Acts that didn't really cross the Atlantic

[3 Colours Red]

The BBC used to cover Reading/Leeds on TV as well but it seems to have gone radio/red button/iPlayer only in recent years.

[Hot Pepsi]

Coachella doesn’t seem to put performances on YouTube the way Glastonbury does.

[San Bernardhinault]

I've heard Coachella performances - specific ones - on some satellite radio in the past, but it's very specific and targeted. It might be that US festival goers tend to go for specific acts more, rather than for the broad joy of being at the Big Happening that seems to be the draw of modern Glastonbury for the hordes who descend on it. I think that Glastonbury has specific cachet that way - they can broadcast all the music everywhere, and people will still keep going to Glastonbury for the sake of having been to Glastonbury. Coachella, despite its fame, probably doesn't have that and has to keep the performances at least in part under wraps.

The closest US parallel to Glastonbury might be Burning Man. People will just go because it's Burning Man. It doesn't matter if everything at Burning Man got broadcast (not that anyone would watch it); it doesn't matter if the entire content of Burning Man is trite and vacuous shit (which it is) - just like it doesn't matter if the headline act at Glastonbury is BTS, Bon Jovi or Tony Bennett - people will still go just to have been.

[San Bernardhinault]

Was the 90s the last era when bands existed in National Isolation? In that pre-internet era it was much easier to just miss out on swathes of stuff because it wasn't picked up by radio. The fragmentation now seems much more genre based and less nation specific.

It is different depending on the direction, I guess - there's not a whole lot in US culture that's not widely disseminated in Britain. Nobody in Biggleswade listening to even the redneckiest of country music would be unfamiliar with the trucks and guns and god and moonshine world. Whereas someone in Paducah might find kitchen-sinky Englishness (are there bands still doing that stuff?) hard to relate to.

[Sporting]

There are plenty of artists from other countries for whom the internet hasn't led to wider recognition.

[Cesar Rodriguez]

Apols if already mentioned but I'd guess that blur fit the bill. An art college, middle-class-home-counties-English outfit in a way that would never capture the imagination of Americans.

[Sits]

SB's point about the 90s being the tipping point is a good one, and the isolation before then is even more pronounced at a further remove like Australia. I don't broadcast this opinion locally but it's pretty clear that Australia was in quite a cultural bubble well into the 80s. There are acts here still lauded for their 70s and 80s hits and just aren't very good. Skyhooks would always be my Exhibit A here.

[Stumpy Pepys]

I imagine Cliff Richard is the most durable and best-selling UK artist never to have been successful in the US. I don't think Status Quo ever got much traction either, which is a bit surprising given their sound. Ditto Slade, although I think they caught a second wind there in the 80s.

[3 Colours Red]

Apols if already mentioned but I'd guess that blur fit the bill. An art college, middle-class-home-counties-English outfit in a way that would never capture the imagination of Americans.

The fact that Song 2 - the least "Blur" song that they ever recorded - is the only song of theirs that most Americans would have any vague recollection of, only seems to enhance your point.

[Stumpy Pepys]

The Kinks should have been bigger in the US than they were, but were handicapped by being banned from touring in the US for several years.

And I doubt there was much interest in LPs like Village Green Preservation Society and Muswell Hillbillies.

[slackster]

Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry were another UK “glam” act that hardly made a dent in the US charts, I think - at least until their 80s MOR period when Avalon sold reasonably. Quite surprising as Bowie was popular over there.

[Jah Womble]

Yep, with Blur it was only Song 2 that impacted in the US through its use at sports venues. (Which, embarrassingly for Damon, thereby categorises him alongside Gary Glitter...)

I imagine Cliff Richard is the most durable and best-selling UK artist never to have been successful in the US. I don't think Status Quo ever got much traction either, which is a bit surprising given their sound. Ditto Slade, although I think they caught a second wind there in the 80s.

America almost completely ignored Cliff Richard during the 1960s (presumably seeing him then as some kind of K-Mart Elvis), but he had several US hits during the mid-seventies/early eighties. But, nowhere near his status elsewhere, sure.

Indeed, yer Quo charted only on Billboard with their earliest releases. (Slade we covered upthread.)

[Gangster Octopus]

From what I could tell, ABC failed to make much of an impact. At least in Ottawa...

When I was at Reading in 1975, there was still only a single stage.

[G-Man]

How strange that Slade couldn't cut it in the US, but the Sweet had a clutch of Top 10 hits. The Bay City Rollers even had their own TV show over there!

[Snake Plissken]

I always got the impression that Judas Priest were always much bigger in the US than they were over here.

[Sits]

Counting Crows. How much impact in the UK? Not much I’d wager. Sorry if we did them and I missed it.

[Auntie Beryl]

Mr Jones and Big Yellow Taxi were top 40 in the UK, as well as being Virgin Radio fodder. The debut album went platinum, and they were still selling six figures here as late as the fourth album in 2002.

Meanwhile, in the other direction, The Kinks carried on charting new albums in the US Top 20 into the early 80s, whereas in the UK their last top 50 studio album was Village Green in 1968. After an early 70s lull on both sides of the Atlantic, consistent touring Stateside gave them a career from about 1975 onwards, even if the music is a bit pony by their 60s standards.

[Patrick Thistle]

Mr Jones seems to be on the Asda FM playlist whenever I'm shopping in Asda.

I've seen Counting Crows live a few times. They have a dedicated fanbase and the gigs are usually sold out. I don't mind them actually. I prefer their later stuff although I've had to listen to August and Everything After so many times a sort of aural Stockholm Syndrome has set in. Adam is a bit of a twonk but the live shows are usually pretty good.

[Hot Pepsi]

SB's point about the 90s being the tipping point is a good one, and the isolation before then is even more pronounced at a further remove like Australia. I don't broadcast this opinion locally but it's pretty clear that Australia was in quite a cultural bubble well into the 80s. There are acts here still lauded for their 70s and 80s hits and just aren't very good. Skyhooks would always be my Exhibit A here.

I learned about that reading Peter Garrett's biography. He mentions Skyhooks and Cold Chisel as bands that they looked up to, but as far as I can see, Midnight Oil is miles better than either of those.*

Going abroad was a big deal for Australian bands and many tried and failed so choosing when and how to do it was hard. Obviously, Midnight Oil did ok as did INXS and Men at Work, but several bands that were big Australia and/or New Zealand spent a lot of money trying to break into the US or UK/Europe and it didn't work.


* Jimmy Barnes is best known in the US for doing that one song with INXS that was on the Lost Boys soundtrack. (A lot could be written about the massive influence of that film on music, hairstyles, summer blockbusters, Kiefer Sutherland, and the rise and fall of the Coreys). He's also known for this.

[Hot Pepsi]

Apols if already mentioned but I'd guess that blur fit the bill. An art college, middle-class-home-counties-English outfit in a way that would never capture the imagination of Americans.

But that kind of describes Radiohead too, and they're pretty big here, albeit a bit polarizing.

[Benjm]

I looked at Skyhooks' Wikipedia entry and it made them sound quite interesting, with the make up and costumes in their early years. Checking out a few of their better known songs on YouTube suggests that the music doesn't really have the excitement of either the stomping or the arty sides of Glam.

Nor do they seem to have any connection at all to Kareem Abdul Jabbar, which is disappointing.

[Jah Womble]

Meanwhile, in the other direction, The Kinks carried on charting new albums in the US Top 20 into the early 80s, whereas in the UK their last top 50 studio album was Village Green in 1968. After an early 70s lull on both sides of the Atlantic, consistent touring Stateside gave them a career from about 1975 onwards, even if the music is a bit pony by their 60s standards.

The Kinks - as was the case with the majority of other sixties pop acts - were always 'all about the singles' at home. (The contrast between their US albums/singles performances is quite notable, however.)

But that kind of describes Radiohead too, and they're pretty big here, albeit a bit polarizing.

Radiohead were always far readier to rock out, though - something that endeared them to US audiences early on. (Blur, I'm sure, would seldom do anything that gauche...)

[Satchmo Distel]

Jim Croce - three big albums in the US and Canada 1972-73, never charted in UK.

Janis Joplin - no UK chart action in her lifetime. Her posthumous albums got no higher than 20. Contrast with Hendrix who got his first big break in the UK before the US, partly because The Beatles went to see him in London and Chas Chandler was his manager.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Contrast with Hendrix who got his first big break in the UK before the US, partly because The Beatles went to see him in London and Chas Chandler was his manager.

Hendrix/Chandler did The Walker Brothers thing. Calculating that a certain type of act would find a readier market in the UK than the US.

[WOM]

But that kind of describes Radiohead too, and they're pretty big here, albeit a bit polarizing.

What, with people lauding them to high heaven despite their being fucking crap?

Yeah, I guess I can see that...