THE tragedy of Welsh origins limits any possible success in music much as it does in any other field. These bands came from the wrong side of Offa’s Dyke:
Stereophonics
Songs about the delightful idiosyncrasies of their local community provided novelty: yes, old ladies do make a fuss when buying fruit and vegetables! Sadly, the trio soon bumped up against the barriers of their insular worldview and by their third album were singing about caravan holidays. The public wisely moved on.
Catatonia
References to the zeitgeist – Mulder, Scully and road rage were all equally massive in 1998 – got them into the upper reaches of the charts. Unfortunately, their contact with the outside world saw them recoil in horror, penning tracks about how much they hated London and how fantastic it was to be Welsh. This proved not to be a palatable message.
Feeder
One very popular album catapulted them into the mainstream before their Celtic origins caught up with them. Excitement about a car with a CD player, an innovation yet to reach the deepest Valleys even now, powered their big hit but a follow-up thrilled about Windows 95 and Global Hypercolour T-shirts failed to chart.
Super Furry Animals
Having achieved significant popularity, SFA made the fatal error of releasing an album entirely in the Welsh language. No matter what they did after that nobody could forget what they’d done, much less forgive. Being a fan was like trying to make a relationship work after your partner got blind drunk and gave a stranger a handjob.
Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci
Using Welsh spelling for their name only reinforced stereotypes that the Welsh are just doing it to be perverse. Almost scraped into the charts when they dabbled with English lyrics, but the damage had been done. They soon learned that an association with the Cool Cymru movement had zero cultural cachet ten miles outside Carmarthen.
Badfinger
Not even the support of the Beatles and a deal with Apple records could help this lot overcome the fact they were from Swansea. Harry Nilsson’s and Mariah Carey’s covers of Without You proved that you can make a song one of the most famous ever recorded simply by taking the tinge of Welshness out of the equation.
