Can we discuss:

American Pop Culture (Clothing styles, subcultures, trends in movies and TV)
and American music (both popular and underground music) which colored the US from the end of WWII to just before Elvis released his first record?

This is the first part of a three part series. The second two parts will examine the Rock N' Roll Era (1954-1959) and the Ike/Kennedy Doo Wop Era (1960-1964--Stopping just before the British Invasion began). I find all three to be VERY interesting in pop culture history and would love if we could explore them.

Can we discuss:

American Pop Culture (Clothing styles, subcultures, trends in movies and TV)
and American music (both popular and underground music) which colored the US from the end of WWII to just before Elvis released his first record?

This is the first part of a three part series. The second two parts will examine the Rock N' Roll Era (1954-1959) and the Ike/Kennedy Doo Wop Era (1960-1964--Stopping just before the British Invasion began). I find all three to be VERY interesting in pop culture history and would love if we could explore them.


In the early mid 40's to mid 50's (coming out of WWII)... the music would have been stuff like Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett,  and Perry Como. Eddie fisher, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby were all going strong (off the back of their popular movies). Big bands would have been still very popular. While in the early 50's new artists were breaking through .. like Bobby Darrin, Pat Boone.

Many of these were still in the charts while Bill Haley, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Chordettes (Mr Sandman) etc were all breaking through to create a new sound.

It would have been an exciting time to be a teen...

This period was the golden age of television, as the big three networks, NBC, CBS, ABC, and Dumont (disappeared in 1955) scrambled to connect TV lines across the country. TV was very experimental and almost always shot live, as videotaping wasn't around yet, and most surviving TV shows from this era come from kinescopes. Until around 1949, the selection of primetime TV was quite limited, only around 2 hours a night total, and unless you lived in New York, very little other programming around the clock locally. Eventually, it blossomed and by 1950 TV was transcontinental (though not truly nationwide until around 1955). Lots of early TV shows were like Vaudeville, though some genres which are still a staple today surfaced. This included the movement of certain shows from radio to TV. CBS, followed by NBC were the most dominant TV networks. ABC was just a small, fledging network and Dumont, the fourth network, just chugged along until it failed to compete and shut down (ironically a couple TV affiliates would resign to the FOX network in the late 1980s).

Since TV technology lagged behind that of the movies, such as color and hi-quality sound along with a steady decline in movie theater attendance after 1946, it likely brought about a more conservative feel to culture. The Golden Age of Hollywood was winding down, and fewer films were released each year as the years went by, initially due to radio as a more popular alternative, but eventually due to the rise of TV. Still, from 1952-1954 we had the first wave of 3D movies along with the rise of drive-ins as a way to keep people interested in going to the movies. 

Comic books were still in the golden age, but the passage of the Comics code meant that this era was winding down. Still, animation was still in its golden age, with all of the quality Warner Bros., Tom & Jerry, Popeye, Woody Woodpecker, and Disney cartoons being released.

Big bands were not quite as popular as they were from the mid-1930s to the end of WWII, with the death of Glenn Miller in 1944 the beginning of the end of the Swing era. The TV show that influenced the charts most was Your Hit Parade. Basically, easy listening (what we refer to today as AC music) was the most popular type of music, with classical still quite popular at the time. Country was seen as the "hip" music, and blues/early R&B was the "devils" music, and only underground at the time. The 78 RPM was still the most popular format of music, but towards the end 33's and 45's took off.

Architechture was now in its "mid-century modern" phase as people label it today. Lots of sleek designs with well-crafted materials like glass, mirrors, marble, and geometric designs. Suburbia as we knew it took off. Most houses were small tract houses, and the rancher became popular.

The economy actually was fluctuating throughout this period, with an inflation spike 1946-48 as the glut of money from returning soldiers enabled them to make lots of new purchases. Despite the uptick in inflation, real earnings rose and kept pace nicely. There was a brief recession in the very early '50s. By 1953 though growth was strong.

In the early mid 40's to mid 50's (coming out of WWII)... the music would have been stuff like Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett,  and Perry Como. Eddie fisher, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby were all going strong (off the back of their popular movies). Big bands would have been still very popular. While in the early 50's new artists were breaking through .. like Bobby Darrin, Pat Boone.

Many of these were still in the charts while Bill Haley, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Chordettes (Mr Sandman) etc were all breaking through to create a new sound.

It would have been an exciting time to be a teen...


My parents HATED that stuff.  It was part of the oppressive establishment as far as they were concerned.  It's what their parents listened to.  Once the repression and phoniness of the fifties was far behind in the rear view, my generation rediscovered the old crooners for their musical talents...

I think the one thing my parents hated most about the fifties was the taboo on emotional frankness.  My mother once remarked James Dean was the first inkling of the sixties.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftQLgODoLFE

There was some cool proto-rock n' roll from this era.  8)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Feq_Nt3nM&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=AVGxdCwVVULXfvFF-mYhLsBZ6jk3ezOSOl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5hjXD3-8pE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbfnh1oVTk0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUEO328U-8E
(I love the "A-OOM! A-OOM!"  in this song, nothing at all suggestive about that... :o :o :o )

I needed somewhere to post Arnold Stang:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45n6yUKx0AQ

The Doo-Wop Era was cool and the music was groovy.