The Beatles, Race, and Gender in 1960’s Popular Music

Catalog description

This course approaches the Beatles critically in how they were able to able to benefit from a segregated and gendered popular music market that purposefully marginalized female musicians and popular artists of color. We will examine how the Beatles drew inspiration from Black musical practices but were part of the trend in rock to erase the musical diversity on which rock capitalized. The class will delve into the popular music of the 1950s and the 1960s, including rockabilly, girl groups, Motown, rhythm and blues, the British Invasion, folk music, and rock. The class will proceed by concentrating upon the meaning of the Beatles’ music and image within the political, social, and historical context of the counter culture of the 1960s.