MUSIC ERA’S

MARYAM ANISA

1960

s

Controversial issues

There are many controversial issues in the 1960’s:The Pentagon Papers.Civil Rights Marchers.Kennedy Assassination.The Vietnam War.Johnson v. Goldwater election and their campaign ads.Medi Care bill .The War on Poverty.The KKK Church Bombings in the south that killed 3 little girls.The Gulf of Tonkin Incident.68 Democratic Convention in Chicago, and its riots.The Chicago 7.Woodstock.Peoples Park Demonstrations in Berkley.The Free Speech Demonstrations early 60's Berkley.Height Ashbury scene 66- 67, known as 'The Summer of Love'.Monterrey Pop Festival.Martin Luther King Assassination.Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick.Assassination of Bobby Kennedy.Charles Manson.The Tet Offensive in Vietnam, and Walter Cronkite's analysis of same, known as the turning point. The secret expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia.The murder of Black Panther Party members and cover up of same by Chicago Police.Cuban Missile Crisis.CIA Cuban invasion known as 'The Bay of Pigs'.The Watts Riots.The Altamont Speedway Festival, Known as the death of the 60's - 1969.

1960’s countercultureIn the 1960's, young people questioned America's materialism and cultural and political norms, much as they've always done. Seeking a better world, some used music, politics, and alternative lifestyles to create what came to be known as the counterculture. Americans in that era faced many controversial issues-from civil rights, the Vietnam War, nuclear arms, and the environment to drug use, sexual freedom, and nonconformity.

• The counterculture lifestyle integrated many of the ideals and indulgences of the time: peace, love, harmony, music, mysticism, and religions outside the Judeo-Christian tradition. Meditation, yoga, and psychedelic drugs were embraced as routes to expanding one's consciousness.

• The movement, greeted with enormous publicity and popular interest, contributed to changes in American culture. A willingness to challenge authority, greater social tolerance, the sense that politics is personal, environmental awareness, and changes in attitudes about gender roles, marriage, and child rearing are legacies of the era.

Many members of the counterculture saw their own lives as ways to express political and social beliefs. Personal appearance, song lyrics, and the arts were some of the methods used to make both individual and communal statements. Though the specifics of the debates were new, arguments for personal freedom, free speech, and political reform go back to the foundations of American society

In North America, Europe and Oceania, the decade was particularly revolutionary in terms of popular music, as it saw the formation and evolution of rock.

At the beginning of the 1960s, pop and rock and roll trends of the 1950s continued; nevertheless, the rock and roll of the decade before started to merge into a more international, eclectic variant known as rock.

By the mid-1960s, rock and roll in its purest form was gradually overtaken by pop rock, beat, psychedelic rock, blues rock and folk rock, which had grown in popularity. The country and folk-influenced style associated with the latter-half of 1960s rock music spawned a generation of popular singer-songwriters who wrote and performed their own work.

Towards the decade's end, genres such as baroque pop, sunshine pop, bubblegum pop, progressive rock and heavy metal started to grow popular, with the latter two finding greater success in the following decade.

Furthermore, the 1960s saw funk and soul music rising in popularity; rhythm and blues in general remained popular, and this style was commonly associated to girl groups of the time, whose fusion of R&B and gospel with rock and roll enjoyed success until the mid-part of the decade.

Aside from the popularity of rock and R&B music in the 1960s, Latin American as well as Jamaican and Cuban music achieved a degree of popularity throughout the decade, with genres such as bossa nova, the cha-cha-cha, ska, and calypso being popular.

From a classical point of view, the 1960s were also an important decade as they saw the development of experimental, jazz and contemporary classical music, notably minimalism and free improvisation

The Billboard Top Ten songs of the year 1960 were:

1.) "You Talk Too Much" by Joe Jones 2.) "Cathy's Clown" by The Everly Brothers 3.) "The Twist" by Chubby Checker 4.) "Save the Last Dance for Me" by The Drifters 5.) "Running Bear" by Johnny Preston 6.) "Sweet Nothin's" by Brenda Lee 7.) "Handy Man" by Jimmy Jones 8.) "Walk, Don't Run" by The Ventures 9.) "Alley-Oop" by The Hollywood Argyles 10.) "Stay" by Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs

The song that won "Song of the Year" at The Grammys was "Theme From Exodus". Ray Charles took two honors home "Best Pop Single Artist" and "Best Pop Male Vocal" for his hit "Georgia on My Mind". Ella Fitzgerald won the "Best Pop Female Artist" with "Mack the Knife". The "Best Pop Duo or Group" went to "We Got Us" by Eydie Gormé and Steve Lawrence

Most popular artists

Who were ‘The Beatles’?

The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. They became perhaps the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed act in the history of popular music. The band's best-known lineup consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney. George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. Rooted in skiffle and 1950s rock and roll, the group later utilised several genres, ranging from pop ballads to psychedelic rock, often incorporating classical and other elements in innovative ways. In the early 1960s, their enormous popularity first emerged as "Beatlemania", but as their songwriting grew in sophistication, they came to be perceived by many fans and cultural observers as an embodiment of the ideals shared by theera's sociocultural revolutions

The Beatles are the best-selling band in history, with EMI Records estimating sales of over one billion units.[They have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act. According to the RIAA, as of 2012 they have sold 177 million units in the US, more than any other artist. In 2008, they topped Billboard magazine's list of the all-time most successful Hot 100 artists. As of 2012, they hold the record for most number-one hits on the Hot 100 chart with 20. They have received 7 Grammy Awards from the American National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and 15 Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. They were collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people

1970’s

MusicThe rise of soft/rock and pop/rock and further rise in popularity for R&B with artists such as Stevie wonder & Jackson 5.

The mid-1970s also saw the rise of disco music, which dominated during the last half of the decade with bands like the Bee Gees, ABBA.

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Towards the end of the decade, Jamaican Reggae music, already popular in the Caribbean and Africa since the early 1970s, became very popular in the U.S. and in Europe, mostly because of reggae superstar and legend Bob Marley. His music touched on topics such as slavery and was very inspirational.

SongsPeople were starting to incorporate social issues and motivating messages within their music as controversial issues were mounting:

Cher – Gypsy’s , tramps and thievesJackson 5 – I’ll be there Bill Withers – Lean on meBob Marley – Buffalo soldier

BEEGEES Dolly Parton Diana Ross

Elton John Cher Barbra Streisand

Controversial issues• The Me decade ( individualism)• Ken state shootings ( protest about Vietnam war, National Guard goes on shooting

spree)• Economic recession • Cold war still remained• Major conflict between capitalist and communist forces in multiple countries• Soweto Uprising when more than 700 black school children were killed by South

Africa's Security Police.• Distrust between the revolutionaries and Western powers (Iran hostage crisis)• Rise in the use of terrorism by militant organizations across the world• Richard Nixon resigns as President in 1974 while facing charges for impeachment

(Watergate scandal)• significant number of women as heads of state outside of monarchies

Social habits

Increasing political awareness and political and economic liberty of women, continued to grow. The hippie culture, which started in the later half of the 1960s, weakened by the early 1970s and faded towards the middle part of the decade, which involved:

• opposition to the Vietnam War,• opposition to nuclear weapons, • the advocacy of world peace,• and hostility to the authority of government and big business.• The environmentalist movement began to increase dramatically in this

period.

LifestyleFamily size dropped due to uncertain economy and unemployment.

Woman in the workplace gave woman a different priority other than parenthood.

There was new freedom for women, homosexuals, the elderly, the handicapped, and other minorities.

With the new wave of social equality, social events became extremely popular, people were now going to Disco’s and ‘ doing it big ‘.

Everything was big from shirt collars, to belt buckles, clown shoes to Afros and the ‘Farrah Mane’.

Sex, Drugs and rock & roll (influenced by the hippie movement)

Record LabelsBy 1973, the music business had become a $2 billion/year industry (approximately the size of the film and sports industries combined).

Virgin records (Richard Branson) was established in the early 70’s as an independent label.

Labels such as Motown (1960) became increasingly popular because of its style of soul music with a distinct pop influence.(Marvin Gaye, Stevie wonder, Boyz II Men, Smokey Robinson)

CTI records – Jazz label now owned by Sony music entertainment.

Atlantic records- missed out on signing Elvis but later became well known for signing artists such as Cher, The rolling stones, Bee Gees whose music rocked the 1970’s.