The Great British Songbook | Site Content Guide

The Great British Songbook is the term for a collection of enduringly popular songs written by British song writers. Hence this web site features popular and enduring songs written exclusively by British song writers and composers

Showcasing the British Isles remarkable success in the field of music creation. Certainly the small island nation of UK has punched way above its weight. Due to its unique capacity in innovation creativity and fusion.

The website “www.greatbritishsongbook.com” presents each song with its own dedicated post. First of all a professional music journalist writes each song post. Each song post also includes pictures of the artist, video and a link to Spotify. The song post also includes meta data. Detailing song writers and composers names, artist and covering artists, release date , music label and chart position. For those reasons, over time the website will become a definitive searchable database of UK song writers and producers.

Furthermore the songs they have created and artists that performed them.The Great British Songbook website also includes an about section which includes song qualification. Songs with a release date that is a minimum of ten years old are eligible. As one of the qualifications is the song must be enduringly popular. This means that each year a new selection of songs will become available for inclusion in the Great British Songbook. The current qualification period is songs released between 1960 and 2009

Although Britain has been creating music for centuries The Great British Songbook canon starts with popular songs written in the early 1960’s. So called “the second British invasion”. Furthermore this marks a time of change in popular music throughout the world. Because from the 1920s to 1950’s, The Great American Songbook dominates popular music. A body of songs also known as American Standards. Teams of American lyricists, composers arrangers and producers write songs for Broadway, musical theatre, and Hollywood musical film.

1960’s: British song writers create a new sound. Noteworthily spearheaded by the Mersey-beat and the London sound. Both combine to create the period know as the second British Invasion. As a result UK created songs gain significant popularity in USA.

1970’s: Britain gives the world a decade of rock. Whether it be folk, heavy, metal, progressive, glam, punk, new wave or pop.

1980’s: A continuation of the late 70’s new wave inspires a decade of fusion. Rock plus reggae, spearheaded by The Police and UB40. Acid plus Jazz to create, well, Acid-jazz, pop plus technology gave us synth pop bands with both new songs and new haircuts.

1990’s: Cool Britannia a period of increased pride in the culture of the United Kingdom. A reinvention of boy and girl bands by Take That and the Spice Girls. During the decade Alternative Rock begat Madchester, which begat Britpop which begat Post-Britpop, which begat Britrock (Travis and Feeder), which led the way to Snow Patrol and Coldplay.

2000’s: Step forward UK singer songwriters. British soul divas lead the way with Joss Stone, Adele and Amy Winehouse. Rock refuses to go cold with the Artic Monkeys. The decade also saw another British electronic dance music fusion take place. The fusion originally starts in London with Hiphop plus UK Garage produce the new genre Grime.

2010’s: British songwriters continue to write a significant slice of the world’s popular music pie. With new streaming methods of distribution a new generation of songwriters are creating future songs for The Great British Songbook.

Website visitors will be able to vote on which songwriters and which songs become part of the Great British Songbook. Finally the website plans to add guest authors and post articles celebrating Great British music.

The Great British Songbook | About The Great British Songbook | The Great British Songbook Songs