Best of ’11: The Second British Musical Invasion
Friday, December 30th, 2011
Spurred on by a number of British New Wave acts like The Police, Elvis Costello, The Pretenders, Squeeze, and Gary Numan in the late 1970′s, the Second British Musical Invasion was solidified a few years later when our Artist of the Month Duran Duran ruled the video and airwaves. In 1983, Duran Duran along with groups like Eurythmics, Culture Club, A Flock of Seagulls and on and on were able to capture a 30% share of record sales. No small feat and the influence that this phenomenon had on music was not only felt during the height on the “invasion” during the mid-80′s but throughout the decade and beyond.
Many have written about the influence that this musical “invasion” had on Pop music but I’ve often thought about the influence that it had on other genres, R&B and Hip Hop in general. It was and continues to be an interesting phenomenon in the sense that you have a number of these acts from the UK citing Soul, R&B and Funk as primary musical influences and in turn their musical output influencing the contemporary equivalent of those genres during this era and beyond.
Let’s examine a more complete(not necessarily exhaustive) list of groups with significant presence during this time period.
ABC
Adam and the Ants
After The Fire
The Alarm
Bananarama
Belouis Some
Bow Wow Wow
Big Country
Culture Club
The Cure
Dead or Alive
Def Leppard
Depeche Mode
Dexys Midnight Runners
Thomas Dolby
Duran Duran
(more…)
