I think most people who know about them can agree that their first 4 albums—up through Black Sea—were brilliant, but after that opinion is divided. English Settlement (1982) was the start of their "pastoral" change in musical direction, which I wasn't a huge fan of. They still had some good songs here and there from that point on (e.g. "Dear God" from Skylarking), but I don't think on average it matched their earlier quality. I do think their early stuff was better than Talking Heads.

One good thing going for them is that the people who love them really love them, myself included, and always try to get others to listen to them.

That said, they still deserve way more attention. People who are really well-informed about older well-regarded music know who they are and hold them in high praise, but they really do deserve to be up there with all those similar bands that manage to be labelled as "cult bands" despite being relatively high-profile.

For me they are one of the greats, and it would have been great had they gotten the recognition they deserve.

It's hard to know if things might have worked out differently for them had they been able to overcome some of the difficulties they had to deal with: things like Andy's inability to continue touring, their shitty record deal, and assorted tensions between the group members maybe exacerbated by those things.

Also they've opted not to make the excellent Apple Venus Vol. 1 and Wasp Star available on any streaming service, so that also limits their exposure to only their Virgin albums.

But I love them; they're definitely in my top 5 favorite bands.