If you recall a time long ago now when life was more simple, a successful band was one that had recorded an album, not necessarily one that had charted. For example, Gentle Giant produced 11 albums between 1970 and 1980 and not one of them troubled the scorers.
Can you imagine a band getting to record 10 non-charting albums. In fairness, they did have a few at the lower end of the Billboard charts, but if you judged it by sales, they were not commercially successful but did we think that? No we didn’t,
Similarly, Caravan made 16 albums and only Cunning Stunts (1975) – reached No. 50 (their highest UK chart placement, spending 1 week on the chart) and Blind Dog at St. Dunstans (1976) – reached No. 53 (spending 1 week on the chart). Cunning Stunts reached No. 124 in America
2 weeks on the UK chart for 16 albums, failure? Not a bit of it, Caravan are much loved and their albums revered.
I think this is because at the time we judged things by a different standard and were not so very commercially focused. I mean I loved reading the charts but it bore no influence on what I bought or listened to. In fact, I thought people like Gentle Giant were actually successful. They played the CityHall. What more proof would I need?
These days you need to sell relatively few records and streams or downloads to make the charts so being a charted act carries less weight than it once did. Bands that never charted like Gentle Giant would probably be top 20 acts with the amount they actually sold.
But I guess everything has fractured so much today that we can’t really compare eras
