Acts who failed to break the UK

[curiousoranges]

Does Garth Brooks have a big UK following? He's beyond ginormous in Ireland and will play an incredible FIVE nights in Croke Park stadium in September. It holds more than 80,000 fans per concert, so we're talking 400,000 plus people.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Does Garth Brooks have a big UK following? He's beyond ginormous in Ireland and will play an incredible FIVE nights in Croke Park stadium in September. It holds more than 80,000 fans per concert, so we're talking 400,000 plus people.

I had no idea who he was until there was that 2014 controversy in Dublin.

[Goldentony]

I've never been able to understand how a band like Grateful Dead can have such a big fuck off PA, tons of people in the band, crates full of drugs and then go on to sound like longform Chas and Dave

[purlieu]

Having a look at Wikipedia, seems Garth Brooks had some success in the UK for a couple of years in the '90s, but obviously not enough to suggest he's one of the biggest selling artists in history. A couple more from the biggest selling artists lists who fall into a similar category:
George Strait - "known as the "King of Country" and is considered one of the most influential and popular recording artists of all time." - has never charted in the UK.
Tim McGraw - " His Soul2Soul II Tour, which was done in partnership with his wife, Faith Hill, is one of the highest-grossing tours in country music history, and one of the top five among all genres of music. He has sold more than 80 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time." - has a UK chart record considerably worse than that of Autechre.
Luke Bryan - "Bryan's first ten albums have included 27 number-one hits. He is one of the world's best-selling music artists, with over 75 million records sold." - has had one top 50 album in the UK.
Alabama - "Alabama's biggest success came in the 1980s, where the band had over 27 number one hits, seven multi-platinum albums and received numerous awards." - a band whose only UK hit reached number 91.

We don't really have a UK equivalent of this, do we? There are obviously very British-leaning artists and albums, but even when you look at the most successful folk-rock and Britpop artists, they were largely just drops in the ocean. Country is its own industry in the US, though.

[The Culture Bunker]

Didn't country music have a huge following (still?) in parts of Scotland? That ties in with the Garth Brooks/Irish audience, perhaps. And Jim Reeves had a #1 album in the mid 70s with one of those '40 Golden Greats' compilation albums that were all over the place at the time.

[Famous Mortimer]

Having a look at Wikipedia, seems Garth Brooks had some success in the UK for a couple of years in the '90s, but obviously not enough to suggest he's one of the biggest selling artists in history. A couple more from the biggest selling artists lists who fall into a similar category:
George Strait - "known as the "King of Country" and is considered one of the most influential and popular recording artists of all time." - has never charted in the UK.
Tim McGraw - " His Soul2Soul II Tour, which was done in partnership with his wife, Faith Hill, is one of the highest-grossing tours in country music history, and one of the top five among all genres of music. He has sold more than 80 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time." - has a UK chart record considerably worse than that of Autechre.
Luke Bryan - "Bryan's first ten albums have included 27 number-one hits. He is one of the world's best-selling music artists, with over 75 million records sold." - has had one top 50 album in the UK.
Alabama - "Alabama's biggest success came in the 1980s, where the band had over 27 number one hits, seven multi-platinum albums and received numerous awards." - a band whose only UK hit reached number 91.

We don't really have a UK equivalent of this, do we? There are obviously very British-leaning artists and albums, but even when you look at the most successful folk-rock and Britpop artists, they were largely just drops in the ocean. Country is its own industry in the US, though.

Some of those will be the country charts, not the main top 40, though. There's no fucking way Alabama had 27 normal number 1s.

I've never been able to understand how a band like Grateful Dead can have such a big fuck off PA, tons of people in the band, crates full of drugs and then go on to sound like longform Chas and Dave

Me neither. My brother-in-law is a huge fan, so I filled up a hard drive with a complete set of their bootlegs once for him. He excitedly played me a few of their best-known live songs and it did absolutely nothing for me. The one bit of entertainment from the Dead is to go on their archive.org page and read the comments on their shows, full of people telling stories of how mashed up they got.

[Bennett Brauer]

Brundle-Fly's mention of the Dave Matthews Band is a great call. They've sold very little here, but their debut album was 6 x platinum in the US, and subsequent albums weren't far behind.

The aforementioned Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers and Eagles don't make sense as examples - they have a decent following in the UK and a few hit singles too. Eagles had four of their seven albums in the UK Top 10 and a few hit singles beside Haitian Divorce.

[willbo]

I feel like this is changing though? I feel like since the internet got big, quite a few "big in the US but only known to cool musos in the UK" artists had their first big album here. As more people were hearing/reading about cool music and felt emboldened to give them a try. I can't think of an example but I'm sure there's a few US artists who had their first UK top ten album in the past 2 decades, despite being way past their prime to Americans and the British cool. I can't think of who it was, but it was an artist I was surprised to hear on Radio 2. Maybe Arcade Fire.

We don't really have a UK equivalent of this, do we? There are obviously very British-leaning artists and albums, but even when you look at the most successful folk-rock and Britpop artists, they were largely just drops in the ocean. Country is its own industry in the US, though.

it's funny cause I've worked with young Indian and Middle Eastern people who like to put on the folk of their "ancestral country" (or pop which is very influenced by their folk). it's totally common to them. But I can't imagine the equivalent white English young person popping on Morris Dancing music or whatever.

[Dr Rock]

Tom Petty?

[willbo]

Luscious Jackson

[JaDanketies]

Didn't country music have a huge following (still?) in parts of Scotland? That ties in with the Garth Brooks/Irish audience, perhaps. And Jim Reeves had a #1 album in the mid 70s with one of those '40 Golden Greats' compilation albums that were all over the place at the time.

Old people (boomers) seem to know plenty of country music from way back when though. Maybe back when they were watching John Wayne in cowboy movies. When I started exploring it I was surprised with the wealth of my dad's knowledge, and his most-listened-to artist on last.fm was German revision

Edit - following George White's comment below, he was largely raised in Northern Ireland

[George White]

Having a look at Wikipedia, seems Garth Brooks had some success in the UK for a couple of years in the '90s, but obviously not enough to suggest he's one of the biggest selling artists in history. A couple more from the biggest selling artists lists who fall into a similar category:
George Strait - "known as the "King of Country" and is considered one of the most influential and popular recording artists of all time." - has never charted in the UK.
Tim McGraw - " His Soul2Soul II Tour, which was done in partnership with his wife, Faith Hill, is one of the highest-grossing tours in country music history, and one of the top five among all genres of music. He has sold more than 80 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time." - has a UK chart record considerably worse than that of Autechre.
Luke Bryan - "Bryan's first ten albums have included 27 number-one hits. He is one of the world's best-selling music artists, with over 75 million records sold." - has had one top 50 album in the UK.
Alabama - "Alabama's biggest success came in the 1980s, where the band had over 27 number one hits, seven multi-platinum albums and received numerous awards." - a band whose only UK hit reached number 91.

We don't really have a UK equivalent of this, do we? There are obviously very British-leaning artists and albums, but even when you look at the most successful folk-rock and Britpop artists, they were largely just drops in the ocean. Country is its own industry in the US, though.

I do remember when I was about 5, ITV showing Pure Country, the Strait movie* where he costars with Rory Calhoun and I remember as a kid worrying about the film because I'd learnt there were earthquakes in America which made me fear going to America.
But it was UTV, and country music is the national music of Northern Ireland.
*(not to be confused with the 80s Bond knockoff the Soldier, where Strait cameos in a scene where there's a brawl in a honky-tonk, directed by Jim Glickenhaus, his followup to Rodney Trotter favourite The Exterminator)
McGraw, Hill and Strait I all grew up knowing, but then again I am Irish. ANd my dad listened pretty much to all that stuff in the 90s.

THere was a brief audience for country in the 70s, which I think can pretty much be attributed to Wogan.
Obviously, Jim Reeves had had hits, Marty Robbins I think had one, and Eddy Arnold's Make the World go Away did pretty well in the 60s, but it's in the 70s when you got stuff like Johnny Cash's a Boy Named Sue and A THing Called Love (Ring of Fire never charted!), Faron Young's Four in the Morning, then you get JJ Barrie, Tammy Wynette, Paul Evans' Hello this is Joanie, Lena Martell, Dr. Hook, the Bellamy Brothers...
Wogan introducing the UK to people like Tom T Hall and Hoyt Axton.
Basically, Wogan is playing the stuff that did gangbusters back home on Radio Eireann.
 
Scotland like Ireland and Northern Ireland loves country, even with its own local scene like the dreaded country 'n' Irish scene. They have SYdney Devine and Lena Martell, we have Big Tom and Gloria and Philomena Begley.

[The Culture Bunker]

Tom Petty?

He never had any really big hit singles here, but growing up in the 90s I was certainly aware of a few of his songs: I remember 'Learning to Fly' being all over radio despite not cracking the top 40. A quick Google shows his 'Greatest Hits' from 1993 went Platinum here, which I think can be considering making it in the UK on some level. And I think their first high profile TV exposure was over here, on 'Old Grey Whistle Test'.

[George White]

RE:country in Ireland, I think it was mainly an albums thing, though Willie Nelson's Always on My Mind was no 8 here, while in the UK it reached 49.
But for example, someone like Charley Pride - never appeared in the Irish singles charts but was a HUGE act on both sides of the border in albums and tours, constantly touring, beloved even amongst the most racist types.

[George White]

Yep. I can think of quite a few female songstresses who are household names in the States, but barely made a dent in our charts. Sarah McLachlan? Brandi Carlile?

Considering how much we're bombarded with American media, it's weird finding out about someone like Selena, who was an absolutely gigantic popstar in her (sadly-curtailed) prime. She pretty much opened the door for Latino pop in the nineties (whether you think that's a good thing or not), but I've never met anyone in the UK who's even heard of her.

Latino pop would be I suppose equivalent to bhangra music, but obviously with a much larger audience, and also verified charts unlike the dodgy corner shop sales not verified by Gallup.


Steely Dan weirdly have cultural resonance in Ireland though never charting.
Both Barrytown and Reelin' in the Years gave their names to Irish cultural phenomena - Roddy Doyle's fictional Dublin suburb and RTE's long-running Rock and Roll Years-alike.

[The Culture Bunker]

Steely Dan weirdly have cultural resonance in Ireland though never charting.
Both Barrytown and Reelin' in the Years gave their names to Irish cultural phenomena - Roddy Doyle's fictional Dublin suburb and RTE's long-running Rock and Roll Years-alike.

I suppose there's a joke here about confusion of their singer's surname being Fagan rather than Fagen.

[George White]

Old people (boomers) seem to know plenty of country music from way back when though. Maybe back when they were watching John Wayne in cowboy movies. When I started exploring it I was surprised with the wealth of my dad's knowledge, and his most-listened-to artist on last.fm was German revision

Edit - following George White's comment below, he was largely raised in Northern Ireland

Ireland has an obsession with westerns.
 Whole generations of aul lads with encyclopaedic knowledge of western character actors.
Tg4 still show a western every Friday night (sometimes a real obscurity like Cattle Annie and Little Britches or a Tony Anthony film).

[Glebe]

Haven't Primus been more commercially successful in the US? They don't seem to have done a huge amount of Europe/UK tours. I think they only played Ireland once, years ago, maybe a festival?

[DJ Bob Hoskins]

The Tragically Hip. To hear Canadians talk about them, you'd think they were as well-known as The Beatles, and yet I've never heard a single note of their music.*

My Canadian colleagues stayed up all night to watch their farewell gig a few years ago. They were all emotional the next day and gushing about it over lunch, whereas all I could offer in response was





* In my experience, mentioning this to a Canadian is guaranteed to elicit the incredulous response "You've never heard of The Hip?!?"

[sutin]

Haven't Primus been more commercially successful in the US? They don't seem to have done a huge amount of Europe/UK tours. I think they only played Ireland once, years ago, maybe a festival?

They did cross my mind. They certainly haven't been on any chart here (Pork Soda and Tales From The Punchbowl were both Top 10 albums in the US, which is incredible for such a 'weird' band), but they do play big shows. In the last 10 years i've seen them in the Royal Albert Hall and the Roundhouse. Granted they rarely do proper tours so people will travel for these big shows...

[Glebe]

They did cross my mind. They certainly haven't been on any chart here (Pork Soda and Tales From The Punchbowl were both Top 10 albums in the US, which is incredible for such a 'weird' band), but they do play big shows. In the last 10 years i've seen them in the Royal Albert Hall and the Roundhouse. Granted they rarely do proper tours so people will travel for these big shows...

It's a rare case of a 'difficult' US act doing better business in their home country than in the UK/Europe.

[Rolf Lundgren]

Australian band Silverchair did nothing in the UK but broke America. I wonder if they simply never tried hard in the UK if US sales were strong.

[George White]

The Tragically Hip. To hear Canadians talk about them, you'd think they were as well-known as The Beatles, and yet I've never heard a single note of their music.*

My Canadian colleagues stayed up all night to watch their farewell gig a few years ago. They were all emotional the next day and gushing about it over lunch, whereas all I could offer in response was



* In my experience, mentioning this to a Canadian is guaranteed to elicit the incredulous response "You've never heard of The Hip?!?"

I'm trying to think of an Irish band with a similar reputation here that anywhere else is 'Who?'.
Aslan, maybe
 

[willbo]

Australian band Silverchair did nothing in the UK but broke America. I wonder if they simply never tried hard in the UK if US sales were strong.

I knew people who liked them, but then I was friends with hardcore grunge/alt rock fans

[jamiefairlie]

The Tragically Hip. To hear Canadians talk about them, you'd think they were as well-known as The Beatles, and yet I've never heard a single note of their music.*

My Canadian colleagues stayed up all night to watch their farewell gig a few years ago. They were all emotional the next day and gushing about it over lunch, whereas all I could offer in response was





* In my experience, mentioning this to a Canadian is guaranteed to elicit the incredulous response "You've never heard of The Hip?!?"

Aye, exactly the same experience here. I blame that CanCon thing for misleading Canadians.

[jamiefairlie]

Ireland has an obsession with westerns.
 Whole generations of aul lads with encyclopaedic knowledge of western character actors.
Tg4 still show a western every Friday night (sometimes a real obscurity like Cattle Annie and Little Britches or a Tony Anthony film).

Scotland's the same - Sydney Devine anyone?

[George White]

I mentioned Syd already.
I remember going to the Pavilion in 2018 and his visage dominated the marquee. Had to explain to my mum who he was (having become aware of him via the charity shops of Dublin).

[DJ Bob Hoskins]

I'm trying to think of an Irish band with a similar reputation here that anywhere else is 'Who?'.
Aslan, maybe
 

Yeah. Maybe Hothouse Flowers too? Although I did recently discover that a Dutch friend of mine is a big fan. He must be the only person I've met outside of Ireland who even knows who they are let alone listens to them.

[George White]

The Hothouse Flowers were big enough to play themselves on Lovejoy, with Tinker becoming their Bez.


Oh, the Frames, despite that ***** Hansard's Oscar nomination.

[badaids]

The Tragically Hip. To hear Canadians talk about them, you'd think they were as well-known as The Beatles, and yet I've never heard a single note of their music.*

My Canadian colleagues stayed up all night to watch their farewell gig a few years ago. They were all emotional the next day and gushing about it over lunch, whereas all I could offer in response was





* In my experience, mentioning this to a Canadian is guaranteed to elicit the incredulous response "You've never heard of The Hip?!?"

I have had exactly this experience with two Canadian people I know.