Beat
Beat is an early pop rock style? pioneered in the United Kingdom? in the early 1960s, incorporating peppy rhythm & blues? rhythms and Brill Building-informed? melodicism into their upbeat rock-band performances and bright, acoustic-tinged? textures. The style found massive international popularity following the ascent of Merseybeat (Liverpool's local variant) group The Beatles? and the subsequent British Invasion of the United States, and a number of beat scenes cropped up in Europe (Italian? bitt, Dutch? Nederbeat, Eastern Europe's "big beat") and beyond (Japanese? "group sounds").
Beyond its standard form, the prominent substyles of beat are:
- Teenbeat, a blend of beat melodicism with the early party-oriented garage rock grooves of frat rock?, found in US groups influenced by the British Invasion like Paul Revere & the Raiders?
- Freakbeat, a term from a British compilation series referring to the groups closest aligned with garage rock and early psychedelic rock, finding popularity with the mod? movement
Beat was influential on the melodicism of early power pop and the backbeat of early folk rock?, but largely died out after the mid-1960s except in explicitly kitsch? contexts.