Definitions for "Music of the United Kingdom"
Music from the United Kingdom has achieved great international popularity since the 1960s, when a wave of British musicians helped to popularise rock and roll.
The roots of British popular music for the rest of the 20th century and into the next were set during the 1950s. In the aftermath of World War 2, the economy was still performing poorly. Many consumer goods were not available, and there was little high-wage labor.
In the 1970s, music from the United Kingdom further diversified. Heavy metal music grew into hair metal in the United States, and other American metal bands like Blue Öyster Cult, Aerosmith and KISS helped move the UK from the forefront of the metal world. A late-1970s influx of British metal bands, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, helped change this, especially bands like Judas Priest.