Thanks to Bulldog Breed's "Top O' The Pops Cock !?!?" for helping inspire the title.
Whether the fans want to admit it or not. Whether THEY want to admit it or not. Paul Revere And The Raiders, the supposed guardians against the British Invasion would never have existed without the British Merseybeat/Beat boom and no good American pop in the 60s would have been at all possible without bands like The Zombies, The Who, The Beatles, The Move, The Kinks, and we had one band who shot it right back to the British and they answered with more great music for us- the brilliant group The Left Banke. British pop is the best. The Left Banke are the best and so are the other very British influenced bands who came out of the States in the 1960s at a time when love was in the air and anything seemed possible. Maybe everything WAS possible.
Pop has often been a dirty word to certain narrow minded people with their head up their arse, but you always know who the real music collectors and fans and friends are because they are the ones who are open to anything. Great British pop like The Magic Lanterns (The Shame Shame album on Atlantic is amazing), Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mich And Tick's best material, The Move, The Koobas, Apple, The Idle Race, Grapefruit, (who it must be said along with The Move and Koobas were venturing far into psychedelia and then became a great hard rock/power pop band on a shamefully underrated 2nd album Deep Water), The Creation, The Smoke (whose album I really wish I'd kept), Cartoone (From Glasgow Aye), The Casuals ("Jesamine" mmmm what a tasty piece of Baroque beauty and many other gems) has always been held in outright contempt by Americans who can't get over the fact that NOTHING WOULD HAVE HAPPENED WITHOUT GREAT BRITAIN. They say the music is fey, too "English" whatever that means, or some other stupid excuse or just that since pop can be played top volume in the car or radio it is too commercial. The most bollocks I've heard was from one unnamed record dealer or two who called it "Too clean" and "Too perfect." What, should music look like a pile of rubbish inside a barn with GARAGE PUNK spray painted in all caps on it? I know it sounds like I'm ranting here and taking a lot of liberties so let's end the rant. The point is that through their own influences and the influences brought over from the best American geniuses like Brian Wilson and Phil Spector (a maniac, but he created the Wall Of Sound and we should love his productions) the British perfected pop. They would be the bright spotlight in the charts in the early 70s when American bands who were pop really were all the insults people throw at that term when they stormed them. Of course, the 1960s set all of those bands up as they cut their teeth on the club circuit playing Mod pop/psych, but we can't forget them. At a time when all in the American charts was gloom and depression from the Yanks we had Vanity Fare, White Plains, The Fortunes (of "You've Got Your Troubles" 1965 beat era fame), The Marmalade (shed a few tears whilst hearing "Reflections Of My Life"), and The Sweet as the only really great talent that also translated into hit singles. And what of David Bowie? Don't forget him. Don't forget that glam rock gave us some great crossover hits and soon American bands were forming to come out in the middle of the 70s with a shot of excitement brought on by the UK bands. Some of the worst hacks were English, in fact the worst of them all was Rupert Holmes who took a talented group of guys from Wilkes Barre P.A called The Buoys and made them into a one-off hit about disgusting cannibalism in "Timothy," but these hacks were just copying the Americans. In the 1960s there was exciting music from everywhere and the competition was fierce, but the bands were young then and they could handle it. If you didn't make the charts, but you made an album that could be filed under "Pop" full of great melodies you still won the fight.
Let's skip ahead to 1970. British pop and British rock are very old-world. They are influenced by the rich history both musical and martial of their country and soon this kind of ultra super refined, tight, disciplined, and straight forward moving sound was causing Americans to hate all things UK Pop/rock while they swore by bands as dire as Bloodrock or The Stooges just because they sounded "American." I know that type. They are the same type who grew up to be Tea Party mutations and George W. Bush supporters. The wise Americans all either went underground or decided they'd be better off writing, producing, and recording their own perfect pop like Carole King, early Todd Rundgren, and Emitt Rhodes. The singer songwriter movement began. A lot of it was pretty foul, but you could always spot a winner in the crowd because they'd be the ones who brightened our country up with big hits. Daryl Hall and John Oates may get slammed by people who think they are too "clean" or too "soul," but they gave us over a decade's worth of excellent hits perfectly crafted, beautifully sung, sympathetically arranged. Songs like "She's Gone" will live forever, but "She's Gone" probably wouldn't have made it without Carole King. It is Ms. King who took a look around the world and took British smoothness and mixed it with a good dose of gospel and R&B that we have to thank for that one bright spot that ignited the charts in 1972 America- Tapestry. How, though, we would survive in a world where only a self-made solo artist who'd worked on Tin Pan Alley could be a bright spot is that we wouldn't survive. War was on- and it wasn't just in Vietnam or for England Northern Ireland. A war happened in the world of music- a war between "Pop" and "Underground." Badfinger came over from England/Wales with backing from The Beatles and hammered us. They were the first band to make the problem visible. While they followed by others I've mentioned already were the groups who made great chart singles and great pop albums America only had a few solo artists and a duo. Daryl and John slaved over their music before making it. They began terribly and knew they had to improve. With Abandoned Luncheonette they achieved the goal of a perfect album, but we couldn't possibly survive in the charts with only 5 albums I can think of as classics with hits (Todd Rundgren: Runt- The Ballad Of Todd Rundgren. Todd Rundgren: Something/Anything. Emitt Rhodes S/T on Dunhill. Carole King: Tapestry. Daryl Hall and John Oates: Abandoned Luncheonette) compared to the storming by the British. Soon discontentment became the name of the game come 1971. American bands started to model themselves after British bands and forsook chart success for progressivism and hard rock. England's mighty hold over commercial music would never die. Between 1970 and 1975 hardly any American bands who made great music were making chart success. Things had gotten as grim as they were before The British Invasion so it's not a surprise there was a 2nd British Invasion. Badfinger, the tragic heroes who lost the lives of both main songwriters to suicide, spearheaded it followed by Queen, Pilot, The Sweet, Mott The Hoople, and out pop acts Vanity Fare, White Plains, The Marmalade, 10cc. In this period of time 1970 to 1976 the wake up call wasn't felt until a certain band called Boston decided that they could combine the artistic talents of a progressive band like Yes or Argent with loud guitars and pop melodies of their own. Boston broke through. It was wonderful and still is. Then AOR radio and AOR/Pomp rock came to enter the charts and finally it seemed we had some great British influenced bands saving the musical future of this country. It would only lead to the obvious. We could deliver some great AOR/Pomp rock, but it was so influenced both by Hall/Oates and the British that soon they would be producing the better bands. I haven't even mentioned The Shocking Blue or Abba, but they figure into this too and with all caps on QUALITY MUSIC. What happened to the days of great hits from American bands in the 1960s? We got too damned patriotic. We also got too paranoid. Xenophobic rock critics ruined everything and as any intelligent person will know bigotry of any kind should not be tolerated. That's right- bigotry played a big role in what was going to send America down the tubes into oblivion. Namely the amount of black music and black influenced music that was good and in the charts led to an outbreak of openly racist bands and solo acts who were so white you could just smell the stale scent of used up chalk and spray paint I mentioned before. For instance one of the biggest hits of the mid 1970s was "Play That Funky Music White Boy" by Donny Iris/Wild Cherry and Hall and Oates were dubbed by idiots "Blue Eyed Soul." Like John Oates who said that's a racist term he is right. That's truth. Soul is a state of mind, and there is no reason why Hall/Oates or Toto couldn't just be dubbed Pop, Power Pop, or AOR with soulful influences. This kind of childish teasing and hating was going on in the 1970s and I hate it. I wasn't born yet or I was a babe for most of that time, but I love music and I hate any kind of prejudice. Narrow-mindedness is a disease. If you're so white you don't have a shadow and you're so American you are wearing a badge that says in code "I HATE ALL FOREIGNERS" then you are sick in the head and don't have a heart. This disease would lead to grunge. It would lead to hate rock. It spells out the unrest that was going on in the 1970s and back into the 1960s with race riots happening all the time. Soon it would be 2001. You couldn't be blamed if you left the country or burned the flag- and that is a tragedy. That is the tragedy of America, but this is a music blog so no more about that except on the musical side of the fence. American bands started to go back and listen to the music of the 1960s and British bands. Soon we'd have some more promising sounding bands around, but chart success would prove elusive like nothing had changed. Let's not forget that The Zombies back in the 1960s made their masterstroke Oddesey And Oracle as a last effort right before throwing the towel in. That is one of the best pop albums ever made- a pure, majestic, emotional, warm, moving record of beautiful perfect pop. Badfinger toughened pop up. They released Straight Up after the equally brilliant No Dice consolidating success in the charts yet ending in the horribly tragic deaths by hanging of Pete Ham (1975) and Tom Evans (in the early/mid 80s sometime). However, the music of Badfinger lives on and really the more I think about it their strong solid mix of pop and rock would lead to some good crossover successes here. People have a thing about soft and laid back music when it gets commercial. If it's Bread whose first album is a Must Have, The Raspberries, or some of the better hits by The Eagles they don't like/hate it and if it's Vanity Fare or The Magic Lanterns they Despise it. Pretty sad. Pretty miserable. I don't want this blog to come off as a complete slamming of America or Americans as I do not feel that way at all, but the bad people in the population are the ones who are spinning the wheels of commercial success and big business. While thousands of young, innocent, worthy soldiers die in a pointless war nobody writes a good protest song with hit appeal like Earth Opera did back in the 1960s or Mr. Brilliant Bob Dylan did- they just put up an American flag and a yellow ribbon on their car. Do they really care about those boys? NO. In England things are just as bad politically/socially, but musically in a disturbing way most bands seem to either aim only at the Americans or just to not exist. So they too are now like the whole rest of the Western World dependent on the great classic Pop of yesteryear. Pop shouldn't be a dirty word. Neither should Love. Pop is all about love and British pop is the richest in romance there is in the whole world. The themes of young people falling in love written about as far back as The Beatles or later on by the masterful half English (Graham Russell- writer/vocalist) half Aussie (Russell Hitchcock vocalist extraordinary) Air Supply will live forever. In the 1990s there were some great songs by British bands Ten from Mainland England and Dare from Wales and now the most romantic band around is a band of amazing abilities called Elbow- guess where they are from? England. In England love is coming out. In America kids are beginning to listen to what is now called Classic Rock when it is really the cream of pop/rock. I believe in music as a healing power. British Pop is the greatest source of healing there ever will be. You should take a good healthy dose of strong, solid, unrefined British pop at least twice every day. To end this entry- remember that you are not the only one out there and that love is the thing, giving is the thing to do. Turn somebody on to good vibes not apathy. No matter what they call it/us good music and good people may be outnumbered, but we put up a really solid fight nonetheless.
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