Everything about The British Invasion totally explained
The
British Invasion was the term applied by the news media — and subsequently by consumers — to the influx of
rock and roll,
beat and
pop performers from the
United Kingdom who became popular in the
United States,
Australia and
Canada. The classic British Invasion period was 1964 to 1967 (roughly bracketed by The Beatles' appearance on Ed Sullivan and the emergence of
Jimi Hendrix as a U.S.-born superstar who had his first success in the UK), but the term has also been applied to later "waves" of UK artists that had significant impact on the North American entertainment market.
History
Background and pre-invasion
Prior to the success of The Beatles, British musical acts had only achieved fleeting success in what was then a relatively insular market. The first major breakthrough was the success of
Dame Vera Lynn when she became the first British act to reach #1 on the
Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1952. Other acts in the intervening years had some success, most notably
George Shearing,
Lonnie Donegan,
Petula Clark with
The Tornados becoming the first British group to reach #1 with "
Telstar" in 1962.
Like their transatlantic counterparts in the 1950s, British youth heard their future in the frantic beats and suggestive lyrics of American rock and roll, but initial attempts to replicate it failed, as enthusiasts lacked the indigenous basic ingredients of rock and roll,
rhythm and blues and
country music. Of perhaps more significance was the
skiffle craze of the 1950s,
acoustic guitar,
tea-chest bass and
banjo ensembles, similar to
jug bands, spearheaded by
Scottish-born
Lonnie Donegan. Artists who went on to become notable in the following decade (like The
Quarrymen, first forerunner of the Beatles) first cut their musical teeth in skiffle bands, in which a "do-it-yourself/anyone-can-play" attitude of spirited fun (rather than purely talent) was the prevailing
modus operandi. They most often sang traditional American
folk songs, frequently with more spirit than instrumental polish, although early British skiffle was often played by highly skilled
Trad jazz musicians.
Liverpool became the first hotbed of the so-called "beat boom." Because Liverpool was Britain's major Atlantic seaport,
Liverpudlian merchant seamen often sailed to the U.S. and returned with the latest American rock-and-roll hits, often before they were made widely available in Britain. With The Beatles, other exuberant male quartets such as
The Searchers,
The Fourmost, and
Gerry and the Pacemakers, and the quintet
Billy J. Kramer with
The Dakotas launched
Merseybeat, so named for the
estuary of the
River Mersey that runs alongside Liverpool. The Beatles first reached the British record charts in late 1962 (shortly after The Tornados' "Telstar," an instrumental smash that sent word of what was in store by becoming the first British record by a group to top the American singles chart); the rest joined the hit parade in 1963. Not all acts prominent in Britain by the early 1960s necessarily managed to develop a profile in the U.S.
Cliff Richard, who remains popular in Britain and active today, has only rarely had chart successes in America.
By 1962, encouraged by the anyone-can-play populism of skiffle and self-schooled in the music of
Chuck Berry,
Bo Diddley,
Elvis Presley,
Little Richard,
Gene Vincent,
Eddie Cochran,
Ray Charles,
Buddy Holly, the
Everly Brothers,
Jerry Lee Lewis,
James Brown,
Roy Orbison and
Muddy Waters, some British teens developed a real feel for the rock-and-roll and American blues idioms. Blending that with such local traditions as
music hall, pop, and
Celtic folk, they formulated original music they could claim, play, and sing with conviction. Young groups with electric guitars began performing and writing up-tempo melodic pop, fiery rock and roll, and Chicago-style electric blues. The rebellious tone and image of American rock and roll and blues musicians also deeply resonated with British youth in the late 1950s, influencing all the British Invasion artists.
Though generally not credited with starting the "Invasion,"
Dusty Springfield was one of the first British artists to have significant success in the U.S., with her hit single "
I Only Want To Be With You," released in November 1963. She appeared on
The Ed Sullivan Show in early 1964 singing the popular hit, and continued to have several U.S. hits through the rest of the decade. A number of songs by British artists
reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Beatles and the British Invasion
The Beatles' triumphant arrival in
New York on
February 7,
1964 (three weeks after they'd ascended to the top of the Billboard and Cashbox U.S. singles charts) and their appearance on the
The Ed Sullivan Show on
February 9, 1964, are events widely credited with truly throwing open America's doors to a wealth of British musical talent, and officially beginning what would come to be called the second British Invasion.
The term "British Invasion" was coined in 1964 to describe the wave of British rock-and-roll and
beat artists (primarily groups) whose popularity spread rapidly to the rest of the English-speaking world, especially the
United States and
Canada. Rock 'n' roll had evolved as an American musical form in the early 1950s and prior to 1963 very few British artists had had success in that musical genre in the U.S. The Beatles' breakthrough in America (starting with the success of "
I Want to Hold Your Hand" in early January 1964) triggered a large wave of British artists who succeeded in the U.S. in their wake.
Rock, which in the past hadn't been played much on British radio, swept Britain. By 1964,
London could claim
The Kinks,
The Rolling Stones,
The Yardbirds,
The Who,
The Pretty Things,
Dusty Springfield,
Cream,
Petula Clark,
The Dave Clark Five,
Peter and Gordon,
Chad and Jeremy,
John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, and
Manfred Mann.
Manchester had
The Hollies,
Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders,
Freddie and the Dreamers,
Davy Jones of
The Monkees, and
Herman's Hermits;
Newcastle was home to
The Animals; and
Birmingham had
The Spencer Davis Group (featuring
Steve Winwood) and
The Moody Blues. Bands sprang up from
Belfast (
Them, with frontman
Van Morrison), to
St Albans (
The Zombies), to Essex (
The Tremeloes). One other group worthy of particular note is the
Liverpool Five,originally London's
Steve Laine Combo who emigrated to the US in 1965, signed with RCA Victor, and stayed there.
From 1964 to 1966 the United Kingdom sent a stream of hits across the Atlantic. Behind the conquering Beatles, Peter and Gordon ("
A World Without Love"), the Animals ("
House of the Rising Sun"), Manfred Mann ("
Do Wah Diddy Diddy"), Petula Clark ("
Downtown"), Freddie and the Dreamers ("I'm Telling You Now"), Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders ("Game of Love"), Herman's Hermits ("
Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter"), the Rolling Stones ("
I Can't Get No Satisfaction" and others), the
Troggs ("
Wild Thing"), and
Donovan's ("
Sunshine Superman") all topped
Billboard's singles chart.
The success of British acts of the time led to a major cultural realignment with acts such as
The Byrds,
The Beau Brummels,
The Left Banke, and numerous Anglophone
garage bands subsequently changing their sound and style. The influence continued on subsequent Anglophile groups such as
Big Star,
Sparks and
Todd Rundgren amongst others.
Other British invasion personalities
The Anglomania at the time provided a boost for other cultural exports such as
films,
art and
television. Noted
Disc Jockey John Peel recalls in his memoirs how he was able to break into American radio purely on the basis of his
Merseyside accent.
In 1964 films featuring
James Bond portrayed by
Sean Connery became popular in America as did
Julie Andrews in
Mary Poppins. That year the Beatles' first film
A Hard Day's Night further painted England as the center of the (rock) universe. American media took the bait and made
Carnaby Street, London's trendy fashion center in the mid-1960s, a household name. British television shows such as
The Avengers that deliberately emphasized British identity were also popular.
Second British Invasion
More than a decade following the first invasion, the
punk movement of the late 1970s resulted in an influx of British bands such as
Sex Pistols,
The Clash,
Squeeze and
Elvis Costello and the Attractions. While punk had a lasting influence on the U.S. popular music scene, it never broke through in the U.S. at that time to the same extent as in the UK.
For a time in 1980 and 1981 it seemed that apart from a few exceptions such as
The Police,
Dire Straits,
Gary Numan, and
The Psychedelic Furs, British acts and musical movements such as
New Wave,
New Romantics and
Synthpop were being bypassed in favor of homegrown
soft rock and
heavy metal.
This changed in 1981 with the formation and influence of
MTV. Needing
videos to broadcast, the channel used a disproportionately large number by British acts, whose videos were generally more image conscious and entertaining and acted as
short films far more than their American counterparts at the time.(Which were usually just video taped concert performances.) and brought various distinctly British acts to the attention of American audiences, such as
Duran Duran,
Culture Club,
ABC,
Def Leppard,
Iron Maiden,
Human League,
Adam Ant,
A Flock of Seagulls,
The Fixx,
Naked Eyes,
Thompson Twins,
Eurythmics,
Bananarama,
Spandau Ballet,
Wham and later
Depeche Mode,
Tears for Fears,
OMD,
Pet Shop Boys,
The Cure,
New Order,
Dead Or Alive and others. Once again, British acts came to dominate American charts, this time to an even greater degree than in the first British Invasion. The high point of this second invasion was in July 1983 when 18 of the singles in the top 40 were by British artists and over 50 percent of the Billboard Hot 100 was accounted for by overseas artists.
Around the same time American acts such as
Michael Jackson,
Blondie,
Madonna,
Prince,
Cyndi Lauper,
Bruce Springsteen,
Tina Turner, and
The Pointer Sisters found success on the charts in the UK as well.
Subsequent years
This second invasion of the 1980s remains (to date) the most recent major upsurge of British talent on the American charts. The continued splintering of the music market into different genres makes a follow-up, mass-appeal movement such as the British Invasion currently unlikely.
Following the highwater years of 1982 to 1986, success by British acts gradually dwindled to such a degree that at one point in May 2002 there were no British artists on the US singles chart, the first time this had occurred since 1963.
The reasons for this are many and varied. One can argue that the success of the acts in the second British invasion can be explained by MTV's need for a pool of videos to fill its programming, since at that time the most distinctive and most available videos were by British acts.
After the mid 1980s, tastes in the U.S. and UK diverged, the schism occurring most markedly in the late '80s and early '90s. In the UK,
Dance music became hugely popular, but this movement was by and large ignored in the U.S., partly as a hangover from the
Disco sucks campaign of the early '80s but also due to other social and cultural factors. There was a brief mini-invasion in 1991 with the success of
Soul II Soul,
Jesus Jones and
EMF, but this was a blip in a downward trend only mitigated by the unexpected success of
Morrissey's
Your Arsenal (1992), which yielded him a moderate cult success in the States. And during the 80's the U.S. had certain genres such as hip hop which during the this time was very small in popularity in the UK.
In addition, the rise in the U.S. of
glam metal in the late '80s, and
grunge and most notably
hip-hop in the '90s, meant that British acts would struggle in the U.S. The
Britpop movement of the mid-1990s, which could be seen as a stylistic continuation of the original British Invasion of the 1960s, mixed with music of the 70s and 80s, failed to catch America's imagination, being perceived as too parochial and backward-looking, though some acts, notably
Oasis,
Elastica,
Radiohead,
Bush, and
Blur, achieved niche success in the American market.
By the late '90s British acts were struggling to break through in America, with the most successful acts being long established artists such as
Sting, Elton John and Eric Clapton. The most notable breakthroughs at that time were the
Spice Girls,
Seal and
Charlotte Church.
Since the start of the millennium, new artists from Britain have started to establish themselves in America. While it isn't yet a third invasion, this decade has been the most successful period for British acts since the early 1990s. The most successful of these artists are probably
Coldplay, who broke through in 2000 with their debut album
Parachutes. Subsequently other acts have followed in their footsteps.
In early 2006,
James Blunt reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with his single "
You're Beautiful", the first British artist to do so since
Elton John with "
Candle In The Wind" in 1997.
In 2006, acts such as
KT Tunstall,
Muse and
Keane have achieved success in the US.
Corinne Bailey Rae achieved acclaim for
her self titled album which debuted at #17 in the U.S.
Snow Patrol also broke through, reaching the US Top 10 with the single "
Chasing Cars", and
Amy Winehouse reached the U.S. top 10 with her single "
Rehab as well as her album
Back To Black which debut at number 7 in the album charts before peaking at number 2"
And
Joss Stone who's second album
Mind Body & Soul reached number 11 in the U.S billboard Charts, and her third album
Introducing Joss Stone debuted at number two on the
Billboard 200 album charts selling 118,000 copies in its first week, becoming the first british solo female artist to have an album debut at number two and currently the highest debut for a British female solo artist on the U.S.
.
Natasha Bedingfield also enjoyed success in the United States in 2005 and 2006 with singles like "These Words", which reached #17 in the U.S. charts, and "Unwritten", which peaked inside the U.S. top 10 at #5 and became the second most played song on U.S. radio in 2006. Her debut album also reached #26. In January 2008 Bedingfield released her second US album Pocketful of Sunshine which peaked at #3 on the Billboard Top 200, the lead single from her second album Love Like This reached #11 in the same week. Her brother Daniel Bedingfield also reached the U.S. Billboard Top 20 twice in 2003, with "Gotta Get Thru This" and "If You're Not the One".
Britain's most recent American successes are English Alternative Rock band Radiohead who reached #1 on the Billboard Top 200 in January 2008 with their album "In Rainbows", proving still to be the biggest British act in America. It was their second #1 album stateside after their 2000 album Kid A.
Also X Factor winner Leona Lewis, whose debut single Bleeding Love and album Spirit reached #1 on the Billboard Hot & Pop 100 chart and Billboard 200 album chart respectively. (External Link
)
Duffy is seen as the latest in a recent wave of British singers consisting of mostly females (including Joss Stone and Amy Winehouse) with a unique take on writing and performing songs from time past.
Early British Invasion artists
British artists which reached number-one on the Hot 100, 1964-1966
Second British Invasion artists
Adam Ant
Asia
Bananarama
Big Country
Billy Idol
The Clash
Culture Club
The Cure
Depeche Mode
Dire Straits
Duran Duran
Electric Light Orchestra
Eurythmics
Fine Young Cannibals
Iron Maiden
Madness
New Order
The Police
The Pretenders
Simple Minds
Squeeze
Wham!
Queen
Belle and SebastianFurther Information
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