...At the end of World War II, popular culture in Australia have been strongly influenced by America during the 1950s, and overtime became richer than ever where communications and transport technology was advancing rapidly. Not only this but America have also influenced Australians in music, radio, television film and fashion. Australian music during the 1950s was heavily influenced from American music, where individuals fell in love with American-style rock 'n' roll. In 1955, American Bill Haley's hit song ‘Rock Around the Clock’ spread throughout Australia, and the radio broadcasting station were soon full of other American acts like Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. During this time, Australian performers like Johnny O'Keefe was impacted by these overseas trends. During this time, radio stations increasingly relied on individuals and their new 'teenage' thirst for American music. Radio announcers in the 1950s often used American accents to make...
Words: 442 - Pages: 2
...IWT Task 1 (0813) This paper will analyze, critique, and help us to understand the music of the Harlem Renaissance and the Pop Art periods. The social conditions that influenced the art and the characteristics of the artists’ style were in many ways similar; however, with advancing technology, they had differing struggles to overcome. The Harlem Renaissance was sparked by the Great Migration from 1919 – 1926 in which African Americans began moving to northern cities to find employment and a better way of life. The musicians of this era were very influential in renewing the culture and history of the United States. Jazz, race, and class divided Harlem and New York cities. Some historians have said the best way to understand the Harlem Renaissance is by understanding the music (http://historyoftheharlemrenaissance.weebly.com/index.html; www.1920s-fashion-and-music.com/Harlem-Renaissance-1920s.html). With the roots of jazz coming from slave songs, it is truly an African-American invention. This newly formed music utilized the dissonant “blue” note. This modification to the to the standard major scale allowed the musician to play the note flat; usually the third, fifth, or seventh note of the scale. Music critic Sidney Finkelstein stated, “It expresses the hope and struggle for freedom, the vitality which enables a people to wrest joy out of misery and to assert the triumph of human beings over the obstacles that would grind them down.” ("MindEdge," 2014) Jazz was the sound...
Words: 2036 - Pages: 9
...this chapter. How does it affect each of the three styles under consideration? What role does TV play? Answer: For the style of rhythm and blues: In the 1950s, a new approach to radio disseminated rhythm and blues outside of regional black communities. In 1948, WDIA in Memphis began programming and advertising especially to the local black population, playing rhythm and blues records supported by a roster of sponsors. For the style of country and western: As far back the 1930s, mainstream pop played to a national audience, while country and western was most limited to regional radio exposure. Within a few years, local and regional radio stations across the nation were programming country music, especially WSM in Nashville and WLS in Chicago WSM broadcast the popular country-oriented program the Grand Ole Opry, while WLS produced the National Barndance. For the style of mainstream pop: NBC went coast-to-coast with its national radio network in 1928, which was an important step in blurring the regional boundaries of popular culture. Because of this, some pop styles became national, while others kept their regional identities. This can be attributed to network programming: the mainstream pop was heard frequently on network radio. By the early 1950s, the national audience for popular music had largely shifted from radio to television. This meant that radio needed to adapt considerably to survive, and many stations opted for a local or...
Words: 253 - Pages: 2
...Popular American Culture SOC/105 October 31, 2012 S. C. Culture and Pop Culture The official definition of culture is “the customary beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group” (Webster Dictionary.com, 2012) whereas popular culture is the opposite of high cultural art forms like the opera, historic art, classical music, traditional theater or literature. It includes many forms of cultural communication, including newspapers, television, advertising, comics, pop music, radio, novels, movies, etc. In the beginning of the 20th Century," High art" was the realm of the wealthy and educated classes while popular culture or "Low art" is commercial entertainment for the lower classes. In the 1950s and 60s the gap between them closed with the rise of Pop Art” (Kartha, 2011, p.1). Pop culture is so prominent in society that it is almost impossible to escape its influence. This is especially true in America. As a result of easy access, children absorb huge amounts of information presented by the pop culture world, which influences and shapes their identities. However, not all of it is negative and if parents educate themselves and monitor their children’s activities, pop culture is often a positive influence that helps mold the children...
Words: 821 - Pages: 4
...Running head: MUSIC TRENDS IN POPULAR AMERICAN CULTURE Music Trends in Popular American Culture University of Phoenix There have been many trends in American popular culture dating back since America was founded, anytime an activity or a lifestyle became popular people wanted to follow it and millions did. This is the case with music; it has evolved over time yet remains one of the most popular aspects of American Culture. From 1606-1776 religious music was the first music of early colonists in what was known as The Colonial Era. Traditional English hymns were brought to America and singing the psalms was an early form of hymns. Folk music and ballads were the rage from 1776-1860 in the Revolutionary War era. Popular music just before and during the Civil War had to do with political and military events such as; Amazing Grace, Battle Hymn of the Republic and Dixie and the Star Spangled Banner was written during this time. In 1897 different composers give birth to America’s popular music industry, ending reliance on Europe. The turn of the century arrived and there was a period of excitement for the American Music Scene. During this time the “Western” musical genre spreads throughout western states and featured steel guitars and singing cowboys (Johnson, 2007). The Blues were also created during this time by ex-slaves that sang work songs filled with irony, imagery and love, offering relief from the tensions in their lives. Jazz was also developed in the 1900s...
Words: 832 - Pages: 4
...Lord of the Flies is a 1963 British film directed by Peter Brook based on the 1954 novel by William Golding. Both the book and movie of Lord of the Flies represent popular culture in the fact that the book started out being popularized by the working class and would later become a best seller and even move into the category of high culture by becoming required reading in many schools across the world as well as wining the Nobel Prize. The Lord of the Flies and book and movie demonstrate many of the traits that are often reproduced in various form media and often imitated in other works of film, television, and reading. Lord of the Flies was remade into another film in 1990 but the 1963 film is considered to be closer to the book and is the one that is used by this paper. The 1963 Lord of the Flies film is a black and white British film that is presented in the form of a third person narrative in which the audience is a outside party looking in on the cast of the film. The film is about a group of young pre-teen to teenage boys who crash land on an island somewhere is the specific ocean as a result of their plane being shoot down. In the background of the movie there is some type of war but the film never mentioned which war is taking place. With the film being based on a book from the 1950s and the film taking place in the 1960 it can be assumed that the war in question is either World War II or perhaps a future war. In the film the overall theme is that violence and hate...
Words: 1593 - Pages: 7
...helped shape American culture and society and its social behavior of Americans. As time moves on and cultures change, so does the music and what it stands for. Music may sound and be different around the world, but its most common purpose it’s to bring individuals together. It seems that music, more than anything else, ties people together and tears them apart. Each culture around the world has caused music in general to evolve uniquely to each society. As society changes and grows, so will our music and what we believe in. Music has given American culture its values, the way that jazz, blues, and R&B created rock & roll, music created American culture that naturally has an influence on other cultures. It is an argument of whether music affects society or if society is reflected through music towards social behavior. It can also be said that any one type of music can influence society. For instance, a society can become more modernized such as individuals expanding their methods of playing musical instruments. Or as technology becomes more advanced with the digital era, individuals can listen to music on MP3 players, Ipads, cell phones or radio’s anywhere and anytime becoming more convenient. In today’s society, people have the right to choose what they want to listen to. This includes wide variety of styles or to even focus on one genre, depending on the musical qualities that appeal to them. Media, such as radio, TV and movies can influence and change pop culture and these movements...
Words: 858 - Pages: 4
...The 1960s was a decade filled with change. It started out with optimism among America’s youth that was unprecedented in history. Before too long headlines of civil rights, university reform, pacifist movement against the Vietnam War, women’s rights, and sexual liberation were made and the “Camelot” vision was quickly shattered. America’s youth began to revolt against the establishment and the foregone conclusion that they would adopt the lifestyle of their parents. In ten short years societal norms were turned completely around. Never before had change happened so quickly or been driven by the same group. This rapid change is breathtaking, considering most young people are generally naïve and disinterested in events outside their immediate scope. I have therefore decided to investigate what role the media played in the youth revolutions of the 1960s. This paper will identify media’s influence in driving change and analyze relationships between media, specific historical events, and the reaction of America’s youth. This will be achieved by looking at both primary and secondary sources to determine how much influence the media played in manipulating America’s youth via songs, marketing, and select writings. The media industry’s reaction to the social and technological upheavals of the twentieth century was to encapsulate the mantra “youth as fun” and sell it to America’s teens. . It was the social exposure that the media promoted that resulted in the heightening...
Words: 4521 - Pages: 19
...Music in Different Cultures Popular Music and Contemporary U.S. Culture Popular Music in its Many Facets In its broadest sense, popular music is an umbrella term referring to a vast range of commercially mass-marketed musical genres contrasting with classical or art music and intended for mass consumption (e.g., rock, rock and roll, hip-hop, grunge, heavy metal, rhythm and blues, punk, soul, techno, funk, rap, house). This wide-ranging term encompasses a plethora of musical styles involving various rhythms, vocal styles, instruments, and technologies. Characteristically, popular music is a global cultural phenomenon and an accessible form of commercial music aimed at a worldwide audience. Traditionally, British and American forms of popular music have tended to dominate the industry. Corresponding to social, economic, and technological change, popular music is intimately linked to the identity of musicians, performers, or artists, as well as audiences and fans. Popular music is ubiquitous; from shopping malls and advertising to gymnasiums/fitness classes and political campaigns, popular music is a common feature of people's everyday lives and a significant aspect of consumer culture. For fans and enthusiasts, popular music can be a leisure-time pursuit occurring on evenings or weekends; alternatively, it can constitute a lifestyle, or way of life (e.g., Deadheads—a group of fans of the American band Grateful Dead who saw the band at...
Words: 3041 - Pages: 13
...Popular culture is the entirety of ideas, viewpoints, attitudes, images and other occurrences that are preferred by an informal consent within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid-20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the late 20th and early 21st century. Heavily influenced by mass media, these collections of ideas fill the everyday lives of the society. Although terms popular culture and pop culture are sometimes used in place of each other and their meanings partially overlap, the term "pop", which dates from the late 1950s, belongs to a particular society and historical period. Pop refers more in detail to something containing qualities of mass appeal, while "popular" refers to what has gained popularity, regardless of its style. Popular culture is often viewed as being unimportant and irrelevant in order to find diffently acceptance throughout the norm. As a result, it comes under heavy criticism from various non-mainstream sources (most notably religious groups and counter-cultural groups) which deem it superficial, consumerist, sensationalist, and corrupted. Examples of popular culture come from a wide array of genres, including popular music, print, cyber culture, sports, entertainment, leisure, fads, trends, advertising and television. Sports and television are maybe the two of the most widely used up examples of popular culture, and they also represent two examples of popular culture with great continuing...
Words: 1009 - Pages: 5
...of an artworks that is part of the Pop Art movement. Pop Art developed in the early 1960s as a response to abstract expressionism. It was originally a British movement in the mid 1950s but it became a movement that became a social commentary on the mass-production and unoriginality of the culture in America. Artists in the movement used images or production techniques of everyday consumer life in America. In Lichtenstein ‘s case, he mimicked the style of comics in a way in which it seems to be made by a machine and not by hand, such technique is presented in “Reverie”. Pop Art glorified the everyday, making everyday objects and subjects into high art. It used commercial art as subject matters in painting. Pop art called attention to consumer projects as it mimicked the increasing advertisements, but it also served to glorify them as idealized images of contemporary culture. Pop art, according to Lichtenstein, was art that looks out into the world, appears to accept its environment, which is not good or bad, but different. He gets questions such as “how can you like exploitation”, “how can you like the complete mechanization of work?”, and “how can you like bad art?” His answer is that he just accepts it being there, in the world. (Coplans, 52-53) The pop art movement was documenting American culture as it was at...
Words: 1262 - Pages: 6
...Quick 1 Laura Quick Professor Lisa Mastrangelo College Writing November 25, 2014 What's in Your Jewelry Box? Today's Passing Fancy - Tomorrow's Message from the Past What’s in your jewelry box? The answer to that question says a lot about you, your personality, the life you’ve lived and possibly even the lives of your parents and grandparents. Whether it’s fine gold or diamond jewelry, the latest fashion jewelry, your grandmother’s pearls, a ring with birthstones for each of your children, the necklace received from your husband on a wedding anniversary or a combination of these things, the contents of your jewelry box communicates visual messages about you to others. As an avid collector and seller of vintage jewelry, researching the items I collect is part of the process and often provides education regarding various periods in history. When researching a specific item of jewelry; the style, when it was made, and of what material, it also gives me impressions about the life of the person who wore the item being researched. Over several years, I’ve learned that jewelry has played an important economic, societal and emotional role in human lives throughout history. Jewelry is a wearable art form that can communicate emotion and information to others, even after the wearer is gone. A news article written by Kate Ravilious for National Geographic News online entitled Oldest Jewelry Found in Morocco Cave, described a cache of 82,000 year-old shells found by a team of archaeologists...
Words: 2359 - Pages: 10
...The Life and Music of the original Angry Young Man On May 8th 1956, Look Back in Anger opened at the Royal Court Theatre as the third production of the newly formed English Stage Company. It was viewed as a play that would provide a euphoric blow to the customary and old English theatre. The changes in popular culture between 1950 and 1960 in Britain have been called a “cultural revolution”. Whatever was revolutionary about this era must have some bearing on both the genesis and reception of the ground-breaking play Look Back in Anger, by John Osborne. Appearing in the middle of the decade Osborne's drama initiated the cultural moment of the Angry Young Man. Precisely which young men were angry at this time and why are questions that lead back to this concept of the Cultural Revolution. Understanding Osborne's Jimmy Porter, the original Angry Young Man can take the researcher away from literary culture and deep into British popular culture. The cultural revolution of the 50s can be constituted with permissiveness, cosmopolitanism, new class attitudes and youth, each of which is manifested by distinctive artefacts such as cinema, popular music, the daily papers and other texts that surrounded the ordinary person on an ordinary working day. These four areas encompass the change in social attitudes and behaviour between the end of post-war austerity and the onset of world recession in the 1970s. By the end of this time, British society dressed differently, ate differently...
Words: 1474 - Pages: 6
...When I Grow Up: An Analytical Study of the Interpretations of Children on Pop Culture Elements found in Selected TV Commercials “TV takes our children across the globe before parents give them permission to cross the streets.” - Joshua Meyrowitz BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY Advertising is a form of mass communication strategy created to promote the purchase of a certain product, message, or service in the market. It carries the messages that come to you from the people who pay for the media (Biagi, 2001, p. 227). It is also an act of popularizing something through mass media to attract the attention of the consumers, audiences, or mainly the public for higher sales and marketability. Tracing through the history, evidences of advertising is said to have started thousands of years before when people started trading things for survival. Thus, the rise of technology, industrialization, and capitalism triggered the success of advertising in the heightening state of competition worldwide and in every aspect; from commodities, to people and politics. The industrial revolution, according to some historians, is the root of commercial advertising (Campbell, 2002, p. 387). Because of the continuous occurrence of new products in the market and there is a need to sell them off instantly, businessmen tried the concept of large scale advertising to sell more. Over the time, manufacturers realized that if their products were distinctive and became associated with quality, customers...
Words: 4957 - Pages: 20
...WHAT SIGNS OF MOD CULTURE ILLUSTRATE A DOMINANCE OF MASCULINE AND EUROPEAN INFLUENCE SEEN THROUGH THE CREATIVE MEDIUMS OF PHOTOGRAPHY, MUSIC AND FASHION? Danny Lowe A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of the degree BA (Hons) Fashion Photography London College of Fashion University of the Arts London Date: 15th April 2012 i Declaration I, Danny Lowe, certify that this is an original piece of work. I have acknowledged all sources and citation. No section of this literature review has been plagiarised. Signed: ….......................................................................................................................... ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract List of Illustrations Introduction Methodology Literature Review Chapter 1: Chapter 2: Chapter 3: Historical and Cultural Contexts – Defining the 'Mod' and Youth Cultures in Post WWII Britain Americanisation – Music, Motives and Movement The Signs of Style iv v vi ix xi xi xvii xxi xxii xxiv xxvi xxviii xxix xxxii Interpretative Analysis Photography: Music: Fashion Conclusion Bibliography Appendix iii Abstract The purpose of this research study is to identify the signs of masculinity and European influence that dominated aspects of 'Modernist', or Mod, culture and lifestyle. The Mod is a British subculture which developed in the 1960's. The first stage of this study involves introducing the subcultural theories attributed to the Mod...
Words: 8441 - Pages: 34
