The Seventies Keeping In Step

Course begins Tuesday 19 April

This is a period when music continued to move forward to new highs from the sixties by leading groups such as the Beatles and the Stones to experimental innovations from Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen and the very British dominance of the punk scene.

Television was firmly entrenched as a major part of life, at times threatening to reduce cinema attendance. Hollywood responded with blockbusters pushing the European cinema even further to the precipice.

Politically and socially, it was still a time of change with the continued rise of feminism set against the emerging power of political wonder women such as Margaret Thatcher and Eva Peron.  It was an age of extremes of political violence and economic strife.

This was the revolution of the computer as video games mass marketed for the young generation who continued to be financial drivers of consumerism. And all the time this purchase power was reflected in a wealth of new music on both sides of the Atlantic

Week 1  Everything’s Gonna be all Wight 1970  -  “Childhood’s End” and “Songs of Experience”

Week 2 Aunty BBC  “Oh dad you is a dirty old man” – situation comedies, soaps and crime.

Week 3 Women on the rise – Evita to Margaret Hilda  - Don’t cry for me Finchley Central.

Week 4 Please Mrs Robinson  - Art and Culture  - The War of the blockbusters.

Week 5 The Politics of Violence – the age of dictators. Terrorists and protest.

Free copy of Fast Forward: Music And Politics In 1974 by Steve Millward with every enrolment.