred to by Slippers, above; oh, mgical and forever immortalised in the video of them in Paris, 1979, supported by 'Priest, iirc: Angus's antics deservedly catapulting them into the highest echelons. Oh and what a double bill that must have been, or, rather, seemed - at least in part - by the sounds of it! Hail.)

 

I love UFO, one of my all time favorite bands. They had a good run, but times change and sometimes bands just have a finite life in them.

 

I was in college in Chicago in the late 1970's, and Billy Joel and UFO were in town playing on the same night, with Joel at the Chicago Stadium and UFO at the International Amphitheater. Due to different friends having tickets, I had the chance to go to either concert. At 19 or 20 years old, I was much more of a rock guy than a pop guy, and of course chose UFO. Turns out it was one of the concerts recorded for 'Strangers in the Night', which ended up making it an even better choice.

Have not listened to UFO at all in recent years, but back in the day, they easily would have been among my favorite rock bands, and I still have most of their albums from that era. I'm gonna have to pull out 'Strangers' and give it a listen!

 

Missed a chance to become a commerical success? Maybe it wasn't a big deal to them. They may of wished to not compromise for the sake of greater sales. UFO flew under the radar for most of their career. If Scorpions didn't jump the shark they would have been in the same situation. Personally, I prefer Scorpions earlier work before they strove for a bigger piece of the pie.