British Invasion

The British Invasion was an influx of rock and roll, beat and pop performers from the United Kingdom (mostly England) who became popular in the United States, Australia, Canada and elsewhere. The classic British Invasion period was 1964 to 1967, but the term may also be applied to later "waves" of UK artists that had significant impact on entertainment markets outside of Britain.

History

A musical movement of the mid-1960s, the British Invasion was composed of British rock-and-roll and beat groups whose popularity spread rapidly to the rest of the English-speaking world, especially the United States, which, from the beginnings of rock-and-roll music in the early 1950s, had nearly a monopoly on the genre.

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. For a list of songs by British artists which reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, click here.

However, The Beatles' triumphant arrival in New York on February 7, 1964, is 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—with historical condescension by the willingly reconquered colony—the second British Invasion. 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. The only sign of life was in the skiffle craze of the 1950s, spearheaded by Scottish-born Lonnie Donegan. Skiffle groups (like The Quarrymen, first forerunner of the Beatles) were acoustic guitar, tea-chest bass and banjo ensembles, similar to jug bands, but unlike jug bands, they mainly had drummers. They most often sang traditional American folk songs, frequently with more spirit than instrumental polish, although early British skiffle was played by highly skilled Trad jazz musicians.

By 1962, encouraged by the anyone-can-play populism of skiffle and self-schooled in the music of Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, James Brown, 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.

Liverpool became the first hotbed of the so-called "beat boom." As Britain's major Atlantic seaport, Liverpool 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, plus the quintet Billy J. Kramer and 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.

Rock swept Britain. By 1964, Greater London could claim The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Who, The Kinks, The Pretty Things, Dusty Springfield, 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), with more inventive artists arriving to keep the syles moving forward, including The Small Faces, The Move, The Creation, The Troggs, Donovan, and John's Children. While the beat boom provided Britons relief from the postimperial humiliation of hand-me-down rock, the Beatles and their ilk brought the United States more than credible simulations. They arrived as foreign ambassadors, with distinctive accents (in conversation only; American and British singers sounded generally similar), slang, fashions, and personalities. The Beatles' first film, A Hard Day's Night (1964), 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.

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.

More than a decade following the first invasion, the largely English based punk movement of the late 1970s, resulted in a fresh influx of raw, iconoclastic British bands and artists, such as Sex Pistols, The Clash, and Elvis Costello and the Attractions. While punk had a lasting influence on the US popular music scene, it never broke through in the US at the time to the same extent as in the UK. However the various cultural sources that punk and new wave took their inspirations from, especially cinema and television, would stand them and subsequent acts in good stead in the next decade.

For a time in 1980 and 1981 it seemed that apart from a few exceptions such as The Police, Queen, and The Clash, British acts and musical movements such as New Wave, New Romantics and Synthpop were being bypassed in favour 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 than their American counterparts at the time. This brought various distinctly British acts to the attention of American audiences such as Def Leppard, Duran Duran, A Flock of Seagulls, The Fixx, Naked Eyes, Thompson Twins, Eurythmics, Culture Club, Spandau Ballet and later Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears, OMD, Pet Shop Boys, The Cure, New Order 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 over 50% of the Billboard Hot 100 was accounted for by overseas artists.

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 1983 to 1985, 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 was partly down to the needs of MTV who needed a pool of videos to fill their programming, at that time the most distinctive and most available were by British acts.

Since then tastes in the US and UK had diverged, the schism occurring most markedly in the late '80s and early '90s. In the UK Dance music became hugely popular, a movement which was by and large ignored in the US, 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 moderated cult success in the States.

In addition the rise of glam metal in the late '80s, 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, coming across as too parochial and backward-looking though some acts, notably Oasis, Elastica, Radiohead, 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 not yet a third invasion, it is the most successful period for British acts since the early 1990s. The most successful of these are probably Coldplay, who broke through in 2000 with their debut album Parachutes. Subsequently other acts have followed in their footsteps.

In 2005, 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. Newcomer 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 more recently Amy Winehouse reached the US top 10 with her single Rehab. p

Early British Invasion artists

Later British Invasion artists

References