Second British Invasion
Encyclopedia
The term Second British Invasion refers to British music acts that became popular in the United States during the 1980s primarily due to the cable music channel MTV. While acts with a wide variety of styles were part of the invasion, New Wave
and New Wave influenced acts predominated.
" was used in the middle 1960's to describe a wave of English Rock and Roll
acts that dominated American Music Charts during that period.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s music from the United Kingdom was informed by the after effects of the "Punk
/New Wave
" revolution. In 1979, a single by The Police
, "Roxanne
", cracked the top American 40. This was followed by modest chart successes for Elvis Costello
, The Pretenders
, Squeeze, and Gary Numan
. Scripps-Howard news service described this success as an early stage of the invasion.
Music videos, having been a staple of British music television programs for half a decade, had evolved into image conscious short films. At the same time, pop and rock music in the United States was undergoing a creative slump due to several factors, including audience fragmentation and the effects of the anti-disco backlash. Videos did not exist for most hits by American acts, and those that did were usually taped concert performances. When the cable music channel MTV launched on 1 August 1981, it had little choice but to play a large number of music videos from British New Wave acts. At first, MTV was only available in small towns and suburbs. To the surprise of the music industry when MTV became available in a local market, record sales by acts played solely on the channel increased immediately and listeners phoned radio stations requesting to hear them. Also in 1981, Los Angeles radio station KROQ-FM
began the Rock of the '80's format which would make it the most popular station in that city.
's "Don't You Want Me
" started a three week reign on top of the Billboard 100 charts. The song got considerable boost from MTV airplay and has been described by the Village Voice as "pretty unmistakably the moment the Second British Invasion, spurred by MTV, kicked off". The September 1982 arrival of MTV in the media capitals of New York City and Los Angeles led to widespread positive publicity for the new "video era". By the fall, "I Ran (So Far Away)
" by A Flock of Seagulls
, the first successful song that owed almost everything to video, had entered the Billboard Top Ten. Duran Duran
's glossy videos would come to symbolise the power of MTV.
Early in 1983, radio consultant Lee Abrams
advised his clients at 70 album-oriented rock
stations to double the amount of new music they played. During that year 30% of the record sales were from British acts. On 18 July, 18 of the top 40, and 6 of the top 10 singles, were by British artists. Overall record sales would rise by 10% from 1982. Newsweek
magazine ran an issue which featured Annie Lennox
and Boy George
on the cover of one of its issues with the caption Britain Rocks America – Again, while Rolling Stone
would release an "England Swings" issue. In April 1984, 40 of the top 100 singles, and in a May 1985 survey 8 of the top 10 singles, were by acts of British origin.
New Music became an umbrella term
used by the music industry to describe young mostly British, androgynous, technologically oriented artists. Many of the Second Invasion artists started their careers in the punk era and desired to bring change to wider audience. This resulted in music that while having no specific sound was characterized by a risk taking spirit within the context of pop music. Veteran music journalist Simon Reynolds
theorised that, just as in the first British Invasion, the use of black American influences by British acts such as Wham!
, Eurythmics
, Culture Club
and Paul Young
helped to spur their success.. British rock oriented acts that knew how to use video such as Def Leppard
, Simple Minds
and Big Country
became part of the new influx of music from Britain.
and "Kill ugly pop stars" graffiti were expressions of both a backlash against the Second Invasion groups and nostalgia for punk. According to music journalist Simon Reynolds
a majority of acts that signed to independent labels in 1984 mined various rock influences and became an alternative to the Second Invasion. Reynolds named The Smiths
and R.E.M.
as the two most important "alt rock
acts" among this group noting that they "were eighties bands only in the sense of being against the eighties".
As the 1980s wore on, American rock and heavy metal
music acts learned how to market themselves using video. Eventually, this led to decreasing visibility for New Music. By 1987, New Music exposure on MTV was limited to the program The New Video Hour.
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
and New Wave influenced acts predominated.
Background
The term "British InvasionBritish Invasion
The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...
" was used in the middle 1960's to describe a wave of English Rock and Roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
acts that dominated American Music Charts during that period.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s music from the United Kingdom was informed by the after effects of the "Punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
/New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
" revolution. In 1979, a single by The Police
The Police
The Police were an English rock band formed in London in 1977. For the vast majority of their history, the band consisted of Sting , Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland...
, "Roxanne
Roxanne (song)
"Roxanne" is a hit song by the rock band The Police, first released in 1978 as a single and on their album Outlandos d'Amour. It was written from the point-of-view of a man who falls in love with a prostitute.- History :...
", cracked the top American 40. This was followed by modest chart successes for Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
, The Pretenders
The Pretenders
The Pretenders are an English rock band formed in Hereford, England in March 1978. The original band consisted of initiator and main songwriter Chrissie Hynde , James Honeyman-Scott , Pete Farndon , and Martin Chambers...
, Squeeze, and Gary Numan
Gary Numan
Gary Numan is an English singer, composer, and musician, most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars". His signature sound consisted of heavy synthesizer hooks fed through guitar effects pedals.Numan is considered a pioneer of commercial electronic music...
. Scripps-Howard news service described this success as an early stage of the invasion.
Music videos, having been a staple of British music television programs for half a decade, had evolved into image conscious short films. At the same time, pop and rock music in the United States was undergoing a creative slump due to several factors, including audience fragmentation and the effects of the anti-disco backlash. Videos did not exist for most hits by American acts, and those that did were usually taped concert performances. When the cable music channel MTV launched on 1 August 1981, it had little choice but to play a large number of music videos from British New Wave acts. At first, MTV was only available in small towns and suburbs. To the surprise of the music industry when MTV became available in a local market, record sales by acts played solely on the channel increased immediately and listeners phoned radio stations requesting to hear them. Also in 1981, Los Angeles radio station KROQ-FM
KROQ-FM
KROQ-FM — branded 106.7 KROQ — is a commercial modern rock radio station licensed to Pasadena, California serving the Greater Los Angeles. The call sign is pronounced "kay rock." It is the flagship station of Loveline hosted by Dr...
began the Rock of the '80's format which would make it the most popular station in that city.
The Invasion
On July 3, 1982 The Human LeagueThe Human League
The Human League are an English electronic New Wave band formed in Sheffield in 1977. They achieved popularity after a key change in line-up in the early 1980s and have continued recording and performing with moderate commercial success throughout the 1980s up to the present day.The only constant...
's "Don't You Want Me
Don't You Want Me
"Don't You Want Me" is a single by British synthpop group Human League, released from their album: Dare on 27 November 1981.It is the band's best known and most commercially successful recording to date, and was the Christmas number one in the UK, in 1981, where it sold over 1,400,000 copies,...
" started a three week reign on top of the Billboard 100 charts. The song got considerable boost from MTV airplay and has been described by the Village Voice as "pretty unmistakably the moment the Second British Invasion, spurred by MTV, kicked off". The September 1982 arrival of MTV in the media capitals of New York City and Los Angeles led to widespread positive publicity for the new "video era". By the fall, "I Ran (So Far Away)
I Ran (So Far Away)
"I Ran" is a song by English New Wave band A Flock of Seagulls. It was released on their debut album A Flock of Seagulls in 1982 and was its most successful single, reaching number 9 in the United States and number 1 in Australia.-Single:The single was promoted by a distinctive music video in...
" by A Flock of Seagulls
A Flock of Seagulls
A Flock of Seagulls are an English New Wave band originally formed by brothers Michael "Mike" Score and Alister "Ali" James Score , with Frank Maudsley , Michael Kuby , H.J...
, the first successful song that owed almost everything to video, had entered the Billboard Top Ten. Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...
's glossy videos would come to symbolise the power of MTV.
Early in 1983, radio consultant Lee Abrams
Lee Abrams
Lee Abrams is an American media executive who has held a number of posts for large and influential companies, and is generally credited with developing the "Album Oriented Rock" format employed by hundreds of radio stations across the country.-Career:...
advised his clients at 70 album-oriented rock
Album-oriented rock
Album-oriented rock is an American FM radio format focusing on album tracks by rock artists.-Music played:Most radio formats are based on a select, tight rotation of hit singles...
stations to double the amount of new music they played. During that year 30% of the record sales were from British acts. On 18 July, 18 of the top 40, and 6 of the top 10 singles, were by British artists. Overall record sales would rise by 10% from 1982. Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
magazine ran an issue which featured Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox, OBE , born Ann Lennox, is a Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist. After achieving minor success in the late 1970s with The Tourists, with fellow musician David A...
and Boy George
Boy George
Boy George is a British singer-songwriter who was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He helped give androgyny an international stage with the success of Culture Club during the 1980s. His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by...
on the cover of one of its issues with the caption Britain Rocks America – Again, while Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
would release an "England Swings" issue. In April 1984, 40 of the top 100 singles, and in a May 1985 survey 8 of the top 10 singles, were by acts of British origin.
New Music became an umbrella term
Umbrella term
An umbrella term is a word that provides a superset or grouping of concepts that all fall under a single common category. Umbrella term is also called a hypernym. For example, cryptology is an umbrella term that encompasses cryptography and cryptanalysis, among other fields...
used by the music industry to describe young mostly British, androgynous, technologically oriented artists. Many of the Second Invasion artists started their careers in the punk era and desired to bring change to wider audience. This resulted in music that while having no specific sound was characterized by a risk taking spirit within the context of pop music. Veteran music journalist Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds is an English music critic who is well-known for his writings on electronic dance music and for coining the term "post-rock". Besides electronic dance music, Reynolds has written about a wide range of artists and musical genres, and has written books on post-punk and rock...
theorised that, just as in the first British Invasion, the use of black American influences by British acts such as Wham!
WHAM!
Wham! were a short-lived British musical duo formed by George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley in the early 1980s. They were briefly known in the United States as Wham! UK due to a naming conflict with an American band....
, Eurythmics
Eurythmics
Eurythmics were a British pop rock duo, formed in 1980, currently disbanded, but known to reunite from time to time. Consisting of members Annie Lennox and David A...
, Culture Club
Culture Club
Culture Club are a British rock band who were part of the 1980s New Romantic movement. The original band consisted of Boy George , Mikey Craig , Roy Hay and Jon Moss...
and Paul Young
Paul Young (singer and guitarist)
Paul Antony Young is an English pop musician. Formerly the frontman of the short-lived bands Kat Kool & The Kool Cats, Streetband and Q-Tips, his following solo success as a solo recording artist turned him into a 1980s teenage pop idol...
helped to spur their success.. British rock oriented acts that knew how to use video such as Def Leppard
Def Leppard
Def Leppard are an English rock band formed in 1977 in Sheffield as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement. Since 1992, the band have consisted of Joe Elliott , Rick Savage , Rick Allen , Phil Collen , and Vivian Campbell...
, Simple Minds
Simple Minds
Simple Minds are a Scottish rock band who achieved worldwide popularity from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. The band produced a handful of critically acclaimed albums in the early 1980s and best known for their #1 US, Canada and Netherlands hit single "Don't You ", from the soundtrack of the...
and Big Country
Big Country
Big Country are a Scottish rock band formed in Dunfermline, Fife in 1981. They were most popular in the early to mid-1980s, but they still release material for a cult following...
became part of the new influx of music from Britain.
Reaction
All of this activity and the unusual high turnover of artists in the charts caused a sense of upheaval in the United States. Commentators in the mainstream media credited MTV and the British acts with bringing color and energy to back to pop music, while rock journalists were generally hostile to the phenomenon because they felt it represented image over content and that the "English haircut bands" had not paid their dues. Great Britain initially embraced what was called "New Pop". However, by 1983, the song "Rip It Up" by Orange JuiceOrange Juice
Orange Juice was a Scottish post-punk band founded in the middle class Glasgow suburb of Bearsden as the Nu-Sonics in 1976. Edwyn Collins formed the Nu-Sonics with his school-mate Alan Duncan and was subsequently joined by James Kirk and Steven Daly, who left a band called The Machetes. The band...
and "Kill ugly pop stars" graffiti were expressions of both a backlash against the Second Invasion groups and nostalgia for punk. According to music journalist Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds is an English music critic who is well-known for his writings on electronic dance music and for coining the term "post-rock". Besides electronic dance music, Reynolds has written about a wide range of artists and musical genres, and has written books on post-punk and rock...
a majority of acts that signed to independent labels in 1984 mined various rock influences and became an alternative to the Second Invasion. Reynolds named The Smiths
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
and R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
as the two most important "alt rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
acts" among this group noting that they "were eighties bands only in the sense of being against the eighties".
As the 1980s wore on, American rock and heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
music acts learned how to market themselves using video. Eventually, this led to decreasing visibility for New Music. By 1987, New Music exposure on MTV was limited to the program The New Video Hour.
See also
- British InvasionBritish InvasionThe British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...
- List of Second British Invasion Artists
- List of songs by British artists which reached number-one on the Hot 100 (USA)
- MTVMTVMTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
- New Romantics
- SynthpopSynthpopSynthpop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Kraut rock" of...
- Korean waveKorean waveThe Korean Wave, also known as the Hallyu , refers to spread of South Korean culture around the world. The term was coined in China in mid-1999 by Beijing journalists surprised by the fast growing popularity of Korean entertainment and culture in China...