Is talent without promotion a waste of potential?

It is such a shame that there are quite a handful of upcoming artists out there who have the potential to be big sensations. However, that potential may never be realized because they are not trying to market themselves and put themselves out there for the world to notice.
They thought that their talents is enough to get them noticed, which we all know rarely works in the music industry.
Personally, I think that an upcoming artist can have all the talents in the world, but without the right promotion and marketing strategy, he is setting himself up for failure.

What do you think? Can an upcoming artist make it based on talents alone?

You can't make it with only talent. If an artist is an upcoming, they need to do more promotions and marketing or better in a way to also ask for marketing from older artists.

Marketing is definitely needed! And if the artist doesn't have the resources to market himself he first needs promote himself in the music industry so others can do the marketing.
Of course, a huge talent can get the help of others way easier.
Eather a lot of money and connections or a huuuge amount of talent (and charme)...in the best case both.