There was a time, 1979 to be exact, when the most English rock bands ever, the Kinks and the Jam, met in the middle. The Jam covered "David Watts" on the classic All Mod Cons and in one fell swoop recorded their best album and put a stick of dynamite to US success.
All Mod Cons was way too English to cross the pond (even the title is way too English) and the Jam and the Kinks went in different directions. The Jam ended up somewhere with "Eton Rifles" and Weller left, form the stylistically altered Style Council and settled into a solo career of hard rock soul, like he was an exile from Humble Pie or something.
Meanwhile, the Kinks never improved on their sixties stuff but the sixties stuff was so influential by the mid 1990's it was the starting point for many many bands. The Beatles vs Stones, Blur Vs Oasis was a misnomer. Blur were moving from the Kinks while Oasis from the jam.And so it went: Pulp were on the Kinks side of the fence, the Verve on the Jam, Radiohead on the Kinks…
On and on forever, if it is hard and gets to the point it is the jam, if it is whimsical and implies it is the Kinks. Kasabian are the Jam, Primal Scream are the Jam,. Even big bands…. U2 come from the Jam, Coldplay the Kinks.
It is as if there are only two trains of thoughts in UK rock: the heads down no nonsense working class yobs or the whimsical Lewis Carroll, observational the fall of the British Empire stuff. It is either "Bittersweet Symphony" or "Common People".