'Beats apart': a comparative history of youth culture and popular music in Liverpool and Newcastle upon Tyne, 1956 - 1965

Watson, Jonathan Paul (2010) 'Beats apart': a comparative history of youth culture and popular music in Liverpool and Newcastle upon Tyne, 1956 - 1965. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University.

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Abstract

This study explores the themes of continuity and change in twentieth-century British cultural history, particularities of place and regional identity in the North of England, and the cultural transfer of North American popular music in Britain between 1956 and 1965. By means of a comparative historical investigation of youth culture and popular music in Liverpool and Newcastle upon Tyne, the work engages with existing debate among historians surrounding the nature and extent of cultural change for the period usually referred to as „The Sixties?, and whether or not it is possible to speak of a „Cultural Revolution?. Spanning the years between the initial impact of rock „n? roll and the immediate aftermath of the Beat Boom of 1963-64, a phenomenon described by one commentator as representing „perhaps the North's greatest single cultural „putsch??, the thesis examines the role of urban and regional identity in the process of cultural production, reproduction, and consumption. Theoretical insights derived from the associated disciplines of sociology and cultural studies are employed which offer an opportunity for a novel and dynamic analysis and interpretation of the empirical historical evidence. This research is especially pertinent at a time when historians are increasingly looking to the regional and inter-regional, as opposed to the national and international, for explanations of continuity and change. There is a burgeoning interest in the history of popular culture inspired by the transition of post-modern society from one of production to consumption. Cultural and economic theorists have called for more historical investigation to inform current debates regarding the post-modern city?s ability to attract a „creative class? as a means towards urban regeneration. This study informs these debates by bringing the above themes together in a unique historical analysis of cultural continuity and change, Northern identity, and popular music.

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