Now before you tear my head off for asking such a thing, hear me out.
On one hand, you have the band that gave us "The Boys Are Back In Town", a.k.a. the greatest roller rink song ever recorded. The album from which the song came, Jailbreak, is an arena rock concept album that should have been bigger than "Jesus Christ Superstar" and, judging by the heavy radio play that "Jailbreak", "The Boys Are Back In Town" and "Cowboy Song" were getting at the time, how the hell wasn't it?
With an album cover that looked like it could have just as easily been a Kiss album, again, how did this album not shift past "double platinum" with ease?
Oh, right, the band had the unfortunate luck of being signed to Mercury Records in the US.
Next to MCA Records, Mercury is perhaps responsible for destroying more careers than alcohol and airplanes combined. Aside from Def Leppard and John Cougar, there are no Mercury Records rock & roll success stories.
Thanks to Mercury's ineptitude, the band's only Top 20 single here in the States was the aforementioned roller rink favorite and Jailbreak (the album) never got any higher on the charts than #18, which is pretty damn remarkable considering everyone I knew owned a copy.
Heck, some of the cool kids had a copy on vinyl for the bedroom and an 8-track for the Shaggin' Wagon so perhaps an audit of Mercury's books during that time frame is in order.
Meanwhile, we have a Canadian kid by the name of Bryan Adams with not one Top 40 it, but TWENTY-TWO of them. Sure, maybe you only liked two of 'em, but you've got to admit that twenty-two is just a wee bit more than one.
So why do I still suspect that many reading this would still vote for Thin Lizzy to be inducted into the Rock Hall before Bryan Adams?