July 19, 2013 | 12:03am ET
The allure and mystique of a #1 album is something that most artists dream of when they get in the game. Many achieve that goal, but 100x as many don’t. Even some of the best bands never get to that point, including all the bands on this list. The research for this article was much harder than I anticipated because I wanted to make sure there were zero #1 albums on any chart in any country in any way. This eliminated a lot of acts that weren’t #1 in the US or UK, but were in, say, Norway or their home country (Tom Waits, Bjork, Sigur Rós, respectively). Eventually, I scrounged up 10 fantastic bands that never hit the top. Some make a little sense. Others blew my mind.
