culture-of-the-united-kingdom

"For two years after “I Want to Hold Your Hand” topped the U.S. charts in February 1964, the only sound that mattered had a British accent. The Dave Clark Five, Herman’s Hermits, Petula Clark: it was an obsession that went beyond the Beatles—and initially ignored the Rolling Stones."

"Today, the term “the British Invasion” is usually employed to describe (and market) the triumphal epoch of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Who, with honorable mentions to the Kinks and the Animals. In hindsight, and on merit, this sounds about right—these are the best and most revered of the English bands who came of age in the 1960s—but the reality of the British Invasion, which was at its most intense in the two years immediately following the Beatles’ landfall, was somewhat different. Far from being solely a beat-group explosion, the Invasion was a rather eclectic phenomenon that took in everything from Petula Clark’s lushly symphonic pop to Chad and Jeremy’s dulcet folk-schlock to the Yardbirds’ blues-rock rave-ups."