Music Is Music For The Sake Of Music

In the early 60s, Britain was known in America for essentially the Queen and tea. However, that all changed in February of 1964 when the Beatles touched down on American soil for the first time. Their first hop across the pond was no ordinary endeavor, as most British boy bands or performers had a hard time making it in the states. However, their venture to visit The Ed Sullivan Show ultimately changed America’s future. From that point forward, Americans began on their journey to find hope and expression through the Beatles’ music and their influence. In present day America, it is hard to imagine a day that passes by without the media mentioning the British Royal Family, the famous British supermodel, Cara Delavigne, or the British pop band, One Direction. However, most of these British obsessions wouldn’t be as prevalent in America today if it weren’t for the Beatles appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show or the pop culture phenomenon that ensued thereafter. If one thing is for certain, the Beatles invasion into the U.S. masked ambivalent socioeconomic affairs in the early ‘60s and accelerated the change in American pop culture.

On February 9, 1964, Over 45% of America (roughly 73 million people) watched the Beatles’ debut US performance on the Ed Sullivan show. By the next morning, they had become the next big thing in America. Celebrities and schoolchildren alike were wearing Beatles wigs so that they could imitate their new favorite musical act. They had brought a cheeky sense of humor, long recognizable hair, and a new upbeat pop sound that appealed to the general public. By April 6, they owned the top five hits on the billboard hot 100 list. At one point, the Beatles sang 14 of the Billboard top 100 songs in the country. On the Billboard top selling albums list, they owned the top two albums on the billboard charts at the same time. They won two Grammy’s for 1964: one for best new artist and one for best group performance. They toured in Britain, Australia, and a blockbuster North American tour. Women wanted them and men wanted to be like them. Their fame was completely unrivaled. And that was their success simply in the sphere of music. (Kaplan, 2004).

Choosing a topic for this essay was very difficult because deciding on one musical group that changed history seemed impossible until I remembered the most influential band, The Beatles. The Beatles first formed in 1960 in a school in Quarry Banks. The founding members of the band where John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison. They recruited a fifth member who would later become their manager.

When the Beatles released their album “With the Beatles” on November 22, 1963, nobody could have really realized the unquestionable impact that they would have on people, the music business, and how people thought in general. Still shocked and in mourning from John F. Kennedy being shot, American’s needed an outlet for their sadness, and it seems that the Beatles were the answer to the unthinkable times happening in America. Throughout the 60’s, the Beatles grew and changed just as American’s were during this time, and if we think about it, we really don’t know if American’s were changing because of the Beatles or of the Beatles were changing because of America. Whether the answer is one or the other, it is still certain that the Beatles, whether

Tammy Trinh 861174168 Professor Rohr Themes and Personality in History 030 (004) 7 February 2015 Title Like a ticking bomb, the 1960s was an explosion of revolutionary reforms and movements. The decades preceding the 1960s were ones of repression and complacency, and these paved the way for the second-wave of feminism and the women’s liberation movement. This second wave of feminism focused on issues such as: roles in the family, equal wages in the workplace, reproductive rights, etc. There were many factors that set precedent for the women’s equality movement and beckoned for the American women to take action.

In the year 1964 was the first time The Beatles made the trip to America; crowds gathered from all over the country to be able and witness one of the greatest bands of all time. The Beatles “are the most popular, critically respected, and influential band to ever enter the recording studio” (Jenkins 1). The Beatles left the biggest impact on the music industry by redefining the pop culture of the world and took America by

The Beatles started as an English skiffle group in the late 1950s. By the time they reached their peak popularity, the term “Beatlemania” was coined to explain the frenzied obsession with the group. A former associate editor from Rolling Stone drew a comparison between the Beatles and Picasso, calling them “artists that broke through their time period to come up with something that was unique and original.” Throughout their discography, the Beatles have time and time again released music that both broke musical trends and engrossed the masses. They have held an “unprecedented top five spots on the

During this time, the Beatles music started gaining fame in Britain and then moving to the United States where they changed modern history and music. The Beatles showed the U.S. how style could have the impact of a cultural revelation. They embodied how America was changing drastically. Even Bob Dylan understood their greatness as he once said to his biographer Anthony Scaduto, "They were doing things nobody else was doing, But I just kept it to myself that I really dug them.

Due to the constant growth of the Beatles’ popularity, teenagers around the world started to imitate. In some countries, such as the Soviet Union, people believed “mimicking the Beatles’ hairstyle 1was highly rebellious (Vulliamy),” people with the Beatles’ hairstyle were even arrested to get their hair cut the way it pleased the adults (Vulliamy). Not only did young adults imitate their hairstyle, but also the internalized ideologies of the band presented through music. Once the Beatles noticed the power they had over their fans, they caused more controversy, taking aim at capitalism, equality, racism, religion, women’s rights, and war (Sandler 96). They were so controversial that Elvis Presley said that the Beatles were “kind of anti-American

To understand why music is a product of human intention and perception, we start by defining or understanding the nature of music. Music is defined as the sounds or combination of vocals and instruments in a way that it produces a form of beauty, expression, or harmony of emotions. Arguably, people compose or make music through many ways (Resnicow, Joel E., 20-29). While some people might compose music without incorporating instruments, others use instruments to produce beats that match with their sounds. However, to argue that the

     Rock ‘n’ roll music came of age in the sixties which was a period in the nation’s history when a young generation expressed their anguish and sense of alienation to the country’s social establishments by searching for new answers to the age-old questions concerning the meaning of life, the value of the individual, and the nature of truth and spirituality (Harris 306). The classic rock music which was created during this period gave form and substance to this search. Songs such as “My Generation” by the Who recorded the keen sense of alienation that young people felt from the past and the “Establishment” and it also showed the keen sense of community they felt among themselves.      Classic albums such as the Beatles’ “White Album,” the Who’s “Who’s Next,” Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited, and Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” capture what was essential about the time because they were both a result of that time and because they helped to produce it by reinforcing the younger generation’s feelings of alienation and separation.      Although

As someone who grew up in Europe and came to America with my family in 2004, my introduction to new American popular music was not as organic as it was to actual Americans. What I was exposed to came from movies and TV shows that made their way over and eventually what I was able to gather as the Internet became more widespread. My parents were introduced in the same way, mostly by TV and movies but the chronology was often confusing. There was no sense that the Beatles came after Elvis and what events these songs could be linked to. They simply existed as fun

Believe it or not, on January 1st of 1962, the group known as The Beatles flunked their audition at Decca Records in London, England. The label’s executive, Dick Rowe, brushed them off like they were nothing. He simply stated that “guitar groups are on the way out.” Little did Rowe know, The Beatles would soon conquer modern society and alter the course of pop and rock music. There have been no other entertainers in the history of music that has been so popular, influential, or as groundbreaking as The Beatles. In the early 1960’s, their popularity was often called “Beatlemania,” as thousands of screaming fans would crowd their concerts and sing-along with the Fab Four. They sold over 600 million albums internationally and had 20 Number One hit singles – a Billboard record that has yet to be broken. The band took over the entertainment media with music videos and films, but also influenced sociocultural, political, and fashion movements throughout the sixties and seventies. From experimenting with several different genres to incorporating classical elements into their melodies, The Beatles still reigns as one of the most creative and successful bands several decades later. Today, fifty years later, The Beatles and their music are still engraved in the hearts of many.

Art and music are such an integral part of our everyday lives. Understanding the basic elements of each is essential to interpreting their meaning. Listening to music stimulates every part of the brain and alters our chemical composition and mental state. Art is a tangible reminder of civilizations from the past; it shows us a glimpse of a culture and lifestyle different from our own. Art and music are designed not to simply entertain, but rather to educate and inspire us.

Music itself is considered as a language. Music and language are related in many ways. Because music stimulates our sense of hearing, it is clear that music can, and inevitably does, convey information. I consider that music is, by its very nature, has the power to express everything, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc. Although it can be said that music usually tends to express something, this is only an illusion, and not a reality. It is precisely this, which produces in us a unique emotion which has nothing in common with our ordinary sensations and our responses to the impressions of daily life. Music expresses, at different moments, serenity or liveliness, regret or triumph, fury or delight. It expresses each of these moods, and many others, in a numberless variety of differences. It may even express a state of meaning for which there exists no adequate word in any language. In that case, musicians often like to say that it has only a purely musical meaning. They sometimes go farther and say that all music has only a purely musical meaning. My own belief is that all music has an expressive power, some more and some less, but that all music has a certain