Pop Music in Practice Joseph Kennedy: June 2010

The 1960s - British Invasion

The term 'British Invasion' describes the group of British Bands that stormed he USA during the 1960s. The term was made popular via the Ed Sullivan Show. There were many important bands that were part of this movement, bands like The Beatles, The Who and The Rolling Stones to name a few.

The British Invasion was host to bands of a few different genres,Rock 'n' Roll, Beat and Pop. Pop bands like the Beatles usually consisted of two jingly jangly guitars a bass and a kit. The nice up beat melodies of the main vocals were usually backed up by lucsious harmony vocals. But there was also bands like the Rolling Stones and the Kinks who whilst they were still Pop, they were considerably more Rocky than that of the Beatles. Guitars usually had some distortion and guitar solos were much more common. Most of the songs from most of the bands used a common 4/4 beat with a typical ABAB form. The songs usually lasted around the 3 minute mark

Lyrically there wasn't really a constant theme between each band, but like many songs from before that decade and now, the lyrics were quite often about Love and Relationships e.g. 'Love me Do' by The Beatles or 'You've really got me' by The Kinks.

The Beatles are definately one of the more if not the most important and biggest band of this movement to hit the States. The Beatles were a band from Liverpool, UK that formed in 1960. They went from playing pubs and clubs in Liverpool to becoming one of the most commercially succesful bands ever. The Beatles quite literally ran the British Invasion movement. The Beatles played their single 'I want to hold your hand' live on radio and the rest was history, WWDC's phones were going off the hook with requests for the record. Soon after the CBS Evening News ran a story about The Beatles' United States arrival that afternoon in which the correspondent said "The British Invasion this time goes by the code name Beatlemania" This proves that The Beatles quite literally were the British Invasion. Two days after this the Brit Rockers appeared on The Ed Sullivan show where a massiv 75 percent of all Americans watching TV saw the show that night. The Beatles then went on to hold the top 5 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, the only time to date that any act has accomplished this. After this The Beatles would then go on to well and truly conquered Britain and America and the rest of the world.

The British Invasion took direct influence from the Surf Rock bands such as the Beach Boys, many people claim that the music of the British Invasion bands is not that much different. However, the British Invasion also had a massive influence on the future of music. It proved that the UK was a viable centre of musical creativity. It meant that vocal groups and teen idols were no longer able to dominate the charts like they previously had done. The British Invasion quite literally made the rock band, electric guitars and bass and drums where musicians would create and write their own music. I beleive if the British Invasion had not happened that music today could still be dominated by those girl bands and teen idols of the 50s.

Webography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_rock#The_Beatles_and_the_.22British_Invasion.22
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_invasion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_beatles
http://search.eb.com/britishinvasion/home.html

Pop Music in Practice Joseph Kennedy

Tuesday 22 June 2010

1950s - Handout

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