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The term popular culture was first invented in 19th century. The term refers to an accumulation of any cultural product such as art, music, fashion, film, dance, or even celebrities. For anything to be qualified to be a pop culture icon, the subject in question must be popular in a society at a given point in time. The birth of pop culture dates back to at least the Victorian era Britain where social changes took place, that increased literacy rates significantly in the United Kingdom. Following the changes, mass produced cheap popular serial literature known as Penny Dreadful1 was born. Thanks to industrialisation and the rise of capitalism people started spending more money on entertainment.
Pop culture became even more mainstream after the conclusion of the Second World War, and the beginning of the Industrial revolution. What was considered of the lower class began to rival, and overlap mass culture. Image culture became more important thanks to mass media innovations. Popular culture is known and accessible to most people. You can share a discussion about your favorite football teams with a new coworker or comment on the newest television series episodes when small talking in line at the grocery store. For instance, everyone would recognize, or at least have heard about the people on the pictures below:
Pop culture is constantly evolving in time, keeping up with the current of society. In the past, pop culture has seen many famous celebrity musicians such as The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson. There were legendary athletes like Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali. Iconic film franchises like Star Wars, Lord of the rings, and Godzilla revolutionized pop culture completely through mass media.
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With technological advancement, and cultural changes in society, pop culture has seen a significant change in itself as well. It doesn’t simply include celebrities, music, art etc. Topics which were seen as controversial at some point such as video games, anime, and manga have become very mainstream, and from them spawned new forms of entertainment, like streaming.
But there is just too much to say when it comes to pop culture. Each country and society has their own pop culture. So we will be focusing on music, specifically music from The United Kingdom.
British Music in the 50s-70s
American music influence
The Rock ‘n’ Roll genre became very popular with Elvis Presley’s arrival in the industry. Daring and controversial performances by Elvis Presley allowed him to become very popular among youth, thus allowing Rock and Roll genre to become a pop culture music. Because both the United Kingdom, and the United States of America share a common language, rock and roll quickly became very popular in the UK. With the growing influence of the rock and roll genre, the British began mimicking the style. But popular culture has to evolve over time, so rock and roll did too. From rock and roll several other genres derived, among them were ‘Beat music’ and ‘British blues’.
Beat music and the British invasion
In the late 50s, out of the declining Skiffle scene, many bands began to emerge from urban centre areas such as London, Manchester, and Liverpool. Liverpool particularly was considered the birthplace of Beat music. Because of its port, and trading with the USA, Liverpool could get easier access to music instruments and American music which could not be easily imported due to trade restrictions. Thanks to this advantage, and the American rock and roll influence in Liverpool, beat music was born. The arrival of the Beatles in the U.S. in 1964 marked the start of the British Invasion.
A beat music group would have its members specialized in certain areas, and were mainly dominated by guitarists. Among the beat music bands, the most popular one is, without a doubt, the Beatles. They were a global phenomenon topping the top 100 billboard chart on 20 different occasions. Their visit in the USA in 1964, created a cultural phenomenon known as the British invasion. Alongside the Beatles, were the Rolling Stones who were the top representatives of British blues.
The Beatles and their cultural impact
Their innovative style that combined classic elements with several music styles such as Indian music, pop ballads, to hard rock enabled them to stand out. They had such success in the USA that the Beatles had the top-selling US single one out of every six weeks, and the top-selling US album one out of every three weeks. At the height of their popularity, John Lennon of the Beatles stated “We are more popular than Jesus now”.
They had such a presence in the popular culture that psychiatrist R.D. Laing wrote “The times fitted the Beatles like a glove. Everyone was getting the feel of the world as a global village – as us, one species…One of the most heartening things about the Beatles was that they gave expression to a shared sense of celebration around the world, a sense of the same sensibility” regarding one of their songs All You Need Is Love. Their popularity among the populace was so strong that they could influence people on a geopolitical level.
British Blues
British blues is a form of music directly influenced by American blues, it first originated in the late 50s but became mainstream in pop culture in the 60s. Compared to traditional rock and roll, and its cousin Beat music, British blues has a style that is mainly dominated by electric guitar, and bass music. Just like beat music British blues became very popular across the globe, their lead figure, the Rolling stones was considered to be the second best band of the UK right after the Beatles.
The rolling stones were particularly successful in the late 60s. Teens born in the 50s who had grown up with its strict social conventions, were attracted to the blues because of its content that included sex and violence hidden behind metaphorical words.
Bands such as, Cream and Led Zeppelin, pushed the genre to its limits revolutionising music’s cultural and social influence on a global scale. The Blues also played a role in breaking the barrier between white and black people, thus greatly influencing pop culture.
