I might have a look in the books when I come home, but a lot
of these bands were on the charts.
I had a quick lookup last night. Taking only the artists mentioned in the
index
of Simon's book on postpunk and then checking in "The Great Rock Discography".
- Public Image Ltd - 12th for "Pil" and 5 for the "This is Not a Love Song" singles, debut album went to 22
- Magazine - 28th in the album charts
- Vic Godard - none (hard to believe that "Stop That Girl" did not chart)
- Pere Ubu - none
- Devo - 12th in the albums
- Pop Group - none
- Slits - 30th in the albums
- Gang of Four - 45th in the albums
- Talking Heads - " '77" went to 60th, More Songs .. and Remain in Light both to 21st in the albums
- Wire - 39th for "154"
- Cabaret Voltaire - 31st for "Crackdown"
- Human League - 1st (after the girls joined, but "Travelogue" went to 16)
- The Fall - 54th
- Joy Division - 6th for "Closer" ("Love Will Tear Us Apart only made it to 13 in the singles)
- Throbbing Gristle - none
Using such a simple list might not be scientific -
but in the UK (and parts of the continent) these bands made an
an impact in sales and awareness (not many number ones though).
The British music papers sold by the bucketloads in those days
(and magazines like Mojo and Record Collector still cash in on those readers -
with covers on goths, Kate Bush, New York punks, synth pop and so on).
Pre-goths like Siouxsie&the Banshees/The Cure and
pre-newromantics like Ultravox!/Simple Minds are not listed in the "Rip it Up" index.
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I guess the problem in the US was that punk didn't really happen
on a European scale - so obviously postpunk was even less of a phenomenon over the Atlantic.
A band like Tuxedomoon moved to Europe to survive.