Why did Paul Weller, An Artist With Such An Excellent Body of Work Never Make it In The USA?

Looking at Paul's chart placings and sales awards throughout his solo career there is no disputing his success in the UK and later Ireland. He is consistently Top 5 . However, nowhere else does he repeat this performance. He obviously is beloved in the UK, and knows his audience. So he doesn't really need to hustle anywhere else. His current performance in the US seems similar to that of Capt Beefheart's trajectory, broke the Top 100 albums, lots of non placings then lots of sub 200.

The Jam's chart performance in the US was similar to XTC's ( got as high as the 40s and as low as 170) and could have easily been built upon. The Jam would have had to embraced the US like The Who, Zep and even the Clash with a bigger sound, sought radio airplay, toured hard; but his US influences have always been thru secondary sources with a bit of overall disdain. (Also keep in mind from '75 -'05 doing badly in the US, still could mean numbers larger than most other markets (50k -300K units).

 

As a yank who has read tons of British music magazines for the past two decades or so, Paul Weller is one of those figures who I know, I could probably recognize him if I saw him on the street, but other then that one Jam song that sort of sounds like Taxman, I am completely unfamiliar with his work. I know he has an almost McCartney like career (broke through as part of one band, had a second act with another band and then has been enjoying a long and from what I can tell, successful solo career)
So I don’t really have an excuse for not checking out his work earlier but I am curious.
What would most people feel is his most essential work? Is it the Jam stuff? Style Council or solo? If you could only recommend one part of his career to a newbie what would it be? From what I gather The Jam seems to be the more iconic/influential, and it is first so maybe it would be best to just start there.
Appreciate any feedback

 

The Jam failed to tour the U.S. enough to make themselves known. A very old story for many British acts, especially in that era.

 

Start with Snap! and Sound Affects: a collection of all their singles and their best LP, respectively.

 

I'd go with his early solo work, albums like "Stanley Road" or "Wild Wood" are uniformly excellent, and don't sound as dated as the Jam or Style Council might. His later solo work, like "Saturns Pattern" and his most recent "Fat Pop" are really good as well. If you want more, then maybe dig more into his mid-period of his solo work.

 

I hemmed and hawed about just which way to get into The Jam -- which two albums to get, or was there just the perfect compilation I should start with? I spent a good 6 months periodically trying to figure it out, always to decide I couldn't quite decide.

So I finally said -- f*** it! -- and I dove right into the deep end, and bought their entire studio output (sans alternates and demos), all in one fell swoop...

Direction Reaction Creation - Wikipedia

The 5CD Direction Reaction Creation box had it all -- and I sure as hell am glad I did. It was LITERALLY the very first Jam release I'd ever purchased -- the whole kit and caboodle, all at once.

NO regrets whatsoever. Find a cheap-ish copy (if you can, like I did), and just dive in.

 

And which is your favourite song so far…. David Watts and English Rose two recommendations from me..

 

One album by The Jam: "Sound Affects" (1980)
One by The Style Council: "Café Bleu" (1984).
Two from his long solo career: "Wild Wood" (1993) and "Saturn's Pattern" (2015).

These are four very different albums that kind of sum up his work.

 

I love Weller ,but don't want to lose early Doobie Brothers,why they didn't make it in Britain is nuts Paul never seemed to be a commercial artist He probably doesn't care ,he sings with heavy British accent and his voice isn't great in spots

 

There’s kind of a simple calculus for British bands who want to make it big in America:

Pander to Your Home Audience By Talking Crap in the Press About How Breaking America Doesn’t Matter to You = You Don’t Break America, Sorry

Happened to Weller. Happened to Blur. Oasis cracked the US and then acted like such brats that we threw them back.

Logical, too. If I wanted to break into the UK but started doing interviews where I said the UK doesn’t matter to me, I wouldn’t expect industry support when I popped up in the UK promoting a single. Why would anyone adopt that strategy?

I think the problem with a lot of these UK Mod bands is that they sometimes pander to their British base assuming no one outside is looking. But then when they get big enough that they want to make a go at America, the first thing anyone over here reads is about how much these guys apparently hate us.

I’m saying this as a massive Anglophile. Stop crapping on the US if you want to break into the US.

 

On thing is for sure, UK Weller fans are very protective of Weller and his work.

 

I can help answer this, I think. I'm a US citizen, but all my ancestors are from the UK.

I think it's because The Jam was closely tied to a UK-only fashion movement: the mods. While the "greasers" and Teddy Boys were an American import statement for England, the mods were native to the UK and didn't translate well to American culture, because American kids didn't associate dressing up in smart clothes with rebellion. Even the Sex Pistols were more relatable to American punk audiences. The only way most Americans were exposed to the mod lifestyle was through The Who's "Quadrophenia" or mod revivalists like The Jam or The Buzzcocks.

Another issue is that it's a lot harder to sell "Northern Soul" to a US audience instead of a UK audience, since in the US we have the real thing; there's no need for a blue-eyed imitation.

 

English Rose is one of my very faves of the Jam/Weller canon. I finally got to see him perform it live. It's the lost track from Quadrophenia.

 

All true.

 

I don’t think Weller wanted to make it big in the US. Other than more money, why would he? He isn’t Bono.

 

I saw The Jam at CBGB and twice at The Palladium in NYC. Having seen some video of their concerts in England, it was a different energy level altogether. I remember Weller making some vaguely positive comments to the audience from the stage at The Palladium, but he looked uncomfortable up there. He liked being on his home turf.

Weller is a cultural icon in England. He is not a cultural icon anywhere else around the world and his popularity reflects that.

 

One of the biggest things a band/ solo artist had to do to break a new market (US is just one of many), is to tour and to do a lot of promo. It’s less true now, as so much can be done remotely. Look at the likes of Adele who rarely tours.

But perhaps Weller and many others simply didn’t want to spend months on end doing so in the 80s and 90s. That’s of course not saying he would have had an impact if he did - but for many, it’s just not important to them.

 

My Ever Changing Moods by the Style Council, made it to #29 on the US charts in 1983, their best showing in the States. Not sure why he never a made a big impression on the market. If anyone was the Style Council should've.

 

You should hear their other song that sounds like "Taxman". It is even better!

 

Interesting observations, but it gets a bit more complicated. The elaborate Edwardian dress of the Teds was a homegrown concept that did not translate to the US, whereas the leather clad rockers was directly lifted from US movies of the time and specific promo pics of Elvis and Gene Vincent. Mods, modernists, lifted their look from black US jazz musicians of the time.

Northern Soul isn’t blue eyed soul but rather the fetishized collecting and dancing to forgotten/lost Motown sounding 45s released by some major US labels but mostly US independent record labels of the sixties thru early 70s era. The Northern part denotes the Northern UK town of Wigan where most of this happened.

 

The same reason that all famous, well-liked bands from the UK fail in the US: lack of interest.

Hell, I know that both The Jam’s and Mr. Weller’s output was more popular in Canada than in the US, naturally played by intelligent, knowledgeable radio stations here for well-aware listeners.

 

Or ...

All Mod Cons
Our Favourite Shop (far superior to Cafe Bleu)
Wild Wood
22 Dreams

 

The Buzzcocks were never a mod band though.

 

Who’s that by ,I’d like to check it out.

 

It’s tough one to weigh but relative to the two countries populations Weller seems to have done as well in Canada as he did in the US, sales wise. Whereas in Canada he may have gotten play on national/tv rather than the independents in the US. He’s not at Tragically Hip or Springsteen levels in either respective country, despite Canada being slightly more Anglophone than the US.Paul despite his talents didn’t care to do the work to orient himself for success in either country.