| Part of theSwinging Sixties and the broadercounterculture of the 1960s | |
 The arrival ofthe Beatles in the United States in 1964 marked the start of the British Invasion.[1] | |
| Date | 1963[1]–1969[2] |
|---|---|
| Location | United Kingdom and United States |
| Outcome | British influence on themusic of the United States |
TheBritish Invasion was acultural phenomenon of the mid-late 1960s, whenrock andpop music acts from the United Kingdom[3] and other aspects ofBritish culture became popular in the United States with significant influence on the rising "counterculture" on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.[4] British pop and rock groups such asthe Beatles,the Rolling Stones,Bee Gees,Gerry and the Pacemakers,the Who,the Kinks,[5]the Zombies,Small Faces,the Dave Clark Five,[6]the Spencer Davis Group,the Yardbirds,Them,Manfred Mann,[7]the Searchers,Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas,Freddie and the Dreamers,the Hollies,Herman's Hermits,Chad and Jeremy,Peter and Gordon,the Animals,the Moody Blues,the Mindbenders,the Troggs,John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers,Cream,Traffic,the Pretty Things, andProcol Harum, as well as solo singers such asDusty Springfield,Cilla Black,Petula Clark,Tom Jones,Donovan,Shirley Bassey andMarianne Faithfull were at the forefront of the "invasion."[8]
The rebellious tone and image of Americanrock and roll andblues musicians became popular with British youth in the late 1950s. While early commercial attempts to replicate American rock and roll mostly failed, thetrad jazz–inspiredskiffle craze,[9] with itsdo-it-yourself attitude, produced two top-ten hits in the US byLonnie Donegan.[10][11] Young British groups started to combine various British and American styles in different parts of the United Kingdom, such as the movement inLiverpool known asMerseybeat or the "beat boom".[1][12][13][14]
While American acts were popular in the United Kingdom, few British acts had achieved any success in the United States prior to 1964.Cliff Richard, who was the best-selling British act in the United Kingdom at the time, had only oneTop 40 hit in the US, with "Living Doll" in 1959. Along with Donegan, exceptions to this trend were the US number-one hits "Auf Wiederseh'n, Sweetheart" byVera Lynn in 1952 (Lynn also had a lower-charting, but more enduring, hit in "We'll Meet Again"), "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" byLaurie London in 1958, and the instrumentals "Stranger on the Shore" byAcker Bilk and "Telstar" bythe Tornados, both in 1962.[15] Also on the Hot 100, "Manhattan Spiritual" byReg Owen and His Orchestra" reached number ten in February 1959,Hayley Mills' "Let's Get Together" fromThe Parent Trap peaked number eight in October 1961,[16] and in 1962, "Midnight in Moscow" byKenny Ball reached number two in March,the Springfields' version of "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" peaked at number twenty in September, andFrank Ifield's "I Remember You" reached number five in October.[17]
Some observers have noted that American teenagers were growing tired of singles-oriented pop acts likeFabian and the "Bobby"s:Bobby Darin,Bobby Vinton,Bobby Rydell,Bobby Vee etc.[18] TheMods andRockers, two youth "gangs" in mid-1960s Britain, also had an impact in British Invasion music. Bands with a Mod aesthetic became the most popular, but bands able to balance both (e.g., the Beatles) were also successful.[19]
In October 1963, the first newspaper articles about the frenzy in England surroundingthe Beatles appeared nationally in the US.[20] The Beatles' 4 November Royal Variety Performance in front of theQueen Mother sparked music industry and media interest in the group.[20] During November, a number of major American print outlets and two network television evening programs published and broadcast stories on the phenomenon that became known as "Beatlemania".[20][21]
On 10 December,CBS Evening News anchorWalter Cronkite, looking for something positive to report, re-ran a Beatlemania story that originally aired on the 22 November edition of theCBS Morning News withMike Wallace but was shelved that night because of theassassination of US President John Kennedy.[20][22] After seeing the report, 15-year-oldMarsha Albert ofSilver Spring, Maryland, wrote a letter the following day todisc jockey Carroll James at radio stationWWDC asking, "Why can't we have music like that here in America?"[22]
On 17 December, James had Miss Albert introduce "I Want to Hold Your Hand" live on the air.[22] WWDC's phones lit up, andWashington, D.C., area record stores were flooded with requests for a record they did not have in stock.[22] James sent the record to other disc jockeys around the country, sparking similar reaction.[20] On 26 December,Capitol Records released the record three weeks ahead of schedule.[22] The release of the record during a time when teenagers were on vacation helped spread Beatlemania in the US.[22] On 29 December,The Baltimore Sun, reflecting the dismissive view of most adults, editorialised, "America had better take thought as to how it will deal with the invasion. Indeed a restrained 'Beatles go home' might be just the thing."[20] In the next year alone, the Beatles would have thirty different listings on the Hot 100.[23]
On 3 January 1964,The Jack Paar Program ran Beatles concert footage licensed from the BBC "as a joke", but it was watched by 30 million viewers. While this piece was largely forgotten, Beatles producerGeorge Martin has said it "aroused the kids' curiosity".[20] In the middle of January 1964, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" appeared suddenly, then vaulted to the top of nearly every top forty music survey in the US, launching the Fab Four's sustained, massive output. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" ascended to number one on the 25 January 1964 edition ofCash Box magazine (on sale January 18)[22] and the 1 February 1964 edition of theHot 100.[24] On 7 February 1964, theCBS Evening News ran a story about the Beatles' US arrival that afternoon, of whichWalter Cronkite said, "The British Invasion this time goes by the code name Beatlemania."[25]
Two days later, on Sunday, 9 February, the group appeared onThe Ed Sullivan Show.Nielsen Ratings estimated that 45 percent of American television viewers that night saw their appearance.[14] According to Michael Ross, "It is somewhat ironic that the biggest moment in the history of popular music was first experienced in the US as a television event."The Ed Sullivan Show had for some time been a "comfortable hearth-and-slippers experience." Not many of the 73 million viewers watching in February 1964 would fully understand what impact the band they were watching would have.[26]
In [1776] England lost her American colonies. Last week the Beatles took them back.[27]
The Beatles soon incited contrasting reactions and, in the process, generated more novelty records than anyone — at least 200 during 1964–1965 and more inspired by the "Paul is dead" rumour in 1969.[28] Among the many reactions favouring the hysteria were Britishgirl groupthe Carefrees' "We Love You Beatles" (No. 39 on 11 April 1964)[29] and the Patty Cakes' "I Understand Them", subtitled "A Love Song to the Beatles".[30] Disapproving of the pandemonium were US groupthe Four Preps' "A Letter to the Beatles" (No. 85 on 4 April 1964)[31] and US comedianAllan Sherman's "Pop Hates the Beatles".[32]
The Beatles held number 1 for a then-record fourteen straight weeks, from 1 February through 2 May, but performed even better onCash Box, holding number 1 for sixteen straight weeks, from 25 January, the week before, through 9 May, the week after. On 4 April, the Beatles held the top five positions on theBillboard Hot 100 singles chart; no other act had simultaneously held even the top four.[14][33][34] The Beatles also held the top five positions onCash Box's singles chart that same week, with the first two positions reversed from the Hot 100.[35] The group's massive chart success, which included at least two of their singles holding the top spot on the Hot 100 during each of the seven consecutive years starting with 1964, continued until they broke up in 1970.[14]
One week after the Beatles entered theHot 100 for the first time,Dusty Springfield, having launched a solo career after her participation inthe Springfields, became the next British act to reach the Hot 100, peaking at number twelve with "I Only Want to Be with You".[36][nb 1] During the next three years, many more British acts with a chart-topping US single would appear.[nb 2] As 1965 approached, another wave of British Invasion artists emerged. These were usually composed of groups playing in a more pop style, such asthe Hollies orthe Zombies, as well as artists with a harder-driving, blues-based approach like the Dave Clark Five, the Kinks, and the Rolling Stones.[56][57][58] By 17 April, British acts accounted for 30 records in the Hot 100,[59] and on 8 May, they accounted for eight of the nine British Commonwealth's entries that made a nearly clean sweep of that weekly Hot 100's Top Ten, lacking only a hit at number two instead ofGary Lewis & the Playboys' "Count Me In".[60] On 1 May, the British Commonwealth also nearly swept theCash Box singles chart's Top Ten, lacking only a hit at number six instead of "Count Me In". The British Commonwealth also held down the top six on the Hot 100 on 1 May and the top six onCash Box singles chart's Top Ten on 24 April.[61] That same year, half of the 26Billboard Hot 100 chart toppers (counting the Beatles' "I Feel Fine", carrying over from 1964) and the number one position on 28 of the 52 chart weeks belonged to British acts.[62] The British trend would continue into 1966 and beyond.[63] British Invasion acts also dominated the music charts at home in the United Kingdom.[56]
The musical style of British Invasion artists, such as the Beatles, had been influenced by earlier American rock 'n' roll, a genre that had lost some popularity and appeal by the time of the Invasion. However, a subsequent handful of British performers, particularly theRolling Stones andthe Animals, would appeal to a more 'outsider' demographic, essentially reviving and popularising, for young people at least, a musical genre rooted in the blues, rhythm, and black culture,[64] which had been largely ignored or rejected when performed by black American artists in the 1950s.[65] Such bands were sometimes perceived by American parents and elders as rebellious and unwholesome, unlike parent-friendly pop groups such as the Beatles. The Rolling Stones would become the biggest band other than the Beatles to come out of the British Invasion,[66] topping the Hot 100 eight times.[67] Sometimes, there would be a clash between the two styles of the British Invasion, the polished pop acts and the grittier blues-based acts, due to the expectations set by the Beatles. Eric Burdon of the Animals said, "They dressed us up in the most strange costumes. They were even gonna bring a choreographer to show us how to move on stage. I mean, it was ridiculous. It was something that was so far away from our nature and, um, yeah we were just pushed around and told, 'When you arrive in America, don't mention the [Vietnam] war! You can't talk about the war.' We felt like we were being gagged."[68]
"Freakbeat" is a term sometimes given to certain British Invasion acts closely associated with theMod scene during theSwinging London period, particularly harder-drivingBritish blues bands of the era that often remained obscure to American listeners, and who are sometimes seen as counterparts to thegarage rock bands in America.[69][70] Certain acts, such asthe Pretty Things andthe Creation, had a certain degree of chart success in the UK and are often considered exemplars of the form.[71][72][73] The emergence of a relatively homogeneous worldwide "rock" music style marking the end of the "invasion" occurred in 1967.[1]
Outside of music, other aspects of British arts and engineering, such asBSA motorcycles, became popular in the US during this period and led American media to proclaim the United Kingdom as the center of music and fashion.
Julie [Andrews] became a movie queen by falling very smartly into step with the recent vogue in America for almost anything labeled British.[74]
The Beatles'A Hard Day's Night marked the group's entrance into film.[1] The filmMary Poppins – starring English actressJulie Andrews as thetitular character, and released on 27 August 1964 – became the most Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominatedDisney film in history.My Fair Lady, released on 25 December 1964, starring British actressAudrey Hepburn asCockney flower girlEliza Doolittle, won eight Academy Awards.[75] andOliver! released in 1968, won Best Picture, becoming the final musical film to do so untilChicago in 2002.
Besides theBond series that commenced withSean Connery asJames Bond in 1962, films with a British sensibility such as the "Angry Young Men" genre,What's New Pussycat? andAlfie styled London Theatre. A new wave of British actors such asPeter O'Toole,Michael Caine, andPeter Sellers intrigued US audiences.[18] Four of the decade's Academy Award winners for best picture were British productions, with the epicLawrence of Arabia, starring O'Toole as British army officerT. E. Lawrence, winning seven Oscars in 1963.[76]
British television series such asDanger Man (renamedSecret Agent in its American airings),The Saint andThe Avengers began appearing on American screens, inspiring a series of American-produced espionage programs such asI Spy,The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the parody seriesGet Smart. By 1966, spy series (both British and American versions) had emerged as a favourite format of American viewers, along withWesterns and rural sitcoms.[77] Television shows that featured uniquely American styles of music, such asSing Along with Mitch andHootenanny, were quickly canceled and replaced with shows such asShindig! andHullabaloo that were better positioned to play the new British hits,[78] and segments of the new shows were taped in England.[79][80]
Fashion and image set the Beatles apart from their earlier American rock and roll counterparts. Their distinctive, uniform style "challenged the clothing style of conventional American males," just as their music challenged the earlier conventions of the rock and roll genre.[65] "Mod" fashions, such as theminiskirt from "Swinging London" designers such asMary Quant, and worn by earlysupermodelsTwiggy,Jean Shrimpton and other models, were popular worldwide.[81][82][83][84][85] Newspaper columnistJohn Crosby wrote, "The English girl has an enthusiasm that American men find utterly captivating. I'd like to import the wholeChelsea girl with her 'life is fabulous' philosophy to America with instructions to bore from within."[86]
Even while longstanding styles remained popular, American teens and young adults started to dress "hipper".[26]
In anticipation of the 50-year anniversary of the British Invasion in 2013, comics such asNowhere Men, which are loosely based on the events of it, gained popularity.[87]
The Beatles changed music for everybody making records in America, including Elvis who couldn't get a hit during that period of time—a decent hit during that period of time. And they absolutely wiped us right off the charts. That was it. In '64, it was all over for American singers.[88]
The British Invasion had a profound impact on popular music, internationalising the production of rock and roll, establishing the British popular music industry as a viable centre of musical creativity,[89] and opening the door for subsequent British performers to achieve international success.[56] In America, the Invasion arguably spelled the end of the popularity of instrumentalsurf music,[90] pre-Motown vocalgirl groups, thefolk revival (which adapted by evolving intofolk rock),teenage tragedy songs,Nashville country music (which also faced its own crisis with the deaths of some of its biggest stars at the same time), and temporarily, theteen idols that had dominated the United States charts in the late 1950s and early 1960s.[91] It dented the careers of established R&B acts likeChubby Checker and temporarily derailed the chart success of certain surviving rock and roll acts, includingRicky Nelson,[92]Fats Domino,the Everly Brothers, andElvis Presley (who nevertheless racked up thirty Hot 100 entries from 1964 through 1967).[93] It prompted many existinggarage rock bands to adopt a sound with a British Invasion inflection and inspired many other groups to form, creating a scene from which many major US acts of the next decade would emerge.[94] The British Invasion also played a major part in the rise of a distinct genre of rock music and cemented the primacy of the rock group, based around guitars and drums and producing their own material as singer-songwriters.[95]
In February 2021, Ken Barnes, a formerUSA Today radio writer, analysed US musical acts' success before and during the Invasion in an article forRadio Insight attempting to confirm or debunk the claim that the British Invasion devastated US music. In his analysis, he noted that several of the acts whose careers were eclipsed by the Invasion—among themBobby Vee,Neil Sedaka,Dion andElvis Presley—eventually made comebacks after the Invasion waned. Others, such asBill Anderson andBobby Bare, remained successful in the country realm, even as their pop crossover success had waned. Barnes noted that one record company,Cameo Parkway, sustained more permanent damage from the Invasion (and the concurrent rise of Motown) than any other, but also noted that it was also affected by another event that happened the same week as the Beatles' arrival:American Bandstand, which had been based inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania where Cameo Parkway was based and drew many of its performers from Cameo Parkway, moved to Los Angeles. In summation, he noted that a plurality of the alleged victims of the Invasion (42 percent of most US hit music acts of 1963) were already seeing diminishing returns in 1963 before the Invasion began; 24 percent of US acts that year saw their success continue through the invasion, such asthe Beach Boys andFrankie Valli and the Four Seasons; 14 percent were the likes of Sedaka, Vee and Presley in that they suffered during the Invasion but recovered afterward; and 20 percent suffered fatal damage to their careers because of it (with Barnes stating that 7 percent of US acts—mostly Cameo Parkway acts and folk revival groups—were wiped out almost entirely due to the Invasion, and the other 13 percent had the Invasion as one of several reasons for their declines). Stylistically, the proportions of US music being made did not change substantially during the Invasion, even as the British acts flooded the charts with a homogenous pop-rock sound; folk, country andnovelty music, already small factors in the overall pop realm, dropped to near-nonexistence, whilegirl groups were also hard hit.[78]
Though many of the acts associated with the invasion did not survive its end, many others would become icons of rock music.[56] The claim[according to whom?] that British beat bands were not radically different from American groups likethe Beach Boys and damaged the careers of black American and female artists[96] was made[when?] about the invasion. However, theMotown sound, exemplified bythe Supremes,the Temptations, and theFour Tops, each securing their first top 20 record during the invasion's first year of 1964 and following up with many other top 20 records, besides the constant or even accelerating output ofthe Miracles,Gladys Knight & the Pips,Marvin Gaye,Martha & the Vandellas, andStevie Wonder, actually increased in popularity during that time.[97]
Other American groups also demonstrated a similar sound to the British Invasion artists and in turn highlighted how the British "sound" was not in itself a wholly new or original one.[98]Roger McGuinn ofthe Byrds, for example, acknowledged the debt that US artists owed to British musicians, such asthe Searchers, but that "they were using folk music licks that I was using anyway. So it's not that big a rip-off."[99] Both the USsunshine pop groupthe Buckinghams and the Beatles-influenced USTex-Mex act theSir Douglas Quintet adopted British-sounding names,[100][101] andSan Francisco'sBeau Brummels took their name from the same-namedEnglish dandy.[102]Roger Miller had a 1965 hit record with a self-penned song titled "England Swings", in which although its title references the progressive youth-centric cultural scene known asSwinging London, its lyric pays tribute to Britain's traditional way of life.[103] EnglishmanGeoff Stephens (orJohn Carter) reciprocated the gesture à laRudy Vallée a year later inthe New Vaudeville Band's "Winchester Cathedral".[104][105] Even as recently as 2003,Shanghai Knights made the latter two tunes memorable once again in London scenes.[106][107] Anticipating theBay City Rollers by more than a decade, two British acts that reached the Hot 100's top twenty gave a tip of the hat to America:Billy J. Kramer withthe Dakotas andthe Nashville Teens. The British Invasion also drew a backlash from some US bands, e.g.,Paul Revere & the Raiders[108] andNew Colony Six[109] dressed inRevolutionary War uniforms, andGary Puckett & the Union Gap donnedCivil War uniforms.[110]Garage rock actthe Barbarians' "Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl" contained the lyrics "You're either a girl, or you come from Liverpool" and "You can dance like a female monkey, but you swim like a stone, Yeah, a Rolling Stone."[111][112]
In Australia, the success ofthe Seekers andthe Easybeats (the latter a band formed mostly of British emigrants) closely paralleled that of the British Invasion. The Seekers had two Hot 100 top five hits during the British Invasion, the number-four hit "I'll Never Find Another You" (recorded at London'sAbbey Road Studios) in May 1965 and the number-two hit "Georgy Girl" in February 1967. The Easybeats drew heavily on the British Invasion sound and hadone hit in the US during the British Invasion, the number-sixteen hit "Friday on My Mind" in May 1967.[113][114]
According to Robert J. Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television atSyracuse University, the British invasion pushed thecounterculture into the mainstream.[26]
Beginning in March 1969 with the success of "These Eyes" byThe Guess Who, the British Invasion was at least partially superseded by a Canadian Invasion, asCanadian musical acts, which had previously been overshadowed by their American and British counterparts, were about to benefit from newCanadian content regulations providing new opportunities. This began a wave of success on the American charts, with Canadian performers such asEdward Bear,Anne Murray, andGordon Lightfoot among others.[2] As cultural aspects of the British Invasion waned, British musical acts retained their popularity into the 1970s, competing with their US and Canadian counterparts. Britishprogressive rock acts of the 1970s were often more popular in the US than their native Britain, as the US working class was generally favourable to the virtuosity of progressive rock acts, while the bands' British audience was confined to the more genteel upper classes.[115]
British bands such asBadfinger andThe Sweet, and US bandthe Raspberries, are considered to have evolved the British Invasion movement intopower pop. In 1978, two rock magazines wrote cover stories analyzing power pop as a saviour to both thenew wave and the direct simplicity of rock. Along with the music, new wave and power pop impacted fashion, such as themod revival style ofthe Jam or the skinny ties of the burgeoning Los Angeles scene. Several power pop artists were commercially successful; most notablythe Knack, whose "My Sharona" was the highest-ranked US single of 1979. Although the Knack and power pop fell out of mainstream popularity, the genre continues to have a cult following with occasional periods of modest success.[116]
A subsequent wave of British artists rose to popularity in the early 1980s as Britishmusic videos appeared in American media, leading to what is now known as the "Second British Invasion". Another wave of British mainstream prominence in US music charts came in the mid-1990s with the brief success ofSpice Girls,Oasis, Blur, Radiohead andRobbie Williams. At least one British act would appear somewhere on the Hot 100 every week from 2 November 1963 until 20 April 2002, originating with the debut ofthe Caravelles' "You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry". British acts declined in popularity throughout the 1990s, and in the 27 April 2002 issue ofBillboard, none of the songs on the Hot 100 were from British artists; that week, only two of the top 100 albums, those ofCraig David andOzzy Osbourne, were from British artists.[117]
The latest movement came in the mid- to late 2000s, when BritishR&B andsoul artists such asAmy Winehouse,Estelle,Joss Stone,Duffy,Natasha Bedingfield,Florence Welch,Adele,Floetry,Jessie J,Leona Lewis,Jay Sean andTaio Cruz enjoyed huge success in the US charts, which led to talk of a "Third British Invasion" or a "British Soul Invasion". BoybandOne Direction have also been described as being a major part of a new "British Invasion" due to them being the first British band to have their debut album at number one on the US charts along with their overall dominance in America.[118][119]
Media related toBritish Invasion at Wikimedia Commons
