Acts who failed to break the UK

[badaids]

THE WEHRMACHT

Probably more accurate to say THE LUFTWAFFE.

[Bently Sheds]

The Tragically Hip.

They even had a cassette stuck on a music mag to promote their latest release back in the day, with a load of breathlessly fawning guff on the sleeve. I remember getting it, putting it on & being completely nonplussed, especially as the lead singer was a bit "Tonight Matthew I'm going to be Michael Stipe"

Other Canadian monoliths that didn't make it: The Constantines & Metric.

[George White]

I always think of Journey as the answer to this question. They were massive in the US and globally.

I was a UK kid gobbling up music from everywhere from about the age of 10, but I had never even heard of them until I was on my early 30s. And that was through the sopranos.

It angers me that their stuff has become now '80s nostalgia' stuff here and in the UK.

Who's Crying Now got to 46, ANyway you want it to 161, a few others in the 160s/90s/80s


Listening to the Tragically Hip now on youtube. Unmemorable Shakin' Stipe.

[Captain Z]

Hooverphonic

Not American, but English-language Belgian group that I hadn't heard of until they took part in Eurovision in 2020/21. Seems like they should have slotted in perfectly amongst the 90s Saint Etienne/Massive Attack/Morcheeba trip hop/indie electronica scene. They supported several of these acts but never had a charting single or album in the UK.

Hooverphonic - 2Wicky

Definitely would have sounded at home in an episode of Blue Jam.

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

Probably more accurate to say THE LUFTWAFFE.

WAFFS WHO FAILED TO BREAK THE UK

[Glebe]

Probably more accurate to say THE LUFTWAFFE.

[There Be Rumblings]

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.

'Don't Go' got to no. 11 in the UK chart in 1988. I remember this because my sister bought it and played it relentlessly. So I'm not sure if that counts as cracking the UK, but they definitely cracked our house.

[JaDanketies]

My dad liked Hothouse Flowers. I remember slagging off my uncle's music taste as a tween and my dad taking real offence and using Hothouse Flowers as an example of why I was wrong. He had Songs from the Rain at least, on cassette, in his car. Listening to it now but literally don't remember a note from it, and I know he played it regularly.

I guess there's more Irish bands that my dad listened to that would be similar. Can I remember any of them?

Mary Black
Clannad
The Saw Doctors - wow,  "I Useta Lover" is Ireland's biggest-selling single of all time!

[Sebastian Cobb]

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.

Was apparently very popular in Jamaica as the high powered medium-wave stations on US costs would reach there at night.

[Auntie Beryl]

There's a glut of USian 90s porridge bands that bounced off the UK fairly rapidly.

Matchbox Twenty sold 12 million copies of their first album at home. It got to number 50 in the UK and the hit single from it only just scraped the Top 40. Bent*, the first single from the second album, was number 1 in the US. Nada here.

Vertical Horizon - of Everything You Want fame (no?) sold 2 million copies of the accompanying album in America. Over here it reached number 199.

See also Goo Goo Dolls, Train, Sugar Ray, The Wallflowers et bloody cetera.


* oh, shush.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Were Filter ever well known in the UK? I only really became aware of their existence because Hybrid did a remix of Take a Picture.

[PaulTMA]

Were Filter ever well known in the UK? I only really became aware of their existence because Hybrid did a remix of Take a Picture.

That song they did with them in the sea got played quite a bit on MTV2 at the time, but that would be like saying Mushroomhead were well-known here

[buzby]

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.

It still has a reasonable following in Merseyside (though it's fans are dying off now). It thrived in the pub scene and both Radio Merseyside and Radio City had country shows in their schedules.

[popcorn]

I'm really fascinated by the Japanese pop band Dreams Come True, which formed in the 80s. For a long time they were the bestselling act in Japanese music history, but they're completely unknown in the west. I suppose you might compare them to Abba, beloved cheese-pop that has become legendary over the decades.

One of the members, Masato Nakamura, wrote the music for Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 on the Mega Drive. Some of that music entered the public consciousness in the west in the same way the music from Super Mario Bros did, but Sonic never really caught on in Japan. So you have a weird situation where Nakamura is a member of one of the bestselling bands in Japan ever, but his most famous music isn't actually known to his fans.

When I was living in the Japanese countryside I was constantly being driven around by middle-aged women (great days) and half the time Dreams Come True would be in the car CD player. That would alway prompt me to play them the Green Hill Zone theme on my phone, and no one ever knew it.

Anyway, at one point in the 90s Virgin decided they really wanted to make Dreams Come True big in the west. They recorded an English-language album. Naturally it bombed and I believe this became a much-heeded lesson for the Japanese music industry, to just never attempt to become big in the west. I don't know if that's changing now, what with the popularity of stuff like Babymetal and also K-pop.

[George White]

It still has a reasonable following in Merseyside (though it's fans are dying off now). It thrived in the pub scene and both Radio Merseyside and Radio City had country shows in their schedules.

I once found online BBC Radio Merseyside's The Hits You COuldn't Get - a compilation of popular rarities played by Billy Butler -  mainly Irish country - TR Dallas, Philomena Begley, Daniel O'DOnnell's Medals for Mothers, Brendan Shine, Rose Marie, Brendan QUinn, other Irish stuff like Frank McCaffrey, Ann Breen, Tony Stephens, Paddy Reilly's original version of Fields of Athenry -  plus a few local acts - a Tom O'COnnor record,  a few other British club acts - Joe Longthorne, Shakin' Tom Jones David Alexander's cover of Joe Dolan's the Answer, Timi Yuro's Hurt, a few obscurities from COnnie Francis, Theresa Brewer, Jerry Lee Lewis, Nat king Cole, Conway Twitty, Della Reese, Al Martino, PJ Proby, and some lesser known over this side of the Atlantic country stars - Connie Smith, Donna Fargo,

[C_Larence]

There's a glut of USian 90s porridge bands that bounced off the UK fairly rapidly.

Matchbox Twenty sold 12 million copies of their first album at home. It got to number 50 in the UK and the hit single from it only just scraped the Top 40. Bent*, the first single from the second album, was number 1 in the US. Nada here.

Vertical Horizon - of Everything You Want fame (no?) sold 2 million copies of the accompanying album in America. Over here it reached number 199.

See also Goo Goo Dolls, Train, Sugar Ray, The Wallflowers et bloody cetera.


* oh, shush.

Hoobastank

[George White]

I'm really fascinated by the Japanese pop band Dreams Come True, which formed in the 80s. For a long time they were the bestselling act in Japanese music history, but they're completely unknown in the west. I suppose you might compare them to Abba, beloved cheese-pop that has become legendary over the decades.

One of the members, Masato Nakamura, wrote the music for Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 on the Mega Drive. Some of that music entered the public consciousness in the west in the same way the music from Super Mario Bros did, but Sonic never really caught on in Japan. So you have a weird situation where Nakamura is a member of one of the bestselling bands in Japan ever, but his most famous music isn't actually known to his fans.

When I was living in the Japanese countryside I was constantly being driven around by middle-aged women (great days) and half the time Dreams Come True would be in the car CD player. That would alway prompt me to play them the Green Hill Zone theme on my phone, and no one ever knew it.

Anyway, at one point in the 90s Virgin decided they really wanted to make Dreams Come True big in the west. They recorded an English-language album. Naturally it bombed and I believe this became a much-heeded lesson for the Japanese music industry, to just never attempt to become big in the west. 

See also Pink Lady.

[Famous Mortimer]

Other Canadian monoliths that didn't make it: The Constantines & Metric.

I love Metric - are they significantly bigger in Canada? "Poster Of A Girl" and "Monster Hospital" were decent-sized indie hits in the UK (I think?) and I listen to their stuff quite a bit.

[Icehaven]

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 thought that with a few of these. Couldn't be in two places at once and most bands would easily rather sacrifice opportunities in the UK if they were doing well in the States. Dunno if the internet has made that more or less of a thing as while you can use it to simultaneously promote yourself everywhere at once so can everyone else, plus you still have to tour a lot to make any money these days.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

There's a glut of USian 90s porridge bands that bounced off the UK fairly rapidly.

Matchbox Twenty sold 12 million copies of their first album at home. It got to number 50 in the UK and the hit single from it only just scraped the Top 40. Bent*, the first single from the second album, was number 1 in the US. Nada here.

Vertical Horizon - of Everything You Want fame (no?) sold 2 million copies of the accompanying album in America. Over here it reached number 199.

See also Goo Goo Dolls, Train, Sugar Ray, The Wallflowers et bloody cetera.


* oh, shush.

It took like twenty years or something but the Goo Goo Dolls song Iris is classed as a million-seller in the U.K., according to the Official Charts website. So they did alright here. 

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I'm really fascinated by the Japanese pop band Dreams Come True, which formed in the 80s. For a long time they were the bestselling act in Japanese music history, but they're completely unknown in the west. I suppose you might compare them to Abba, beloved cheese-pop that has become legendary over the decades.

One of the members, Masato Nakamura, wrote the music for Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 on the Mega Drive. Some of that music entered the public consciousness in the west in the same way the music from Super Mario Bros did, but Sonic never really caught on in Japan. So you have a weird situation where Nakamura is a member of one of the bestselling bands in Japan ever, but his most famous music isn't actually known to his fans.

When I was living in the Japanese countryside I was constantly being driven around by middle-aged women (great days) and half the time Dreams Come True would be in the car CD player. That would alway prompt me to play them the Green Hill Zone theme on my phone, and no one ever knew it.

Anyway, at one point in the 90s Virgin decided they really wanted to make Dreams Come True big in the west. They recorded an English-language album. Naturally it bombed and I believe this became a much-heeded lesson for the Japanese music industry, to just never attempt to become big in the west. I don't know if that's changing now, what with the popularity of stuff like Babymetal and also K-pop.

Thinking of Japanese rock, Fishmans happened around the time UK indie was most obsessed with krautrock, dub and the trance-y side of prog. Then the aftermath of Talk Talk and triphop, and you had rock bands trying to sound as electronic as possible. If any UK indie frontman had mentioned them in the 90s, they'd have exploded. Radiohead would probably had sold their grandmothers to sound like the opening of Long Season.

[Bently Sheds]

I love Metric - are they significantly bigger in Canada? "Poster Of A Girl" and "Monster Hospital" were decent-sized indie hits in the UK (I think?) and I listen to their stuff quite a bit.

From what I gathered from the Canadian radio stations I used to listen to back around the time Grow Up & Blow Away was released, they were a big mainstream chart act (not skimming the indie charts like they did in the UK) kind of like on the level of  a cool Coldplay. Although I might be wrong.

[surreal]

From what I gathered from the Canadian radio stations I used to listen to back around the time Grow Up & Blow Away was released, they were a big mainstream chart act (not skimming the indie charts like they did in the UK) kind of like on the level of  a cool Coldplay. Although I might be wrong.

Also love Metric - I discovered them from Scott Pilgrim vs the World as they are basically the main band and the song Brie Larson performs (Black Sheep) is one of theirs (oddly she does it a lot better IMHO).

Hooverphonic mentioned earlier, another discovery from Spotify playlists, stacks of albums almost all absolute bangers.

[popcorn]

Thinking of Japanese rock, Fishmans happened around the time UK indie was most obsessed with krautrock, dub and the trance-y side of prog. Then the aftermath of Talk Talk and triphop, and you had rock bands trying to sound as electronic as possible. If any UK indie frontman had mentioned them in the 90s, they'd have exploded. Radiohead would probably had sold their grandmothers to sound like the opening of Long Season.

Never come across Fishmans before, halfway through Long Season now and quite mesmerised, cheers.

[Famous Mortimer]

Also love Metric - I discovered them from Scott Pilgrim vs the World as they are basically the main band and the song Brie Larson performs (Black Sheep) is one of theirs (oddly she does it a lot better IMHO).

Hooverphonic mentioned earlier, another discovery from Spotify playlists, stacks of albums almost all absolute bangers.

When I had an old satellite dish that picked up German music TV channels for a few years, one of the best videos in their rotation was this human-plant love story:

(also, I loved them because they played UK / US videos with swears intact all day)

[willbo]

Were Filter ever well known in the UK? I only really became aware of their existence because Hybrid did a remix of Take a Picture.

I knew them in the mid 90s from at least 2 of their songs being on X Files and then X Files soundtrack albums. (hey man nice shot and thanks bro)

in fact, I feel like a lot of grunge/metal got known in the UK through films and TV more than through the music press. I had a friend who was into Foo Fighters and Korn before anyone else I knew, because he really liked US films and film soundtracks. I think kids like him laid the ground for US rock getting bigger here.

[willbo]

It took like twenty years or something but the Goo Goo Dolls song Iris is classed as a million-seller in the U.K., according to the Official Charts website. So they did alright here. 

Iris is on the radio all the time, but I dunno anyone who owns it. I feel like there's a bunch of US college rock hits which have been played tons on UK stations like Virgin/Absolute but never actually sold a record, they're just known here AS radio songs...

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Iris is on the radio all the time, but I dunno anyone who owns it. I feel like there's a bunch of US college rock hits which have been played tons on UK stations like Virgin/Absolute but never actually sold a record, they're just known here AS radio songs...

https://www.officialcharts.com/artist/32349/goo-goo-dolls/

[Brundle-Fly]

Powderfinger were huge during the nineties in Australia, apparently. Zilch up over.

[McChesney Duntz]

There's a glut of USian 90s porridge bands that bounced off the UK fairly rapidly.

Matchbox Twenty sold 12 million copies of their first album at home. It got to number 50 in the UK and the hit single from it only just scraped the Top 40. Bent*, the first single from the second album, was number 1 in the US. Nada here.

Vertical Horizon - of Everything You Want fame (no?) sold 2 million copies of the accompanying album in America. Over here it reached number 199.

See also Goo Goo Dolls, Train, Sugar Ray, The Wallflowers et bloody cetera.


* oh, shush.

My respect for the musical tastes of the UK has suddenly spiked like its COVID levels.