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The University News

The Student News Site of Saint Louis University

The University News

The Student News Site of Saint Louis University

The University News

Hail Britannia

The Spice Girls weren’t kidding when they talked about girl power.

In the 1960s, the ‘British invasion,’ spearheaded by The Beatles and carried on by bands like The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Monkees, swept across the United States with a brilliant fervor. T-shirts were made, sayings were coined and female fans cried tears of ecstatic joy. Now, 40 years later, the fervor is back. This time, however, instead of being brought by groups of men with memorable haircuts, it’s come overseas on the backs of five trendsetting women.

In the last three years, British musicians Joss Stone, Natasha Bedingfield, Corinne Bailey Rae, Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse have produced top-10 albums, number-one songs and a combined eight Grammy nominations. Though they have all become centerpieces of America’s pop culture bubble, their paths overseas remain vastly different.

Stone, who grew up listening to American R&B and soul music, was born in Kent and raised in Devon. She dropped out of school at 16 as a result of dyslexia, boredom and quickly growing fame. In 2002, at just 15, Stone flew to New York City hoping to sign a record contract. Her dream was quickly realized.

When Stone officially hit the music scene with her first original album, 2004’s Mind, Body & Soul (S-Curve Records), critics almost unanimously praised the album’s unique, soulful style, and the New York Post claimed Stone was “unlike any singer of her generation.” Though her following works have not fared as well as Soul, Stone continues to write, record and establish herself as a legitimate top-20 threat.

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Unlike Stone, Bedingfield waited longer before starting her music career, even completing a year of college at the University of Greenwich before venturing out into the world of popular music. The London native studied psychology in an attempt to improve her songwriting abilities.

In 2003, Bedingfield signed a contract with Sony BMG and released her first successful U.S. single, “These Words,” two years later. Although she received only moderate success early on, like Stone, critics took notice. Vanity Fair labeled her the “spearhead of a new Britpop invasion,” and she went on to become a new face of Gap clothing. Bedingfield’s next single, 2006’s “Unwritten,” became that year’s most-played song on American radio.

Rae, whose father hails from the West Indies, experienced much racial tension growing up in West Yorkshire. She and her two younger sisters often had racial slurs yelled at them on a consistent basis. Rae fueled that tension into music, which she had already began to love in church. Hymns changed to angst-filled lyrics and organs changed to guitars as Rae formed the all-girl, indie rock group Helen at age 15. Exposed to hymns and hard rock, Rae longed to find other forms of music. Working as a hat-check girl in a club during her college years, she found her true passion-jazz.

Rae found success in 2004 when she signed with Global Talent Publishing in the U.K. and released her first album, Corinne Bailey Rae (EMI), in February 2006. The album peaked at the top of the U.K. charts and soon found similar success in the U.S.A., climbing all the way to number four on the Billboard Music Charts. In addition to her success in sales, Rae was nominated for three Grammy awards in 2007 and performed at the show alongside artists John Legend and John Mayer.

The two newest overseas sensations are Allen and Winehouse. Each artist has steadily and quickly grown in popularity in the last eight months. London-born Allen gained her fame through the online world of MySpace. With demos and song mixes featuring artists like Ludacris and Dizee Rascal, she gained tens of thousands of fans. The magazine The Observer Music Monthly took interest and featured her in a story-her first mainstream exposure. Allen’s debut album, Alright, Still (Regal Records) was released in Europe in July 2006 and made its way to the U.S. just six months later, landing at number 20 on the Billboard Music Charts.

Since her debut, the singer has appeared on NBC’s Saturday Night Live and has been involved with various projects for MTV, which named her its “Discover and Download” artist for January.

Fellow London-native Winehouse didn’t make the transition from England to the United States as quickly as Allen. The singer, who was expelled from school at 12 for not applying herself and for piercing her own nose, released her debut album, Frank (Island Records) in October 2003. She eventually crossed-over with the 2007 single “Rehab,” off of her sophomore album Back to Black (Island Records). Following Winehouse’s performance at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards, the song jumped a notable 38 spots to the number 10 spot in June, and finally peaked at number nine on the Billboard charts the following week.

Winehouse is currently in the news due to her recent stint in rehab, her admission to suffering from eating disorders and her alleged physical abuse toward her husband Blake Fielder-Civil. However, her personal problems have not hampered her sales, as Black has gone nearly triple platinum since its debut less than one year ago.

These women are not alone in their quest to conquer mainstream radio across the U.S.A., as they are helped by artists and bands such as James Blunt, Muse, Keane and Snow Patrol, to name a few. The British are coming, and they’re bringing with them a slew of catchy, melodic beats.

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