Forty years ago the British music scene was the envy of the world with acts such as The Beatles, Cliff Richard and the Shadows and the Rolling Stones dominating the charts. For the next twenty-five or so years Britain continued to govern world pop culture, spawning yet more superstars and supergroups such as David Bowie, Thin Lizzy, Fleetwood Mac, T-Rex, Queen, The Kinks, Pink Floyd, Kate Bush, Slade, Led Zeppelin, U2, The Police, Bay City Rollers, Status Quo, Genesis and Elton John; the list is remarkable as these twenty acts have collectively achieved around one hundred UK number one singles, four hundred UK top-ten singles, one hundred and fifty UK number one albums, seventy US number one albums and fifteen Christmas number one singles.

During the late 1980s and 1990s however record companies changed their principles and instead of aspiring to establish more megastars and idols comparable to...