What irritates me is when acts are reduced by say radio stations to the status of one hit wonder by lazy dj's and the people who make playlists- hence the Only Ones are largely known for having one hit single. Never occurs to these dj's to investigate a band and play a wider selection of their songs.

The Rats again get squeezed into a very narrow corridor of hits- despite their more than worthy back catalogue of six excellent albums. My musical leanings have always been a bit left field so I know a lot of people just won't have heard the acts I talk about and I likewise will not know much about other artists people mention. Have heard of all the people you mention I ludicrous , Farmers Boys etc.

There is the old indie fans dilemma of having liked a band when they were largely unknown and when they start to get more recognition/airplay you may feel a bit confused. I used to love the early Belle and Sebastian singles in the nineties- Stars of Track and Field, Lazy Line Painter Jane, Dog on Wheels- and became much cooler about them later in the noughties when the sold more albums.

I think my point is that sometimes we don't want our favourite artists to be too well known. Its a strange paradox.

The term cult band comes to mind in all the examples you give- certainly all have their fanbase and are far from being unknown. I suppose recognition is all relative.

Bands like the Vapors despite being quite good will always get tagged as Jam soundlikes which is very unfair and lazy. Always loved the single called News At Ten.

The Futureheads Hard Fi and Rakes  and SFA were always NME faves last time I bought the NME (largely for the free cd's) so I would argue they were always heavily promoted in indie circles, which is maybe different to being mainstream. Most indie music operates in a time bubble for want of better metaphor, a period of maybe five years when bands are at their creative peak and before their sell by date (usually dictated by the people who originally made them famous ie the music press).

The Internet at least keeps good music alive- anyone can watch Dodgy videos (the band of course!) so the music is there for instant reference if anybody wants to be reminded or is  tuning in for the first time. Won 't be much Staying Out For the Summer with the rubbish weather were having!

Don't know too much about Mott The Hoople but their singles, the Bowie cover All The Young Dudes and Roll Away The Stone are played a lot on the radio. All The Young Dudes contains the classic line "is that concrete all around, or is it in my head?"

In the case of the Rats the singles tended to be varied but the overall sound was basic rock n roll catagorised as New Wave by the music press. Its not good far any band to have a sound thats so predictable that one of their albums would suffice.

 A great lost band from the nineties was Geneva the Scottish band from Aberdeen. Their singer Andrew Mountgomery had a very distinctive voice, a bit like his fellow countryman Billy Mckenzie of Associates and they had a string of brilliant singles from the album Further released in 1997 on Nude records. Ive always found Geneva one of the most emotionally effecting bands I've ever heard- the sort of music that sends shivers up your spine.

This Is For Real is a good intro to David Devant and his Spirit Wife. Their nearest equivalent would be Pulp but they had their own distinctive style- very English, - they are from Brighton- and always wrote really poppy tuneful songs with excellent lyrics. Lots more examples of David Devant and his Spirtit Wife can be found on YouTube. The band incidentally is called   named after a famous spiritualist/stage magician/ film exhibitor [1868-1941]

Mark Radcliffe used to play them on Radio One in the mid nineties, which is how I heard them. Seems the masses were more into Oasis and their dreadful Wonderwall stuff but that is how it is.

Another good Brighton band who don't get much recognition is Clearlake, who started out in the late nineties and recorded a great album called Jumble Sailing.

Here's the brilliant Geneva from 1997 with Into The Blue

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFlT-T7dsYI