Second British Invasion

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, music from the United Kingdom was informed by the after-effects of the punk/new wave revolution. In 1979, "Roxanne" by the Police cracked the American Top 40, followed by the more modest chart successes of Elvis Costello, the Pretenders, Gary Numan, Squeeze, and Joe Jackson; the latter had a new wave hit with "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" Music videos, which had been a staple of British music television programmes for about five years, evolved into image-conscious short films. At the same time, pop and rock music in the U.S. was undergoing a creative slump due to several factors, including audience fragmentation and the effects of the anti-disco backlash that reached its peak with Disco Demolition Night. Videos did not exist for most hits by US acts, and those that did were usually composed of footage from concert performances. More hints of the impending invasion were observed in 1981 on the dance charts. Only seven of the top thirty groups of the dance rock chart Rockpool were of American origin, while later in the year, 12-inch singles by British groups began appearing on the Billboard Disco chart. The trend was particularly strong in Manhattan where import records and the British music press were convenient to obtain and where the New York Rocker warned that "Anglophilia" was hurting US underground acts. ==The Invasion==

(pictured in 1983) were one of the earliest British new pop groups to achieve mainstream success in the summer of 1982. Their second studio album Rio is credited with helping kickstart the second British Invasion, spending eleven weeks within the top ten of the Billboard 200 in 1983. On 4 May 1982, Duran Duran released their second single "Hungry Like the Wolf" from the group's second studio album, Rio. The song peaked at number five on the UK Top 40 chart in late June 1982, and its accompanying music video received frequent rotation on MTV by early July. Duran Duran's subsequent singles, "Save a Prayer" and "Rio", also did exceptionally well, peaking at number two and number nine on the UK Top 40 chart, respectively. On 3 July 1982, the Human League's "Don't You Want Me" started a three-week reign on top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song got considerable boost from MTV, and has been described by The Village Voice as "pretty unmistakably the moment the Second British Invasion, spurred by MTV, kicked off". "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell also spent a record-breaking 43 weeks on the Hot 100. Pop rock songs that topped the charts included Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart", John Waite's "Missing You", and Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love". Spandau Ballet's ballad "True" became one of the most played songs in US history. Girl group Bananarama had hits with "Cruel Summer" and "Venus", the latter reaching number one. Many of the Second Invasion artists started their careers in the punk era and desired to bring change to a wider audience, resulting in music that, while having no specific sound, was characterized by a risk-taking spirit within the context of pop music. Rock-oriented acts that knew how to use video, such as Def Leppard, Big Country and Simple Minds, became part of the new influx of music from Britain. this tally was equaled the weeks ending 31 May – 7 June 1986. Culture Club, Spandau Ballet, and Duran Duran created a teen "hysteria" similar to Beatlemania during the first British Invasion. Newsweek magazine ran an issue which featured Annie Lennox and Boy George on the cover of its issue with the caption "Britain Rocks America – Again", while Rolling Stone would release an "England Swings" issue in November 1983. The following April, 40 of the top 100 singles were by acts of British origin. In 1983, the Police's Synchronicity (1983) was number one on the Billboard 200 for 17 weeks, traded the top spot with Michael Jackson's Thriller (1982) three times, and their song "Every Breath You Take" was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for 8 weeks and was the best-selling single in the US in 1983. subscription channel MTV helped launch the second British Invasion by promoting music videos for groups including the Human League, Duran Duran, Tears for Fears, Culture Club, and Eurythmics. U.S. radio stations that catered to black audiences also played Second Invasion acts. Music critic Nelson George ascribed this "reverse crossover" to the dancibility of the songs. Another music journalist, Simon Reynolds, theorized that, just as in the first British Invasion, the use of African-American influences by British acts such as Eurythmics, Spandau Ballet, Culture Club, Paul Young, and Wham! helped to spur their success. Released afterward in 1984, "Careless Whisper" by George Michael also scaled the Hot 100. At the Second Invasion's height, during a five-month period, UK acts claimed nine out of the eleven Hot 100 number-one hits, from Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me)" through to Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing". During the second week of that period, the week ending 25 May 1985, eight of the top ten singles were by UK acts. Tears for Fears' "Shout" spent three weeks at number one. "Don't You (Forget About Me)", which features in The Breakfast Club (1985), rendered Simple Minds the first British act to achieve a Hot 100 hit with a single taken from a Brat Pack film soundtrack; subsequent artists included John Parr and the Psychedelic Furs, who recorded the title tracks of ''St. Elmo's Fire (1985) and Pretty in Pink (1986), respectively (the former reaching number one). Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – who had been an early presence in the invasion – entered the top five with the "zeitgeist-capturing" hit single "If You Leave", which plays prominently during Pretty in Pink''s climactic "prom scene". During the Second British Invasion, established British acts such as Queen, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Phil Collins, Rod Stewart, Elton John, and the Rolling Stones saw their popularity increase; a few acts that dated to the era of the original British Invasion, including George Harrison, the Kinks, the Hollies, the Moody Blues, and Eddy Grant, had their last major hits in this time frame. Counting his work with Genesis, Collins had more top forty hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart during the 1980s than any other artist. British progressive rock artists would achieve major chart success in the US during the 1980s, such as Genesis with "Invisible Touch" reaching No. 1, Yes with "Owner of a Lonely Heart" achieving the same, and the Alan Parsons Project with "Sirius", which would be used as entrance music by various US sports teams, notably the Chicago Bulls. ==Reaction==

Explaining why another British Invasion was taking place, one record-industry insider stated, "For whatever psychological reason, there is a very vocal and influential Anglophile rock audience that salivates to hits from abroad." Parke Puterbaugh for Rolling Stone writes, "The runaway success in early '82 of 'I Ran (So Far Away)' by A Flock of Seagulls was the icing on the cake. Fronted by a singer-synth player with a haircut stranger than anything you'd be likely to encounter in a month of poodle shows, A Flock of Seagulls struck gold on the first try. The message seemed abundantly clear: America was ready for anything—the stranger, the better. And Britain, home of the brave new world of pop, has kept lobbing them over." According to music journalist Simon Reynolds, a majority of acts that signed to independent labels in 1984 mined various rock influences and became an alternative to the Second Invasion. Reynolds named the Smiths and R.E.M. as the two most important "alt rock acts" among this group noting that they "were eighties bands only in the sense of being against the eighties". The Second British Invasion had its most direct impact on US country music, which immediately prior to the Invasion was enjoying a brief renaissance of mainstream popularity buoyed by country pop crossover artists. By 1984, country's mainstream popularity had fallen to a level not seen since disco, and Music Row publishers responded by retrenching, promoting neotraditional country artists popular with country's fan base but with less appeal outside it. Country's crossover appeal would not recover until 1991. ==End of the Invasion==

As the 1980s wore on, US rock, heavy metal, and pop music acts learned how to market themselves using video and making catchy singles. That fall, Bon Jovi's third studio album Slippery When Wet topped the Billboard 200 and spent eight non-consecutive weeks there, Such developments eventually led to decreased visibility of new music. 1987 saw only seven British acts on the Hot 100's top 40 in January, and new music exposure on MTV was limited to the program The New Video Hour. In 1988, British acts rebounded with twelve singles topping the chart that year. As late as the mid-1990s, the Spice Girls were identified as part of the Second British Invasion; and prominent British acts such as Oasis, Blur, Take That, and the Verve (some of whom were associated with the Britpop movement in their native United Kingdom) had some limited success in the U.S., albeit less than their 1980s predecessors. US hits from these bands included "Wannabe" (Spice Girls), "Wonderwall" (Oasis), "Song 2" (Blur), "Back for Good" (Take That), and "Bitter Sweet Symphony" (the Verve). Over time British acts became less prevalent on the US charts, and on 27 April 2002, for the first time in almost forty years, the Hot 100 had no British acts at all; that week, only two of the top 100 albums, those of Craig David and Ozzy Osbourne, were from British artists. ==See also==