On British Invasions, And Why They Might Not Happen In The USA Again

By John Lane

I have always been suspicious about the prevailing historical theory that The Beatles became big in America as a direct reaction to the Kennedy assassination. It’s too easy: our beautiful, youthful leader is dead, therefore we need youthful music to wake us up?

No, let us look instead at the angle that the British Invasion of the ’60s (and the later invasions) occurred as a result of people wanting to embrace the grotesque. Mind you, “the grotesque” in this case isn’t necessarily used in a pejorative sense; we should look at it as “inverse pretty.” And why Britain? The Americans already had the suit-and-tie show-biz ethic nailed down properly; what made it different was that these suits sprouted seemingly-untidy hair and non-Hollywood-style faces.

We come into your town and help you party down.

The Big Three groups of the Sixties all had enigmatic, non-traditional “grotesques” at the fore: Ringo Starr of The Beatles; Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones; and Pete Townshend of The Who. See, it would have been perverse for Bobby Darrin or Neil Sedaka to rasp, “Get offa my cloud” or “Why don’t you all just f-f-f-fade away,” but from the mouths of the aforementioned, it seems wholly appropriate and right. But what made it more right? Ah, the real question! And the answer lies in the notion that these characters, while commercially successful, were able to skate a line just above commodification in those days. In the 21st century, of course, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has kind of reversed that Robin-Hood-style ethos. Just before Madison Avenue can track the pulse of the latest teen fad, you grow a moustache and wear beaded clothing, and so on—just remaining a step ahead of the curve.

The papers want to
know whose socks I wear.

The next British invasion to follow was probably best embodied in David Bowie, the ultimate personification of all this post-Sixties ambiguity—taking elements of glam, prog, and early punk, and throwing an enormous monkey wrench in the works while still becoming massively popular. Suddenly Pretty was the new Ugly. Funny how nobody explains the emergence of Bowie like they do with The Beatles. If JFK’s passing can be credited for The Beatles, can Richard Nixon’s draconian, law-and-order ascent explain David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust invasion?

And if this is the case, then I blame Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter for The Sex Pistols, perhaps the most well-calculated move since The Monkees: curveballed and massaged into an actual movement, despite the fact that Iggy Pop, American punk pioneer and peanut-butter-make-up man, had scooped the scene a good six or seven years in advance. Here’s the thing about punk though: there is no going back. Once you have witnessed a subset of a generation stick safety-pins through their noses and parade around in Mohawks, one inevitably thinks the bar must be raised higher—which is why tattoos seem so bloody boring on today’s youth. If they really wanted to rebel, they would all lop off their pinkie fingers en-masse. That would stick it to mom and dad.

Take that, Eno.

Thereafter, in the ’80s, Duran Duran invaded America—well, sort of invaded the East and West Coasts and slept in the Midwest behind cattle stalls. Pretty became the new Pretty, and suddenly it appeared that a lipsticked, rouged guy could actually get the girls AGAIN (for Brian Eno had also trod similar ground, but he didn’t look as pretty as Duran Duran).

But again, why have the British always been used as the subterfuge for American rebellion?

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