Why was 90s Britpop (Oasis, Pulp etc)not big in the US?

I agree with @JamesR that it's important to bear in mind the primacy of American origins of rock'n'roll... but that also means bearing in mind the primacy of European, West African, Caribbean, Hispanic, etc. traditions that merged to create American music. American music (like American culture) didn't emerge in a vacuum.

Anyway, yes, the USA originated jazz, blues, rock'n'roll, 'soul' (if this still exists), rap / hip-hop, etc., and it's actually important to keep this in mind. (One thing I admire about The Beatles is that no matter how big they got during 1963-66, they always insisted that their and all Liverpool groups' music was just a watered-down version of the real thing, from the USA.)

That being said... I disagree with literally every other point made by @JamesR .

Needless to say, complaining about posters from one country having an inferiority complex and being agenda driven by being hyper-sensitive yourself while pushing an unreasonable agenda isn't convincing anyone.

(Or, am I out of order because I'm a Canadian "speaking for Americans"? Whoops!)

 

I know they relocated to the UK later, but aren't Sparks from Los Angeles?

 

"Generally, the overwhelming opinion is that British music of the 90s was whiny and unoriginal, and was inferior to the likes of Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, The Offspring, Rage Against the Machine, or Stone Temple Pilots."

See, this is why people are "slagging" on you, "mate." I am an American and was exposed to 90s alternative radio in America, and those bands are generally not good examples of bands I consider superior to top tier Britpop. It is all a matter of taste though.

America has 5.5x the population of Britain so yeah, we have more artists. Britain just punches way over their weight class and had a much consistently higher quality overall.

That does not mean America did not have tons of great bands in the 1990s, but...most of the best American bands were ALSO largely neglected by mainstream radio. It wasn't like they were playing Pixies or Pavement or Fugazi or Superchunk or Beulah either.

And that is the crux of the issue: radio treated British mainstream alternative rock like they treated American indie bands, unless the British bands sounded like US alternative rock, which explains why Bush and "Song 2" broke through.

It doesn't have to be an either-or - both sides of the Atlantic were great in the 90s. But diminishing how great British alternative was and claiming America had too many great bands like...No Doubt and Live...to where we didn't have room or reason for radio to fit in UK bands like Suede, Supergrass, Ride, Swervedriver, Primal Scream (the only song ever played on US radio was the instrumental "Loaded"), Pulp, Stereolab and Sleeper (or for that matter, Canadian bands like Sloan and Australian bands like You Am I) is going to open you up to some laughs.

A lot of good music was neglected by US radio in the 90s, same as it ever was.

 

Only Alanis Morissette knows for sure…

 

This argument is stupid, and the longer I hear it - as an OG Britpop kid who now has a wider taste - the dumber it sounds, 25 years later. Maybe I posted this before, I dunno. I'm drunk and and these are the backwards debates we had then. No need to replay them now. FFS. No one under the age of 40 cares.

 

Wah wah. Mate, for someone who's so convinced of your US cultural superiority you don't half come across as some boring chump with a huge chip on your shoulder.

My reply that you quoted (after searching the whole thread for examples?!) was about 70s US glam rock btw - I spent the 90s hating Britpop, which this thread is about, with a passion and was strictly on a diet of US rock (Kyuss, Seaweed, Polvo, Pond, Wool, Big Chief, Pumpkins, Scarce, Soundgarden etc etc were probably my then favourites). But don't let that stop you getting worked about nothing.

 

There's no such thing as Ameri-Pop, nor does there need to be, Just saying.

 

That's the point. Donna relocated to Germany and became a star. She sold a lot more records in America than Sparks did though.

 

Stay off the caffeine.

Nine Inch Nails are heavily influenced by Depeche, Nitzer Ebb, and Prince. If you don't know that two of them are British, that's your lookout.

Don't care if you haven't heard of The Wonder Stuff. Doesn't matter. Like a number of great bands, The Wonder Stuff didn't really have a big commercial impact worldwide. It only matters insomuch as I wish they were bigger, so they could make more music and make a good living out of it.

Nirvana were massively influenced by The Beatles and Black Sabbath. Heard of them? Maybe not.

RHCP are one of the worst bands on the planet, with a side order of dodgy and possibly predatory sexual behaviour as well. I think the bands are bad, because they are bad : they're not original, smart, have no insight, dumb lyrics, and sound like the products of their record collections. There's lots of terrible British bands as well, and French ones, German ones. I can name them, but we'd be here until Thursday. Nothing chauvinist or anti-American about it. America's produced loads of great bands, and loads of bad ones. Like every country on the planet.

Re-reading your posts, you seem to be rather argumentative and disagreeable. I will not engage with you any further. If this kind of behaviour were taking place in a bar, I suspect the landlord would escort you off the premises.

 

The same can be said about Oasis. Remember Oasis? This is supposed to be a thread about Oasis, amongst others.

 

Oasis never walked around wearing socks on their genitals, or did a song called "Catholic School Girls Rule", so Oasis aren't quite as bad.

 

I’d say mainly US alternative radio was stuck playing bad grunge music at the time when the best work by Suede, Blur, Pulp, and Oasis came out. Now in retrospect, I definitely see Suede as the absolute best band of the 90’s, but at the time, I still relied mostly on radio to hear new music, so I hardly heard any Suede. But there were also quite a few very good American bands in the 90’s, especially Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, and Weezer.

 

Is there an American Giorgio Moroder and did he make any britpop records?

 

And Sparks are Brit-Pop?

 

Musically Oasis is infinitely worse. I don't even like the RHCP nor do I like to be put in the position of defending them. I'd say they're three great musicians with a crappy lead singer. The fact stands that neither of them had an original thought in their lives. I'm not here to argue or debate. Just saying.

 

Liam was 100% a knuckle dragging caveman, in my opinion. RHCP never had a Noel though..

 

Lewis Capaldi, Sam Smith, Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles, Adele, 21 Savage; seems like all the usual suspects have full crossover.

It doesn't matter whether they acknowledge it or not.

Any given year, the UK is either the world's third or fourth biggest music market. There was a time when British acts had to make it in the US market to be successful. Now they can be become superstars at home regardless of international crossover.

As an American, I love American music just as a Brit should love British music. Of course, American music influenced British acts. But UK music influenced US acts as well because for the longest time everyone was feeding off of the same vibe. That doesn't automatically make someone a clone band.

The Anglosphere is a unique market. We've got two things in common: the English language and the electric guitar. Between the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, we're talking about just under half a billion people. But each nation has its own unique vibe.

 

The 90s wasn't one era; it was two. The first half belonged to us, and the second half belonged to the UK.

I always say that the 80s was a pure pop era not all that different from what we have today. Whether it was metal or alt/indie post-punk, seemed like all the best rock was underground - at least in the US. I was listening to Sonic Youth and the Smiths right alongside of Metallica and Maiden. But if you didn't live in a big city or near a college town, you probably listened to AOR or Top 40.

IMO the early 90s saw a complete commercialization of what happened during the late 80s. And the late 90s experienced the re-commercialization.

 

No, they had John Frusciante, who's an infinitely more talented musician than Noel could ever dream of being.

 

Not when we already had Americana.

 

John's incredible. What he was doing with the rest of those idiots baffles me. It's like watching a Ferrari engine in a pushbike.

 

What does their possibly dodgy behaviour have to do with the quality of their music?

"Hey Kiedis, Unlimited Love sux!"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah!"
"How'd your record do? Because Unlimited went number one."

 

If you judge the quality of a record by its chart position and sales, that must mean you think Shania Twain's Come On Over is amazing. It sold loads.

 

Should I be embarrassed to admit that occasionally I still play the Brit Box: UK Indie Shoegaze & Brit Pop Gems ?

Every country, from every Continent has produced some amazing music but very little will end up being " big in the US".

 

I thought The Verve's Urban Hymms & Oasis's What's The Story was massive in the US?