British pop music
British pop music is popular music, produced commercially in the United Kingdom. It emerged in the mid-to late 1950s as a softer alternative to American rock 'n' roll. Like American pop music it has a focus on commercial recording, often orientated towards a youth market, as well as that of the Singles Chart usually through the medium of relatively short and simple love songs. While these basic elements of the genre have remained fairly constant, pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music, particularly borrowing from the development of rock music, and utilising key technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes. From the British Invasion in the 1960s, led by The Beatles, British pop music has alternated between acts and genres with national appeal and those with international success that have had a considerable impact on the development of the wider genre and on popular music in general
Not to be confused with Britpop, a genre of rock music originating from the United Kingdom.The download era (1999–2009) and the third British Invasion[edit]
After the decline of Britpop, British indie was kept alive by "post pop" bands including Radiohead, Feeder, Stereophonics and Travis, who largely abandoned the elements of national and retro-60s culture.[138] Recently British indie bands with a foot in both the rock and pop camps has experienced a resurgence, spurred in part by the international success of the Strokes. Like modern American indie rock, many British indie bands such as Franz Ferdinand, the Libertines and Bloc Party are influenced by post-punk groups such as Joy Division, Wire, and Gang of Four. Other prominent independent bands in the 2000s include Editors, the Fratellis, Razorlight, Keane, Kaiser Chiefs, Coldplay and Arctic Monkeys, the last the most prominent act to owe their success to the use of Internet social networking.[139]
British soul in the 2000s has also been dominated by female singers, including Leona Lewis, Natasha Bedingfield, Joss Stone, Amy Winehouse,[140] Estelle, Lily Allen, Florence Welch, Adele, Duffy, Jessie J, Floetry and Paloma Faith, all of whom have enjoyed success in the American charts, leading to talk of a "Female Invasion", "British Soul Invasion" or, together with successful indie acts, a "Third British Invasion".[141] Male R&B artists who have had mainstream success in the United States include Jay Sean, Taio Cruz and One Direction. Many of these British R&B artists have increasingly incorporated electropop sounds in their music.[142] In the early 21st century, ITV talent shows such as The X Factor discovered artists including Cher Lloyd, Will Young and Leona Lewis, all who went on to have number one hits either in the UK or abroad.
The late 2000s 'guilty pleasures pop' craze[143][144][145] brought a lot of bands to the charts that harked back to the sounds of soft rock, glam pop and MOR. Acts like MIKA,[146] future dance vocalist Gary Go, the Yeah You's[147][148] and the Feeling[149] were not afraid to state their less-then-trendy influences, with the Feeling going on to support Jeff Lynne's ELO during the next decade.[150][151][152][153]
Streaming era (2010–present)[edit]
In the 2010s, as long-term artist successes from talent shows such as The X Factor and The Voice UK became rarer, a number of new artists where launched via the 'featured artist' route. Modern British pop singers including Rita Ora[154] and Sam Smith, were launched after being the guest vocalists on a number of dance music hits, with Smith[155] featuring on Disclosure's "Latch" and Naughty Boy's number one success, "La La La".
Even though she appeared on The Voice UK (but did not make the grand final), Becky Hill[156] became a 'songwriter for hire' and part of Pete Tong's live band before starting to appear on numerous dance hits by people such as Oliver Heldens, Jax Jones and Sigala.[157][158] The BBC wondered if Hill was 'pop's biggest unknown star' after she notched up a series of co-credited top 40 hits, all of which were included on her Polydor compilation Get to Know, the album which stayed on the UK Albums Chart for more than a year, mainly due to the chart compiling methodology of that chart, which saw streaming points from singles included into an albums sales total. That same factor also helped Jax Jones,[159] and saw his Snacks collection go top 10 (with a total of 78 weeks on the album chart by 3 December 2020).[160]
Away from streaming, the popularity of the BBC's MOR/adult contemporary station Radio 2,[161][162][163][164][165] combined with the success of various international crossover acts in the 1990s and 2000s, to create a UK country music scene that saw acts chart high on the albums chart. Where once country music would be seen either as 'naff' or 'niche'[166] in the UK, usually only found in a specialist music slots such as Bob Harris' The Country Show on BBC Radio 2, British acts including the Shires[167] and Ward Thomas[168] achieved a number of top 10 albums in the main UK chart after being playlisted on daytime radio, with Ward Thomas topping the chart in 2016 with their album Cartwheels.