Canada has “Canadian Content” rules which essentially means radio stations must air a certain amount of Canadian artists.
I am actually aware of that. Still, I’m surprised at the lack of crossover to US markets, as the content I’ve heard is pretty good.
Triumph was played quite a bit on the radio when I was a kid. Early 80s, San Francisco Bay Area. They weren’t on the level of The Police or Def Leppard, but they certainly weren’t unknown here. Off the top of my head, I remember often hearing “Fight the Good Fight,” “Magic Power,” “Hold On,” “Never Surrender”… and I know there were more I’m not thinking of.
Well, if you live in Detroit, you probably hear them on the Windsor station. I was always surprised by the number of bands I heard while at a friend’s house who turned out to be Canadian that were presumably on CIMX mainly because they were Canadian, because they seemed perfectly acceptable within the oeuvre that 89X was going for (I didn’t care a ton about it, but I knew them from osmosis). It’s probably that there’s a ton of bands out there that are perfectly fine, but haven’t really had a big break, and have to break into each territory separately. I remember hearing/reading the Beatles didn’t want to risk making a trip to tour the US until they had a number 1 there.
I recall reading that some UK magazine did a poll and the band that the most people in England told them was their favorite ended up being The Stone Roses. I had never heard of them before, and probably still haven’t heard anything by them. Given my memory of that, I’m surprised they haven’t been mentioned in this thread yet.
Depends on the magazine, Stone Roses was very much the darling of the late 80s- early 90s indie bands, and a few people I know have that one album they did as their favourite ever. Their big hit was: Stone roses - I am the resurrection in the UK which was massive in the Indie charts, and not sure of the place in the main charts which was full of boybands at the time.
Personally I thought they were alright, never got the wide-eyed adoration they got. I preferred Primal Scream.
I would have guessed Fool’s Gold, but it’s actually Love Spreads that got the highest charting. I had no idea they were unknown in the USA.
You’re right, that’s the hit. I’d long forgotten about them, and only remembered that from Indie nights of the time as the one I kind of liked.
It was all kind of the same type of music, and that song struck me as little different from the rest of the indie bands.
Nitpick: they did make a long awaited and permanently rescheduled second album that finally came out in 1994 and was modestly called “Second Coming”. Most critics and fans don’t like it, but I like it almost as much as their debut.
Yeah, I couldn’t be bothered to double check that. I think they were supposed to play a Glastonbury I attended, then they split the day before the appearance which annoyed the hell out of the people there, and I didn’t care at all.
I do remember a second album, then them splitting soon after. I am not even sure I knew everyone loved them at this point.
The Pet Shop Boys were mentioned a couple of times above. I saw them in L.A. in 1999 and they sold out the Universal Amphitheatre. I gather they’re at a certain plateau of both record sales and ticket sales and would still do quite well over here.
There’s a Scottish band I absolutely love called Deacon Blue that’s been around since the mid-eighties but as far as I can tell never had a hit on this side of the Atlantic. I heard them for the first time in 2014 when their big European smash “Real Gone Kid” was used in a nightclub scene in the film Under The Skin (the one where Scarlett Johannson plays an alien succubus driving around Glasgow in a van, abducting people to eat). The hook to the song got me to check them out on Youtube, and I’ve got all their albums, though I’ve had to either get them all via eBay or while CD shopping on trips to the UK. In Canada, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen their discs in used CD shops, and never once at HMV (before it went under) or Sunrise Records. I’m the only person I know in my friends group who’s heard of them, but I suspect that all of my Brit friends are familiar with the group.
I’m not in the UK, and I only remember them as an 80s one hit wonder band (and I don’t even remember the hit), and the trivia fact that they named themselves after the Steely Dan song “Deacon Blues”. I had no idea they still exist.
Sir Cliff Richard (no s) did manage a few top 10 US hits in the '70s (“Devil Woman” and “We Don’t Talk Anymore”), plus he got some traction with that saccharine “Millennium Prayer”, but you’re right that he was barely a blip on the US charts whereas he’s a freaking legend in the UK.
Three of those were huge in the US in the 1980s. I’d never heard of Fairport Convention or Renaissance until I moved to the UK.
To be fair, a lot of UK readers may picture them that way as well. Remember the “Alas Smith and Jones” sketch about them? “A YUM-ta TUM-ta TUM-ta…”
Another group huge with mopey teens in the US in the 1980s. Not sure they charted but they had a lot of goth fans.
Much in the same way QR was basically the US cover band for Slade, going the other way Dionne Warwick was the go-to girl for Burt Bacharach singles in the US but it was Cilla Black who covered all the same songs in the UK (often unkindly but not entirely unfairly accused of parroting Warwick’s interpretation of the songs). Warwick isn’t well-known in the UK and the same for Black in the US.
Yeah, I’m an old fucker and if I can name the lead singer of a band, name more than five songs they put out, as well as roughly describe Mr. Smith’s appearance, you can bet they made it here.
Probably Dignity. Although I think Real Gone Kid and other singles charted higher. But Dignity is the fan favourite still.
They were quite popular in my music circle here in Cape Town, in the late '80s. I still love them.
And Ricky Ross and Lorraine McIntosh are one of my marriage role models…
I listened to both “Dignity” and “Real Gone Kid”, and both didn’t ring a bell. Then I searched for the highest chart entry in Germany, and found out that Deacon Blue’s only chart hit here was “Fergus Sings The Blues”, peaking at #71 in 1989. And that one I did remember. From those three songs, I feel reminded of the style of Prefab Sprout, a band I admire, and will check out Deacon Blue’s work some more.
A correction here, that’s not Glasgow, it’s Port Glasgow, a town near Greenock, 20 miles away, you’d be forgiven for not knowing the difference though, but even before I knew this (I was born in Port Glasgow), I’d have said Western Scotland, though the beach scene is East coast. Too much greenery to be Glasgow.
You’d think it’s a claim to fame that Port Glasgow is where Scarlett Johansson spent celebrated her 27th Birthday in a Van. for the local area, but also the same town was used in the High School Christmas Zombie Musical Anna and the Apocalypse.
It’s a horrible little west of scotland town, with a bad reputation, but the views across the Clyde away from it are gorgeous. Other claim to fame is lowest flat prices in Scotland at £4000, where landlords are trying to sell off condemned junkie flats stopping them getting demolished.
I stand corrected. 
I’ve only been to Scotland twice and haven’t spent enough time in the Glasgow city centre to spot landmarks. I loved Anna and the Apocalypse, but the environs did seem fairly grim, even before the zombies showed up.
Oh, yes, definite similarity there.
Other bands that have a whiff of that kind of vibe for me: some of The Beautiful South’s songs, and The Lilac Time. I think it’s a sub-sub-genre of the sophisti-pop sub-genre that features primarily a male vocalist with strong female backing, clever lyrics, and good musical arrangements.
Agreed. I was hopelessly uncool [Ms. SMV from off-stage: “Was?”] in the Eighties; I was listening to ABBA and Air Supply and Kris Kristofferson when my friends were getting into U2 and R.E.M. But I was distinctly aware of alternative bands like The Cure, The Smiths, Souxise and the Banshees, Depeche Mode; what we didn’t yet call “emo” music.