Pop culture

 

         The term “Pop” has passed to be part of the common life. It is applied to everything, from music to hairdo styles, from fashion up to design, form cinema to advertising, since they all owe very much to Pop Art.

         This term was born in the fifties to designate the popular culture in this decade, inspired by the contemporary life aspects: advertising, comics and television. Designers looked for a juvenile base, less serious than the fifties good design. The attitude “use it today, throw it tomorrow” impregnated the industrial production in the sixties. Many artist who used Pop language chose plastic as material of work. Products had to be reduction sales and, often, of few quality. The brilliant colours of the rainbow and the forms associated with Pop design swept the post-war austere style, and reflected this sixties optimism, with an economic prosperity and a sexual liberation with no precedents.

        

         London reigns in the swinging sixties and dictates trends in all the areas, from beauty up to fashion. The Chelsea Girls’ style is imposed: teenager silhouette, miniskirt, long legs and long hair with fringe and eyes with lots of make up. The miniskirt appeared in the sixties, when fashion started being in hands of the youngest generation. The “mini” word comes from “minimum”, that indicates the skirts that show the thighs. With the respectable support of the Hot Couture, the miniskirt was accepted by the society. The women already wore trousers informally, but it is now when its use become habitual.

         In the United Kingdom, Pop Art started in the discussions that there were supporting Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi and the critics Lawrence Alloway and Reyner Banham, form 1952, in the Institute of Contemporary Art of London (ICA). These discussions were centring on the impact that the modern technology and the mass media in the society. Among other things, in these discussions they dismounted the pyramid of categorizations in which the Fine arts were the top compared to the cinema, to the popular arts and the graphical arts.

         Richard Hamilton is considered to be the artist that there created the first work of the Art Pop, the collage, Just what is it that makes today’s home so different, so appealing? That was exposed in the qualified exhibition This is tomorrow in the Whitechapel gallery of London in 1956. Halminton’s art takes its sources of the industries of the consumption and of the leisure, of the advertising and also of the Art History.

         In 1961 British pop was appearing the art to the public inan exhibition that was assembling works of David Hockney, ,Dereck Boshier, Allen Jones, R.B. Kitaj and Peter Phillips. Kitaj and Halminton’s art is an habitual pop, almost hermetically in a sense that is not that of the habitual pop. Another great artist Pop of the English scene is David Hockney, who combines photography, abstract pictures and diverse types of graphical material. With Allen Jones, they form the second generation of the British Pop.

 

         Pop music is a genre of popular music distinguished from classical or art music and from folk music. The term indicates specific stylist traits such as a danceable beat, simple melodies, and repetitive structure so that people can catch on and join in easily. To further expand its accessibility pop music often includes elements of rock, hip hop, reggae, dance, R&B, funk, and sometimes even folk. The pop music genre often involves mass marketing and consumer – driven efforts by mayor record companies, which makes it an often scorned genre by other musicians.

The Beatles were an English pop-rock band from Liverpool whose members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Georege Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed popular music band in history, and their innovative music and cultural impact helped define the 1960s. Their music is considered one of the defining factors in all of popular culture, and they are widely acclaimed as not only the greatest musical act of the 20th century, but one of the greatest entertainment groups in all of history.

         The Beatles are the best-selling musical act of all time. In the United Kingdom, they released more than 40 different singles and albums that reached number one. This commercial success was repeated in many other countries: their record company, EMI, estimated that by 1985 they had sold over one billion discs and tapes worldwide. The recording Industry Association of America certified the Beatles as the highest selling band of all time based in American sales of singles and albums. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked the Beatles number one on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

         The Beatles led the mid-1960s musical “British Invasion” into the United States. Although their initial musical style was rooted in 1950s rock and rollo, the group explored genres ranging from Tin Pan Alley to psychedelic rock. Their clothes, styles, and statements made them trend-setters, while their growing social awareness saw their influence extend into the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s.

 

http://www.ammonitepress.com/50-years-british-pop.html

http://www.learnenglish.de/culture/britishmusic.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_the_United_Kingdom

http://www.thebeatles.com/