Who were the “Big Four” British invasion bands?
The United States mainland hasn’t been invaded for over a century, or so they say. Except that’s not true when it comes to musical invasion. At the beginning of 1964, an unstoppable invasive force swept across the American continent from the east, leaving millions of screaming teenagers in its wake. No, nothing to do with the Cold War. The Beatles had arrived.
And with them, they brought a procession of exciting young bands from across the pond, delivering a repackaged form of rock and roll to the American youth. This music was based on the pioneering work of black American artists in the 1950s. But it was at once rawer and more melodic, incorporating influences from British skiffle groups of the preceding decade as well as traditional music hall.
For middle-American teens, these new English bands were young, fresh and vital. They looked like them and their generation, only hipper and more rebellious, with a cutting-edge sound to back up their image. The best of the bunch were even writing their own sound.
These distinctive features meant British invasion bands stood out from the white American pop stars before them, who typically projected a clean-cut, all-American image. They sang inoffensive songs about puppy-dog romance or high school hops written to order by teams of songwriters. And they often didn’t even play their own instruments.
Even the hip-shaking heartthrob himself, Elvis Presley, had been all shook up into a harmless, soft-rock balladeer after serving his time in the US Armed Forces. And influential rockabilly hitmaker Buddy Holly had died tragically in a plane crash at the end of the ‘50s, along with 17-year-old chicano rock sensation Ritchie Valens.
Adolescent America needed to be jolted out of its slumber, and George Harrison’s opening guitar line from ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ did just that. The Beatles transformed the transatlantic musical landscape, attracting over 73 million viewers for their first appearance on American television on February 9th, 1964.
They opened the door for British groups The Dave Clark Five, The Zombies, and Herman’s Hermits to achieve top ten hits in the US over the following months and for The Animals to reach number one in the Billboard charts. There were bigger things to come, though.
And the other three?
In the autumn of 1964, London band The Kinks exploded onto the American music scene with one of the first original garage rock songs. Their top ten single ‘You Really Got Me’ took American youth by storm, with its juggernaut of a riff becoming the blueprint for all rough-edged rock genres to come. It was also the first of three successive singles to reach the top seven in the US within the space of a year, along with two successful album releases.
Roll on The Rolling Stones, who made their first mark on American consciousness with a cover of R&B ballad ‘Time Is on My Side’ the same month that The Kinks released their first hit. They followed that up with two moderately successful original Stones compositions before ripping up the playbook with a raucous, innuendo-laden anthem for a generation of frustrated youth.
‘Satisfaction’ blew all other British Invasion bands out of the water, The Beatles aside. It began a run of six US number one hits in four years for the Stones, catapulting them to a level of superstardom they have enjoyed ever since.
Later, in 1965, a third group from London released a single that literally exploded onto US television. The Who’s ‘My Generation’ didn’t make much of an impact in the American charts. But it prefigured the countercultural movement rock music would lead later in the decade in its rejection of anti-youth cynicism and establishment condescension.
The band wouldn’t start appearing in the US top ten singles and album charts until 1967 when they became regular fixtures near the top of the pile. But their effect on more irreverent layers of American youth was undeniable.
Talkin’ ’bout a generation
What made The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and The Kinks Britain’s “Big Four” invasion bands wasn’t just chart success. You could argue that other British invasion bands achieved more commercially in the United States than both The Who and The Kinks during the 1960s, particularly after The Kinks were banned from touring the country.
Their status above the rest of their peers is more down to the transformative impact of their records and live performances on American music. Their influence and legacy endures far beyond any accumulation of pop hits, although The Beatles and Stones in particular achieved record-breaking chart numbers, too.
The raw power of early Kinks records, the paradigm shift of The Rolling Stones’ innovations to rhythm and blues, The Who’s invention of the hard rock genre, and The Beatles’ continual redefinition of pop music’s outer limits set these four bands apart. Their stature continued to grow as other British Invasion acts fell by the wayside. What seemed new and exciting in 1964 appeared increasingly twee and dated compared to the revolution in music that followed. And it was Britain’s Big Four at the forefront of that revolution.
