Music in the 60s
Everyone knows that rock used to be way different and for the most part, in a good way. You just don’t get the same feeling listening to modern rock and roll as you would back in the 60s. There was so much going on back then such as the political upheaval, and the Vietnam War and so many people wanted to write music about it. It made a great influence on music in general. Rock was a great way for musicians to express how they feel, and people absolutely loved it.
In the 60s, musicians were against what was going on at the time, which was the Vietnam War. The war doesn’t have an exact date but it started in 1954 and lasted roughly 20 years . Approximately 60,000 Americans died and lots of people didn’t like that so they started writing music about it. A main genre that wrote this protest music was rock and roll.
The 60s was made up of marvelous musicians and most were influenced by the war and it made a big impact on how people felt about it. They were trying to reach peace with their music.
John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" was recorded in Queen Elizabeth's Hotel and was considered a “Bed-in” as John Lennon and his Wife Yoko Ono stayed in bed for eight days to promote world peace. This song went on to be sung by many protesters to stop the Vietnam War.
Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) is a group well-known for writing about the war. “Fortunate Son,” which was released in 1969, is about the unfair policies to the war such as the draft. The song’s line, “Some folks are born, silver spoon in hand,”meant they were protesting to the fact that not everyone would get drafted. In 2014, “ Fortunate Son” got put into the National Recording Registry for being “ Culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.
1969, Michael Lang, John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, and Artie Kornfeild founded Woodstock. Woodstock was a huge concert held for three days on a dairy farm in Bethal New York. Over 400,000 people showed up to watch the 33 musicians play about world peace. Woodstock was actually founded to raise money so they could open a studio in New York but the slogan was “three days of peace and music”.
Music is changing, as people are getting more angry about what’s going on in our country, such as Trump becoming president. Music has definitely took a curve since the 60s for many reasons, but one is what’s going on now which is the 2016 presidential election. Tom Morello, a former guitarist for Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave, and current guitarist for Prophets of Rage is a great influence on protest music in the 2016 era. Donald Trump is a big target for Prophets of Rage as they are “making America rage again”. In an interview conducted by CNN, Tom Morello stated “First stop on our tour is the Republican National Convention. No, we are not invited. We’ll be playing in the streets, fields, and concert venues in Cleveland to express our point of view, and were not going to make America great again. We’re going to insist that America rage again.”
Rage Against The Machine has been raging since the early 90s. Most of their music was about Bill Clinton and all of the bombings in Iraq. The lead singer, Zack De La Rocha left the band in 2000. Recently the band has gotten together again as Prophets of Rage again to continue raging against the machine.
