United Kingdom Music: Modern Forms
After thoroughly mixing English, Scottish, and Irish musics with African, Spanish, Native American and many other cultural imports, North America exported it all back to England as rock and roll. The Brits tweaked it a bit, made it their own, and gave it back, an exchange that continues to this day. It is hard to say who got the better deal, but the entire world has benefited.
The British Invasion and Afterwards
The Beatles are the archetypal English band, still probably the best known in the world, though the Rolling Stones are often acknowledged as the greatest rock band ever. The list of great English bands from the 1960s is long; The Who, the Yardbirds, and Led Zeppelin probably had the greatest influence after the Beatles. The 1970s and 1980s saw David Bowie, Queen, the Police, Genesis, Pink Floyd, and The Cure. Punk rock began with the Sex Pistols, and produced one of the all-time great rock bands, the Clash.
Folk Rock and Neotraditional
English folk rock came out of the folksong revival of the 1960s, pioneered by Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. Pentangle brought medieval and world music into its hybrid folk. Singer/songwriters like Richard Thompson and Billy Bragg continue writing contemporary songs that embody the soul of folk music, if not its outer form.
Island Music
Jamaican music has been part of the English sound environment since the 1960s. Reggae groups like Aswad and Steel Pulse had a big influence on pop music in the 1980s. Ska underwent a revival in the two-tone bands Madness, the Specials, and the Selecter. Dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson’s work bridges the black performance poets of the 1960s with rap and hip-hop.
Bhangra, Asian Underground
The encounter between a rural Punjabi dance, electronics, and the modern dance hall has resulted in several different strains of bhangra, some of which bring hip-hop and electronica into the mix. Tabla player Talvin Singh mixes classical Indian music with dance-club styles like drum and bass, and adds electronic sounds to make a musical style known as Asian Underground.
Article written for World Trade Press by Marc Lecard.
Copyright © 1993—2024 World Trade Press. All rights reserved.