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

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        The 1960s

        

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

 

 The early 1960's was a period of time where standard of living was rising and there was more consumer goods to buy and people were on higher wages so could now afford luxury items which they would of never thought of buying. The 1960's was a period of great change, particularly in the younger generation of people. A good quote from the Prime Mister at the time sums up the early 60's in a way which many would agree with, 'you've never had it so good', he said this at the 1957 general election - but some people still think the late 50's as 'grey' this reflects the culture of Britain at the time.

 The 1960's was a period when there was great change in the music, teenagers and fashion scene. There were about 5million teenagers of which many had money to spend, many were spending £8.00 week on clothes, records, cosmetics and entertainment and were greatly influenced by goings on in America. These new teenagers like the new/changing music scene of Rock and Roll, very popular at this time was Cliff Richard who took the scene by storm, and the women also regarded him as a sex object in the early 60's. Other seeds of British music were also a merging at this time, famously The Beatles. Fashion was also on the change from wearing parents clothes which was conservative to being know as Teddy boys which were the rockers, hippies, etc or radical, liberal people.

 The adults on the other hand were all conservative and were pretty much against any change. They also had completely different taste to music than the teenagers they liked popular easy listening music, like Frank Sinatra, Joe Loss Orchestra, etc.

 In the 60's there were also great changes in the media (tv, radio, press, magazines). T.V changed dramatically in the 60's. Early 60's TV dominated by middle and upper classes, but Coronation Street started and was about working class people this new drama changed TV and started to reflect society. The 60's bought lots of new shows to the public this was the start of campaigning programmes e.g Tonight also dramas were beginning to become very popular, 'Cathy Come Home' was a great impact on society. By the mid 60's TV had a major influence on youth by programmes like 'Ready Steady Go', 'Cathy McGowan and ‘Ready, Steady, Go’ were magic, compulsory viewing. Manfred Mann singing ‘5, 4, 3, 2, 1’ was the theme music. I’ll never forget that wonderful catch-cry ‘the weekend starts here!’, with the accompanying feeling of freedom, excitement and youth', this account show how important TV had become to the youth of the nation.

 Radio in the early 60's was poor and contain little interest in the youth as it was light programmes like, ‘'sing something simple' but the 60’s saw the big change of radio in 1962/63 saw the start of pirate radio stations which play music which the younger generations wanted to listen to, 'Pirate radio stations were so important. We just had to listen to Radio Caroline, it was so different from everything else that had ever been on the radio. The music they played was fantastic, the DJs were fantastic, including Kenny Everett. The blurb between the records was really good. I remember lying on a rug in the garden listening to Radio Caroline on a little transistor radio and revising my History A-level notes with my friend'. Then eventually in 1965 Radio 1 started which follow the suit of pirate radio playing pop music and introduced the top 20 on Sunday afternoons.

 The newspapers of the 60's had similar titles to today but no star or independent, they were also more serious than today's modern papers. They were aimed at the adults and not the youth as they required a higher reading age and contained less pictures, e,g naked women. Magazines were also more serious than today's, women read 'woman's own' and 'cosmopolitan' but by the late 60's new magazines stared to appear like music papers e.g 'Melody Maker'. The film industry in the 1960's was beginning to struggle but popular were comedies. The 60's saw a change with in coming of more working class accents, which revitalised the film industry, first one Michael Caine.

 The 1960's saw a big change in holiday destinations as more people owed cars and generally had more money. People still went on their traditional holidays to Butlins, holiday camps and bed & breakfast holidays, etc. But becoming popular were newer holidays like camping and going abroad to place such as the Costa Del Sol. These new holidays were also due to transport in the 60's improving and the growth of car ownership dramatically rose. The introduction of the M1 made getting places faster and new cars such as the Mini in 1960 had a big effect on people. They were seen as fun and advertised as cheap. This led to problems for the public transport as less people using it as they now own cars and the 60's signalled the end of stream trains which were replaced by diesel and electric trains.

 The attitudes in the 1960s were also slowly beginning to change with women who were still treated as 2nd class citizens, who got paid less for the same job as men and did menial jobs. 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. They faced major racism and were given only the menial jobs even if qualified and were paid very badly.

 Crime in the 60's was less then it is today and still had capital punishment. Attitudes to drugs were also on the change with them become more widely used by certain people but not the drug era of the mid to late 1960's, basically a conservative society few drugs used. Attitudes towards sex were still a conservative view, not yet permissive society. The pill was not widely used although available as many still wanted to be virgins before marriage or at least appear so, but the early 60's was the beginnings of a more permissive society. Britain still had a class society but the 60's influenced the beginning of change.

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 The early 1960’s symbolised the start of a period of great change throughout Britain mainly in the music and teenagers. Also much of the population were on high wages and low income tax. In 1950 the average wage was £6.40 and income tax was 0.47p in the pound this had change by 1959 to average wage of £11.12 and income tax of 0.38p in the pound. This meant that they could now afford new luxury items and live life to the full more. The advertising industry also grew in the 60’s as TV was more widely available and people ...

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