When Did 60s Nostalgia Begin?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Siegmund, Sep 3, 2013.

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  1. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic Thread Starter

    Location:
    Britain, Europe
    Recently, I read an editorial from a magazine dated December 1974. It described the dying year as one 'in which we all looked back and yearned for the sixties'.

    Now, it seems people have been yearning for the 60s for most of my life. But were they really yearning for only four years after they'd bid them goodbye?

    Supposedly, 1974 was the year of energy and political crises in the western hemisphere and this may have fueled the early nostalgia. But what sustained it to give it its incredible longevity? Any ideas?
     
  2. Jose Jones

    Jose Jones Outstanding Forum Member

    Location:
    Detroit, Michigan
    The relentless narcissism and media frenzy of the baby boomers towards their fading youth.
     
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  3. Thurenity

    Thurenity Listening to some tunes

    The Big Chill (1982). It was 60's mania for years after that movie came out.
     
  4. Veech

    Veech Space In Sounds

    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    I think the decade between 1960 and 1970 brought greater cultural upheaval than any ten year period before or after. But I don't recall yearning for the '60s in 1974 or any other time.
     
  5. JP Christian

    JP Christian Forum Resident

    even as a kid in the 70s, the sixties were revered as the definitive pop decade - my Aunt had 8 tracks tapes that I would listen to of all the girl groups, motown and I picked up how good they were very early on - and ever since, I've always liked the music of the sixties more than any other decade.
     
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  6. Gilbert Matthews

    Gilbert Matthews Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wildwood, FL
    From '74 on, there was a lot of music that made sure we didn't forget about the 60's. Beach Boys compilations...songs that reminded us of The Beach Boys(First Class, Wombles, Craig Ruhnke)...60's artists with comeback singles or LPs(Beau Brummels, Steppenwolf, Frankie Valli, Neil Sedaka, Johnny Rivers, etc.)...60's icons being murdered and medley tributes put together in the aftermath(Stars On 45, etc.). I could go on and on, but let's face it...the 60's was a heckuva decade for music and there was a lot we overlooked the first time around!
     
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  7. Hot Ptah

    Hot Ptah Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    Kansas City, MO
    I think that in the mid to late 1970s, there was a perception among the music loving college age people I knew that the rock and pop music being newly released did not seem as memorable to them as the rock and pop music from 1964--72. I would not say that it was nostalgia for the 1960s as much as yearning for music like the music of 1964-72. In fact, in the colleges I attended in the mid to late 1970s, a lot of students did not want to be like the 1960s students--they talked about how they had moved on from that time.

    I agree that The Big Chill brought in a nostalgia for a certain vision of the 1960s, which like many nostalgic visions of the past, was false and distorted.
     
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  8. Joe N

    Joe N Forum Resident

    I remember the 80's is when it took off in a really big way. That's when a lot of 60's music that was ignored (though not totally forgotten) in the 70's started being appreciated again by a lot of people.
     
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  9. Michael P

    Michael P Forum Resident

    Location:
    Parma, Ohio
    Musically, radio was much more diverse that what came after. 1974 was the year radio began to divide and conquer. Top-40 stations in the 60's could be enjoyed by a wider age range than what was passed off as Top-40 after '74. In the 60's you could hear the best easy listening artists (both vocal and instrumental) next to the British Invasion, Motown, Country and R&B. All in the same hour, on the same station. Artists like Tom Jones, Glenn Campbell, Al Green, Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass, The Sandpipers, Sandy Posey etc. got played next to The Beatles, Stones, Supremes and Four Tops. You had regional hits from The Carolina Beach scene as well as the West Coast (both LA and San Francisco).

    After Woodstock and The Beatles break-up everything started changing. The change began in '69 and was complete by '74. Maybe it's just me, since I graduated high school in '73, but as another thread here explored '74 was a lousy year, at least on top-40. FM Prog had siphoned off the older listeners leaving Top 40 to rot. Top-40 on FM was "all Kiss all the time" and AM Top-40 had become easy listening.

    However "nostalgia" for the 60's would not happen for a few years. The nostalgia back in the Seventies was for the 50's, thanks to Sha Na Na, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, etc.
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2013
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  10. I think the Beatlemania stage show was maybe the first time somebody tried to cash in on 60's nostalgia. As Thurenity mentioned above, "The Big Chill" started the "hey, yuppies think old music is cool" sentiment which led directly to "classic rock" radio.
     
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  11. tedhead

    tedhead Forum Resident

    Location:
    Space City
    I remember the whole "It Was 20 Years Ago Today" mantra from the summer of 1987. I was getting Rolling Stone magazine as a teen and that was how I was introduced to older music. There was even a BBC documentary called "It Was 20 Years Ago Today" about the making of Sgt Pepper as well as what went on in the counter culture the year 1967. That was my first exposure to Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd, and this was during the Momentary Lapse of Reason tour, which got many of my fellow high school friends into 'classic rock', and we loved the sixties. This carried over into all the docs like "Berkeley in the Sixties", released just as Operation Desert Storm was about to hit. I was 19, and rumors were going around that the draft would return. Movies by Oliver Stone about the period were big, from Platoon to JFK; lots of movies about Vietnam from Hollywood. TV Shows like China Beach and The Wonder Years. Even the rec drugs that were popular were psychedelics. Even the LA riot of 1992 brought on flashbacks.

    The Grateful Dead also released "Touch of Gray" in 1987, and then became mega stars. I remember even knowing punk and metal kids who got into the Dead. The 60s nostalgia seemed to really die in the mid 90's, with the death of Jerry Garcia, movies like Dazed and Confused and tv like That 70's Show'.

    So for me, it was 1987- 1994/95 and the media's role. I discovered some great music, and it was the beginning of a brief period when punk wasn't necessarily 'anti-hippie'. Many bands merged the styles, psychedelic punk and alternative rock. The first "college" conversation I ever overheard when I was enrolling in summer of 1989, two preppy looking guys were using the word "groovy" a lot.

    Earlier in the 80s we used to make fun of the styles of long hair and bell bottoms. But 1987 was when everyone I knew liked at least SOMETHING from that period.
     
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  12. Paul J

    Paul J Forum Resident

    Location:
    Baltimore
    In 1967, Esquire magazine ran an article on the 60's, in effect saying that so much had happened by then, let's take the rest of the decade off. Too bad we didn't.
    One other quote I remember was re: The Beatles, that for better or for worse, how your children were, was because of them.

    I would not have wanted to be a teenager in any other decade.

    To answer your question......American Graffiti
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2013
  13. chodad

    chodad Hodad

    Location:
    USA
    When the original Nuggets double album was released in 1972.

    [​IMG]
     
  14. Sneaky Pete

    Sneaky Pete Flat the 5 and That’s No Jive

    Location:
    NYC USA
  15. JP Christian

    JP Christian Forum Resident

    I think I was born a good 20 years too late - if I's been born in 1952 instead of 1972, I would have heard all my favourite music as it emerged for the first time - how exciting would that be? I am quite content though to have been able to enjoy so much wonderful music from the last 60 years, but I always go back to the sixties and early 70s as my personal Golden Age, even thought I'm too young to have experienced first hand.
     
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  16. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    I can remember the DJ on KMET playing something by the Eagles in like 1972 and saying "Wish this was 1967 so we could hear something good."

    Eh, trust me, no one alive in the 1970s wanted to go back to the 1960's. That's just BS. In the 1960's the teachers in school were strict, parents were as well, we couldn't do much, there was a nasty war on, no one thought back on that fondly. We loved the music of that time and never stopped playing it but as for being nostalgic for the 1960's? No. Nostalgic for the people we loved back then who were gone, yes.
     
  17. Gilbert Matthews

    Gilbert Matthews Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wildwood, FL
    MTV played a big part in the 60's resurgence. I remember around '83 when they played a lot of Doors videos, especially a clip for "Gloria." Then there were all of those "Closet Classics(aka Beat Club)" clips from the likes of Blue Cheer, The Easybeats, The Who, Spooky Tooth, Vanilla Fudge, The Hollies, The Small Faces, Steppenwolf, etc. '86 saw all of those reruns of The Monkees' episodes and The Beatles' cartoons. It also didn't hurt that they showcased up and coming jangle pop/paisley underground bands who owed a lot to the 60's.
     
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  18. Bender Rodriguez

    Bender Rodriguez RIP Exene, best dog ever. 2005-2016

    I disagree. I think there was greater "cultural upheaval" during the 1930s than during the 1960s.
     
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  19. Myke

    Myke Trying Not To Spook The Horse

    I want to say the mid 80s ? About the time I was married, with a new baby, if I remember correctly.
     
  20. Siegmund

    Siegmund Vinyl Sceptic Thread Starter

    Location:
    Britain, Europe
    I think 1968 must have been a terrifying year to live through, especially in America (or Czecholovakia or Vietnam, of course). I lived through it, but was only one year old!
     
  21. Paul J

    Paul J Forum Resident

    Location:
    Baltimore
    Graduated HS, Class of 68.....Strange Days Indeed!
     
  22. BobbyS

    BobbyS Forum Resident In Memoriam

    Location:
    Delaware OH USA
    This is sort of weird for me since I was there! I kinda think the 60's actually lasted until 1972 or so (so far as music is concerned). By 1974 or so it was obvious to me the new stuff wasn't nearly as good. However, the Sex Pistols (God bless them) brought things back.
     
  23. Uncle Meat

    Uncle Meat Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston, Tx, US
    When the Beatles broke up..
     
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  24. bizmopeen

    bizmopeen Senior Member

    Location:
    Oswego, IL
    January 1, 1970.
     
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  25. Thurenity

    Thurenity Listening to some tunes

    (Edited my own post) I think the OP means the post-British Invasion 1960's, at least that was my assumption. AG was set in the early 1960's but it has more of a 1950's "feel" to it, overall.

    I know that Grease pre-dates it, but AG / Grease / Happy Days seemed cemented, in my eyes anyway, as more 50's nostalgia. Then The Big Chill came along and suddenly there was a mass wave of later 60's nostalgia for a good part of the 1980's.
     
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