What Were The 1960's Pop Culture

1960’s Pop Culture How did the pop culture of the 1960s relate to the people of the time? What change did the youth of the 1960s want? What were the 1960s youth interested in? In the 1960s, events such as the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement began to affect the new generation. These events led many youths in the 1960s to want to see a change in the world that would lead to a better future, and their pop culture reflected their desires. Pop culture in the 1960s was about expressing social and cultural change from the 1950s, as shown through music, fashion, and art. Music of the 1960s Music was a big part of the pop culture in the 1960s. Unlike in the 1950s, when rock and roll was the most popular style of music, jazz, pop, and soft rock

Due to the advancement of technology, music became more accessible with the invention of the eight-track tape, which allowed people to choose which songs they wanted to listen to and play through their eight-track tape plays, which many cars started to have (Berg 19). Music became more accessible in the 1960s, and pop culture changed to favor softer music more than in the 1950s. The Beatles During the 1960s, one music group dominated the rock and roll scene: the Beatles. The Beatles were started in the late 1950s by John Lennon and were first known as the Quarrymen. After Paul McCartney and George Harrison joined, they began gaining fans in Liverpool and changed their name to the Beatles (Berg 10). The Beatles soon developed their sound by writing songs grounded in the roots of 1950s rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Their look also set them apart from other musicians as they had long hair, identical suits, and short boots (Berg 11). The Beatles grew in popularity throughout the decade, and soon, other music groups began to follow their lead, leading to the music event known as the British Invasion (Berg

With The Who; Jimi Hendrix; Janis Joplin; Jefferson Airplane; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; Joe Cocker; and Carlos Santana performing, Woodstock was intended to be three peaceful days of music (Berg 48). As Woodstock approached, problems arose because of the massive audience attending Woodstock, and the organizers needed to prepare for such a large crowd. Even though the concert was not prepared for the large crowd, the audience remained peaceful throughout the three days, marking Woodstock as a symbol of the hippie movement and showcasing the youth’s idealism (Berg 49). The Woodstock music festival was a once-in-a-lifetime event of peace and music, which many would try to replicate but not succeed. Fashion Fashion began to change in the 1960s, as it became more critical to the public and changed to fit their changing beliefs. In the 1960s, “Fashion became about defining one’s projected identity through clothes, which in turn became instruments of claim in a society that, until then, had been very normalized” (Morin 3). Because of this new belief in fashion, people began to accept ready-to-wear fashion more, and women’s fashion highlighted natural beauty more (Morin