Abstract
The rise of the American counter-culture between the early- to mid-1960s and early- to mid-1970s was closely associated with the growth of environmentalism. This article explores how both informed popular music, a form of expression which during these years became not only a prominent form of entertainment but also a forum for cultural and social criticism. More particularly, through contextual and lyrical analyses of recordings by The Beach Boys, it identifies patterns of change and continuity in the articulation of counter-cultural, ecological and related sensibilities. During late 1966 and early 1967, the group’s leader Brian Wilson and lyricist Van Dyke Parks collaborated on a collection of songs embodying such progressive thinking, even though the music of The Beach Boys had previously shown no such ambitions. In the short term their efforts foundered as the risk-averse logic of the commercial music industry prompted group members to resist perceived threats to their established profile. Yet in the longer term (and ironically in the name of commercial survival) The Beach Boys began selectively to adopt innovations they had previously shunned. Shorn of its more controversial associations, what had formerly been considered high risk had by 1970 become good business as once-marginal environmentalism gained broader acceptability: thus did ‘America’s band’ articulate the flowering, greening and fading of the counter-culture.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages (from-to) | 44-60 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| ISSN | 2171-9594 |
| Publication status | Published - 2013 |
Keywords
- popular music, ecology, counter-culture, Beach Boys