What we learned quite early on is what was really important to early British pop that we produced-and this is where we were distinct from almost everybody else in this respect-is that it had to reflect exactly what the audience wanted us to say.
We love pop and the U.K. specifically seems to embrace pop and it's so cool.
The Beatles, the Small Faces and the Kinks were great bands, but that was in the '60s.
Hey, wait a minute, I was a Spice Girl once!
Biographies of British pop celebrities are terrible.
The Small Faces are thought to be a one-hit wonder in America because we only had 'Itchycoo Park.' Then the Faces just had 'Stay with Me.' So both bands could be considered one-hit wonders in America, even though we had several huge hits in England.
There's a band in the U.K. called Elbow. They're not that big in the U.S., but I think they're genius.
I do love great pop music, The Hollies had brilliant pop records.
The first album I bought was the Spice Girls, ha ha.
I was a huge Rick Astley and Bananarama fan.
I really like Colin Blunstone, the lead singer of the Zombies.
The Dave Clark Five had more appearances on 'The Ed Sullivan Show' than The Beatles.
I'm all about Ibiza, dance. I'm a bit of a Tulisa kid to be honest.
I think when I was a kid, and I was in England and it was all about The Stones, The Who, The Kinks and The Beatles and that's what my dad was into.
I think Katy B encapsulates young London in a way I never could. She reps London harder than anyone song-wise since Lily Allen.
I absolutely hate Take That, East 17, the Spice Girls.
I'm bemused by the whole Robbie Williams aspect of British pop. Posh Spice? It all looks like cruise ship entertainment to me.
It was awesome growing up listening to Oasis and Paolo Nutini, but I also loved growing up listening to Ray Charles and Muddy Waters.
Kate Bush is a huge inspiration for me.
Most of my youth I spent being obsessed with Baby Spice, so she was my favorite for a really long time. Now that I'm older, I actually really like Posh Spice the best. Nineties Victoria Beckham is perfection, I think.
Ready, Steady, Go!' was the show of the '60s in London, where the Beatles, the Stones and the DC5, and every other major act started.
Early British pop was helped tremendously by the writing of Bob Dylan who had proved you could write about political and quite controversial subjects. Certainly what we did followed on from what was happening with the angry young men in the theatre.
I think my parents are the first influence on me music-wise. My dad was into Motown and soul, and my mom was into British '80s pop, like The Trashcan Sinatras. I grew up on that. It was great. They were the first people to really bring music into my life.
I always like to sing along to some depressing, angry Morrissey.
It wasn't until 1963 that you would really want to listen to any kind of English music.
