1960s Music Analysis

UK rock 1960s: The Beatles from Merseybeat onwards.

The essay will describe the key musical and stylistic features of the Rock genre during the 1960s with the ‘Merseybeat’ genre as the foundation of 60s rock. The essay will set out why the Beatles and the social phenomenon of the “British invasion” are crucial to development of the emergence and reception of Anglo-American Rock music during the 1960s.

By the early 1960s, new upcoming artists started combing various British and American pop and rock styles in places such as Liverpool. Liverpool in particular had a youth movement that created and popularised a genre called 'Merseybeat ' by 1962.

The Beat genre,

The Beatles first single “Love Me Do” released on 5th October 1962 became the first single and managed to hit the UK charts. The song peaked at No. 17 and arguable allowed a number of Liverpool performers able to follow them into the charts, including Gerry & The Pacemakers and The Searchers. Love me Do is in the musical key of G major with a Mixolydian modal inflection. The song has a common time signature in AABA form with partial reprise. The arrangement of the composition featured vocals, harmonica, acoustic rhythm guitar, tambourine, and drums. The use of a Harmonic as a lead instrument played by John Lennon is a prominent feature of the composition that creates melody against the open chords played on the acoustic guitar by George Harrison. John Lennon oddly plays the F natural as the first note of the opening motif on the harmonica, which adds an Mixolydian modal inflection. George Harrison plays the chords G major and C major before moving the chords to D major, C major and G major for the middle eight. The motifs and instrumental solo of the Harmonica played by John Lennon has a bluesy feel along with the Shuffle drum beat complimented with the Tambourine. The song was completely co-written by Paul McCartney and

“branded by music journalists and critics alike as a critical resurgence of British... or more specifically., ' English ', popular music that rekindled the spirit of the mid-1960s 'British ' invasion of the US by groups such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Who and the small faces. Indeed, a number of these groups, notably the Beatles, the Kinks and the Small faces were frequently cited as key influences by leading Britpop artists such as Blur and Oasis.” (Bennett & Stratton, 2010)

Characteristics of the British invasion influenced ‘Britpop’, a subgenre of rock and pop music that originated in the United Kingdom emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s that created a period of increased pride in the culture of the United Kingdom throughout most of the 1990s nicknamed ‘Cool Britannia’ For instance, the Union Jack once again became a prominent symbol of the movement for fashion, props and for other uses to brand the British origins of these artists. Noel Gallagher of the indie band Oasis would be commonly seen playing a Union Jack painted Epiphone Sheraton for live performances. (...There and