Post by sostie on Aug 9, 2021 11:17:50 GMT
Chart wise...
ZZ Top had minor album success early but never really took off until the Eliminator period
Molly Hatchett - a live album reached 94 and dropped out of chart the next week
Lynyrd Skynyrd - a few Top 40 albums and 2 Top 40 singles (Free Bird didn't make the 40 until 1982!)
Creadance - didn't do too badly
That's not to say they didn't have their fans or wouldn't do well live. It's not just the Southern Rock bands. Cheap Trick were huge in US ...in the UK 1 Top 40 single and one Top 40 album..never broke Top 20. Kiss' success in the UK is minor compared to US. When I was a kid they were probably at their peak - I only knew of them from adverts in comic books.
The thing about the UK is that it never really had stations for a specific genre until probably the 90s. The biggest stations were national...not as big as the US so no worries about time zones. The main music station was BBCs Radio One - pop in the day, but regular shows in evening for Rock, Indie, Dance, Reggae etc (though some of this would pop up daytime as well). To a certain level it was the same on TV and the music press. There were local stations as well, but they pretty much reflected the national stations.
In a way it was a good thing- peoples music tastes were very varied. Thecharts were more fluid. The size of the country for touring, music being exposed nationally on TV & Radio means new music gets exposed a lot quicker here. Sparks were way bigger here than the US. The Ramones and I think Public Enemy were more known in UK than outside New York in US. Pixies were pretty big in the UK pretty much from the get go. "Grunge" acts like Mudhoney and Nirvana were selling out decent sized venues nationally and making the covers of the weekly press a long time before Teen Spirit.
I think while Southern Rock trundled a long for some years in their homeland in the UK were were going through big glam rock, prog, pub rock disco, and punk waves over the same period.
I know there are many many bands in the UK the US never latched onto. Pop acts like Kyle Minogue and Robbie Williams for example were/are massive here (and many other countries) for many years, but little or no success in US. Band that are/were cult or niche in US were daytime national radio here - The Smiths, The Cure, New Order etc
Even songs from acts successful on both sides of the Atlantic. Mull of Kintyre is one of the biggest singles in British history if I’m not mistaken. I never heard it for years and I was glued to classic rock music. Wings and McCartney got airplay, Band on the Run and other tunes were on our local station all the time. Not that one
It's a good example of how the national exposure of music can reflect in the chart.
I believe it was initially a double A-side and Mull was played on the radio. New releases were often played on the radio weeks in advance of release. Christmas was approaching and it had a seasonal flavour (it is reminiscent of Auld Lang Syne). So of course it was a contender for the Christmas number 1 - which I think was a bigger deal in the UK than the US. So constant rotation on TV and radio - remember, Nationally - helped make it a big seller (plus it isnt that bad a track). I don't think the circumstances can compare in many other countries.
The circumstances that - in my opinion - made the the UK chart so great also made it not so great. On the one hand you could have a band like The Jam enter the charts at number 1 4 times, or the likes of The Specials and Sex Pistols (unofficially) hit the top spot, or even an obscure dance track only really heard in clubs (Lil Louis, Daryl Pandy etc), on the other, novelty records, TV related songs and seasonal tracks also peppered the charts regularly.