The Dictators: Manifest Destiny
Gene Sculatti, Crawdaddy!, August 1977
IT WOULDN'T BE hard. One could assemble a tidy list of contemporary Major Acts whose initial fate it was to be cast as "critics' favorites": Bowie, Springsteen, Blue Oyster Cult, Electric Light Orchestra, et al. And one could compose alongside it a list of similarly consigned Next Big Things, from the Dolls and Big Star to Blue Ash and the Wackers.
Total word count of piece: 544