(Credits: Far Out)
Thu 26 February 2026 0:00, UK
When it comes to commercial success, it’s often impossible to understand why some songs climb the charts in some countries but not others.
The US and the UK, in particular, have fascinating differences when it comes to their respective charts, with some songs performing much better in their native countries than overseas. One obvious explanation for this is cultural translation – some songs are generally bound to do better in their own country than others, especially if the foundation of support is usually already there.
Many British artists, for instance, have fairly prolific charting success but barely any over in America, which usually comes down to the broader “breaking America” debacle as well as a bunch of other societal factors. When the reverse happens, and an American artist struggles to succeed on British charts, it’s usually for all the same reasons.
With something like Robbie Williams’ Britpop, for instance, it’s expected for it to achieve number one on the UK Albums chart and the top ten in a bunch of other European countries but to not have any chart success at all in the US, just as it’s expected for someone like Luke Combs to perform better on the US Billboard 200 than the UK Albums chart.
On the current charts, there is a lot of crossover, with artists like Olivia Dean, Djo, Sam Fender, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Bad Bunny, Sombr, and Bruno Mars appearing on both sides, but there are also many notable artists who fail to even make a small impact on the other side, many of which, once again, are artists with more of a profound impact in their native countries.
Sometimes, however, there is no clear rhyme or reason for this trend. The Neighbourhood’s ‘Sweater Weather’, for instance, arguably one of the biggest songs of the recent landscape, climbed only to number 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and failed to even enter the top 40 in the UK. However, the song’s influence speaks for itself, proving once again why deeper cultural impact often overrides commercial success.
The hit song that failed to chart higher than the UK top 20
Others are less easy to define, in terms of both chart success and cultural impact. One of the most popular boy bands in the history of boy bands, Boyz II Men, achieved a major number-one smash hit in the US with their 1994 single, ‘On Bended Knee’, and even remained at number one in the charts for six non-consecutive weeks.
Before this, they’d already had a smash with their career-defining hit, ‘I’ll Make Love To You’, and replaced themselves with ‘On Bended Knee’, the first time any act had replaced themselves on the charts since The Beatles. However, the song failed to climb above 20 in the UK, and for whatever reason, it was instead overshadowed by a diverse mix of hits that blocked it from moving any further.
These included Kylie Minogue’s ‘Put Yourself in My Place’, Tom Jones’ ‘If I Only Knew’, Janet Jackson’s ‘You Want This’, New Order’s ‘True Faith’, Bon Jovi’s ‘Always’, Sheryl Crow’s ‘All I Wanna Do’, and more. Clearly, there was space for quite literally anything to do well in ‘94, but for reasons unknown, people just weren’t feeling the Motown love ballad as much as their peers over the pond.