The Beatles and the Birth of Youth Culture in Great Britain

2016; Éditions Mélanie Seteun; Volume: 122; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

ISSN

2117-4148

Autores

Sarah Pickard,

Tópico(s)

Theater, Performance, and Music History

Resumo

The teenager emerged as a new phenomenon in Britain in the 1950s due to specific contextual factors. John Lennon formed the skiffle band The Quarry Men in 1956 and it would evolve into the Beatles at the start of the 1960s. By the time Ringo Starr joined the group in 1962, the children born during the post-war baby boom—“the bulge”—were a burgeoning and highly visible demographic entity with money and time to spend on leisure and youth culture. The Beatles first records left behind skiffle and rock‘n’roll in favour of very commercial pop songs aimed at the teenage market. This article explores the Beatles with regard to the group’s links to the birth of the teenager and youth culture in post-war England. It examines primarily the sociological place of the Beatles in English society, in order to ascertain to what extent the group were instigators or followers of English youth culture.

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