1950s

Music of the United Kingdom began to develop in the 1950s; to become one of the leading centres of popular music in the modern world. By 1950 indigenous forms of British popular music, including folk music, brass and silver bands, music hall and dance bands, were already giving way to the influence of American forms of music including jazz, swing and traditional pop. 

The significant change of the mid-1950s was the impact of American rock and roll, which provided a new model for performance and recording, based on a youth market. British forms began to appear, first in the uniquely British take on American folk music in the skiffle craze of the 1950s with artists such as Lonnie Donegan, Cliff Richard & the Shadows', often cited as the first British rock and roll record.