MadAdMen
With 1963 comes the end of rock’n’roll and the beginnings of “rock.” Of course, in 1963 John Kennedy was assassinated, and his vice president Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president. Soon LBJ escalated the United States’ involvement in Viet Nam and declared war on poverty as part of his Great Society program, a systematic widening of the government’s powers that required higher taxes and spurred ruinous inflation. Meanwhile, the televised police beatings of members of Martin Luther King’s nonviolent Civil Rights movement made it plain to many people that the powers that be were not necessarily interested in protecting people’s human and constitutional rights. Thus it wasn’t long before the youth of America was finding itself deeply questioning its country’s leaders. A large part of the innocence went out of pop music. And then came the British…. The Beatles were merely the most visible of the many British music acts that found success in America in the mid-60’s. Many people count the Fab Four’s landing at La Guardia airport on February 7, 1964, and their performance on the Ed Sullivan Show a week later, as the official beginning of what came to be called the “British Invasion.” The Beatles were hugely popular; at one point they had the top five records on the Billboard Hot 100 list.

With 1963 comes the end of rock’n’roll and the beginnings of “rock.” Of course, in 1963 John Kennedy was assassinated, and his vice president Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president. Soon LBJ escalated the United States’ involvement in Viet Nam and declared war on poverty as part of his Great Society program, a systematic widening of the government’s powers that required higher taxes and spurred ruinous inflation. Meanwhile, the televised police beatings of members of Martin Luther King’s nonviolent Civil Rights movement made it plain to many people that the powers that be were not necessarily interested in protecting people’s human and constitutional rights. Thus it wasn’t long before the youth of America was finding itself deeply questioning its country’s leaders. A large part of the innocence went out of pop music. And then came the British…. The Beatles were merely the most visible of the many British music acts that found success in America in the mid-60’s. Many people count the Fab Four’s landing at La Guardia airport on February 7, 1964, and their performance on the Ed Sullivan Show a week later, as the official beginning of what came to be called the “British Invasion.” The Beatles were hugely popular; at one point they had the top five records on the Billboard Hot 100 list.

10/29/11 at 8:48am
Theme: Cavalcade