Introduction

The final chapter considers succinctly the manner in which shifting dynamics, both in the music world and in the newspaper industry, effected something of a reversal in approach between the popular and the serious press. As the popular music scene grew increasingly diverse and experimental during the latter half of the 1960s, and as shifting economic dynamics intensified the struggle, particularly among the popular titles, for readership and revenue, the enthusiasm of the popular press for the contemporary pop scene appeared somewhat compromised by the late 1960s. It was at this point that the serious newspapers began to appear more pertinent and viable fora for critical writing on popular music – a state of affairs which remained prevalent into the late 1970s and beyond, as newspapers such as the Times and Guardian found themselves, in the eyes of some, superseding even the dedicated music press in terms of the perceived effectiveness of their popular music- related content.

Nevertheless, it is important not to dismiss outright the ‘post- Beatlemania’ coverage of the popular press. Younger critics within these titles were able to reinvigorate popular music criticism to a considerable, albeit uneven, extent, and the Daily Mirror, although struggling by the early 1970s to keep pace with its bold parvenu rival The Sun, demonstrated, somewhat unexpectedly, that it had not lost its erstwhile enthusiasm for pop irrevocably.

Changing Fortunes, Reversing Trends: Evolutions within the Press and Popular Music Worlds during the Late 1960s

By the mid- 1960s, as the global success of the Beatles grew to almost unimaginable proportions, changes within the British newspaper world, and innovations within the pop scene which would affect the manner in which the press understood and related to it, were beginning, gradually, to unfold. The increasing sophistication of popular music, particularly as performed by the Beatles and other influential groups (such as the Rolling Stones or The Who), led eventually to the transformation of ‘pop into art’ and to its broad recategorization as ‘rock’. ‘Rock’, although as fluid a generic construction as any other during this period, gradually came to denote greater artistic integrity, originality and sophistication – in essence, a genre which, like the earlier jazz styles, was seen to inspire serious listening, rather than appearing a simple accompaniment for dancing or leisure.