Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

BRITISH INVASION

The British transformation of the USA music scene, most famously in the 1960s. UK acts had USA success in the 1930s-40s (Ray Noble, Vera Lynn, George Shearing, others), but the emergence of rock'n'roll changed the nature of the game. Rockabilly and R&B input into USA charts in the 1950s was exciting, but vested interests in the music business damped it down, inventing the teen idol genre and making stars with little talent. Meanwhile, UK acts had discovered the roots of rock through imported records and touring American acts, and began playing R&B in London and writing their own material in the wake of the skiffle fad. On 21 March 1964 all the top ten pop records in Britain were by British acts, which had never happened before.

American record company execs at first refused to credit the Beatles, but they conquered the USA charts '64 and the floodgates opened: the Rolling Stones, Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Animals, Searchers, Zombies, Kinks, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Peter and Gordon, Freddie and the Dreamers all scored. Such was demand for anything British that acts were stars in USA while relatively unknown at home, e.g. Chad and Jeremy, and Ian Whitcomb, who toured the USA in a deerstalker cap. Although '60s British pop sounded like rock'n'roll to mainstream America, it contained a large measure of traditionally cheeky British music-hall attitude, the sort of fun which had been edited out of American pop. The Beatles stopped touring in 1966; by then the USA was again producing its own stars, especially on the hippy-flavoured West Coast, but David Bowie, Elton John and Rod Stewart continued with effortless USA success in the 1970s.

A 'Second British Invasion' in the early 1980s brought the energy of UK punk and new wave, shocking a sterile and uncertain US music scene then dominated by AOR radio. This time there was no single group as a spearhead; UK acts had been influenced by early examples of Alice Cooper, Velvet Underground, New York Dolls etc but their success was largely visual: the slick videos of Duran Duran, Culture Club, Eurythmics, Adam Ant etc became easy hits on MTV's cable music channel. Guitar-based bands like Big Country had their effect; Police and Squeeze played big arenas; in the mid-'80s affection had also been retained for the Who, Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd, Jimmy Page etc who were getting a harder ride at home. With video and satellite technology, pop festivals in Brazil and Wham! playing in China, pop music became international to an extent unimagined 30 years earlier; future invasions in each direction will be more diffuse, but the shock of 1964 will never be forgotten.