I think you're right. They did get a lot of attention after Bowie endorsed them and now a lot of people still think of them as All The Young Dudes / All The Way From Memphis singles kings.

Mott still is a magnificent album. As a young kid, my dad took me to see them and I was amazed. At that age, The Hoople obviously appealed to a young glam loving fan.

As I got older, I stuck with Hunter and I'm still there and his yahoo list is very active, particularly with Yank fans.

The eighties weren't kind to him, but largely it's been a great ride. He still comes across as a proper rock star who still puts on a show.

What I did do as I got a bit older was go back further with Mott and the Island Years are a brilliant discovery. Dylan meets the Stones is about right.

Mad Shadows is an album, I still play regularly to this day, it's wonderful.

Hunter's solo work critically usually revolves around his first solo album (Ronson was immense on it) and Schizophrenic (Ronson was immense - get the trend????). You can understand this with tracks like Boy and The Outsider on them.

All Massive Members should hear Ronson's solo on The Outsider.

However, my fave is All American Alien Boy, his lost masterpiece.

The eighties for me was too much syndrum and wearing jackets with the sleeves rolled up.

Fanboy stuff over! Normal service resumed.

were the third band I saw live - I saw Bowie twice on the 73 Aladin Sane tour then later in the year on the day Princess Anne and Mark Phillips got married - we got the day off school for that! - I went to King Georges Hall, Blackburn where the support band, on only the second date of Mott The Hoople's UK tour, were Queen.
Bowie hadn't had a support act so I expected that every band that took the stage as support to a major act would have the pnache, pizzaz and money spent on them that Freddie and co, with hindsight, obviously had.
For some reason though I always detested them, post-grad boffins playing songs about Faeries and such, and still could probably not listen to any Queen album other than a Greatest Hits compilation, unless tied to a chair and forced to do so by big scary blokes who were armed
Mott were fantastic

I got into Mott through Bowie too. I never saw them live though. They never made it to Australia although I saw the 'Midnight Lady' clip on a Saturday music video show. I made my older sister buy me 'All The Young Dudes'(LP) and then I have religiously stuck with them since, to the extent of buying some excruciating post-Hunter live Mott discs as well as side projects by a variety of permutations of band members. They have been the soundtrack to too many significant moments in my life to note here, but hardly a week goes by without playing something by them or the extended Mott family. I'm not sure I can explain the hold the band has on me, I like their early incarnation because it is raw and heartfelt music. I love the later 'glam' stuff because of its intelligence (a rare commodity at the time) and the self-referential moments in their music display their insecurities as well as their love of being in the game. And of course, 'they haven't always been superstars - once [they] were commoners just like [us]'. I'm not sure their legacy has been handled well with the endless repackaging of their relatively small body of output - but I keep buying it in all its latest finery all the same. I have written to Ian Hunter's website many times asking when he is coming down under, and he's always fobbed me off with vague replies, so I guess it was inevitable that I had to bite the bullet and finally chase Mott to Hammersmith, on the other side of the world, and I'm already having sleepless nights in excited expectation. See you there!

You didn't see me - right?