British popular music
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Europe may have the scene and the energy, but it's America which supplies the ideological direction…if Belgian techno gives us riffs, German techno the noise, British techno the breakbeats, then Detroit supplies the sheer cerebral depth".--Matthew Collin, 1991 |
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British popular music and popular music in general, can be defined in a number of ways, but is used here to describe music which is not part of the art/classical music or Church music traditions, including folk music, jazz, pop and rock music. These forms of music have particularly flourished in Britain, which, it has been argued, has influenced popular music disproportionately to its size, partly due to its linguistic and cultural links with many countries, particularly the former areas of British control such as United States, Canada, and Australia, but also a capacity for invention, innovation and fusion, which has led to the development of, or participation in, many of the major trends in popular music. This is particularly true since the early 1960s when the British Invasion led by The Beatles, helped to secure British performers a major place in development of pop and rock music, which has been revisited at various times, with genres originating in or being radically developed by British musicians, including: blues rock, heavy metal music, progressive rock, punk rock, electric folk, folk punk, acid jazz, drum and bass, grime, dubstep and Britpop.
Background
The roots of British popular music for the rest of the 20th century and into the next were set during the 1950s. In the aftermath of World War II , the economy was still performing poorly. Many consumer goods were not available, and there was little high-wage labor. American media was popular, and the British youth grew infatuated with the apparent wealth of their American counterparts. The economy of the United States was booming, and the images on TV made it appear as though American teens were able to purchase much that the British could not. At the same time, a legion of American musical innovators, including Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, were adapting African American rock and roll for mainstream audiences, and American folk bands like The Weavers were fomenting a roots revival of old time music. Indigenous styles of music production and performance dominated the United Kingdom until the late 1950s, when imported American rock and roll, pop-folk and rockabilly gained fans among British youth, while American roots music, especially the blues, found its own devoted fanbase. Joe Boyd brought the "Blues and Gospel Caravan" to England in April 1964 (including Muddy Waters and Otis Spann). He found the English audiences more enthusiastic than the US ones (see ""White Bicycles" chapter 2). Many USA blues artists followed in their trail.
See also
