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- [00:00]
Chris Melanfi
You're listening ad free on Amazon Music. Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One series. On our last episode, we defined British Invasion principles, finding common ground between the original 60s invasion and the second invasion in the 80s. The borrowings from American music, the first and second tier bands, the visual gimmicks and British signifiers. Having walked through the 60s, from the Beatles and the Stones to Petula Clark and Herman's Hermits, we're now about to walk through the 80s and explain how it happened all over again. Before we skate past the 1970s, it must be said that if the 60s or the 80s had never happened, the 70s would look like a very British decade on the Billboard charts. So many UK acts recorded totemic music that defined that decade's zeitgeist for us, from Elton John. To led zeppelin, The bee gees, Two Queens, Killer Queen, Gun Body Jeopardy, Dynamite.
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Guest or Music Clips
With a laser beam.
- [01:59]
Chris Melanfi
Even Peter Frampton, possessor of the top US album of our bicentennial year of 1976, hailed from Beckenham in Kent. When he took the stage in America, Frampton came alive. Basically, the 60s British invasion had already normalized UK ACT's presence on our charts. These 70s Brits weren't invading, they were just part of the sonic furniture. Many sounded so American you could even forget they were British. However, there were 70s musical movements that set the stage for the next British Invasion. Glam rock, which dominated the UK charts in the first half of the decade, made smaller ripples in America, but proved very influential. And punk, which was first spawned in the States, was adopted early by the Brits and arguably codified by UK acts, even if only a handful of first wave punk acts had actual chart hits.
- [03:29]
Guest or Music Clips
God save the Queen she ain't no human being There is no future but.
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Chris Melanfi
The ultimate bridge figure of British pop, the man who presaged the second invasion was the Londoner born David Robert Jones, who by the late 60s had rechristened himself David Bowie.
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Guest or Music Clips
There's a star. He'd like to come and meet us.
- [04:03]
Chris Melanfi
Bowie straddled so many types of music. The first British Invasion folk rock, glam and art rock. He was admired by mods, classic rockers and punks. His genre promiscuity even led him to adopt such styles as R and B, kraut rock, band disco and funk. And in the late 70s, it was David Bowie and his Producer and friend Brian Eno, who championed the electronic music being pioneered by the likes of Kraftwerk and Donna Summer. Neither synthesizers nor dance beats were alien to Bowie. In 1980, after a long art rock period in Berlin, Bowie signaled his return to commercial pop recording with the album Scary Monsters. In essence, the LP fired a starter's pistol for what 80s UK pop would sound like in attitude as much as sound. Arch, angular, synthetic, danceable. But Bowie was not alone. As we discussed in our Angry Young Men episode of Hit Parade, several British acts were shaping the contours of what became known as post punk or new wave. From the Police, who cracked the Hot 100 as early as 1979 Roxanne.
- [05:56]
Guest or Music Clips
You don't have to put on the red light.
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Chris Melanfi
To the Buggles, the duo of Trevor Horn and Jeff Downs, whose 1979 single Video Killed the Radio star scraped the US top 40 at the end of that year and would become considerably more famous to two years later. More remarkably, in the summer of 1980, British electronic music pioneer Gary Newman got all the way to number nine on the Hot 100 with his austere cars, a one hit wonder in America. Newman was a couple of years ahead of the next synth pop wave. And on Billboard's dance chart, peaking at number 42 in October 1980, was Joy Division's final single after the death of singer Ian Curtis, Love Will Tear Us Apart. Its synth riff also sounded futuristic, But none of this felt like a coherent movement yet. Gary Newman's Cars felt novel, even invasive, but there was no invasion yet over in England. However, by 1981 several bands were borrowing the art damage style of David Bowie, the insouciance of punk rock and the rhythms of American disco, and blending them into a cutting edge new hybrid. Legend has it that keyboardist Nick Rhodes and bassist John Taylor first envisioned Duran Duran, named for a character from the 1968 sci fi film Barbarella, as a hybrid of the Sex Pistols and Chic after the Birmingham band recruited drummer Roger Taylor, guitarist Andy Taylor. The band's three Taylors are all unrelated and singer Simon Le Bon Duran Duran recorded a single self titled 1981 debut album with a sleek, danceable and angular style. They showcase this unique sound on early British hits like Planet Earth and Girls on Film. Both 198081 singles were promoted in the UK with artsy music videos, including a version of Girls on Film intended for nightclubs that featured full frontal nudity. Meanwhile, another band that had been trying different incarnations since the late 70s was also commanding the British charts in 81 with a soulfully synthetic new sound.
- [09:36]
Guest or Music Clips
Get around town get around town where the people look good where the music is loud get around town.
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Chris Melanfi
The Human League, fronted by Phil Okey and featuring two newly recruited teenage vocalists named Susan Ann Sully and Joanne Catherall, released their acclaimed third album Dare and proceeded to score multiple UK top 40 hits, including the Sound of the Crowd and Love Action. Yet another band that was evolving their sound with synthesizers through the late 70s had originally charted as the tourists. The then five person group was led by a romantic couple, guitarist and producer Dave Stewart and a potent vocalist named Annie Lennox. The Tourists scored a top 10 UK hit in late 1979 with a New Wave cover of, funnily enough, a 60s British Invasion classic, Dusty Springfield's I Only want to be with you.
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Guest or Music Clips
It happens to be true I only wanna with you.
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Chris Melanfi
After the Tourists split, Stewart and Lennox, now broken up as a romantic couple, reformed as a duo and leaned more heavily into a synth driven sound. They called their new duo Eurythmics. Mind you, none of these acclaimed British bands were doing anything on the US charts through the first half of 1981, the only British new wave band that had performed decently on the Hot 100 were the Police, who'd cracked the top 10 a couple of times. But then, on the 1st of August 1981, a new cable TV channel premiered in a handful of US towns. Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll. And that's when everything changed.
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Guest or Music Clips
I met your children. What did you tell them?
- [12:33]
Chris Melanfi
As I noted in our music video episode of Hit Parade, when MTV launched with Video Killed, the Radio Star, that Buggles hit was nearly two years old. In fact, a lot of the music MTV played on its first day was not current. The new channel was desperate for any name brand artists who had bothered to shoot music videos. Which explains why they played 11 Rod Stewart clips that first day, most of which were years old. In general, British acts, thanks to the heritage of such TV shows as Top of the Pops, had shot way more music videos than their American counterparts. On Day One, MTV played multiple clips by such UK based acts as the Pretenders, Phil collins. And no surprise, David Bowie. For its first few months, it was hard to tell if anyone MTV was having much of an impact on the American charts. In the fall of 81, the police scored their biggest hit to date with Every Little Thing she Does Is Magic a number three hit. The trio was due for a big hit anyway. But the fact that Sting, Andy Summers and Stuart Copeland had shot winsome videos for all their singles, including Magic, certainly didn't hurt. And as I noted in our Daryl hall and John Oates episode of Hit Parade, that duo also benefited from MTV's launch. But their videos were fairly cheaply produced on videotape, focused on band performance, and were not especially cutting edge.
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Guest or Music Clips
Private eyes watching you missing your every move.
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Chris Melanfi
It wasn't until the summer of 1982 that a number one hit was inarguably made by MTV, and it was a Human League single that Phil Oke didn't even want to release before it became his band's biggest hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Don't you want me A he said she said romantic melodrama brought to life by Oki and Susan Ann Sully was the last track on the Human League's Dare album and it was the LP's fourth single. Oki thought the song was filler, he called it naff and he tried to dissuade his label Virgin, from putting it out as a 45. Instead, the label doubled down by commissioning the most expensive music video the band had done to date. A sort of meta film noir loosely based on A Star is Born in which the band members were played characters both in front of and behind the camera. It was easily the highest gloss clip on MTV at the time. In the UK, don't you want me reached the top in December 1981, taking the covetous Christmas number one slot. In America. It took longer to break, but by 1982 record executives had started to notice that any US town that had MTV was seeing spikes in record sales. The Human League's US label, A& M Records pushed the single hard at radio and it finally entered the Hot 100 in March of 1982. After a slow 18 week climb in July 82, don't yout Want Me was number one in America. By the summer of 1982 the Human League stood way out on US radio. The charts were still recovering from the post disco doldrums, playing soft pop by the likes of Air Supply. And lugubrious album oriented rock. Like the band Asia. One thing is sure sure these bands employed electronics, but not the way the new wave of British acts did. While don't you want Me spent its three weeks at number one on the Hot 100, another synth pop hit climbed into the top ten after a slow steady six month chart run. Soft sells aforementioned Tainted Love, Take My.
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Guest or Music Clips
Tears, and that's not Nearly oh Tainted Love.
- [18:58]
Chris Melanfi
By the end of 1982, other glossy synth pop acts were starting to break on the chart, including the Debonair Sheffield band ABC with their number 18 hit the look of Love. And a Liverpool quartet whose frontman Mike Score had probably the most infamous haircut of the entire 1980s. A flock of Seagulls.
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Guest or Music Clips
I just run, I don't know.
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Chris Melanfi
A Flock of Seagulls offered evidence of MTV's profound US chart impact. They were bigger in America than they ever were in the UK. Iran, only a number 43 hit in their homeland, made it all the way to number eight in America and the follow up single Space Age Love Song. Hit number 34 in the UK, number 30 in the US. Jonathan Bernstein, co author of the 80s music compendium Mad World, wrote, quote, I still wince a little at a flock of seagulls in my UK homeland. They were seen as a joke act, unquote. But Mad World co author Lori Majewski, an American, exulted about the seagull's videos, calling Iran in particular, quote, full on resplendent Technicolor. In short, for the US audience, the visual was driving the music. On the strength of Iran, a flock of Seagull's self titled debut LP hit the US top 10, went gold and rode the album chart for nearly a year. Around the same time, an Australian band called Men at Work did even better.
- [21:35]
Guest or Music Clips
Who Can It Be Now?
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Chris Melanfi
Their debut album, Business As Usual, a blend of Brit style, new wave, heavy saxophone and tropical rhythms, spent a staggering 15 weeks at number one in the U.S. fueled by its two Hot 100 number one hits, who can it be now in the fall of 82 and down under in the winter of 83. On mtv, Men at Work presented themselves with wide eyed whimsy and approachable Aussie exoticism. But by the end of 1982 no band was selling themselves harder and in the music video medium than Duran Duran. The release of the Duran's second album Rio and a series of glossy music videos shot in far flung locations like Antigua and Sri Lanka by film director Russell Mulcahy at last broke the group in America. A remix of the album to suit American radio also helped. Hungry like the Wolf, Duran Duran's breakthrough video modeled after Raiders of the Lost Ark, was power rotated on MTV, which pushed the single onto the Hot 100 the last week of 1982. It eventually rose to number three by the spring of 83 and was quickly followed by the Rio album's title track, whose lustrous clip featured the five Durans in Anthony Price suits aboard a yacht speeding across the Caribbean Sea. It reached number 14 on the Hot 100 by May.
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Guest or Music Clips
My Name is Rio and she dances on the sand Just like that river twisting through dusty land.
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Chris Melanfi
It took until 1983 for critics and pundits to begin whispering about a second British invasion. The music business took notice. First, rock radio consultant Lee Abrams advised his radio clients to program more new music. And he declared, quote, all my favorite bands now are English. It's a more artistic place. Experimentation thrives there, unquote. On the charts, the evidence was becoming undeniable. Adam Ant, who'd been a UK teen idol and an avatar of the New Romantic movement as far back as 1980, finally cracked the US top 40 with the rollicking number 12 hit Goody Two Shoes. Dexie's Midnight Runners, whom we talked about in our One Hit Wonders episode of Hit Parade. Sorry. UK Dexies fans rose all the way to number one, actually holding off two singles by Michael Jackson with their Celtic soul jam Come On Eileen. And if Dexie's Celtic drag seemed outlandish, the very meaning of drag was redefined by Culture Club's George o', Dowd, AKA Boy George.
- [25:56]
Guest or Music Clips
Do you really want to hurt me? Do you really want to make me cry?
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Chris Melanfi
You might call boy George a one man RuPaul's Drag Race, about three decades early. Serving realness in his makeup, hat and braids, and possessing a remarkably supple R and B style voice, George was a near instant sensation when Culture Club issued their debut lp, Kissing to Be Clever, in the closing weeks of the 1982. By March of 83, the reggae style do you really want to hurt me, fueled by a melodramatic video of George cavorting through a courthouse and a prison, hit number two on the Hot 100. The LP went platinum, spawned three top 10 hits, and rode the Billboard album chart for nearly two years. The second British invasion had gained full velocity by the summer of 83. The wave of MTV fueled glossy hit making made new wave forefather David Bowie a chart topper all over again. As his Nile Rogers produced let's Dance reached number one, Followed less than two months later by the only ever US Number one for the Police, Every Breath youh Take, which was boosted by a widely acclaimed, highly cinematic black and white video directed by MTV era auteurs Godly and Cream. On the charts, it was 1965 all over again. By the time the Police reached number one in July 1983, British acts held down 20 singles in the top 40, a new record. Joining Sting's trio were British Guyanese singer Eddie Grant with his new wave reggae fusion Electric Avenue, a number two hit. Kaja Gugu, a band produced by Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes, whose disco meets new romantic jam Too Shy, reached number five. The Kinks. Yes, the veterans of the first British Invasion, still confronted by Ray Davis with their keyboard speckled nostalgic tale Come Dancing, a number six hit, And Madness, the acclaimed kings of 2 Tone Ska, who'd been dominating the UK charts since 1979, but only made the US top 10 in 1983 with the whimsical number 7 hit Our House.
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Guest or Music Clips
In the Middle of Our Street. Our House in the Middle of Our house.
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Chris Melanfi
What's more, three of the biggest breakthroughs of 1982 and early 83 were back that summer with top 10 follow ups, including Duran Duran, whose Is There Something I Should Know? Reached number four. Culture Club, who got back to number two with Time, Clock of the Heart.
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Guest or Music Clips
So Much More. The Time Is Precious, I Know.
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Chris Melanfi
And the Human League, who'd kicked off the whole wave a year earlier and were finally back with their electro R and B jam Keep Feeling Fascination. An eventual number eight hit, Keep Feeling Fascination, Passion Burning. But the sleeper of all these UK new wave jams was still outside the top 10 and rising steadily. It was the duo of Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart. And this time they brought the fire. Sweet Dreams are Made of this One of the most iconic hits of the second British invasion was R B in synth pop clothing. Whoseample.com estimates that sweet Dreams has been covered, sampled or interpolated around 130 times. The sweet Dreams music video is legendarily strange, featuring Annie Lennox in drag in a man's suit with a red buzz haircut, singing deadpan to the camera in a corporate conference room while Dave Stewart plays a computer keyboard like a musical instrument and cows march around a conference room table. It was mt.
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Guest or Music Clips
The world and the Seven Seas, everybody.
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Chris Melanfi
Sweet Dreams took 17 weeks to climb the Hot 100. It even waited out the Police's Every Breath youh Take for four weeks at number two before knocking out the mighty Sting and taking number one the first week of September 1983. At last, in the fall of 83. Rolling Stone magazine belatedly called it a cover story declared, quote, england swings. Great Britain invades America's music and style again. It was all next to a picture of Boy George, who, by the way, was about to top the Hot 100 just a few months later with Karma Chameleon. Like the British invasion of the 60s, the second British invasion was again taking American Indian idioms and reupholstering them for a new age. It was also turning former 70s rockers into 80s synth popsters. For example, progressive rock veterans yes were transformed by Buggles leader and producer Trevor Horn into electro rock gods on the breakbeat Happy owner of A lonely heart, a number one hit at the start of 1984. Four. Genesis, led by Phil Collins, cracked the top 10 for the first time in early 84 with the new wave adjacent. That's all.
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Guest or Music Clips
But why does it always seem to be me looking at you with you looking at me it's always the same it's just a shame.
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Chris Melanfi
And veteran arena rockers Queen went deeper than they ever had into synthesizers on Radio Gaga and returned to the top 20 on the Hot 100 for the first time in two years. By April 84, 40% of the Hot 100 was British, including hits by the Thompson Twins, Eurythmics, Here comes the rain.
- [35:04]
Guest or Music Clips
Again, Raining in my head like a.
- [35:07]
Chris Melanfi
Tragedy Tearing me up and Duran Duran. After five straight top 20 US hits, Duran Duran finally reached number one after they commissioned producer extraordinaire Nile Rogers to remix their track the Reflex. It topped the Hot 100 in June 1984.
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Guest or Music Clips
Why don't you use it? Try not to bruise it by time don't lose it.
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Chris Melanfi
The Second Invasion had gone on long enough that acts that couldn't cross over in America the first time were given a second chance at chart glory. For example, in 1983, the duo Wham got no further than number 60 on the Hot 100 with their Teen pop story song Bad Boys. Then in 1984, determined, determined to break in the United States, Wham leader George Michael pulled the old British Invasion trick of selling America back to the Americans. Wake me up before you go Go was a shameless send up of 50s sock hop and 60s Motown. And it got Wham to number one on the Hot 100 by November 84. Or what about the Scottish band Simple Minds? They had tried going danceable back in 1982 on promised you a miracle. Though it was a top 20 UK hit in America, it missed the Hot 100 entirely and only barely scraped Billboard's club play charts. But then, in 1985, Simple Minds swallowed their pride and agreed to record a soundtrack song for the American movie the Breakfast Club. Directed by teen film auteur John Hughes, turned down by both Billy Idol and Roxy Music's Brian Ferry. Don't you forget about me broke Simple Minds in the States and took them all the way to number one. And Tears for Fears. The Bath Somerset duo of Roland Orzabal and Kurt Smith. They had launched with Icy but catchy synth pop in 1983 and generated a string of top 10 UK hits. But in America, Tears for Fears couldn't climb higher than number 73. With 1983's change. Two years later, Roland Orzabal and his co writers and aimed squarely for the American market with a song that singer Kurt Smith called Drive Music, a more upbeat take on the theme of global power a la Eurythmic's Sweet Dreams. Titled, appropriately enough, Everybody wants to rule the world. The result? Another number one hit. Along these same lines of World conquest and the evil that men do. Depeche Mode scored a fluke top 20 hit in the summer of 85 with the danceable anti racist lament People are People. By 1984 and 85, new wave synth pop was morphing into sophista pop, a blend of soul, cocktail jazz and lavish production. Think of the Saxophone line on WHAM's second US number one, Careless Whisper. Or the jet setting bossa nova rhythms of Sade's breakthrough US hit Smooth Operator, which reached number five in May 1985. British synth pop was now so well regarded by high pop culture that Duran Duran were tapped by the James Bond franchise to record the theme to 1985's A View to a Kill. To this day, Duran's Bond theme is the only one in the franchise's 60 year history to reach number one on the Hot 100 for you is the.
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Guest or Music Clips
View to wake you.
- [41:06]
Chris Melanfi
You might say that this British invasion circa 1985 was becoming like the first invasion circa 1966, getting glossier and broadening in scope, but also thinning out like that 66 raga and music hall moment. The move toward sophistapop produced big hits that felt less coherent. Debonair acts were still having breakthroughs such as ABC, who cracked the top 10 for the first time in late 85 with be near Me. Or the very nattily dressed Robert Palmer, who took Addicted to love to number one in early 86. Or Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, better known as omd, who followed in Simple Mind's footsteps and soundtracked a John Hughes movie, Pretty in Pink. Their gushy lovelorn if you leave reached number four in the spring of 86. But by the time the worldly Pet Shop Boys took their austere West End girls to number one in May of 86, it was harder to say the second invasion was really invading anything anymore. As in the 1960s, the Yanks of the 80s had adapted. The rise of Madonna in 1980 and 85 offered a new kind of synthetic pop model, an outgrowth of new wave that was tied to the club. In late 85, the Minneapolis synth funk band Ready for the World opened their number one smash, Oshila with a spoken word bit by lead singer Melvin Riley Jr. That approximated a faux British accent. Like the Raiders or the Sir Douglas quintet in the 60s, it felt like a troll move. Even more than in the 60s, what brought this British Invasion to a close was simply evolving taste. The breakthrough chart act of 1985 and 86 was Whitney Houston, who re centered the primacy of the voice with big American gospel power in her string of chart topping hits. Similarly, the rise of New Jack Swin, presaged by Janet Jackson's 1986 Control album, offered a different model of synth pop that gave the synthesizer more of a groove. Speaking of Janet Jackson, a poetic bookend took place late in 1986. In a move to get ahead of this shift toward New Jack swing, the Human League, whose hit don't yout Want Me had launched the second invasion back in 1982, teamed up with Janet's producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis on what turned out to be the Human League's final number one hit, the R and B adjacent Human. One week after Human topped the Hot 100, the Human League were replaced at number one by this band of vulgar Americans.
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Guest or Music Clips
Name you Give Up.
- [45:56]
Chris Melanfi
Bon Jovi were ascendant. American Anglophiles had been put in their place and the second British invasion was over again. As in the 60s, English superstars would continue to command our charts periodically. And occasionally, a new British pop act would break out on the Hot 100, however briefly. Swing Out, Sister Breathe, Johnny Hates Jazz. We hardly knew. Yeah, but by the end of the 80s, Yanks who considered themselves Anglophiles had turned away from big 80s pop and were seeking refuge on alternative radio and the modern rock chart. As we discussed in our Lost and Lonely edition of Hit Parade, doomy new waivers like the Cure, the Smiths and Depeche Mode became hipster's favorite hitmakers. Jesus. So that's a tour through two decades worth of revolutionary British pop. Certainly the 80s didn't represent the last gasp of UK incursions on the US charts. From Adel to Ed Sheeran to Dua Lipa, natives of old Blighty are still capable of commanding the Hot 100 to this day. But the mid-60s and the mid-80s represent a high watermark of British influence. When one sonic innovation begat another and made our American hit parade brighter, punchier, glossier and made American pop I'd argue better. One last footnote. As good as the 60s and the 80s were for UK hit making, British fans have their own periods of musical nostalgia. Ask a late Gen Xer or a millennial from Great Britain what period of pop makes them wistful? And they're likelier to mention. A different era of cool Britannia? The 90s. And here's the thing. America proved largely immune to that Brit pop era. There was no 90s British invasion. Which begs the question, why? Hold tight, because we're going to get to that question in a future episode. Brit pop had its own catalog of styles and stars, but to Americans, it's the control group in our multi decade pop experiment. The British Invasion. That didn't take we'll take some time here on Hit Parade to do Brit pop justice, because to do any less would be rubbish. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Melanfi. That's me. My producer is Kevin Bendis. Kevin also produced the latest installment of our monthly Hit Parade the Bridge shows, which are available exclusively to Slate plus members. In our latest Bridge episode, I talked to radio host and author Laurie Majewski about the second British Invasion and the shiny new wave of British acts that stormed America's charts in the 80s. To sign up for Slate plus and hear not only the Bridge but all our shows the day they drop, visit slate.com hitparade/ Derek Johns is executive Producer of Narrative Podcasts and Alicia Montgomery is VP of Audio for Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows@slate.com podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the short show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. Until then, keep on marching on the one I'm Chris Melanthe.