WI: No 'British Invasion'?

[Emperor Norton I]

I'll reply to other things in time, but I discovered this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYTD5mFc2zU

Shin Jung-hyeon (born January 4, 1938 in Seoul) is a South Korean rock guitarist and singer-songwriter. Known as Korea's "Godfather of Rock",[1] he led Korean psychedelic pop/rock culture during the 1960s and 1970s. His sons Shin Dae-cheol (Sinawe) and Shin Yun-cheol are also respected guitarists in Korean rock. He became the first Asian musician and the sixth in the world to be the recipient of the Fender Custom Shop Tribute Series guitar joining five of other such rock legends as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Eddie Van Halen, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.[2] Such was his influence and versatility that he has been described as South Korea's answer to Brian Wilson and Jimi Hendrix.[3]

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Before the Beatles hit the US, the Beach Boys weren't the only big group. The only group that held their own with the Beach Boys in record sales from 1962 to 1964 were the Four Seasons. I don't know a damned thing about the Four Seasons.

 

[flippikat]

Before the Beatles hit the US, the Beach Boys weren't the only big group. The only group that held their own with the Beach Boys in record sales from 1962 to 1964 were the Four Seasons. I don't know a damned thing about the Four Seasons.

Neither do I, but a TL where doo-wop survives more strongly might favour a band that uses that music as a launchpad for experimentation.. it could be a huge boost to Frank Zappa's early career for instance.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Neither do I, but a TL where doo-wop survives more strongly might favour a band that uses that music as a launchpad for experimentation.. it could be a huge boost to Frank Zappa's early career for instance.

If you ask people that were in Doo Wop, they're convinced Doo Wop would have gone on forever if not for those damned Beatles. But that's probably not the case. Music evolves and changes just by it's nature.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Five seconds ago, I discovered something called Freakbeat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakbeat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ql_xX6_G5w

Freakbeat is a name sometimes used generally to denote rare, collectable, and obscure British pop and rock records of the British Invasion.[1] Elements of the freakbeat sound include strong direct drum beats, loud and frenzied guitar riffs, and extreme effects such as fuzztone, flanging, distortion and compression or phasing on the vocal or drum tracks.
Though often used to describe the European counterpart to the psychedelic garage rock of American groups like The Seeds, The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, and The Standells, and although many artists on the European continent also contributed, freakbeat is most often applied to music originating in the UK. The term was invented in the 1980s by the music journalist Phil Smee to retroactively describe a music style that has been described as a missing link between the early-to-mid-1960s mod R&B scene and the psychedelic rock and progressive rock genres that emerged in the late 1960s with bands such as Pink Floyd. Freakbeat music was typically created by four-piece bands experimenting with studio production techniques. Some of the best-known examples include "Take a Heart" by The Sorrows, "Making Time" by The Creation, "Atmospheres" by Wimple Winch and arguably "I Can Hear the Grass Grow" by The Move. Much of the material collected on Rhino Records's 2001 box-set compilation Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964-1969 can be classified as freakbeat.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

For a further post:

We often forget that the British Invasion, and subsequent trickling in of artists was not just rock bands. It also brought the likes of Tom Jones and Cliff Richards and Engelbert Humperdinck*, who are decidedly more traditional pop. Those artists could well still come over.

*Yuck.

Tom Jones was discovered rather by luck, so he may not have a career or a quite different one if he does get fame.

 

[C. McKay]

Oh yes the Four Seasons.....

Is anyone familiar with the musical Jersey Boys?

http://www.jerseyboysinfo.com/

It's supposed to be about the Four Seasons.

Glad to see that this thread is back again.

 

[flippikat]

Five seconds ago, I discovered something called Freakbeat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakbeat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ql_xX6_G5w

That's what I was kinda getting at in another thread (The "Beatles album in late 1966-early 1967" thread) where I suggested that if The Beatles had to record a 2nd album quickly in late 1966, this might be their next direction after Revolver.

However in a "no British Invasion" scenario, it's quite concievable that some surf groups and garage bands still end up drifting towards freakbeat (or something similar).. Maybe psychedelia is far more intense and dark without the whimsy that British bands brought to it?

 

[Emperor Norton I]

There's a documentary on CNN right now about the British Invasion.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Per that documentary, Motown went hand in hand with the British invasion, and had to compete for chart space with the British invasion bands. Therefore, were there no invasion, it'd be likely that Motown would be the big thing during that 1963/1964 (etc?) period. Not to say Rock n' Roll wouldn't be around, but the buzz would seem to be around Motown.

Seriously, I recommend the CNN documentary. It's a goldmine.

EDIT:

Another thing is that the artists of the era were listening to each other obsessively and were competing to make music more interesting and do something more interesting, to quote the documentary. So it was this think tank, sort of like putting a thousand philosophers in a room and having them talk for a decade, that really pushed things forward. That's one of the benefits of having a large amount of artists and bands out there with a very much varied taste in music and influences and styles and songs and sounds. And they're all inspiring one another. So it was an amazing thing.

I'm not saying that would be lacking without the Invasion, but it would be different because there would not be certain artists in that melting pot. It could also be lesser if there are not people or groups that would come up instead of, and to the same prominence level, of those British groups that are being deleted from this timeline.

 

[JJohnson]

The British Invasion took America completely by surprise. It came out of left field and was totally unexpected. In the wake of the invasion, you have not just new British groups on the music scene, but American labels sought their own answers to the British, which is why you got groups like the Byrds. As a result, you had the formation of what is the 60s sound as we know it, which evolved into the 70s and on.

The British invasion put an end to what can be described as the Dark age of Rock n' Roll, which lasted roughly 1959 to the arrival of the Beatles. This was when the first great era of Rock n' Roll had ended: Elvis was in the army, Buddy Holly and Richie Valens were dead, Jerry Lee Lewis was a pariah for marrying his underage cousin, Little Richard had gone gospel, Chuck Berry was convicted under the Mann act, etc. And you had the payola scandal which rocked the industry. In the wake of that, the industry was increasingly taken over with tight control by big corporations and sanitized and dullified.

I'll quote here:




The British invasion came out of left field, took over the scene, and pushed away that previous scene. Which is good as it removed the bad elements of that era, but bad for the good elements and artists that were sidelined in the aftermath. We also don't know how that scene might have evolved had it been left to itself.

So what if there were no British Invasion?

A quick change is there won't be a final, remastered, limited edition Beatles collection re-re-re-released every 2 years like we seem to have now.

But if no British invasion, you dramatically alter the mid-to-late 60s, perhaps get rid of scores of groups, most immediately the Monkees, and the whole late 60's sound goes away. There will definitely be bands with guitars, drums, bass, and singers, but I don't know if they'll be put together in a way nearly like ours.

It would be interesting to see which genres would evolve in this world - do we get disco, 80's hard rock, 80's pop (with synthesizers galore), techno, rap, and modern rock and pop?

 

[C. McKay]

Implications of No British Invasion/Race Relations

Thank you for letting us know about the documentary, Emperor. Last night was not a good time for me, so I hope that CNN rebroadcasts it or has it available online. Sunday suppertime would be ideal as we are not really football fans at our house.

J. Johnson, are you familiar with a group called the Paul Butterfield Blues Band? It was a mixed-race band from Chicago and dates from 1963, just about at our POD. If not, here is a YouTube video of the group live in 1967:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3LEhfbKCSc&list=PL3EA827BDDFEA4D0C

A more commercial version of their music is here. It's from the compilation What's Shakin, so the picture on the screen is *not* PBBB but the Lovin' Spoonful, a '60s group that might have been quite different ITTL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjZZ7O-kFHI



I am wondering if without the British Invasion whether music would be more fragmented, especially considering the state of race relations in the 1960s. The guys might be listening to surf rock, Dylan, and interracial blues bands from Chicago. The girls would be listening to the Four Seasons, the Beach Boys, country heartthrobs, folk heartthrobs, and the like. People would be dancing to Motown and the Lovin' Spoonful. I suspect that there would be Monkee-like groups, but they would be all-white versions of the Temptations or the Supremes or PBBB et al.

OTOH, what would Berry Gordy have done without "competition" from the UK?

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Incidentally, my favorite songs are "Tears of a Clown" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and "Reach Out (I'll Be There)" by the Four Tops.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

You can call me on BS where it is BS here; I think this is true with the British, but it may be BS of what I'm inferring about the American side. Like most music theses, I could change my mind in 10 minutes.

I think the strongest point for the British Invasion bands, whether it be the Beatles or whoever else, is that they did music and created music they liked. They weren't bound by "Oh, this is Rock n' Roll" or "Oh, this is Blues"; they didn't bound themselves by hardline genre considerations. It was just music that was coming out of America, defined just by it being music from America. So they had this wide range of influence, and it was all influencing them. The Beatles were influenced by Elvis and Slim Whitman and Chuck Berry and the Shirelles, etc. I think American musicians, on the other hand, were more worried about sticking in a defined genre. And it may have been them, or it may have been the record company wanting them to be one thing they knew was selling. The British labels were probably for their part more open since it was not their music. So I think that made the British bands more dynamic at the start, creating both a sound that was familiar Rock n' Roll from an age that had passed by the late 50s/60s, and a sound that was similarly new and exciting. And their openness as well as their positions as high record sellers for the label afforded them the chance to experiment and evolve.

An example on the American side is that Brian Wilson pushed the envelope with "The Beach Boys Today!", and Capitol was not happy with it and wanted him to get a "Beach Boys sound". And he did that with "Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)", which was a bit insidious because while it was a "Beach Boys sound", it also pushed the envelope in experimentation and variety if you really paid attention. Listen to the song "Amusement Parks U.S.A."; at first it comes off like some goofy West Coast Rock song you'd expect circa the early-mid 60s. But if you really pay attention to it, it contains a very complex production, as well as some theatre pieces that were not done at that time. They have a bit of a radio play type thing of a carnival. That is concept album stuff. And you had "California Girls" come off that album.

So even if my thesis that American bands were defined by genre worries that the British were not is false, I do think that it is true that the American labels more so than the British put pressure on their artists not to go outside what was expected. Even if the American artists themselves wanted to naturally evolve. Now that could lead to two things: one, artists could develop all the same, but facing more pressures not to, thus forcing them to either get their record label to stand down or doing it under the surface until it finally bursts forth as Brian Wilson did (Pet Sounds). Or maybe it would take someone, as the Beatles did, breaking through and then everyone else being able to follow with that example. That would take a big group or artist doing it, though. Two, the music scene could chaff under its genre constraints until, like 80s Rock, it becomes a self parody and self destructs, giving way to something that reacts to it. 80s Glam Rock gave way to Grunge.

 

[flippikat]

That's a good point Emperor, and I think it has an element of truth to it.

There's a long line of British bands and musicians that kept re-inventing themselves & their sound. Even in our timeline, it's hard to think of many American artists that constantly changed their style like The Beatles, Queen or David Bowie and remained successful while they did it.

it's quite possible that without the British Invasion, the American bands stay within their own styles - especially if labels encourage them to stick to a certain genre.

if a band or artist wants to break out of that, they might need to break away from the major label system - could this timeline encourage more independant labels to form?

 

[Emperor Norton I]

That's a good point Emperor, and I think it has an element of truth to it.

There's a long line of British bands and musicians that kept re-inventing themselves & their sound. Even in our timeline, it's hard to think of many American artists that constantly changed their style like The Beatles, Queen or David Bowie and remained successful while they did it.

it's quite possible that without the British Invasion, the American bands stay within their own styles - especially if labels encourage them to stick to a certain genre.

if a band or artist wants to break out of that, they might need to break away from the major label system - could this timeline encourage more independant labels to form?

Like I said, if someone had an inkling to, I think they could push forward in being more experimental and/or more complicated in production, even if just in the way I mentioned the Beach Boys doing. But they'd need the inkling to.

In that scenario, you'd probably open up a greater door to Garage Rock. And it's important to note that Garage Rock was a term applied years afterward. At the time, it was a certain sound, but it was never really labelled as anything besides Rock music. It has also been labelled (60s) Punk, as well as a number of other things. This is your "96 Tears", "Little Bit O' Soul", etc. "Louie, Louie" is the first song I know with that sort of rougher sound. There's not necessarily a lot unifying what is labelled Garage Rock except for it not being what else was on the scene. It really does bring to mind Grunge and Alt. Rock in relation to Glam Rock and that 80s Metal scene (which then brings to mind Britpop in reaction to 80s Metal as well, and we get a bit cross-eyed).
The difference between Garage Rock and the Beatles would have been that the Beatles both turned off the establishment and could win them over with their charm. The way the Beatles looked was shocking and offensive to everyone over 30 in 1964. The pandemonium that followed them, etc, was offensive. But their personalities could win them over, or at least enough to make a lot of people accept them. I'm not sure what there is in any Garage Rock band to make anyone over 30 not react to them the way older people would react to the Punks a decade plus later.

As to Indie labels, no idea. They did exist at the time, though. Some of the more interesting music from the era was outsider and beneath the surface. Phil Ochs amongst it. Maybe the Garage bands, should that theory be right, would help bolster Indie labels, although I'd suspect the major labels would pick them up. Even if they were initially on Indie labels, I'd suspect the major labels would take them and sign them to theirs.

EDIT:

I had a question concerning Bass. I've noticed in post-Invasion songs of the 60s, there's a heavy use of bass. Was Paul McCartney or the British Invasion influential on that, or no? It could have just been par for the course with Garage Rock, or it may just be that bass guitar is clearer in stereo recordings and stereo began to overtake mono during the period.

EDIT EDIT:

I discovered Gino Washington. That could point the way for the direction too, or potential genre sound rather. It's a very Rock sound in a lot of places, and in a lot of places comes off like a fusionism of R&B and Rock.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/gino-washington-mn0000660561/biography

This guy could have been huge, but for want of a nail that was the draft. And even if he wasn't huge, he could have been an influence on whoever became big.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

This is, I think, an important interview for the topic. It's Brian Wilson waxing poetic on the Beatles and McCartney. The general important take away, I think is that "the Beatles gave the Beach Boys a shot in the arm" of popularity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2_oa3t724I

Also, watch the last 30 or so seconds of this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiScLYNAoSc

 

[flippikat]

Like I said, if someone had an inkling to, I think they could push forward in being more experimental and/or more complicated in production, even if just in the way I mentioned the Beach Boys doing. But they'd need the inkling to.

In that scenario, you'd probably open up a greater door to Garage Rock.

<snip>

..the Beatles both turned off the establishment and could win them over with their charm. The way the Beatles looked was shocking and offensive to everyone over 30 in 1964. The pandemonium that followed them, etc, was offensive. But their personalities could win them over, or at least enough to make a lot of people accept them. I'm not sure what there is in any Garage Rock band to make anyone over 30 not react to them the way older people would react to the Punks a decade plus later.

Exactly, you need a garage band that can have the rough-edges "sanded down" by the label & promoters (to appeal more widely), but with enough energy to re-invigorate the industry.

As to Indie labels, no idea. They did exist at the time, though. Some of the more interesting music from the era was outsider and beneath the surface. Phil Ochs amongst it. Maybe the Garage bands, should that theory be right, would help bolster Indie labels, although I'd suspect the major labels would pick them up. Even if they were initially on Indie labels, I'd suspect the major labels would take them and sign them to theirs.

Funny you should mention Phil Ochs. If a "no British Invasion" timeline has butterflies on Bob Dylan's career & lessens his success (maybe he doesn't go electric), then it opens the door for someone like Phil to cross-over into pop and have greater success than in OTL, maybe even preserving his sanity in the process.

On the garage bands, the big question (as above) is whether a major label deal still keeps some degree of energy and innovation in their sound. Mind you, in our timeline The Monkees managed to buck a controlled & manufactured set-up and churn out some rather subversive material towards the end of their career.

The Monkees "Mommy & Daddy" as it appeared on their last album..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00E30sG-rxI

The original draft of this song had even MORE controversial lyrics (which were forced to be re-written)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AW8x8Dbrzc

EDIT:

I had a question concerning Bass. I've noticed in post-Invasion songs of the 60s, there's a heavy use of bass. Was Paul McCartney or the British Invasion influential on that, or no? It could have just been par for the course with Garage Rock, or it may just be that bass guitar is clearer in stereo recordings and stereo began to overtake mono during the period.

I think it's pretty widely acknowledged by bassists that Paul McCartney opened up the instrument to be a melodic force of it's own, rather than just playing the notes underneath the guitar line - probably a result of him being moved from guitar to bass when Stuart Sutcliffe left, and wanting to play bass in a guitar-like fashion.
The Who picked up on this, because they had no rhythm guitar in their lineup, then you had power trios like Cream & the Jimi Hendrix Experience popping up around 1966 that also had to have a melodic bass player to cover the gap from not having rhythm guitar.

Without Paul McCartney, I'm not sure whether bands would have melodic bass to that extent until bands start ditching the rhythm guitar. (would that even happen?)

EDIT EDIT:

I discovered Gino Washington. That could point the way for the direction too, or potential genre sound rather. It's a very Rock sound in a lot of places, and in a lot of places comes off like a fusionism of R&B and Rock.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/gino-washington-mn0000660561/biography

This guy could have been huge, but for want of a nail that was the draft. And even if he wasn't huge, he could have been an influence on whoever became big.

Interesting stuff.. and that brings me to another thought I had recently about this timeline.

In OTL hard rock & heavy metal was basically an outgrowth of the British Blues scene. Is it possible that in a "no British Invasion" timeline, that hard rock & heavy metal is developed from intense Soul & R'n'B - perhaps the most extreme Motown or Stax acts really crank up the guitars and find new territory?

The MC5 are an OTL reference point for this..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZf3cK5b3UY

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Here's the British Invasion documentary from CNN.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TUCOa8xoU8

 

[Emperor Norton I]

I may have said this before, but here goes.

One of the most important things about the Beatles was that they influenced people to pursue music and try to make it with bands or as solo artists. You could even argue that they created an unrepresented sort of "baby boom" of artists, which would come of age (both literally and as a metaphor for making it) following them hitting America and the world. I remember from the Ed Roth documentary, for example, the narrator (John Goodman; watch it if you can) says that all the youth in California were interested in working on cars and hot rods and car culture and working in their garage, and then after the British hit, all those teens took the car out of the garage and used it to practice with their bands. Putting down the power tools and picking up the guitar is the way I believe it was said. Not to say that new artists wouldn't arise or anything like that, but I will make the assertion that the Beatles lead so many people to want to pursue music in a way no one else may have and no one else would have had there not been a band as big as them. And one of the reasons guys went into music, as is a reason they went into car culture, was to get girls.

The Beatles also certainly influenced the direction those people went, as well, along with numerous other British invasion bands.