Only insofar as you can often smell cowsh!t when you take a breath of fresh air. The Farm were an abomination!
A friend of mine dragged me to a Gwar show a while ago, and they were fantastic (live - I can see how their songs may not stack up listened to outside of the live spectacle they create)
I'm sure this point has been made a thousand different ways by now. But many of the Britpop bands sang lyrics about peculiarly British things and had strongly anglicised style. Oasis probably did the best out of all of them in America because their lyrics weren't very 'British' at all. Harking back to the sixties, the British bands that did the best were those who, in some form or another, drew heavily on American sounds. On the other hand, the distinctly British Kinks got nowhere (although that was also due to their dispute with the American musicians unions).
Anyone who thinks there’s anything remotely American about Different Class, Dog Man Star or Parklife doesn’t understand music.
It was a half-joke - I'm American too. I just think Pulp's humor is probably a bit too arch for most US listeners. I mean, the multi-layered meaning of "Common People" was clearly lost on this guy, so I don't think that many American radio listeners in the mid 90s were laser focused on lyrics, and that is kinda the primary appeal of Pulp, moreso than the music. For an example of the importance of lyrics to American mainstream listeners, just look at "Yellow Ledbetter" - I don't even think Eddie Vedder knows what he is singing there. I honestly think they just left the test vocal track where he was improv scatting and planned to come up with real lyrics later. After years of effort, Blur finally broke through to American audiences with the brilliant line worthy of Dylan himself: "woo hoo!" I mean, if we couldn't even "get" something as direct and hooky as Suede or Supergrass, Pulp is like college level Britpop, an acquired taste in general for Americans missing many cultural and musical reference points. In that sense I kinda understand why Pulp didn't break on US radio.
The last 20 years or so? No excuses in the internet age. I've heard and enjoyed your American '80s music which sold very low here, even if you lambast us for it I've even listened to Ziggy Pop! Ironically, and perhaps unintentionally, JamesR has given us a pretty big clue as to why the '90s material didn't translate so well as the '70s Prog and '60s Merseybeat did.
In the same way UK audiences were not "wowed" by "Amercian Graffiti", for example, because it was too US-centric, the same argument could be made for Britpop in that it was too British for American audiences to get their heads around. Odd isn't it? We may share the same language and a lot of similar culture, but there are things that neither side seem to be willing to understand or appreciate.
I know I said it before but the first time I saw subtitles being used for someone speaking in English was Oasis being interviewed on mtv news in America. I remember thinking can they really not understand them? I've never been to Manchester and I can understand them no problem.
I don’t know about that. The Dead were very much a worldwide phenomenon - they even had fans in Egypt! Everybody’s heard of them, even people who aren’t into music much seem to have heard of them, and amongst a certain demographic they were very big, even though they seemed to make no concerted attempt to build a following outside their home country (jaunts abroad seemed to decline after the seventies, though Garcia’s health issues may have played a part in that). Suffice it to say, the Dead were anything but obscure or niche the way a band like (say) It’s A Beautiful Day were/are.
Apparently, people from the southern states sometimes get subtitled in America, so it’s maybe not so surprising. Susan Boyle was also subtitled and I have no problem whatsoever understanding her.
I was in high school in the late 90's and I don't recall ever hearing about them. I was aware of Blur before "Song 2" because I had a friend who was a fan. At some point, probably in the early 00s I heard "Common People" but I don't remember when or what the circumstances were. To be honest, it might have been William Shatner and then I started investigating. I can't say that for sure. For some reason I bought Different Class probably 5 years ago and since then my appreciation has grown from there.
There have always been UK artists who, while enjoying enormously popular over there, have failed to see that success translate to the US market. Example: Cliff Richard is #3 in top-selling singles in the UK (just behind the Beatles & Elvis) but barely made a ripple in the States, where only "Devil Woman" and "We Don't Talk Anymore" can be counted as hits. Naturally, I'm sure the reverse is also true and there are popular US bands that are unfamiliar to the average UK music fan as well.
I was a voracious music nerd in high school and loved Oasis, Blur, Suede, Ride, etc. so I had definitely heard of Pulp. When "This is Hardcore"'s cover is at the CD listening station how can a teenage boy say no? But as much as I wanted to like it I simply didn't get it, musically. I thought they were overrated by the music media. Later in life I came around to appreciating a lot of music mainly for the lyrics and then my love of the music follows - Dylan, Cohen, Townes van Zandt, Microdisney, etc. It wasn't til I was in my 30s that I took a deep dive and finally reassessed Pulp as geniuses with great hooks. They were an acquired taste, but sometimes those are the best. Microdisney is now one of my all time favorite bands but it took a very long time to fully enjoy their music in its own right. I was so intrigued but didn't get it the first fifty or so times. Pulp was like that too, and I am an openminded listener, so just don't think Pulp would have made it on US radio. If straightforwardly catchy **** like "Girls and Boys" by Blur, "Twisterella" by Ride and "Single Girl" by Lush don't make it, Pulp is a long shot...
