Hit Parade: The British Are Charting Edition Part 1

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4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2023

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Before 1964, British bands couldn’t get anywhere on the U.S. charts. Then suddenly, after a certain Fab Four broke, they were everywhere. By 1965, they had locked down our Top 10. In 1981, a new generation of U.K. acts armed with synthesizers were largely shut out of the Hot 100 once again. But then a new video channel called MTV changed the game—helped by some very pretty men in dapper suits. By 1983, half of the U.S. Top 40 had a British accent. What did these two movements have in common, besides screaming fans and impressive hair? Join Chris Molanphy as he dissects these two bloodless coups that rebooted our hit parade. These Invasions were about as easy as a nuclear war. Podcast production by Kevin Bendis. Make an impact this Earth Month by helping Macy’s on their mission to bring more parks to more people across the country. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, hip-parade listeners! What you're about to hear is part 1 of this episode.
0:07.1	Part 2 will arrive in your podcast feed at the end of the month. Would you like to hear
0:11.7	this episode all at once the day it drops? Sign up for Slate Plus. It supports not only
0:18.1	this show, but all of Slate's acclaimed journalism and podcasts. Just go to Slate.com-
0:25.3	Hit Parade Plus. You'll get to hear every hip-parade episode in full the day it arrives. Plus,
0:32.0	hit parade the bridge, our bonus episodes, with guest interviews, deeper dives on our episode
0:38.6	topics, and pop chart trivia. Once again, to join, that's Slate.com-hit-parade-plus. Thanks, and now
0:47.7	please enjoy part 1 of this hip-parade episode.
1:00.9	Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine about the hits from
1:08.0	coast to coast. I'm Chris Malanfee, sharp analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why is this
1:14.4	song number one series? On today's show, nearly six decades ago, in April of 1964, this single
1:23.8	by a band from Tottenham, North London, was just breaking into the top 10 on America's flagship
1:31.8	chart, The Hot 100. The song was Glad All Over, The Band, The Dave Clark Five, and at the
1:47.2	time, believe it or not, they were billed as the main chart rivals to another British band tearing
1:55.3	up the charts. In fact, that very week in America, this other band had several hits on our chart,
2:03.4	like a ridiculous number of hits. The Beatles, of course, who, that week in April
2:20.0	of 1964, famously held down the entire top five on The Hot 100. It had taken America nearly two
2:28.8	years to catch on to the fab four. Then, suddenly, with three consecutive number ones at the start of
2:36.4	64, The Beatles instantly became the most successful UK act ever to reach US shores. But the fact
2:46.2	that The Beatles had British rivals was important. Important because this was how you knew The Beatles
3:04.6	weren't a one-off phenomenon. America was being taken over, US record stores, radio airwaves,
3:13.1	and our billboard charts. Buy acts from our mother country across the Atlantic. Soon, The Beatles and
	...

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