Well, they also suffered from crappy management and a diabolical record deal that was stacked against them, two factors that have hobbled many lesser and major bands. This clipping sums up their situation aptly enough:It is unbelievable really. He is one of the great songwriters and when you look at the ridiculous amount of money people with a fraction of his talent are making nowadays but I guess he would say himself he didn’t do it for the money.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-ente ... 71947.html
Then again, there's the Trouser Press interview from late '82 or early '83, in which Andy claims that 95 percent of their fan mail came from the States. If that's true, the groundswell for those sales, however modest, had to be building quite awhile before then.Inflated a bit. A fluke college hit with Dear God (originally a b-side) gave them a bit of traction but they were never big sellers.
I suspect the Dukes Of Stratosphear albums had something to do with it, too, because those did coincide with the whole psych revival/Paisley Underground bug that bit the States around that time -- and that was a good four years before "Dear God." At any rate, the Americans definitely kept XTC alive, at a time when their future seemed uncertain, at best.