1960's Popular Culture

Welcome to the Australian Museum, today I will show you the aspects of popular culture in Australia by the 1960’s and 1970’s. Before I talk about the main aspects of popular culture I will give a brief overview of the social events that took place throughout the time period that influenced and effected the following tends. Prior to the 1960’s pop-culture, World War II ended, starting the post war period. During this time Australia started to change its relationship with Britain and the United States. American’s influence strengthening over Britain’s cultural influence within the Australian society. This lead to the introduction of changing fashion, music and entertainment, which shaped and influenced the Australian popular culture.

Baby boomers created their own fashion style, colourful fabrics and bold designs. They rejected the fashion of previous eras and broke social traditions, emerging the development of unisex clothing.

In the 1970s the fashion was carefree and diverse, introducing the ‘hippie’ style. This was varied and changed frequently. Towering platform shoes, huge bell-bottom flares, or tight, shiny, disco-inspired hot pants.

Music

The rock ‘n’ roll trend of 1960’s changed young people’s way of entertainment. They would have dance halls, discos and preform dances such as the stomp and boogaloo. The Australian music charts were dominated by American and British music, local acts influenced by overseas tends. Lyrics spoken of peace, love, freedom, social protests and Civil rights.

Then in the 1970’s fears about the strong American influences started to take place within Australia. Australian music acts struggled to achieve success, sue to the lack of radio play. The Australian Broadcasting Control Broad in 1973, set a code of practice that require radio stations to ensure that 10% of the broadcasted music were Australian.

On February 1969, the Federal Government announced that after years of consideration Australia would adopt the German PAL colour TV standard as opposed to the American NTSC and French SECAM systems. PAL was found to provide a better quality and definition of picture and was compatible with both VHF and UHF. Engineers also found that PAL was better suited to rugged terrain areas like those in many Australian cities and country areas.

Three years after the government decided on adopting the PAL standard, Prime Minister William McMahon announced on the 15th February 1972 that Australian TV would be switching to full-time colour transmission from Saturday 1 March 1975 — “C-Day”. At 12.00am, 1 March 1975, Australian television finally burst into full, unrestricted colour. Approximately 2.5 per cent of homes were reported to have converted to colour TV in time for “C-Day”, but by July 1976 an estimated 17 per cent of households had made the switch. This number would shoot up to 60 per cent by the end of 1977.

Relate the object to aspects of popular culture and justify its inclusion in the