• Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

Describe popular culture in Britain at the beginning of the 1960's.

Extracts from this document...


Q1) Describe popular culture in Britain at the beginning of. The 1960's. The Sixties were an exciting revolutionary period of time with great social and technological change. Some people called it the "decade of discontent" because of the race riots in Detroit and La, and the demonstrations against the Vietnam War. Other people called it the decade of "peace, love, and harmony". It was called this because of the peace movement and the emergence of the flower children. The sixties were about assassination, unforgettable fashion, new styles of music, civil rights, gay and women's liberation, Vietnam, Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, peace marches, sexual freedom, drug experimentation, and Woodstock. All of these components caused a revolutionary change in the world of popular Music. The beginning of Rock and roll started with The Twist. By Chubby Checker This song changed our dancing moves. Other dance songs that helped this period of rock and roll along include: The Mash Potato and the monster mash. The Beatles started the British invasion in 1964, when they had their first television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. ...read more.


Leonard's trendy salon in London. Mr. Leonard put her picture in his shop window, and a short time later that picture was featured in the London Daily Express with a caption that read "This is the face of 1966". Although fashionable clothes were becoming easier to come by as stores were now opening all around the country for example 'bazaar' and 'biba', appealing to all age groups and introducing new trends and styles these shops were soon enhanced and introduced as bigger and better into the capital cities of Great Britain. Fashion was no becoming shorter and more colourful and more unlike the fashion of the 1950's were Younger men and women were wearing similar clothes to their parents, now they were given the opportunity to develop their own individual styles and tastes. Television became more popular in the 1960's with new shows beginning to appear; also commercial television was now being introduced for the first time. Kitchen sink dramas and television theatres began to become popular and being at a regular television slot each week were becoming part of peoples weekly routines. ...read more.


Carries on films were now being produced into series and being shot in various locations and settings. There had been successful films in the 1950's but some of the most memorable films were made in the early 1960's. The two main topics of films were memories of the war for example: 'The bridge on the River Kwai' telling the story of a Japanese Prison of war camp during the second world war, other examples of war films are 'Cockleshell heroes', 'Dunkirk', 'Sink the Bismarck' and 'The Dambusters'. Many British films however did not portray 'real life'. They had Story lines about middle class people living luxurious life - styles. They described a Britain that people wanted to live in, rather than the Britain that they actually did live in. The films rarely dealt with the problems that ordinary working people had to contend with such as, Unemployment and poverty, a film that shows this is 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' as flying cars and child catchers do not really exist. The 1960's played a vital part in the revolution of the entertainment and fashion industries, developing individualism and equal opportunity throughout Britain. ...read more.

The above preview is unformatted text


Found what you're looking for?

  • Start learning 29% faster today
  • 150,000+ documents available
  • Just £6.99 a month

Not the one? Search for your essay title...
  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

See related essaysSee related essays

Related AS and A Level Music essays

  1. Analysis of "Jethro Tull - Locomotive Breath".

    The next section of verse deals with those the main character held dear in his life - his children, who have abandoned him "one by one," and his woman, presumably his wife, now "in bed with his best friend and having fun."


    Similarly, Aneesa describes the present scene as largely apathetic with a lack of female bands who have a doctrine worth learning about. Heather mentions the Nu-Metal scene as being overtly macho and aggressive. She describes the violent nature of the gigs which serve to exclude women and describes how one

  1. What were the main features of youth culture in the 1960s?

    New fashions were not always appropriate for certain groups. Poorer areas in the north reacted ambivalently due to the structural unemployment they were suffering. Word Count = 317 (b) Why did people act react so differently? There many reasons why people acted so differently because of the age differences.

  2. The 1960's - source related study

    wouldn't go as far to say that they did more harm than good. As I said, I think that they inspired people to do good more than they influenced them in a bad way. Sources D and E are interesting in the way that they show how television evolved quicker than radio did.

  1. Describe Popular Culture at the beginning of the 1960's?

    The early 60's was the start of a drive for more equality but was more late 1960's. Race in England was also becoming more multi-cultural with a large influx of immigrants from India and the West Indians. They came to England expecting an equal society but found it to be the total opposite.


    A very effective medium for advertising is the radio. This reaches people while they are doing other things, like driving or working, unlike television, which people only see when they have specifically sat down to watch it. Roland Barthes (1950-1980)

  1. 308 CMC Popular Music

    Using the young to identify with the 'youth' is an established trick in terms of selling music orientated products. The socio economic climate of late nineteen seventies Britain could have been the right climate for a certain amount of discord but was it in fact cynical manipulation on behalf of

  2. What can you learn from Source A about the impact of the Beatles in ...

    Not only this but as some celebrities and performers were role models to young people many teenagers also accepted the role of rebellious young adults as they tried to mimic their idols. They adopted this new, alternative culture of violence, sex and drugs which completely undermined the accepted values of British society.

  • Over 160,000 pieces
    of student written work
  • Annotated by
    experienced teachers
  • Ideas and feedback to
    improve your own work