Introduction

Welcome to Chapter 4 of Part One of the rock-history course. In this chapter we will discuss the British Invasion—the music of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and other singers who broke in the U.S. from about 1964 on.

A brief review of the last chapter helps set up the Invasion. In many senses it was a real shock to the American pop industry, so understanding it matters. We mainly covered the scene after the first rock wave, when Elvis had been the most successful and representative rock star. That first wave ran from 1955 to 1959; then the industry was somewhat taken over by the merchants themselves, rather than independent labels and independent artists with their own ideas. Between 1955 and 1959 they found an excellent teen market with huge commercial potential, and set out to mine it and manufacture new product. The overall idea was to find the next Elvis—the next person who could make a splash. Many different styles were cooked up. As we said at the end of the last chapter, critics disagree on the value of this music. Was it oversimplified, mercenary, edges sanded off, losing the bite and passion of the first wave? Or was it a golden age of new things pouring out, only interrupted by the British Invasion we cover in this chapter? If you like that music, you may like sweet soul, girl groups, the rise of the producer, or surf—everything we covered last time. Among things the public often views negatively, teen idols stand out, along with dance crazes and the Twist—mainly for their shallowness and what looks like opportunistic exploitation of the teen market. We also covered the rockabilly inheritance—what I call rockabilly popsters, to separate them from the first generation of 1955–59. The folk revival was another big event: for the first time the American teen market split into younger teens and older college students, the latter preferring folk.

While everyone hunted for the next Elvis, it turned out the next Elvis belonged to none of the above. The next Elvis came from a place no one expected—Britain. Next section we look at what Britain was like then, and how bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones could emerge.