The Sixties: A Cultural Revolution of Music

The Sixties: A Cultural Revolution of Music

Introduction

The sixties, as it is more often called, is a period that denotes the complexity of interconnected cultural trend throughout the world. The sixties is the term of popular culture which is used by the journalists, historians and academics, in the US, to describe the social revolution and counter-culture in that decade.

Discussion

The sixties was the period when many music artists released hits after hits. The radio channels only played songs that were most popular among the variety of records being released. Music bands only recorded the best collection of the songs they made in order to get a chance of becoming a hit. The Americans switched from the 1950s folksinger and saxophone sounds to the folk rock, British Invasion and Motown sounds. The counter-culture movement of the sixties, predominantly in the youth, established the demand for music such as pop, rock, reggae, soul, and blues that was created by the drug-culture.

Rock is music of far greater surface seriousness and lyric complexity. It is the product of a more self-aware and se1fconscious group of musicians. The best music in both idioms came from men who recorded their own material, or worked very closely with a collaborator on it. In America, colleges, coffee houses and independent record companies like Elektra, Prestige and Vanguard became the havens of aspiring musicians seeking refuge from the poverty of commercial recording scenes during those years.

In England, the established music scene was dominated by people even stodgier than their American counterparts. With Cliff Richard's self-righteousness acting as a kind of norm of acceptability, few new groups were even given an opportunity to record.

As in the States, the commercial potential of this new thing was ignored by established companies which in turn gave musicians a chance to grow without being hustled into record contracts prematurely. The Beatles themselves were the classic example. It is therefore not surprising that when the Beatles proved the commercial viability of rock in 1964, there were so many groups prepared to follow through with their own distinctive music. Through the mid sixties these two different styles achieved high levels of popularity. American groups were often natural but less interesting on stage. Mick Jagger's command of the stage may have been programmed, but it was perfect.

Through the mid sixties, American rock was defining its own ambience and style. Through the flirtation with folk music in the early sixties many musicians found a unique source out of which to mold a new kind of rock, something distinct from what British bands were offering.

Woodstock Festival

Woodstock festival is one of the major festivals of rock of all time. It is a hallmark for the culture of the late 60s. it is a crucial part of the popular culture. "The Woodstock generation" is the phrase that denotes the 60s generation. Mad magazine published an article in April 1970 called; "I Remember, I Remember the Wondrous Woodstock Fair" which depicts the hurdles ...