THE 1970s【荐】.ppt

THE 1970s ROCK MUSIC, DISCO, AND THE POPULAR MAINSTREAM American Culture in the 1970s By the early 1970s, the majority of Americans had grown weary of the military conflict in Vietnam Oil crisis in 1973 Economic inflation Growing cynicism about politics Watergate hearings The resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974 Popular music remained the target of conservative politicians and commentators. American Culture in the 1970s The market for popular music became focused on two main categories: New generation of teenagers, born in the late 1950s and early 1960s Adults aged twenty-five to forty Nostalgia for the So-Called Golden Age of 1950s America Film American Graffiti (1973) Broadway musical and film Grease (1972 and 1978) TV series Happy Days The End of the Counterculture for Rock Fans Deaths of leading figures in rock music Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin in 1970 Jim Morrison of the Doors in 1971 Breakup of the Beatles Paul McCartney officially dissolved the business partnership on December 31, 1970. Technology and the Music Business Corporate Consolidation during the 1970s Six huge corporations were responsible for over 80 percent of record sales in the United States by the end of the decade: Columbia/CBS Warner Communications RCA Victor Capitol-EMI MCA United Artists-MGM Technology and the Music Business The recording industry became riskier during the 1970s. The recording industry came to depend on a relatively small number of million-selling platinum LPs to make a profit. A small number of “multiplatinum” superstars negotiated multimillion-dollar contracts with the major record companies. Independent labels accounted for only one of every ten records sold in the early 1970s. Technology Eight-track tapes and cassette tapes, developed in the 1960s, became increasingly popular in the early 1970s. By 1975, sales of prerecorded tapes accounted for almost one-third of all music sales in the United States. The recording industry was increasingly impelle