British Invasion
Part of the Swinging Sixties and the broader counterculture of the 1960s | |
![]() The arrival of the Beatles in the United States in 1964 marked the start of the British Invasion.[1] | |
Date | 1963–1969 |
---|---|
Location | United Kingdom and United States |
Outcome | British influence on the music of the United States |
The British Invasion was a

Background
The rebellious tone and image of American rock and roll and blues musicians became popular with British youth in the late 1950s. While early commercial attempts to replicate American rock and roll mostly failed, the trad jazz–inspired skiffle craze,[8] with its do-it-yourself attitude, produced two top-ten hits in the US by Lonnie Donegan.[9][10] Young British groups started to combine various British and American styles in different parts of the United Kingdom, such as the movement in Liverpool known as Merseybeat or the "beat boom".[1][11][12][13]
While American acts were popular in the United Kingdom, few British acts had achieved any success in the United States prior to 1964.
Some observers have noted that American teenagers were growing tired of singles-oriented pop acts like Fabian and the "Bobby"s: Bobby Darin, Bobby Vinton, Bobby Rydell, Bobby Vee etc.[17] The Mods and Rockers, 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.[18]
Beatlemania
In October 1963, the first newspaper articles about the frenzy in England surrounding
On 10 December,

On 3 January 1964,
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.[25]
In [1776] England lost her American colonies. Last week the Beatles took them back.[26]
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.[27] Among the many reactions favouring the hysteria were British girl group the Carefrees' "We Love You Beatles" (No. 39 on 11 April 1964)[28] and the Patty Cakes' "I Understand Them", subtitled "A Love Song to the Beatles".[29] Disapproving of the pandemonium were US group the Four Preps' "A Letter to the Beatles" (No. 85 on 4 April 1964)[30] and US comedian Allan Sherman's "Pop Hates the Beatles".[31]
The Beatles held number 1 for a then-record fourteen straight weeks, from 1 February through 2 May, but performed even better on Cash 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 the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart; no other act had simultaneously held even the top four.[13][32][33] The Beatles also held the top five positions on Cash Box's singles chart that same week, with the first two positions reversed from the Hot 100.[34] 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.[13]
Beyond the Beatles
One week after the Beatles entered the
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 the
"
Other cultural impacts
Outside of music, other aspects of British arts and engineering, such as BSA 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.
Film and television
Julie [Andrews] became a movie queen by falling very smartly into step with the recent vogue in America for almost anything labeled British.[73]
The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night marked the group's entrance into film.[1] The film Mary Poppins – starring English actress Julie Andrews as the titular character, and released on 27 August 1964 – became the most Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated Disney film in history. My Fair Lady, released on 25 December 1964, starring British actress Audrey Hepburn as Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle, won eight Academy Awards.[74] and Oliver! released in 1968, won Best Picture, becoming the final musical film to do so until Chicago in 2002.
Besides the
British television series such as Danger Man (renamed Secret Agent in its American airings), The Saint and The Avengers began appearing on American screens, inspiring a series of American-produced espionage programs such as I Spy, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the parody series Get Smart. By 1966, spy series (both British and American versions) had emerged as a favourite format of American viewers, along with Westerns and rural sitcoms.[76] Television shows that featured uniquely American styles of music, such as Sing Along with Mitch and Hootenanny, were quickly canceled and replaced with shows such as Shindig! and Hullabaloo that were better positioned to play the new British hits,[77] and segments of the new shows were taped in England.[78][79]
Fashion
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.
Even while longstanding styles remained popular, American teens and young adults started to dress "hipper".[25]
Literature
In anticipation of the 50-year anniversary of the British Invasion in 2013, comics such as Nowhere Men, which are loosely based on the events of it, gained popularity.[86]
Impact on American music
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.[87]
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,[88] and opening the door for subsequent British performers to achieve international success.[55] In America, the Invasion arguably spelled the end of the popularity of instrumental surf music,[89] pre-Motown vocal girl groups, the folk revival (which adapted by evolving into folk 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, the teen idols that had dominated the United States charts in the late 1950s and early 1960s.[90] It dented the careers of established R&B acts like Chubby Checker and temporarily derailed the chart success of certain surviving rock and roll acts, including Ricky Nelson,[91] Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, and Elvis Presley (who nevertheless racked up thirty Hot 100 entries from 1964 through 1967).[92] It prompted many existing garage 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.[93] 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.[94]
In February 2021, Ken Barnes, a former
Though many of the acts associated with the invasion did not survive its end, many others would become icons of rock music.
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.
In Australia, the success of the Seekers and the 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's Abbey 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 had one hit in the US during the British Invasion, the number-sixteen hit "Friday on My Mind" in May 1967.[112][113]
According to Robert J. Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, the British invasion pushed the counterculture into the mainstream.[25]
End of the first British Invasion and its aftermath
The historical conclusion of the British Invasion is ambiguous. The wave of
British bands such as Badfinger and The Sweet, and US band the Raspberries, are considered to have evolved the genre into power pop. In 1978, two rock magazines wrote cover stories analyzing power pop as a saviour to both the new wave and the direct simplicity of rock. Along with the music, new wave power impacted fashion, such as the mod style of the Jam or the skinny ties of the burgeoning Los Angeles scene. Several power pop artists were commercially successful; most notably the 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.[115]
A subsequent wave of British artists rose to popularity in the early 1980s as British music 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 of Spice Girls, Oasis, Blur, Radiohead and Robbie 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 of the 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 of Billboard, none of the songs on the Hot 100 were from British artists; that week, only two of the top 100 albums, those of Craig David and Ozzy Osbourne, were from British artists.[116]
The latest movement came in the mid- to late 2000s, when British
See also
- Anglophile
- Cool Britannia
- List of British Invasion artists
- Music of the United Kingdom (1960s)
- Second British Invasion, 1980s
- Third British Invasion, 2000s–2010s
- When Nirvana Came to Britain
Explanatory notes
- ^ She soon followed up with several other hits, becoming what AllMusic described as "the finest white soul singer of her era."[36] On the Hot 100, Dusty's solo career lasted almost as long, albeit with little more than one quarter of the hits, as the Beatles' group career before their breakup; she continued to have hits on the easy listening and adult contemporary charts into the late 1980s.
- the Small Faces, and numerous others. The Kinks, although considered part of the Invasion,[4][51][52] initially failed to capitalise on their success in the US after their first three hits reached the Hot 100's top ten[53] (in part due to a ban by the American Federation of Musicians following the band's 1965 US tour)[54] before resurfacing in 1970 with "Lola" and in 1983 with their biggest hit, "Come Dancing".
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Further reading and listening
- Gilliland, John (1969). "The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming!: The U.S.A. is invaded by a wave of long-haired English rockers" (audio). Pop Chronicles. University of North Texas Libraries.
- Harry, Bill. The British Invasion: How the Beatles and Other UK Bands Conquered America. ISBN 978-1-84240-247-4
- Miles, Barry. The British Invasion: The Music, the Times, the Era. ISBN 978-1-4027-6976-4
- "The British Invasion" 2002 – oral history by Vanity Fair
External links
Media related to British Invasion at Wikimedia Commons