Describe popular culture in Britain at the beginning of 1960s

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Describe popular culture in Britain at the beginning of 1960’s

In this essay, I will describe popular culture in Britain and discuss how it developed and modified throughout the 1950’s to the beginning of the 1960’s. Additionally, I will be looking at how media such as fashion, music and TV had a high influence on this change.

Popular culture is the culture of mass population, i.e. the culture within the working class. In Britain, popular culture can be summarised by a renowned quote: ‘in the 1950’s, daughters tried to look like their mothers, in the 1960’s mothers tried to look like their daughters.’ This shows that 1960’s was an incredible period of rapid change throughout Britain. It was a decade where a huge change in the society was evident throughout the nation.

One area of popular culture is music. In the 1950’s, the popular genre of music was Jazz and the most common styles of Jazz were bebop and swing. Crooners (artists) such as Frankie Laine and Perry Como were the two main vocalists of the 1950’s. Factors of this genre were seen through these artists’ and many other artists’ songs. Examples of these characteristics are firstly, artists used to always perform and record with full orchestral backup; secondly, formal dressing during performances was always compulsory and finally the lyrics of the majority of songs were purely made to entertain. The songs that were released during this period of this time were mainly family orientated as the demand from the audience was for both generations (parents and children) to like the songs. Focusing on this idea, songs were written not only to entertain but also to educate. Tommy Steal, one of the first teen idols, is a great example of this time in music. In 1959 Tommy steal made a number one hit called ‘little white bull’. This was educational as one may say it taught the society, metaphorically about the race difference that was occurring through the nation: “very sad because he was a little white bull. All the other bulls called him a coward because he was white”. Furthermore, this song was written and released during the period of Martin Luther King; an African American who protested for black rights. Through this we can see how much of an influence America had on Britain, because the politics that was occurring in America had a high impact on the media in Britain such as the lyrics to this particular song.

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As time moved on, so did music. One of the big factors for this change was the popular catch phrase and actions of the prime minster at the time of 1957-1963: Harold Macmillan. Harold’s phrase used in 1959’s election “you’ve never had it so good” increased the average weekly wage from £6.40 to £11.12 and lowered the income tax from 47 pence to 38 pence. This had an impact on society because it meant that working class which were the mass population of Britain, had more power and independence to do what they wanted, as they had more money in ...

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