When Kylie had a hit with locomotion it was something of bad timing when she peaked:
The grunge movement was moving in fast and what they were doing was pushing a lot of the weaker pop acts aside
MTV was having its 10th anniversery and a lot of pundits were talking about its positive and negative effects on music and television. In an interview with the MTV president Byrant Gumbel singled Kylie & “Locomotion” out as an example of what was wrong with MTV - he hammered her with the phrase “just another back-lit blonde with a heavily processed voice singing a cover of a song their are much better versions of”. I don’t know how much influence Bryant had but he hit the target with that.
Kylie had a wonderful voice, but you wouldn’t know it from ‘Locomotion’ where, as Gumbel pointed out, it was so heavily processed as to be robotic. This at a time when MTV & the music industry was also thinking about ‘unplugged’ and more natural sounds.
Here adult sounds might have had a chance in the US (if nothing else, Come Into My World for its awesome video), had she not come first with her teen-pop act.
The Kinks had a problem unrelated to their lyrics and music. After their first tour of the US, the American musician’s union refused to let them work in the US again. It wasn’t until late 1969 that the ban was lifted, so The Kinks were unable to tour the US at all during a four year period when British acts were very popular here. The reasons for this ban have never been clear; Wikipedia says it was widely attributed to their onstage rowdiness, but it seems difficult to believe The Kinks were blacklisted for this while The Who wasn’t.
I’ve heard that some people believe part of the problem was that Ray Davies’s wife at the time, Rasa (who also sang backup on a number of Kinks songs), was Lithuanian, so he was suspected of being a Commie sympathizer if not a Communist himself. I don’t know if there’s anything to that, but I do know that Rasa had been unable to join The Kinks on their first (pre-blacklist) US tour because she couldn’t get a visa.
The Bonzo Dog (Doo-Dah) Band is something of an institution in the UK, though they never had any US success. Not that they had many UK hits (IIRC, only “I’m the Urban Spaceman” made the UK singles chart), but they had a big audience due to the TV show Do Not Adjust Your Set (starring proto-pythons Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Eric Idle). They one recorded four albums (then a reunion album), but all the material has been rereleased in various “best of” collections.
It was unlikely they’d break through in the US; their comedy was even wilder than Python (though their Hunting Tigers Out in Indiah seems to have influenced Laugh-In). They were also hurt by being signed to Liberty Records, who never really knew how to promote an act.
Go on, pull the other one. Blaming recording industry non-success on being Jewish is like saying you flunked out of police academy because you’re Irish.
His problem might have been from Minneapolis. Americans are actually just fine with Jewish entertainers as long as they’re from the coasts and have the vibe. That whole Dylan thing was kinda a fluke.
Great thread. I definitely agree with Blur, especially when they didn’t make a splash in the States until Song 2, when they changed their style to a more American lo-fi sound. The Soup Dragons and Charlatans UK had songs that made it here but not so much with Blur.
I’d also proffer Level 42 (who did have a Top 40 song in '85 or so with Something About You. They scored a opening slot with Madonna around 1986… on SNL, the whole enchilada. They were produced by Verdine White of Earth Wind and Fire - so I would have thought they would have found receptive ears in R&B or pop radio. Some of it is self-sabotage, I suppose - the guitarist and drummer (also main lyricist) left around '86, and the new sound they came up with was more pop/rock than R&B (though I liked it).
Bass aficionados know Mark King’s bass playing, but the band’s heyday in the UK and Europe was pretty much the whole decade of the 80s.
a-ha is my other example. Massive worldwide, each album better than the last - namechecked as an influence from everyone from Coldplay to Keane to Kanye West - but still considered just a one-hit wonder. Their recent single, Analogue, was co-written by Max Martin and is very radio-friendly. Better yet, the band hasn’t aged much, and are very good looking… but you can only get their post-Take On Me output on import.
European comics, especially Tintin and Asterix, which are still popular all over the world many years after their original pulblication, are totally unknown to most of the U.S. Also Lucky Luke, Spriou, Little Nemo, and Benoit.
To some extent that’s true of Japanese comics as well, though some of manga has penetrated here. However, Doraemon, Ranma, Inuyasha, and Conan (the detective not the barbarian) are mostly unknown.
Didn’t he end up as lead singer of INXS for a while after Michael Hutchence’s (sp?) death?
My contribution: Heavy metal band Manowar. They’re an American band that, over the last 30 years, has garnered an astonishingly huge, loyal following in Europe, South America, and Japan, but has somehow never managed much success here in the US. And singer Eric Adams is one of the most impressive vocalists metal has ever seen. Fo course, the band’s propensity for getting up in front of audiences and singing at them in their own languages probably helps. Not to mention epicness like this performance of Phantom of the Opera, sitting in with the band HolyHell.
I’m not a manga fan, but I know several people who are, and it seems to me that most people with any interest in Japanese comics or cartoons have at least heard of Inuyasha and especially Ranma. The animated version of each is probably far more popular here, but I’ve personally known people who owned English versions of the comics. Heck, I’ve personally know people who’ve dressed up as characters from Inuyasha and Ranma. Detective Conan is less well-known, but I’m sure I’ve at least heard the series mentioned in the US.
Doraemon I know of only because I used to live in Japan, and while it is hugely popular there (at least as well known as Calvin & Hobbes is in the US, or maybe even Peanuts) it does seem to be that most Americans have never heard of it even if they like manga and anime. So that’s a good example for the OP.
Oh, another cartoon that is beloved in Japan but virtually unknown in the US is Anpanman. I don’t believe there’s ever been an official English version of the Anpanman TV series or any of the movies. I’ve never known any American anime fan to even mention the series, but I’d only been in Japan a couple of days when I first noticed Anpanman merchandise. I was told the title character is at least as recognizable to Japanese children as is Mickey Mouse, but Japanese adults were perfectly willing to admit to me that the series sounds pretty weird when you try to explain it.
The short version is that Anpanman is sort of a cross between Superman and the Pillsbury Doughboy, with an unintended but to a Westerner unmistakable dash of Jesus Christ. For the long version, see Wikipedia.
It would be interesting to know how much money the cameraman had to cough up in order to get that gig.
Yeah, according to Wiki, D’Arby was one of several guest singers INXS had once they’d begun performing again after Hutchence’s death. Thanks, I wasn’t aware D’Arby had ever performed with them.
I also thought it was strange how the Scissor Sisters never broke out in America despite the fact that they’re from here! Now that I think about it, the only reason I even heard of them was because an English friend introduced me to them while we were both living abroad.
I didn’t blame his faith he does. He had to turn down the chance to tour and open up for bands because he can’t work on Sundays. It’s the Sabbath. He is actually a devout Jew and a family man from Minnesota. I think he put his family and his faith ahead of career but it is his honesty in his song writing that gets him into trouble in the US. You can write all kinds of awful music on all kinds of horrible things and sell records over here but you can’t cut to the core anymore. We can’t handle the truth, only the obscene as cool. I’m thinking of Vanilla Ice talking about his Mother! Scissor Sisters? Give me a break! I give Peter credit for even having the guts to put it on an album. I understand why he can’t promote it because you don’t have to be a Jew to know you take crap for having faith today in God. You can be a degenerate but you can’t have faith in God…
What a shame! It was his Masterpiece and it never got air time! It was considered to be too politically incorrect or something? It is a true story of his that he put to music. I never understood why because I have heard raunchier stuff on the radio. This was to me his best song ever. It is a bonus track called “Untitled” from Flown. It’s about a taxi cab ride he had from the airport. He was in the backseat and the taxi driver was an Aryan. I won’t give it away but it was just a Masterpiece.
He is one of the few that will never make it in America like Cat Stevens or anyone else that puts faith ahead of fame. You will hear his songs on tv shows as backround music and say, I know that voice?
I like this thread because some of the best music and art never makes it for reasons we may never know. Or we do? As Himmelman says, 'We had the nerve, to have flown"…
Six albums, several really great hits. I seem to be the only person who loves them.
Upon checking their website, I see they were briefly in the U.S. in 2007, but never came within 500 miles of where I live. Have been on tour consistently in the last three years, but haven’t been back to the U.S. I presume because they just don’t have the following on this side of the pond.
About a decade ago they were enormous here. They’d still have their fans but I don’t think they were ever as popular again after their initial (superb) album.
Oh, I dunno if I’d say enormous; I’m sure I hadn’t heard of Placebo a decade ago, although I’m sure I’d heard the song “Pure Morning” about 1,000 times a day. I wouldn’t have known who was playing that song.
But yeah, I thought that last album last year was great and was sorely disappointed when I kept checking the web site and they keep adding tour dates, but still. Nothing in the U.S. Bastids.
Are there numerous acts who achieved great success in the UK that they were never able to match in North America? Sure- but nearly half a century after the Beatles and Stones came to the US, I have a hard time believing that cultural differences between the two countries are the main reason.
There’s absolutely no good reason that Robbie Williams SHOULDN’T have been extremely popular in the States. He just wasn’t.
Rather than scratch our heads and wondering why Robbie wasn’t as popular here as other people making comparable pop recordings, I think we should just shrug and remember William Goldman’s classic statement about show biz: “Nobody knows anything.”
Even if we stick to musical artists from the United States, you can drive yourself nuts wondering why Bon Jovi has thrived for 20 years while other hair bands with a similar sound flopped. There are LOTS of country music singers as good as Faith Hill, LOTS of rappers as good as Tone Loc, LOTS of mellow saxophonists as good as Kenny G. Is there any magic formula that can tell us why THOSE artists have sold millions of records, while other artists just as good (or better) struggled vainly for success?
Sometimes, the only answer is that there ISN’T any answer. That’s just the way show biz goes.
