Imagine a band with a sultry female singer, an impressive new-wave pedigree, a sound that expertly blends Motown soul with contemporary pop/rock, and oodles of international success over more than a decade. Sign that band to a nice contract and give them a long-overdue Stateside push. Then explain to them, as their new album sends them to the peak of their global popularity, why the largest market in the world will be forever off-limits.

The story’s a true one. The band is Texas.

While writing last week’s column about Robbie Williams, I found myself musing (and in some cases mourning) over some of my other favorite U.K. acts that, despite longstanding popularity on the other side of the Atlantic, never gained traction in the States. Explaining this phenomenon is sometimes easy, as with Robbie and his inability to convince Americans that a self-deprecating irony lurked just beneath his arrogant surface. Then there’s a band like the Manic Street Preachers. Their story was a little too weird (original lead singer Richie James, a depressive bent on self-mutilation, eventually disappeared and was presumed a suicide); their attitude was too wrapped up in radical British politics and class warfare; and their big U.S. break (opening an Oasis tour) was cut short because the fuckin’ Gallagher brothers couldn’t keep from wringing each other’s necks. By the time they released their highest-selling album in 1998 – a smash that won them Q magazine’s “Biggest Band in the World” prize – their American label, Epic, had dropped them from its roster. (more…)