Acts that should have been bigger in the U.S.

[Aqualung60]

XTC. Great English band that just never really made it big here. There Is actually a very cool YouTube video of XTC on David Letterman.

+1

 

[Aqualung60]

Hothouse Flowers!

 

[fishdreams]

How come nobody has mentioned The Rubettes:

Invalid Link Removed

The Rubettes! I loved them when I was 8 - then the Beatles entered my tiny little world. Great stuff.

Other fun Brit teenybopper stuff:
Racey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofDCsRhT57o
Mud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwM-HRW710U

and classic 1-hit wonders deserving wider recognition:
Bram Tchaikovsky https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT-cco2ot3s
The Motors https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU5buMgojTo
The Housemartins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ehden6aPl0

The Housemartins' bass player, Norman Cook, subsequently went on to international fame and fortune as Fatboy Slim.

 

[DeViking]

Randy Jackson and Zebra
Blue Murder
Rose Tattoo
Black Magnolia, they still have time though
Nightwish with Tarja

 

[Richland123]

Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush
Shocking Blue (they had a few hits in the U.S. but many more in Europe)

 

[4001]

Glenn Hughes

 

[godofthunder59]

You beat me to it Mark! SLADE!

Slade.

Really big in the U.K., nothing much much in the U.S., Jimmy Lea is/was a great, largely unknown (in the U.S) bassist.

 

[Mr. Sound]

I always assumed that Suzi Quatro was big in America, she was on Happy Days, after all!

 

[Fat Steve]

 

[Richland123]

Trapeze

 

[Mr. Sound]

How did Mental as Anything go in the U.S.? Didn't they do Rock and Roll Music in the Young Einstein movie?

 

[Richland123]

Mondo Rock

 

[godofthunder59]

Are you daft ? So McCartney penned Come and Get It. They wrote most of their own material and did a amazing job of performing it live. One of the most under rated under appreciated bands of the late 60's mid 70's. A example you say? Ok how about Can't Live" if living is without you" ? A hit for Harry Nilsson but it appears on Badfingers No Dice in a much more bluesy stripped down and dare I say superior version.

I'd say Badfinger was as big as they deserved to be. Most people know all their songs that are worth anything ( Many penned by Beatles).

Nasty Savage
Morbid Angel
3rd Rail
Mr. Bungle

 

[godofthunder59]

One of my favorite Badfinger songs................Invalid Link Removed and Without You http://youtu.be/PyBS_1vGwpU If you dig through their entire catalog better song writing you'd be hard pressed to find.

 

[fishdreams]

Talk Talk.
And Joe Jackson's 1st three records are awesome. (Look sharp, I'm The man, Beat Crazy)

 

[_asdfgh_]

Thomas Dolby

With some irony, Thomas Dolby is relatively unknown here now, except with a certain demographic, as he dropped off the radar in the UK after moving to... the USA.

Simple Minds

I would have thought that given the use of its music in US movies in the 1980s it would have been huge over there.

There are definitely some other bands in the UK that could have had mainstream success, and I have no idea if they did, but I would have thought acts like M People would have done well. Did Cockney Rebel trouble the charts over in the USA? Kate Bush? Hazel O'Connor? The Wonder Stuff?

 

[_asdfgh_]

Hothouse Flowers!

Not even that well known in the UK. Not ground breaking music, but a fine example of the genre.

From around the same period Terry and Gerry was very good, and doing very US-inspired music, but then more-or-less a one-hit wonder in the UK let alone anywhere else.

King Crimson.

Maybe it's a bassist thing, but I thought everyone in the USA knew of King Crimson. And Tony Levin is a wonderful bassist, and the world's second nicest man after Michael Palin, apparently.

 

[Spector_Ray]

If it wasn't for Quiet Riot, I don't think any of us Americans would have heard of Slade.

 

[godofthunder59]

Huh? I started listening to Slade in '72

If it wasn't for Quiet Riot, I don't think any of us Americans would have heard of Slade.

 

[Bass_Nishi]

English Beat, Devo and Faith No More should be better acknowledged