Lesson video

- ♪ People try to put us d-down ♪ ♪ Talkin' 'about my generation ♪ ♪ Just because we get around ♪ ♪ Talkin' 'about my generation ♪ ♪ Things they do look awful c-c-cold ♪ ♪ Talkin' 'about my generation ♪ ♪ I hope I die before I get old ♪ ♪ Talkin' 'about my generation ♪ ♪ This is my generation ♪ ♪ This is my generation, baby ♪ Hi everyone.

Welcome back to our series of lessons on the Swinging Sixties.

This is lesson two in this unit, and my name is Mr. Wallace.

Now in the first lesson, we began to examine what we really mean by the Swinging Sixties.

And one of the things that came up was it was all about youth and young people.

Which makes the piece of music you just heard quite relevant.

This new generation, this generation of baby boomers, who were becoming teenagers and young adults in the Sixties helped shape this decade, especially it's music, it's art and the youth culture that was growing at this time.

And today's lesson's going to focus on that.

And the song you just heard is going to be relevant later on.

Now, before we get started, the usual checks want to make sure that you have a pen, a something to write on and distraction-free environment.

So if you've removed anything, that's going to go off phones, et cetera.

If you got somewhere peaceful to work, that's great.

If you're ready to start let's go.

All right, let's go.

Now this picture we looked at last lesson.

I just wanted to bring it back to remind you of some of the things we discussed.

As we looked at the stereotype of the Swinging Sixties.

You have youthful people.

You have this bright, fashionable bold clothing, which was breaking with traditions and so on.

Now, with these things in your mind, I want you to quickly start today's lesson by going through these statements and identifying which ones are true and which ones are false.

So I'd like you to pause the video at this point.

You can see if I move myself here, there's a nice little pause sign.

Pause the video at this point and write down which ones are true and which ones are false.

So it's just A, B, C, D, E and then T and F.

So pause, which ones are true? Which ones are false? Let's go.

All right.

Got it done? Let's see how you did.

So London was called the Swinging City.

Absolutely right, called that by Time Magazine.

England won the world cup in 1964.

Not true.

We'll get to that in a second.

New fashion became popular thanks to designers like Mary Quant.

Very well remembered.

That's good.

The young generation was known as Generation X.

Now there is a generation X, but that's not from this times.

We'll talk about that in a minute.

And Mary Quant was well known for creating stiletto heels for women.

Not true, she created something though.

So if you've got those ones right, give yourself a tick for the ones you've got right.

For those that were false though, second task, I would like you to correct them.

So write those sentences out with what they should be.

So England didn't win the world cup in 1964.

When did they win the world cup? The young generation was known as what? And what did Mary Quant create? Pause the video here.

This play sign is still here.

So let's cover that up.

Pause the video here and then we'll see what the answers are.

Let's go.

Right, let's find out then.

So did you get the right details? England won the world cup in 1966.

One of the most famous dates in our sporting history.

The young generation was known as Baby Boomers, not generation X.

Generation X was the generation that followed this.

Baby boomers were the ones who became teenagers and young adults at this time.

And Mary Quant was well known for creating the mini-skirt.

Now, this stereotype of the Swinging Sixties is what's in most people's heads, but it's not just fashion.

It's not just sport.

Of course, one of the most memorable things of this decade is the music.

So last lesson I showed you this slide.

You've got three of the most famous bands and a couple of them.

The Rolling Stones, I don't focus on so much.

But their music is brilliant and you should listen to it.

But the Beatles and The Who, we're going to look at it a little bit more today, especially the Beatles.

If you were to ask most people, "Tell me something about the Sixties?" Nine times out of 10, they're going to start talking about the Beatles.

May not be the first thing, but I'll be one of the first things.

The Beatles are so iconic, so famous.

They're still regarded as probably the best band of all time.

They are easily the most influential band of all time.

And so many other musicians look to them and are inspired by them.

So the Beatles you can see here, these four gentlemen at the front here.

The Beatles, weren't the first band to create Rock and Roll music.

Rock and Roll music was American.

And these were four guys from Liverpool.

But through various reasons, the fact that they had a nice sharp image with their suits and ties at least to begin with.

They had the support of the BBC and the media and television they were able to reach a wider audience.

Their music became incredibly popular in the early sixties to the point that the phenomenon that followed them became known as "Beatlemania." This is an example of them at an airport.

They're about to climb these stairs, which you can see behind them to get onto a plane and fly.

And they would be greeted by thousands.

And I mean, thousands of screaming fans, people that were desperate just to get any sign of them.

They were especially popular in America and big on TV, playing at these sold out concerts in baseball stadiums, and football stadiums. They were able to reach a huge audience.

And over time as society began to change, so did the Beatles.

And I want to show you an example of this.

So this is a picture from the Beatles in about 1963, 64.

And this is a picture from 1967.

Now you can see from this picture, they're wearing much brighter, bolder clothes.

Here, much more straightforward suits and ties.

But now this looks like the picture I showed you last lesson of those young people wearing those really bright clothes that were inspired by another culture.

This isn't the sort of thing you'd usually see in Britain.

Now, just going to remove myself from the screen here.

What I want you to do is listen to a couple of examples of their music and see exactly how they changed.

This first one is called, "Love Me Do" it's one of their first ever of singles released in 1962.

I want you to just listen to this and then we'll compare it to a song they released four years later.

Let's go.

♪ Love, love me do ♪ ♪ You know I love you ♪ ♪ I'll always be true ♪ ♪ So please, love me do ♪ ♪ Whoa, love me do ♪ So listening to that, that's very common kind of late Fifties, early Sixties Rock and Roll music inspired by America.

But with a bit of a British twist to it.

Now, this next piece of music is just four years later, 1966.

Take a listen to this one.

♪ Turn off your mind relax and float down stream ♪ ♪ It is not dying ♪ ♪ It is not dying ♪ ♪ Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void ♪ Now, can't you tell a difference.

Their sound in just four years had changed so much influenced by all sorts of other things.

You can see different ways of using their instruments, different instruments entirely.

Their sound had changed.

Now think back to the quote that I gave you last lesson from Mary Quant, she said, "Fashion reflects what is in the air." Music was the same, The Beatles didn't just change their style.

And then everybody changed to like it.

People were changing.

People were experimenting and being more familiar with foreign cultures and open minded and inspired by different things.

They were breaking with traditions.

And as they did, so did the Beatles.

They reflected some of those changes that were happening in music.

Other areas that music influenced is what we would call subcultures.

Now, subculture is a little part of society where people have say their own identity.

Because they don't feel like they're part of society as a whole.

They have their own maybe way of dressing.

As you can see here, they might have their own musical tastes, their own types of dance, et cetera.

There were sorts of subcultures that were developing in the 1960s and they were linked to music as well.

And the two most famous are the two you can see on the screen.

And they're known as Mods and Rockers.

Now Mods short for modernists.

They're the ones on the left.

They were riding these Italian scooters.

They were dressing in sharp suits.

They were listening to bands like The Who, who you heard at the start of the lesson with their song "My Generation." Rockers, on the other hand, they tended to be bikers, motorcycle groups.

They had leather jackets rather than suit.

They listened to American Rock and Roll and I've put up Mods versus Rockers.

It's not just Mods and Rockers.

These two groups saw themselves almost as enemies.

And there were in 1964 a series of really violent clashes between these two groups in seaside towns such as Brighton.

And it's these kind of subcultures that some of the older generations who saw what was happening thought "Oh you mean the young people of today, they're getting out of control.

They've got no morals, they've got no standards." And again, it shows that gap between the older generations and this youth culture.

Now not all young people belonged to groups like this, but they were very influential.

They helped, kind of change some of the attitudes towards music and towards clothing and so on.

They influenced a lot of people.

And it's not just music that was influenced by a kind of new tastes and breaking with tradition.

It's art as well.

Now this is an example of the type of painting, which was common before the 1960s.

Of course, you'll know from your art lessons, that there's all sorts of types of art.

I've only showed you one example here, what we call Realist Paintings.

There's all sorts of other types.

So I don't want you to think that this is the only type of art that they had.

But it's a good example of the type of art that was common.

Realist paintings as you can kind of sense from the name, they are attempting to depict things in a very real sense that they are credibly detailed.

They are trying to show a real part of the human condition.

Now, this is the type of art you would have had between World War I and World War II.

That began to change in the Sixties.

And two forms of art in particular became really common.

The first one is Pop Art short for popular.

And it was all inspired by things in popular culture.

So here's a couple of examples here.

Now, there's you can see there's link to music straight away.

This is the front of a Beatles album called "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," which you can see here.

It is regularly regarded as the greatest album of all time.

And the type of art here is pop art.

And one of the features of some pop art is the way that it's kind of like a collage style.

So you can see these cutouts from magazines and newspapers, especially things that are American influenced.

Pop art was heavily influenced by American culture.

And collage was one part of that.

Another part of it was images like this, which are very bold, very colourful.

Quite different to what you can see here.

It's very much more simple.

This particular painting was done by probably the most famous pop artist of the time.

A man called David Hockney who remains one of the most important and influential artists this country has ever produced.

And his paintings still sell for millions of pounds.

Now this particular painting was inspired by his time in America.

And both of these pieces of art here are good examples of the way American culture inspired art.

Now not everyone likes this type of art.

Some people thought it was not traditional enough that it was kind of breaking away with the traditional sort of art that they were used to.

Some people didn't like the way that America was influencing British culture.

And some people thought it was a bit disposable.

It's not meant to last people will like it and then they'll move on to something else.

Unlike pieces of art, which will stand the test of time.

So it's not that everybody liked it.

But it influenced a lot of art and design.

A lot of young people liked it.

A lot of young people bought pop art to have in their homes in their living rooms. And it has remained a very important influential style of art, which, I mean, you may well have studied in your own art lessons.

Now, another example of art sounds the same Op Art.

Not pop up short for popular Op short for optical.

So it's all about what you can see.

If you remember last lesson, I showed you a piece of fashion dress, which had this black and white pattern on it.

A lot of these dresses were inspired by op art.

And op art, optical art was all about using simple geometric shapes.

So shapes you'd find in geometry triangle, squares, lines, straight lines to create images which look three dimensional, but are in fact obviously flat.

And you can see here the way that this is designed is almost like these pieces are sticking out of the screen.

And the most famous op artist of the time was a woman called Bridget Riley and these designs inspired fashion.

They inspired furniture, sofas and curtains.

These things would have an op art design.

So the world of art, as well as the world of music, as well as the world of fashion was breaking away from the past and driven by young people, wanting to experiment or wanting to try new things.

They were pushing themselves in new directions and coming up with something new.

Now at this point I want you to pause the video in a moment and answer these questions.

You can see these go over some of the topics we've just been talking about, such as the Beatles and an art from Hockney and Riley.

When you've done that I want you to come back to this video and we'll go through some answers.

Remember we have acceptable answer and a good answer.

Let's see if we can make all of our answers close to the good answer.

So detail, full sentences.

And when you're done, we'll come back and check through them.

All right, let's go.

Perfect, right.

Welcome back.

If you're here, then I'm assuming you've done those questions.

So let's have a look through the answers.

What technology helped make the Beatles more well known? The answer here is radio and TV.

But let's put that into a full sentence.

So it's closer to our good answer.

Don't worry if yours isn't exactly the same.

It doesn't need to be word for word, but if you've got the rough idea here, that's great.

The Beatles became better known as a result of radio and TV, which beamed them into millions of houses.

So the Beatles, especially in America by appearing on certain TV shows.

And especially in Britain because of the BBC, they were able to reach more people because more people had TVs.

How did the Beatles change over time? The acceptable answer here is, they began to release more experimental songs.

But let's add a bit of depth.

Over time the Beatles released more experimental songs that had influences from around the world, such as India.

This reflected a willingness to try new things, which went against traditions, which was common amongst many young people at the time.

We heard that with the songs we listened to earlier on it's trying new things and it didn't change society.

It was being shaped by society.

Society was changing.

Young people were trying new things and then music reflected that.

Which two subcultures were especially well known in the Sixties? Our answer here, Mods and Rockers.

A good answer, a detailed answer would say something like, two sub cultures that were especially well-known we're Mods and Rockers.

Mods, short for modernists, liked all things modern, such as Italian scooters, while rockers were well known for their leather clothes and motorcycles.

They also had different music tastes.

They saw each other as rivals.

So don't just say the two names, but give me a little bit of depth to who they are.

Why did older generations fear that young people had low moral standards? An acceptable answer here is, because of violent clashes between the mods and rockers.

But let's add some depth, some older generations, so not all.

Some older generations thought.

See, this is where you can see our errors thought should have a t there.

Some older generations thought that the violent clashes between mods and rockers were evidence that young people had lower moral standards.

However, only a small number of people were actually involved.

This is what I said earlier.

Not everyone was in the mods and rockers, they were influential, but it's not like everyone was part of it.

So when some of them started fighting with each other, it would be a bit of a misunderstanding to think all young people were behaving in that way.

Number five, what types of art did David Hockney and Bridget Riley produce? David Hockney made Pop Art while Bridget Riley made Op Art.

Important not to mix those two up.

But let's have a little bit of depth about what they are.

A good answer would say something like David Hockney was well known for Pop Art.

This type of art was bright and bold and often inspired by things like brands or comic images, and was very modern.

Bridget Riley was well known for Op Art, which is short for optical.

These images used simple shapes and colours, often just black and white to create images that looked 3D.

Op Art also inspired other things such as fashion.

And lastly, why was American culture important in much of the new music and art during the Sixties? So I've just given you one answer here.

There's no kind of simple answer and better answer.

And the bits that I've bolded in pink, it's where we're using those phrases to kind of develop our point.

To add in evidence.

Examples that you can see.

American culture was important in much of the new music and art because it inspired and influenced many people.

A good example of this is The Beatles.

Rock and Roll music was developed in America, but the Beatles became world famous playing this type of music and then adapting it and changing it so it suited them.

Another example is Pop Art, which was often inspired by American brands like Coca Cola, or in the work David Hockney.

He regularly painted scenes from American life which were very popular.

So in two different areas, we can see the influence of American culture, which I would argue has continued ever since.

Now, from all of this, what's the story of the Sixties that I've told you so far? We've been setting up a stereotype here.

This is the traditional view of the Sixties.

What do most people think about, when they think about the Sixties? What is the story? So, on the screen you can see a series of words.

I want you to look through this and pause the video in a moment.

And I want you to choose three of these words that you think fit the story of the Sixties that we have studied so far, the Swinging Sixties.

Now if you want to come up with three of your own words, that's great.

You can put your own words, just explain why you've chosen them.

Here if you choose one of these words, just write it down and write why.

So if you choose one of them what's made you choose that? Pause the video here and let's see what you come up with.

So you should at this point have chosen three words or you've written three of your own.

So here's the three that I think stand out.

Now, you might have different ones to me, it's fine.

As long as you've explained them and linked them to the work we've done in these two lessons.

So I've gone for youth, modern and cool.

Now I think these are the ones that sum up the Swinging Sixties.

Youth, we keep on talking about how young people are driving it.

Modern because they were trying to break away from tradition and trying to experiment with new things and cool that idea of the Swinging Sixties in Time Magazine.

But you could also argue that influential, successful or international, were also some of the Sixties.

International, those links with America and other cultures.

Successful because it's influenced us and influential as well, because it influenced us for decades.

Now you may have chosen some of your own words.

That's absolutely fine.

But what I'm trying to get at here is, this is the kind of stereotypical view.

And this is one story of the Sixties, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's the only story of the Sixties.

And in our next few less lessons, that's where we're going to take the direction.

Is this an accurate, fair view of what the Sixties were? Or are there other stories to be told? Which the stereotype leaves out.

Now before we finish, I want to quickly check that we know what we're talking about here.

So you've got here three groups, Rockers, Beatlemania and Mods.

I want you to match the definition to which group.

so you got A, B, C and one, two and three, pause the video here and write A, B, C on your paper.

And whichever definition you think is rockers, put A and then one or two or three and then B and then C.

So you can pair them up.

So I'll just read through the definitions to make sure you understand them.

Number one, a subculture of people interested in things modern, including Italian scooters and sharp suits.

Two a more working class group that liked motorcycles, biker gear, and American Rock and Roll music.

Three, the phenomenon that followed the Beatles due to their manic excitable fans.

Pause the video match the group to the definition.

All right, let's check to make sure you've got them right.

Rockers, a more working class group that liked motorcycles.

Beatlemania, the phenomenon that followed the Beatles.

And Mods the subculture of people interested in modern things.

I'm sure you've got them absolutely right.

Well done.

These are three really important ways that we think about young people in the Sixties.

Next one last thing match the features to the art type.

So you've got Pop Art and Op Art.

Each of these links to one of these things here.

So again, I just want you to write down which ones are Pop Art, which ones are Op Art.

So pause the video here and we'll come back in a second.

All right, let's check that we've got the right things then.

Pop Art we're talking about things that include collage, bold colours and the work of David Hockney.

Op Art, optical art, see optical, geometric shapes and often black and white.

The work of Bridget Riley.

Well done.

This is really, great stuff.

You're knowing quite a lot, even in our first two lessons, you're building up a really good understanding of what the traditional story of the Sixties is.

So what we need to focus on then is, is our story of the Sixties fair and accurate? What other stories can be told? So we've talked about music.

We've talked about art.

We've talked about fashion.

We've talked about young people.

Now, if you only knew that, your view of the Sixties would be what a lot of people think about the Sixties.

But we want to do better than a lot of the people.

We want to be accurate and fair.

So next lesson, we're going to start going beyond the stereotype.

What were the other experiences of the Sixties? And do they really fit into this swinging point of view? Now I'll bring myself back.

Just want to say well done for today's lesson.

You've done excellently well.

Way to keep focusing, keep trying to talk to people who've experienced the Sixties.

Keep listening to Sixties music so it helps you kind of get a feeling of what that culture is all about.

And I'll see you in our next lesson.

Have a great day.