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Disclaimer: uao is an American.
And then there's the British. Where would we be without the British?
The short story of British rock, as seen from America:
1950's: Nobody ever heard of 'em.
1960's: The British Invasion. One minute our backs were turned, and the next, we were overrun. Beatles. Stones. Kinks. Pink Floyd. The Who. Deep Purple. The Hollies. The Animals. The Moody Blues. Donovan. Cream. The list goes on and on. American rock barely registered a heartbeat in 1963; then the British arrived. They saved it; they dominated it. In the process, they redefined rock in its current modern sense; we all know the story of the 60's.
1970's: The blind American Anglophilia era ended. Perhaps it was due to a certain foppishness in the British, which translates into big hits there, but not here. The dandified Mods never hit big in the US in the 60's, nor did the genderbending, makeup-wearing glam rock scene in the 70's, beyond a few hits. Queen, while big in the US, was much bigger in the UK. Ditto T-Rex, Gary Glitter, even David Bowie. The most successful British acts of the 1970's in the US were the titans like Led Zeppelin, Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Genesis; progressive rock/metal holdovers from the late 60's.
1977: Punk. Here is where the US and UK really began to split. U.K. punk's political concerns and agenda were irrelevant to U.S. punk's political concerns and agenda for the most part, and vice versa. While many Americans loved the Sex Pistols and the Clash, neither band had the kind of sales they had in the U.K. Seminal long-term U.K. punk acts like the Damned, the Stranglers, Wire, and The Fall, are barely known in the US.
1980's: New Wave & MTV. Musically hip Americans continued to support many British post-punk and power-pop bands, but England's commercial muscle on the US charts had waned considerably; within the mainstream rock universe, it began to disappear completely. As synth-pop, techno-pop, and more foppishness in the form of Culture Club, Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Adam Ant, and the like quickly came to dominate MTV, they very rapidly rendered older, less-photogenic acts obsolete. However, the US fans for these new British groups tended not to be rock fans; they were pop fans, clubgoers, or MTV viewers. The US roots rock movement, which was a true rock renaissance in every sense of the word even as it was ignored by MTV for years, preoccupied American rock fans throughout the 80's; while bands like the Smiths had fans in the US, and specialists always kept tabs on England's newest, the UK and US rock music scenes became quite different and independant of each other.
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Article comments
1 - SFC SKI
Shame about Elastica, they really had a great sound.
2 - Temple Stark
Excellent as usual.
But unless yoou put it under another name, late 80s and early 90s in England was all about the House music.
I lived that, while living there.
Acid man. Acid man.
Theme from S'Express
3 - uao
SFC Ski- Yeah, that Elastica disc is one of my favorites from a one- or two-shot band.
Temple; good point, House belongs on a different list, although the influence of House (by which I referred only to the Trip-Hop strain, but there were others) was strongly felt on a lot of these bands. I already did a separate trip-hop list. House was a lot more dominant and mainstream in the UK than it had been in the US from the late 80's to early 90's.
4 - Jackson
Interesting and educational... I've only touched the surface of Britpop; its nice to learn more. One problem- "Karma Police" is off Radiohead's Ok Computer, not Kid A.
5 - Christopher Rose
I dunno what's wrong with me; I'm British, I was in Britain when most of the groups in your 20 came out, hell, I was working in the music biz too and have/had friends who loved these bands but they mostly bore me rigid.
British bands I love from roughly the same era include Daisy Chainsaw, Skunk Anansie, Rub Ultra, Huge Baby, Stereolab, The Nubiles, Prolapse, Rachel Stamp and a whole load more.
6 - uao
Thanks Jackson, that was a dumb mistake. I'll fix that.
Christopher Rose; I like other stuff more than these bands myself, although all of them have given me pleasure at least once.
I stuck to the well-known big names to keep in the general thesis of the piece; I'm personally more interested in checking out some of the bands you've mentioned.
7 - Christopher Rose
uao: well, I grant you some of them are pretty obscure, guess I was pretty deep underground back then. Obviously, in an article such as this it would be silly to ignore the bands you wrote about. It's more that throughout that period I didn't feel comfortable with where the mainstream British "alt" scene was at.
8 - uao
Incidentally, an argument about the worthiness of the mainstream Britpop movement in general, viv-a-vis other music of 90's England would be an informative one that I'd love to be privy to; hope one breaks out here...
;-)
9 - uao
That's one of the weirdest spams I ever saw. What's the angle?
10 - jackl
korn