4 of the Best British Rock Bands from the 1960s

American bands like Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith, and The Black Crowes are built on the foundation of 1960s British rock bands.

The punk bands, too. In 1970s New York, the groups emerging from Max’s Kansas City and CBGB echoed the sound and attitude of 1960s British Invasion bands. But they took the repurposed blues and garage rock and sped things up into bite-sized songs.

Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Fats Domino started a revolution in the 1950s. British musicians collected these records, then began digging for more. The underground vinyl they found had names like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Robert Johnson.

British rock bands took America’s rock and roll revolution and “invaded” the country with its own music.

Today’s list revisits four of the best British rock bands from the 1960s. It’s a mix of warring siblings, ambitious guitarists, rabble-rousing rock stars, and Liverpool’s most fabulous lads.

Dear British bands, you got me so I don’t know what I’m doing, now.

The Kinks

Brothers Ray and Dave Davies made sibling rivalry a compulsory feature of rock bands with brothers. They showed Oasis and The Black Crowes how to do it properly.

The Kinks wrote anthems, too. “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night” influenced generations of rock bands from Van Halen and The Pretenders to Oasis and Blur. Speaking of Blur, The Kinks merged British Victorian-era music hall with American influences, something Blur perfected on songs like “Sunday Sunday.”

A leading British Invasion band, The Kinks also shaped punk rock. You can hear their legacy in the Ramones, Blondie, The Clash, and The Jam.

The Who

“My Generation” is what a rock and roll band is supposed to sound like. It’s the required attitude if you are thinking of forming a band. The Who’s 1965 debut takes ’60s pop music and runs it through the ferocious drumming of Keith Moon and John Entwistle’s fuzzy rubber-band bass.

The energy and chaos of The Who set them apart. Pete Townshend wrote anthems and later rock operas while perfecting the art of smashing up guitars. Their rock opera Tommy features “Pinball Wizard,” with Townshend’s anxious acoustic introduction morphing into a crushing riff, while Moon seems possessed by rock demons, gods, or both. Finally, Roger Daltrey sings the tale of Tommy Walker. (Did anyone have a better rock scream than Daltrey?)

With each release, The Who steadily moved toward their 1970s masterpieces.

The Rolling Stones

Keith Richards has defied nature’s laws for 80 years. And endurance is a hallmark of The Rolling Stones. In the 1960s, they reinvented themselves from American blues revivalists to psych-rock and pop to country rock—what eventually became Americana. If you needed to explain rock and roll to someone using only an image, the band’s tongue and lips logo would do.

Brian Jones named his band after a Muddy Waters song and the Stones reintroduced America to its own musical traditions. Following the young demise of Jones, they hired Mick Taylor, who added virtuosity to their raw sound. (Ronnie Wood joined in 1975.)

Mick Jagger became the gold standard for rock and roll singers. Giant lips, cheekbones carved by the sands of time, and stage moves that would’ve made Michael Jackson go, “Hee hee!”

If scientists from another planet using the most advanced technology known in the galaxy invented a rock and roll band, they wouldn’t improve upon The Rolling Stones. And if your band is lucky enough to have a drummer as cool as Charlie Watts, you might be going places.

The Beatles

Beatles or Stones? It’s a frequent question designed to elicit something—personality type maybe—from you. Thankfully, a world exists where “both” can be answered (mostly) without judgment.

But The Beatles, more than any other British rock band, wrote the best songs and changed how people record music. Even if you are not a Beatles fan, most of what you listen to has nevertheless been influenced by the Liverpool group.

For example, The Beatles placed microphones near acoustic instruments, double-tracked vocals, recorded directly, drove the compressors into distortion, and manipulated tape loops. Their 1966 album Revolver was groundbreaking for production techniques and the group continued experimenting on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and their self-titled “White Album.”

The Beatles are both the Shakespeare and the Beethoven of rock and roll.

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Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images