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Post by Kapitan on Oct 10, 2022 17:49:09 GMT
lonelysummer referenced his rankings of British Invasion bands in The Who thread. I thought it was interesting to think about my own ratings of them, but also somewhat surprising that I don't really recall a thread dedicated not to some of the more popular of those bands, but to the phenomenon itself. So here's such a thread.
The Wiki entry for the term lists these acts: "Pop and rock groups such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Zombies, the Kinks, Small Faces, the Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, the Hollies, the Animals, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, the Yardbirds, the Who, and Them, as well as solo singers like Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black, Petula Clark, Tom Jones, and Donovan, were at the forefront of the "invasion"."
Anybody key who's missing?
Of these, the Beatles are far and away my favorite, and the only band I think was consistently great. Maybe even consistently good. As I said in that other thread, after that it's very hit-or-miss with me. I love the Stones' late 60s and early 70s music, but not really much before or after that. The Zombies have one album I think is great, but just the one album. The Kinks and Who each have a few albums I like, but more that I don't. And frankly some of these bands and singers barely even register with me (which isn't a discredit to them, but to me). I know them more as names than anything else.
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Post by jk on Oct 10, 2022 19:00:14 GMT
The Wiki entry for the term lists these acts: "Pop and rock groups such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Zombies, the Kinks, Small Faces, the Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, the Hollies, the Animals, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, the Yardbirds, the Who, and Them, as well as solo singers like Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black, Petula Clark, Tom Jones, and Donovan, were at the forefront of the "invasion"."
Anybody key who's missing? Good call, Cap'n. Not really. A few acts (Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Lulu, The New Vaudeville Band, maybe others) had a #1 apiece. Perhaps Peter and Gordon belong on that list, with nine US# top twenty hits between 1964 and 1966. (I remember them from those days but I had to look up the statistics.) This Macca composition was their first and biggest hit: Actually, I have terrible memories of the "blessed" British Invasion. The end of 1963 was a nightmare. I loved American pop with a passion in those days -- I felt it was colourful in comparison with the drabness coming out of the UK (the other man's grass perhaps?) and was devastated when these people took over the US charts. Time is the great healer (apparently) and today I can appreciate the qualities of much of the 1960s British pop scene. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_and_Gordon
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Post by lonelysummer on Oct 10, 2022 20:39:08 GMT
Sometimes I think the lines get a bit blurred about who was actually part of the British Invasion. When I hear that phrase, I think of the bands that hit big in 1964-early 1965. Some of the bands that are now considered part of that wave didn't actually make a big splash in the US until slightly later - The Who would be one of them. I'm not sure, but I think the Hollies didn't make much impact over here until 1966. The Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, Dave Clark 5, the Animals, Herman's Hermits, the Zombies, the Rolling Stonesthe Moody Blues, Peter and Gordon, Manfred Mann, the Yardbirds, the Kinks, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Chad and Jeremy. That's all I can think of. I guess we can include the solo singers listed above. My dad loved Petula Clark. He didn't have a huge record collection, but he had a few of Petula's, and played them all the time. If you're going to include acts that made it big a little later, then, yes, you could include Cream, Procol Harum...where do we stop?
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Oct 11, 2022 11:28:04 GMT
Of course there are exceptions (The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, and The Kinks being the biggest), but most of those of those British groups only lasted a few short years. However, almost all of them contributed a great song or two that became big hits on AM radio and made those few short years very entertaining and essential.
Though he did surface around that time (1965), I never really considered Tom Jones as part of The British Invasion, but I always found him so talented. He really had (and still has) a powerful and sensitive voice. I loved his hit singles. I think because he was considered a sex symbol and was known for his stage presence and TV show, he never got the credit he deserved for his vocal chops. And, he's still around today, recording and performing.
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Post by kds on Oct 11, 2022 13:20:24 GMT
For me, any discussion of the initial British Invasion begins and ends with The Beatles. For my money (and this is hardly a hot take), they are the most consistently good / great band of all time. So, that obviously puts them head and shoulders above the rest.
I agree with Sheriff that once you get past The Beatles, Stones, Kinks, and Who, most of the bands has pretty short periods of influence. Although The Yardbirds did eventually evolve into a pretty influential band at the end of the 60s.
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Post by lonelysummer on Oct 16, 2022 21:39:15 GMT
I've been thinking of putting together a mixtape (yes, I still do those) of the British Invasion. There were so many great singles to come out of that era, so I don't mind that most of the groups only had a half dozen hits or less. Look at the Zombies - She's Not There, Tell Her No, Time of the Season - three classic singles. Of course, these days, Odyssey and Oracle is revered as a classic album, but did it sell back in the day? The Yardbirds are worshipped for having three guitar heroes pass through their ranks, but even if all they ever recorded was Shapes of Things, Heart Full of Soul and For Your Love, well, that's great stuff there. Of course it doesn't hurt that they did pretty good versions of old songs like Train Kept a Rollin' and Smokestack Lighting. Even the original Animals had a fairly short run - the re-christened Eric Burdon and the Animals was, for all intents and purposes, a different band - and I find a lot of their stuff embarrassing! House of the Rising Sun, It's My Life, and We Gotta Get Out of This Place will be on my turntable forever. I guess I could say the same about the Moody Blues - when Denny Laine left, they really were a different band. Their first album (and the various singles of the original band) are well worth checking out. Surprisingly, Herman's Hermits had a longer chart career than most of the others. The Best of Herman's Hermits was an album I grew up with - my cousin had it on 8 track! A lot of the songs were remakes of oldies - Mother in Law, Silhouettes, Sea Cruise, Wonderful World; and some of their songs veered towards novelty - I'm Henry VIII, I Am, Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter; but a lot of what they did was just good pop music - Can't You Hear My Heartbeat, I'm Into Something Good, There's a Kind of Hush, No Milk Today.
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Post by kds on Oct 17, 2022 12:54:59 GMT
I'll have to step in and defend The Yardbirds here. Sure, they were not a very prolific band, but they had a lot more than just the five songs mentioned there.
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