Annivyrsary: 1960
ISSUE #88
In 1960, America was adjusting to being the empire. The first boomers were just coming into their teens, i.e. getting horny, but were still isolated by the repressive, suburban values established in the decade prior by reactionary men who came back from the war and seethed with jealousy when they found their women doing just fine without them, working their old factory jobs. Their version of love was designed to support structures of power, and myths of supremacy reigned. Threatened by a liberated woman, male culture doubled down and curdled into the mess it is today.
All of these cultural beliefs bubbled up in the form of pop music. Men sang about undying love, a love they could call their own, one they could keep for themselves, to serve them for the rest of their days. We were pining and aching for the ideal woman, the one that we'd heard about in the pop songs, one that was nothing but an image we'd built in our mind—soft and pliable and ready to marry—never reckoning with what it really means to live with another being with their own dreams and desires. These songs shaped our views of love for sixty years.
The other dominant strain of music in 1960 was jazz. Pop was the establishment's chosen syringe for injecting the romantic myths that would keep the empire intact, but in jazz, you could come closer to truth. In Coltrane's Giant Steps or Davis's Sketches of Spain, you could find the kind of collaboration and improvisation that represents a true partnership. There's a reason these are the albums we still talk about today; perhaps the only pop that could reach a similar truth was Etta's At Last!
Some other things that happen in 1960:
Édith Piaf records "Non, je ne regrette rien," known best today for its use in Inception and serving as the inspiration for the score's famous "BRAAAM."
The Beatles debut for the first time under their proper name and go on their first tour.
RCA starts releasing each single in both mono and stereo format.
Elvis returns from active duty overseas.
With "My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own," Connie Francis sings what sounds like the first Angel Olsen song.
Books to debut: To Kill a Mockingbird, Rabbit Run, My Side of the Mountain, and Elie Wiesel's Night.
Albert Camus dies, along with Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright.
Films of this year include Psycho, The Apartment, Breathless, La Dolce Vita, Eyes Without a Face, Spartacus, L'avventura, The Magnificent Seven, and Black Sunday.
Goodall notes the first recorded use of tools by an animal when she observes a chimpanzee using a stalk of grass to extract termites from a hill.
The Lisp programming language is developed.
Seventeen separate African nations gain their independence.
The first televised anime, Three Tales, debuts.
The Challenger Deep is reached for the first time by humans.
That one iconic photograph of Che Guevara is taken.
The 50-star flag of the United States is waved for the first time since Hawaii became a state the year prior.
The FDA approves the world's first birth control pill.
John F. Kennedy is elected president.
There were three billion people in the world in 1960. Everything was for sale, and we were still living with the greatest lie of all: work hard enough and even you can get ahead. Ok, so not that much has changed.
1984 has been called the greatest year in pop, and I think it might still be true. If 1974 was music’s fallow period, ten years later was its opposite. We danced in the dark beneath the killing moon and under purple rain—this was the year the critics and the people met in the Minneapolis streets.