The multi-faceted world of Post-World War II America set the stage for Beat culture to take root. As the country recovered from the horrors of the war, the economy experienced a boom which put more disposable income in the hands of Americans, leading to a rise in consumer culture. Advertisements and popular culture emphasized the mass produced and the artificial as cornerstones of the average American household. This trend very closely mimicked the transformation of marketing and the fixation of novel goods that took shape back in the Gilded Age. Although plastic had been invented in the 19th century and was used extensively in the 1930s and 1940s, it wasn’t until after the war that it surged in the markets and entered the everyday home environment, alluring Americans with its convenience, affordability and supposed disposability. Popular and consumer culture intersected frequently and gave rise to crazes, often in the realms of beauty or entertainment. Music itself fell into the streams of the mass produced and the popular. In order to ensure producibility in the market, music producers followed a specific format, in turn getting airtime on thousands of radios across America.
Social and political struggles also characterized the country in the 1950s. In the year 1950, Senator Joe McCarthy launched a witch hunt at the beginning of the Red Scare, a nationwide hysteria that rose alongside the rise of Communism in Europe and Asia. Neighbors threw accusations against each other in a panic similar to that of Salem, often in an attempt to clear one’s own name. In the aftermath of World War II, the hidden anti-Semitic attitudes of many Americans rose to the surface. However, as these tensions declined, strife for African Americans climbed. For these individuals, a key moment in the 1950s came with the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, kick-started by the Brown vs. Board case of 1954 which made the segregation of public schools illegal. This movement continued into the ‘60s and ‘70s, and its effects are still felt to this day.
This 1952 newspaper article is the first printed use of the term "The Beat Generation," thus launching the term into the public consciousness
Culture and Music
.The Beat culture’s very nature as a counterculture drew on their skepticism towards American politics and popular culture, as they viewed conformity and conservatism as “spiritual toxins suffusing the postwar American dream” (Sterrit, xi). Although members of the culture did not unite under a collective cause (compared to the hippies of the next decade), they set in motion a range of social ideas that paved the way for the next generation. Beat poet Allen Ginsberg cites the following influences in his book, The Best Minds of My Generation: A Literary History of the Beats:
general liberation: Sexual ‘Revolution’ or ‘Liberation,’ Gay Liberation, Black Liberation, Women’s Liberation too;
liberation of the word from censorship;
decriminalization of some of the laws against marijuana and other drugs;
the evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll, and rock and roll into high art form, as evidenced by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and other popular musicians who were influenced in the 1960s by the writings of Beat Generation poets and writers;
the spread of ecological consciousness, emphasized by Gary Snyder;
opposition to the military-industrial machine civilization, as emphasized in the works of Burroughs, Huncke, Ginsberg, and Kerouac;
attention to what Kerouac called, after Spengler, ‘Second Religiousness’ developing within an advanced civilization;
respect for land and indigenous peoples as proclaimed by Kerouac in his slogan from On the Road, ‘The earth is an Indian’
Literature laid the foundation of many elements of Beat, especially through books and poetry. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, and John Clellon Holmes were a few of the influential and, at times, controversial literary figures of Beat culture. Music acted as a core feature that wove its way throughout all aspects of the culture. Jazz music in particular resounded with the Beats and became a significant influencing factor, as it fueled the energy, rhythm, and characteristics of the culture and its literature, permeating into the sound that “Beat poetry” achieved. For example, Jack Kerouac, one of the celebrated poets of the culture, entitled a poem “Charlie Parker” in celebration of the musician’s influence. Kerouac's poetry, itself, flowed in a rhythm meant to mirror that of Jazz music.
The musical genre’s influence went beyond artistic creation, coinciding with their social views as well. Jazz embodied the spirit of Beat culture in its freedom, its expressivity, and its allowance for experimentation. In addition, Beat participants’ enthusiasm for jazz directly challenged the public wariness of the genre due to its racial origins.
Jazz as America began to change during the decade's early years. In the 1940s, the predominant form of jazz came in the form of swing, performed by large, mostly white ensembles. This largely commercialized genre was largely dance-based and predictable in order to appeal to the dance craze that characterized the “Swing Era.”
Black jazz musicians’ frustrations at racial barriers, poor working conditions, and the declining willingness to hire large, black ensembles gave birth to a new form of jazz: bebop. The forerunners of bebop got their start in jam sessions and flaunted the freedom given by improvisation, and the jam sessions spread to swing musicians’ dismay. Bebob - performed by small, African American ensembles - took an experimental and improvisatory approach as musicians ventured outside standard tonalities, meters, and harmonies. The genre resonated with the Beats, who celebrated such quintessential bebop musicians as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis.
After an undead intermission, this week, we return to our spooky spell casters with a tune from the genesis of psychedelia. For our Spooky Season, I give you Donovan's "Season of the Witch" (1966). This song, released on the album Sunshine Superman , features a steady guitar riff alongside foreboding and paranoid lyrics, a groovy omen of oncoming devastation. Could this foretold disaster be the work of the supernatural? Well, in the context of the song's creation, the lurking danger is something a little more earthly. "There was a feeling...that all was not perfect in the Garden of Eden," Donovan spoke in Mojo magazine about this Season when the song was born. He called "Witch" prophetic, referring to the marijuana bust soon to occur within the countercultural community. Not long after, these busts seized Donovan as well. "Season of the Witch" has appeared on the soundtracks of numerous Halloween-appropriate films, including Season of th...
Let me first start off with a jubilation: At last! October has graced us with its presence once again! Now that that moment of silliness is out of our systems, let us proceed with the music. One band that I find always plunges me into the Halloween spirit is Type O Negative. Anytime in the year when I find myself longing for this special season, I can simply play a Type O track, and I am instantly transported back to the crisp, pumpkin-fraught weeks of October. So appropriately, this band is the centerpiece to start off the month of honour. Also, as this is the first Shuddersome Soundscape post of October, I shall grant you two songs rather than just the one. Thusly, here are two featured tunes, both from the album World Coming Down (1999): "Creepy Green Light" and "All Hallows Eve." Type O Negative can be described as gothic metal, or "Gothedelic," in frontman Peter Steele's words, as their sound fuses classic gothic metal with 1960s psychedelia. As...
For the past two Shuddersome Soundscape installments, I've let witches take center stage. This week, however, I'd like to showcase another star of the Halloween screen: the zombie. And here to present this popular monster is the horror punk band the Misfits with their song " Night of the Living Dead." The song, of course based on George Romero's film Night of the Living Dead , was released on their third EP (of the same name) in 1979. Its lo-fi quality typical of many punk bands stood alongside horror-based lyrics, strong backing vocals, and Danzig's lead voice to create the signature Misfits sound that would carry on through their next albums. Along with this sound came their quintessential look, which came into its full, iconic fruition around this time. "Night of the Living Dead" later returned for the band's first full length album Walk Among Us in 1982 (they had recorded two other LPs before this, but Walk Among Us was the first to be rele...
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