THE world of pop has always been about rivalries.
First there was Frank Sinatra versus Elvis Presley — with Old Blues Eyes hating the new boy with the truck driver sideburns, the pink trousers and the greasy pompadour hair.
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Then there was The Beatles v the Rolling Stones. Then David Bowie and Marc Bolan. And famously Oasis v Blur (Northern bully boys v Southern softies).
But the biggest rivalry has always been between the UK and the US. Between British roughnecks and American sheen. Between surly looks and overbrushed teeth. Between inspiration and graft.
And the UK has just won.
Big time.
For the first time, since end of year charts were introduced more than 50 years ago, British artists made up the entirety of last year’s ten most popular songs in the UK.
Topping the biggest songs of 2022 in the UK was Harry Styles’ omnipresent As It Was; it was the Number One single for ten weeks and the best selling song of the year in Britain with more than 180million streams.
Singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran followed with his track Bad Habits coming in second (a song that paid homage to another British band, Bronski Beat, and their 1984 hit Smalltown Boy), while his collaboration with Nigerian singer Fireboy DML, called Peru, came third.
They were joined by Kate Bush and Sam Fender in the unprecedented musical triumph.
British artists topped the singles charts for 36 weeks last year, more than in any other year in the 21st century.
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South London singer Cat Burns placed fourth with her song Go, which went viral on TikTok, Ed Sheeran’s Shivers came fifth and Bush’s 1985 single Running Up That Hill, which had renewed popularity last year after featuring in the Netflix show Stranger Things, took sixth.
Britannia rules waves
Oxford-based Glass Animals’ sleeper hit Heat Waves was seventh, and former Britain’s Got Talent contestant Calum Scott’s collaboration with Belgian artist Lost Frequencies on Where Are You Now finished eighth.
Scottish production duo LF System placed ninth with their track Afraid To Feel, and North Shields singer Sam Fender rounds off the Top Ten with his Ivor Novello-winning song Seventeen Going Under.
Phew! And not an overproduced Yank in sight.
The list was based on combined streaming and sales activity throughout 2022 and proves that as far as pop is concerned, Britannia rules the waves.
Leon Neville, a director with the British Phonographic Industry, which represents record labels, said the featuring of British artists on all top ten songs was an “outstanding achievement”.
“At a time when streaming has created unprecedented competition coming from every corner of the globe, it is astonishing that in 2022 British artists were involved in all of the top ten calendar year’s biggest hits in the UK,” he added.
Even Michelle Donelan, the Culture Secretary, said the top ten “clean sweep” demonstrated Britain’s “depth of creative talent”.
And frankly she’s not wrong.
Britain rules the albums charts too, especially with so-called legacy artists such as Queen, Fleetwood Mac and Elton John (who had two massive hits himself last year).
The album charts are full of their greatest hits, a testament not just to the power of streaming, which focuses on old music as much as it does on the contemporary, but also to the extraordinary power of British creativity.
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Peruse the best-selling albums of recent years and you’ll find Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon and Queen’s Greatest Hits.
These were all records that were big in the 1970s, but the Brits have been big in every decade. The Americans less so.
With the exception of the Eagles, the US has not produced the kind of global legacy artists that appeal to the streaming generation.
Yes, we might like The Weeknd, Drake, Taylor Swift, and Ariana Grande but they don’t have the global appeal of the British artists.
And they certainly don’t have the cultural relevance that the Brits do over here. You might have thought that American imperialism would mean that we all now succumb to Marvel movies, flashy Hollywood hip-hop stars and social media influencers.
But in the world of pop, the UK rules, OK? Especially in the UK.
It doesn’t matter what Tina Turner might say, British music is simply the best.
Personally, I am not at all surprised that British acts continue to be so popular. This country has always produced the most creative artists, from The Beatles right through to Harry Styles and Ed Sheeran.
While the US might be the home of million-selling pop stars like Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, Britney Spears and Justin Bieber, there has always been a sense that they have been manufactured rather than allowed to blossom.
American pop stars might be polished and manicured, and styled to within an inch of their lives. But Britain is the home of the most esoteric, the most original and the most enduring pop stars in the world.
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I’m not being jingoistic here, just stating the truth. We are simply better at pop culture than the Yanks.
We produce better musicians and singers, better artists, better fashion designers and better actors.
We just do.
There must be something in the water. Rather than something in the Coca-Cola.
We have always been better at pop culture than anyone else.
As the Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren once said, Britain is good at exporting pop groups and trousers, and we’ve been doing it since the days of The Beatles.
Our music is better, our fashion is better and we do both with a sense of humour sadly lacking in our American counterparts.
We are increasingly being told that British and American cultures are becoming one and the same, yet I think they are actually diverging.
While the Americans celebrate bombast and popularity, the British celebrate skill and cool.
Genuine style
Americans applaud the grand gesture, whereas we are more circumspect.
If American pop can be encapsulated by the power ballad, British pop can be personified by the quirky and the sarcastic. It’s Common People v Don’t Stop Believin’. Elton John v Billy Joel. Dua Lipa v Katy Perry. Harry Styles v Bruno Mars. Cool versus bluster.
In fact, Harry Styles is the perfect example of why British pop stars are better than their American cousins.
Harry is not just good looking. He’s not just a great singer. And he’s not just a great songwriter.
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He has style, too. Genuine style, something the Americans forget.
American pop stars tend to think that they are simply part of the entertainment industry, that their stage clothes are just costumes and that what they do is always a performance.
British pop stars tend to inhabit themselves with a bit more conviction.
You only have to look at Harry Styles’ involvement with the Gucci brand to see how his innate sense of curiosity and cool makes him stand out from the crowd.
Sure, you could say that someone such as Kanye West has an equally intriguing sense of style.
But then Harry Styles isn’t a clown.
A few years ago I was in Paris for Fashion Week and spent a few days hanging out with Kanye.
He said he was thinking of launching his own fashion line and so was in the French capital checking out how the professionals did it.
He took it so seriously that after every show he would go back to his hotel to change his outfit.
“I’m going to the Dior show later,” he said to me, conspiratorially. “What sort of sunglasses do you think I should wear?”
In my book, any pop star who has to ask what sunglasses to wear just isn’t a proper pop star. In fact they’re not a star at all.
Compare Kanye’s behaviour to that of Ed Sheeran, someone who has never taken an unduly keen interest in the way he looks.
When GQ, the men’s magazine I used to edit, voted Ed Sheeran 2012’s worst-dressed man in the world, he did what any self-respecting pop star would do.
He wrote a song about it.
Now that’s cool.
