Hit Parade: The British Are Charting Edition Part 2

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4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2023

⏱️ 52 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	Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine about
0:16.1	the hits from Coast to Coast.
0:18.1	I'm Chris Malanfi, Chart Analyst, Pop Critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song No.
0:23.5	1 series on our last episode.
0:26.5	We defined British Invasion Principles, finding common ground between the original 60s invasion
0:33.8	and the second invasion in the 80s.
0:37.4	The borrowings from American music, the first and second tier bands, the visual gimmicks
0:43.2	and British signifiers.
0:45.7	Having walked through the 60s from the Beatles and the Stones to Patula Clark and Herman's
0:51.2	Hermits, we're now about to walk through the 80s.
0:55.0	And explain how it happened all over again.
1:00.4	Before we skate past the 1970s, it must be said that if the 60s or the 80s had never
1:08.4	happened, the 70s would look like a very British decade on the Billboard charts.
1:14.8	So many UK-Aths recorded totemic music that defined that decade's zeitgeist for us,
1:22.0	from Elton John, to Led Zeppelin, the Bee Gees,
1:45.6	to Queen.
1:55.0	Even Peter Frampton, possessor of the top US album of our bicentennial year of 1976,
2:02.4	hailed from Beckenham in Kent.
2:05.3	When he took the stage in America, Frampton came alive.
2:20.2	Basically the 60s British invasion had already normalized UK-Aths presence on our charts.
2:27.9	These 70s brits weren't invading.
2:31.3	They were just part of the sonic furniture.
	...

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