22 British Acts That Didn’t Break Big in America

Some of the biggest and most influential rock bands of all time have hailed from the U.K.

Really, what would rock ‘n’ roll be without the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Who, Elton John or Queen, just to name a few? There’s one thing that all of those acts have in common: they all enjoyed a substantial amount of American success during their careers.

The Beatles, for example, landed 64 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, 20 of which went to No. 1, all in the span of roughly six years. If you were to combine all the U.S. No. 1 hits earned by the aforementioned artists, you’d be looking at dozens upon dozens of song titles.

But here’s the thing: not every band to hit the big time in the U.K. had an easy time breaking through to American audiences. In some cases, it’s a matter of poor timing. Plus, even though there’s lots of overlap, the reality is fan bases in the two countries are simply not the same and have different tastes in music. It’s possible to be massively popular in one part of the world, and barely heard of in another.

There are plenty of British bands that found enormous commercial success in their home country — they just weren’t able to translate it across the ocean. In the below gallery, we’ve listed 22 British Acts That Didn’t Break Big in America, usually not for a lack of trying.