Why did The Doors and Jefferson Airplane do so badly in the UK charts?

By 1970 they had built up a following which would buy the albums at the time of release placing them on the charts for a week or two. Sales of earlier albums were probably spread out over a longer period of time.

 

I remember their 1965 singles having a lot of airplay on the offsh0re radio stations although they only became modest hits. 'Barbara Ann' was their biggest hit to date (no.3) early in the year, and the release of "Pet Sounds" was a big event helped by Derek Taylor. Prior to this EMI had been releasing their albums in a strange order - "Summer Days (and Summer Nights" wasn't released here until after Pet Sounds.

 

I am amazed their first LP didn’t chart in the UK!?
Although looking online over the years it’s been by far their bestselling LP here.

 

And Heroes And Villains was #1 in the final Big L Fab Forty, sharing the position with Even The Bad Times Are Good by the Tremeloes. Even as a 12 year-old I thought that was odd. Big L (the pirate Radio London) also gave a lot of airplay to Moby Grape at that time.

My impression is that back in the day the cool kids at school were listening to the Dead, Love, Canned Heat, the Doors... but cool kids alone aren't enough to put albums in the charts. The elephant in the room though must be Dylan. Nine UK top-20 albums in the sixties is quite an achievement.

 

Well.... Break On Through, Light My Fire, Love Me Two Times etc were all released in the UK as singles too. But did nothing!

 

They also tried 'Alabama Song'...
The Doors – Alabama Song (Whisky Bar) (1967, Push-out Centre, Vinyl)
'Light my Fire' was the only one prior to 'Hello I Love You' to get much airplay.

 

Good point and well taken.

Given that Hello I Love You was a hit in the UK, flipping the single over would surely given the Brits a much better idea as to what The Doors were all about:



But I don't think Auntie BBC's DJs did that sort of thing at the time. I certainly never heard anything other than the A side. And it put me off from wanting to listen to The Doors.

 

I don't know why they bothered to release a run of singles and make zero effort to promote them. I'd be curious to know why 'Hello I love You' got more of a push. Other than the fact it sounded like The Kinks, thus easier to promote. But the other singles were left to flounder completely.

 

Pirate Radio (especially Wonderful Radio London) and Radio Caroline (now legitimate and on Medium Wave) were big Doors, Beach Boys, and Jefferson Airplane advocates, and played USA style sounds, interspersed with UK and Continental sounds and USA presentation style. Remember, once upon a time it was "A Crime To Listen To Radio Caroline on 299"

 

Did you read my quite long response above? I was amongst the minority who were listening to and buying the West Coast American bands in the late Sixties. And there are other valid causes suggested in the thread. There won’t be a simple single answer to this but a a number of factors and, as I and others have commented, the Doors and JA were a bit different in both musical and marketing terms, with the Doors being more singles oriented (at least in terms of marketing).

 

A Mary Whitehouse uproar would have been excellent PR, but she mostly seemed concerned with TV, Jimbo would have had to do some grinding with Lulu to have gotten noticed.

Was “The Unknown Soldier” film ever shown on the BBC that would have gotten her ire.

 

many of my UK friends love the Airplane and were fans back in the day, so not sure chart status is the be all and end all.

 

On reflection maybe the question needs to be broadened out with a larger field of comparison, and that might provide more clues about why certain US musicians/bands did better in the UK than others. I can think of other bands/musicians from the period whose presence was virtually non existent in the UK, but I don’t know how popular they were in the US at the time if you measure by chart placing of singles and LPs. On the top of my head, how about Velvet Underground, Steve Miller Band, Quicksilver MS, Spirit, Big Brother - others such as the Byrds, Dylan, Mamas and Papas have already been mentioned as successful in the UK. I think the example of Jimi Hendrix may be pertinent. It helped that of course he was a fantastic musician with a base in the then popular blues style, but I suggest that his presence for live gigs and media activities was significant. Maybe having a manager who was steeped in the UK music scene was also a factor.

 

It’s not clear to me how much promotion was put behind the Doors and Jefferson Airplane in England. Compared to the US it was a fairly small market, so expending resources on promoting those acts may not have made sense, particularly for a relatively small label like Electra. RCA had more to spend, but I don’t think they wanted to bother. Look at the Beatles - they released three? singles in the US with no chart action until press coverage propelled Wanna Hold Your Hand on to the charts, then the Ed Sullivan appearance shot them to another level. Did either group ever appear on Ready Steady Go or a similar widely watched UK TV show? The Beach Boys did, and it was a big boost for them (and they did a BBC live session for radio).

 

The Jimi Hendrix Experience were considered a British band, based in the UK. Doing tons of promotional stuff here. So it's not really comparable.

 

Hard to tell, isn’t it?

 

Elektra UK had released 36 previous singles and as far as I'm aware only 'Light My Fire' had appeared in the Top 50.
Elektra Label Discography - UK - 45cat
I don't imagine that there was a huge budget for promotion, I guess the main hope was to generate some press coverage, possibly the odd airplay, and possibly sell some copies of the LPs from which the singles were taken. In most shops albums would be a lot easier to find at the time than singles not in the Top 50 or by big names.

'Hello I Love You' was at the time the Doors most commercial single by far - #1 in the US after their three previous singles had been less successful each time -

Light my Fire #1
People are Strange #12
Love Me Two Times #25
The Unknown Soldier #39

 

Unknown Soldier was banned on many stations in the US, due to anti-war message, Billboard chart placings took in consideration volume of radio airplay. Thus it probably sold more than chart placing would indicate

The Unknown Soldier-The Doors-(Official Video)

 

I heard it was banned on most stations in the US

 

Exactly my point - Jimi Hendrix made it in the UK because he was present here whereas bands like the Doors and JA had barely any physical presence in the UK. Anyhow I don’t think anyone at the time considered the JHE a British band - Hendrix could hardly have been less an American.