Introduction
Before the end of the century, the electronic and economic world was cast under the clouds of the Y2K bug (that of course, never was) and the hype-makers on the one hand made fitting tributes such as the musician of the century, among other things.
Beatles, of course, was the legendary band or group that represented not only a 60s era but a century, the 20th century, topping among others “respectable” musicians or groups, or orchestras. Some brows or a lot could have been raised. But definitely, those who agree would not care if brows remained raised. Rock’s roll defined a 60s era, it will continue to define youth. And youth is a universal occurrence. Everybody passes through a stage that is confusing and at the same time brewing with energy — anger, happiness, adventure, and the perception of dawn that could be either promising or depressing. Rock’s roll provided all the answers. It became the counterpart of every youth’s wishes, fervent prayers, and dreams.
Its background could be traced back to Elvis Presley, as although a self-acknowledged to have been influenced mainly by Black musicians such as Li’l Richard or Chuck Berry, it was inevitable that the credit would be given to him due to his popularity with the general genre. However, other forms such as rock music from groups or bands emerged to mutate and improve the previous offerings given. Due to their popularity, ordinary listeners such as this writer became familiar with the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, Velvet Underground, and of course, the Doors, among many other bands introducing a whole lot of new forms that would soon be called the varieties of the rock genre. It was the dawn of a new era that Greil (969) said will stand. It was quite prophetic, definitely true.
This paper will try to take a look at the different music within that era and attempt to explain why it became so big. The stance I would like you to take is rooted in the idea that it became a voice/outlet for the disheartened youth of the 60s and the counter-cultures that struggled to form an identity.
Discussion
Brommel (2000) and the researchers before him all agreed that genre of novels, films, music, or any by-product of culture and tradition, or trend for that matter emerged as a response to particular social conditions such as changing relations between public and private spheres, class identity and formation, gender roles, among others. The blues, for example, had been widely examined and regarded as much more than entertainment. Its derivatives of country blues to rhythm and blues were said to have come into a form in part because it was able to perform the cultural work required by the original blues audience. Brommel (2000) specifically pointed out its mutation and absorption “into another musical genre performed in different conditions for a quite different audience — rock and roll of the 1960s especially,” (p 194).
Albert King was also said to have called in 1968 the “blues power” which is the ability to cross boundaries of race as well as captivated “new audiences in different but formally analogous social conditions,” (p 194). In addition to this observation, being the music closely related to gospel music, Amiri Baraka in Blues People also placed that black Americans are placed in “any area of the society where the Negro might have an integral function, that area would have to be the one that he created for himself,” (as quoted by Brommel, 2000, 195). Brommel rejoined that that area is the blues music they have created as an escape upon their emancipation, a definition for self and family, the individual and the community.
Rock critic Marcus Greil (1969) proposed that any single rock performance recreates in listeners the entire history of the genre and that performances could be interpreted as functions embodying the entire cultural tradition of the youth or teen. This paper proceeds with the perceived acceptance of the popular brands and their music during the 1960s.
The Beatles
The Beatles is a band from Liverpool, England today known as the most legendary of the bands with their so-called most popular album “The Abbey Road.” Their music that set the standard of pop and rock at the same time combined powerful lyrics that individuals could relate to and embrace, as well as compelling melodies that remained in the ears hours, days, months, and years upon hearing. They produced a lot of hit singles in a hype-crazed environment and a time when the youth as their listeners were ready to embrace new frontiers and take on adventures. Theirs was pop, melodious, that gradually, or at many points evolved to become smooth, rough, progressive, or what-not. But most certainly, Paul McCartney and the late John Lennon, with several contributions from the rest of the band provided the words with the right tune appreciated by the widest group, age range, cultures, and time.
Bob Dylan
Born Robert Allen Zimmerman, Dylan is considered as a product of the underground culture, an informal chronicler, and a reluctant figurehead of American unrest. His songs include in their lyrics politics, social commentary, philosophy, and literary influences. It defied popular music at that time and clashed with conventions so that it appealed widely to the counterculture. His personalized musical styles showed devotion to many traditions of American music including folk and country/blues to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly, to English, Scottish and Irish folk music, even jazz, and swing “Blowin’ in the Wind”, “A Hard rain’s Gonna Fall”, “The Times They Are a-Changin’”, and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”. His songs became anthems of the anti-war as he questions “How many roads must a man walk down” in “Blowin in the Wind”, a young draftee’s “Mama, take this badge off of me / I can’t use it anymore / It’s gettin’ dark, too dark for me to see / I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door,” on “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and civil rights movements as he performed underground with messages of peace and equality. Dylan performs with guitar, keyboard, and harmonica and had a changing line-up of backup musicians in both recording and live performances (BBC, 2004).
Rolling Stones is an English band with music originally based on rhythm and blues and rock & roll. The band was formed in London was had success in the UK and in the US during the “British Invasion” in the early 1960s with their 1965 hit “I Can’t Get no Satisfaction” (RRHFM, 2007)
The Doors was an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles by vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger. Considered as one of the most controversial bands of their time, they produced hits such as “Te End”, “Break on Through to the Other Side”, “Light My Fire”, “Strange Days”, “Waiting for the Sun” and “Hello I Love You”. Their lyrics were considered cryptic and their or Morrison’s unpredictable stage persona added to their popularity. Morrison died in 1971 but interest and demand of the Doors’ music were consistent selling over 75 million albums worldwide, and still sell approximately 1 million annually. Progeny of hedonism, the Doors crooned with passion, “You know that I would be a liar / If I was to say to you / Girl, we couldn’t get much higher / Come on baby, light my fire / Come on baby, light my fire / Try to set the night on fire…”
Stephen Davis wrote on Jim Morrison (2004, p. 219-220):
“The next night at Winterland, a TV set was wheeled onstage during the Doors set so the band could see themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show. They stopped playing Back Door Man when their song came on. The audience watched the Doors watching themselves on TV. They finished the song when their bit was done, and Ray walked over and turned the TV off. The next night was their last ever in Winterland.” In addition, Seattle newspaper, Helix (1967) published that “Their style is early cunnilinguist with overtones of the Massacre of the Innocents. An electrified sex slaughter. A musical bloodbath…The Doors are carnivores in a land of musical vegetarians…their talons, fangs, and folded wings are seldom out of view, but if they leave us crotch-raw and exhausted, at least they leave us aware of our aliveness. And of our destiny.
The Doors scream into the darkened auditorium what all of us in the underground are whispering more softly in our hearts: we want the world and we want it now! (pg 75).” These references remind readers and listeners of the “postmodern youth” with the conceptualization of identity as meaningless depicting unrest and defiance to the convention. “The term identity […] suggests a greater fixity, stability, and closure than most,” Kensington (as quoted by Brommel, 2000) wrote. In addition to this observation, Deena Weinstein argued that the predicament of the youth “appears in the conscious form of dualism between freedom and constraint […] Rock music is, at its heart, a response to and an enhancement of this dualistic consciousness of youth, catering to the desires for freedom and the immediate goods that the independent and irresponsible life offers, holding out a utopia in which the suspension of coercive routine us the normal state of affairs,” (Quoted by Brommel, 2000).
In addition to being a magnet on their own, the music and the musicians or the bands in the 1960s were also seen and viewed by marketers, specifically the emerging record companies that knew or predicted the impact as well as wide acceptance of music as a form of entertainment and consumption. One of the more prominent and lasting legacies of the ’60s rock was of course the Woodstock. It was a business venture that set forth new ways of assembling musicians and their listeners or viewers which drew more than what the organizers prepared for. It was a culmination of what the counterculture meant as the musicians and the biggest artists of the 60s represented the generation questioning the direction of American society. The performers’ influence on the youth brought them together to the historic farm in Bethel against bad weather, food shortages, and poor sanitation. Some 400,000 viewers came to celebrate with the theme “three days of peace and music.” (Bennett and Warner, 2004). While it cannot be totally said that this was further aggravated through advances in communications and information technology, the music of an older generation set a stage to hype music consumption that will be felt until the electronic globalization era.
While rock’s roll provided a platform where musicians and their audience gather as well as grow together, it also as much as defined the wants, needs, and yearnings of each generation of youth people, connecting if needed, gaps that would otherwise have remained to keep parents or authorities from a distance to the future, which is the youth of today,
As can be glimpsed from now, music has set record sales through electronic gadgets, development of which started with big, black vinyl records of old, carried in big bags or baskets, to cassette tapes, and smaller discs, with today the emergence of more forms of storage technologies allowing music to be bought and consumed without having to go through the time and resource-consuming processes.
The appeal, too, of the performers or musicians add up to the total package, as they perform in controversial live concerts, reaching their audience in a more personal manner where authorities would rather send their so-called sons in anticipated or provoked wars overseas. However, as Theodore Roszak’s “The Making of a Counterculture observed,”..The Doors. Their style is early cunnilingual with overtones of the Massacre of the Innocents. An electrified sex slaughter. A musical bloodbath…The Doors are carnivores in a land of musical vegetarians…their talons, fangs, and folded wings are seldom out of view, but if they leave us crotch-raw and exhausted, at least they leave us aware of our aliveness. And of our destiny. The Doors scream into the darkened auditorium what all of us in the underground are whispering more softly in our hearts: we want the world and we want it…NOW!” pg 75.
Conclusion
There are a lot of reasons why the 1960s music became so big it propelled corporations to grow in mammoth proportions. First was the universal appeal of a voice that defied current norms in a given period. The second was the representation of subverted voices and actions exemplified or represented by live bands like the Doors, or Rolling Stones. Third was the sense of belonging the youth found in these iconoclastic models called the Beatles, Bob Dylan, or the Doors. And several other factors that include packaging, marketability, mass appeal, influence of peers, among others.
There are a variety of sounds, mostly developmental and alternative during a time of popularity of certain musical genre in the 1960s. Culture at that time, a decade after wars and a decade where more wars are being provoke, the youths with clashing identities and personalities find unity in listening to the aggression and confusion painted profoundly in easily digestible as well as entertaining rock’n roll.
The music was quite rebellious, something that the “parents” or “authorities” of that confusing time did not easily grasp nor appreciated, nor known. The youths did with enthusiasm and glee. Others found in the music their voice, identity, subverted thoughts, images, and desires.
The 1960s music provided a glimpse of the nature of youth — something that remained the same until now. So that until today, the same people that appreciated the 1960s rock are actually those who listen to more modern rock heroes and most probably age between 13 to 19 in 2008. It is a continuing phenomenon, as it was written, rock will stand, and roll.
Reference
Andy Bennett; Simon Warner (2004). Remembering Woodstock. Ashgate Publishing.
Grossberg, Lawrence (1984)Another Boring Day in Paradise: Rock and Roll and the Empowerment of Everyday Life. Popular Music, Vol. 4, Performers and Audiences (1984), pp. 225-258.
Vintage Rock: Sensational Hits of the ’60s by Vintage Rock; Kathryn King Brommel, Nick (2000). “The Blues and the Veil”: The Cultural Work of Musical Form in Blues and ’60s Rock.” American Music, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 193-221.
Rock Fantasy. Greil, Marcus (1969). Rock and Roll Will Stand. Beacon Press.
BBC News (2004) “Dylan ‘reveals origin of anthem’“, BBC news, Web.
The Rolling Stones Biography. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc.
Davis, Stephen. (2004). Life, Death, Legend. Gotham.