Another band died before you heard them

[Undertoad]

This band was incredible. Born in my hometown, their shooting star burned brightly, but you never heard them before it burned out completely.

A combination of a certain country-ish twang, combined with a modern songwriting sensibility made them ideal for what the world wanted. A remarkable voice fronted them... until, right at the point of launch, she developed nodes on her vocal cords. After surgery, her voice lost the distinctive nature that made it ultra-special, and it was only special after that, which is not enough.

The main songwriter was addicted to a sort of low life, and apparently preferred dumpster diving to making any sort of honest living. He wrote some remarkable songs, but without her twang to make them something special, he was a dime a dozen guitarist/songwriter with nothing to make himself particularly distinctive. He enjoyed hearing that his act might be the next big thing... even three to five years after nobody said it any longer. He was not mature enough to understand what success really entailed.

They developed a set of songs that ran chills down your spine. They were authentic, grounded and ready for success. Everybody who gave them an honest listen, came away a fan.

They ran their 20 songs past numerous audiences, impressed local clubs and managers, hired any number of rhythm sections to try to make it work, but in the end it was futile and became another story of how a great act comes up with an awesome set of first-album songs, only to reach the point of discovery and come out of it with nothing. For every act you have ever heard of that made it, there are a hundred such acts that are as good as, or even better than, the ones you heard about. It doesn't help that for every act you have ever heard of that made it, there are 10,000 that suck.

R.I.P. act that could have been. I won't even mention their name for Google bait. Because there's no point. There are hundreds of similar stories.