This is old news, but I felt a need to comment on the piece Billboard ran on The Wanted a couple of weeks back. I have no doubt that The Wanted are a real story; their single (which I’ll get around to reviewing soon), is moving quickly up the charts, and the reaction from the (carefully planted) crowd on the clip from Ellen below suggests that they could be as big as Billboard claims they’ll be.
But calling it the start of a new British Invasion can only be done if you ignore all the other British acts that have been washing up on the charts the last two or three years. At Billboard, apparently, a true invasion can only involve cute white boys. If you’re female, like Adele, whose teenage fans are far more dedicated than The Wanted’s will ever be, or if you’re black, like Taio Cruz, whose sound The Wanted blatantly draw from, you don’t count. Hell, even prog rockers like Coldplay and Muse don’t count. Those four, along with Amy Winehouse, Estelle, Jay Sean, Natasha Bedingfield, Florence + The Machine, even Jessie J (whose single, “Domino”, is inexplicably number 8 on the Hot 100 this week), were apparently nothing but scouting parties, drawing fire and preparing the beaches for the troops who really count. Go get ‘em, boys.
