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Dog 3000
Dog 3000
4611 posts

Re: Very British
Dec 09, 2007, 20:19
Interesting topic. Lots of good comments there Ian.

Also, of course, the US is a huge country and so touring the whole thing to get grass roots support literally means criss-crossing an entire continent a few times. This is hard enough when you live here, for a band from another country it could be impossible (unless there's someone back home to fund your trip.)

If you could get an influential DJ on your side in NYC or LA, or even better a shot on TV (Ed Sullivan, Dick Clark) that would be a lovely shortcut, but as you put it there's only ever a few who make that cut (Beatles, Stones) while the rest just have to work harder (The Who, Pink Floyd.)

I have a pretty good sense of what didn't make the UK-to-USA transition, but often wonder about the other way around.

And Canadian groups too (can it be true The Guess never had much popularity in the UK? Is "American Woman" the only song Brits know?) As I understand it they outsold the Beatles "globally" in 1970, which is probably entirely due to all the units they shifted in North America (Guess Who 1969-70 over here is like Slade on the UK charts a few years later; every single goes straight to the top 10, and most go to #1 in Canada.) It seems to me their halfway-between-UK-and-USA style should have gone over pretty well in both places. Or were they "too American"? (Being "too British" at that moment in pop music history seems almost impossible.)

Charts don't really tell the whole story -- The Who's track record in the American Top 40 is not too impressive, but they certainly had legions of fans here. (Or a group like The Jam, who are a "popular cult band" without any "hits.")
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