‘You Say You Want a Revolution’: 9 moments that defined the ’60s | CNN

‘You Say You Want a Revolution’: 9 moments that defined the ’60s

Allyssia Alleyne, CNN
2 minute read
Updated 12:23 PM EDT, Fri September 9, 2016
"You Say You Want a Revolution: Records and Rebels 1966-1970" opens at London's Victoria and Albert Museum on September 9. Ahead of the opening, co-curator Victoria Broackes breaks down some of the period's most important figures and moments, starting with the Beatles. <br /><br />"Beatlemania really helped build the confidence of Britain, which had been lagging behind America for the previous ten years... When the Beatles went out and were such a huge hit in America, Britain kind of felt that they were back, back there."
The Beatles —
"You Say You Want a Revolution: Records and Rebels 1966-1970" opens at London's Victoria and Albert Museum on September 9. Ahead of the opening, co-curator Victoria Broackes breaks down some of the period's most important figures and moments, starting with the Beatles.

"Beatlemania really helped build the confidence of Britain, which had been lagging behind America for the previous ten years... When the Beatles went out and were such a huge hit in America, Britain kind of felt that they were back, back there."
Archive Photos/Archive Photos/Getty Images
"As we move into 1966, they stop touring and turn to making LPs and writing songs that were not just about the previously traditional lyrics of songs of that era -- loves and girls and all that kind of thing. They start exploring their lives in the work, dedicating masses of time to it because they have the economic freedom to do so," she says.
The Beatles —
"As we move into 1966, they stop touring and turn to making LPs and writing songs that were not just about the previously traditional lyrics of songs of that era -- loves and girls and all that kind of thing. They start exploring their lives in the work, dedicating masses of time to it because they have the economic freedom to do so," she says.
John Pratt/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
"We're highlighting that things like gay rights, feminism, fairness for women, fairness for black people, sharing of knowledge and personal computing came out of this era."<br /><br /><em>Anti-Vietnam demonstrators at the Pentagon Building, 1967</em>
Activism and protest —
"We're highlighting that things like gay rights, feminism, fairness for women, fairness for black people, sharing of knowledge and personal computing came out of this era."

Anti-Vietnam demonstrators at the Pentagon Building, 1967
The Washington Post/The Washington Post/Washington Post/Getty Images
"The Civil Rights Movement hugely affected this group of youth who saw how successful it had been, and they see the means it's used to be successful. They use quite a lot of the same tactics. They're looking around at what else is unfair in society, and embarking on that as a cause."
Activistism and protest —
"The Civil Rights Movement hugely affected this group of youth who saw how successful it had been, and they see the means it's used to be successful. They use quite a lot of the same tactics. They're looking around at what else is unfair in society, and embarking on that as a cause."
MPI/Archive Photos/Getty Images
"They were expecting maybe 150,000 people and they got 500,000 people. We're looking at it as a kind of Utopia. If you can gather 500,000 people together who are like-minded, that makes a huge difference." <br /><br /><em>John Sebastian performing at Woodstock</em>
Woodstock —
"They were expecting maybe 150,000 people and they got 500,000 people. We're looking at it as a kind of Utopia. If you can gather 500,000 people together who are like-minded, that makes a huge difference."

John Sebastian performing at Woodstock
© Henry Diltz / Corbis
"The ability in this era for the youth to create their own identity was new. Before then, you grew up to be your parents. Being a teenager didn't have much of a distinction. But suddenly there were boutiques for young people," Broackes said. <br />"Twiggy was the face of 1966 when she was 16, and she was from Neasden, a suburb of London, presenting a much more democratic, open society for everybody, not just certain people."
The rise of youth fashion —
"The ability in this era for the youth to create their own identity was new. Before then, you grew up to be your parents. Being a teenager didn't have much of a distinction. But suddenly there were boutiques for young people," Broackes said.
"Twiggy was the face of 1966 when she was 16, and she was from Neasden, a suburb of London, presenting a much more democratic, open society for everybody, not just certain people."
Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
"There is such a nostalgia for Swinging London, but this film actually highlights that things were not exactly as they seemed.<br /><br />[Thomas, the protagonist] is living the high life with models and parties, but he's really actually himself not happy. He only gets excited with his life when he thinks he uncovers an unexplained murder. At that point his life picks up in interest."<br /><br />It's a film about existential angst and things that being as they seem, which is a riposte to this kind of 'Wasn't it all wonderful?'"
"Blow Up" (1966) —
"There is such a nostalgia for Swinging London, but this film actually highlights that things were not exactly as they seemed.

[Thomas, the protagonist] is living the high life with models and parties, but he's really actually himself not happy. He only gets excited with his life when he thinks he uncovers an unexplained murder. At that point his life picks up in interest."

It's a film about existential angst and things that being as they seem, which is a riposte to this kind of 'Wasn't it all wonderful?'"
© MGM / THE KOBAL COLLECTION
"By the end of the era, people didn't actually expect the best of government, they didn't have this concept of betters and elders. What they did have was a real openness to other cultures and ways of doing things, and that was partly connected to using LSD which seems shocking now, but it was a drug that not only affected you when you were taking it, but affected you after you'd taken it. Your mind seemed to be blown." <br /><br /><em>The Acid Test poster designed by Wes Wilson</em>
LSD —
"By the end of the era, people didn't actually expect the best of government, they didn't have this concept of betters and elders. What they did have was a real openness to other cultures and ways of doing things, and that was partly connected to using LSD which seems shocking now, but it was a drug that not only affected you when you were taking it, but affected you after you'd taken it. Your mind seemed to be blown."

The Acid Test poster designed by Wes Wilson
courtesy Steward Brand
"As well as being an era of posters and music, it's also a great era of books -- really important books that changed the way people thought about things. <br /><br />You've got Timothy Leary on the West Coast and Ken Kesey on the East Coast, both for different reasons proposing psychedelic experiences not just as an important thing, but almost as an essential thing if people want to broaden their minds, and for a time people really believed that." <br /><br /> <em>Dr Timothy Leary "Turn On, Tune In and Drop Out" poster</em>
LSD —
"As well as being an era of posters and music, it's also a great era of books -- really important books that changed the way people thought about things.

You've got Timothy Leary on the West Coast and Ken Kesey on the East Coast, both for different reasons proposing psychedelic experiences not just as an important thing, but almost as an essential thing if people want to broaden their minds, and for a time people really believed that."

Dr Timothy Leary "Turn On, Tune In and Drop Out" poster
A. Jones/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
"With the new prosperity, there was a lot of advertising, a lot of pushing consumerism. On the one hand, this is the first time people really had money to spend, but on the other hand they were being offered all kinds of things that they perhaps didn't want to spend it on," Broakes said.<br /><br />"It's not to say people were bad people for wanting to have things after they'd not had anything, but at the same time there are perils to consumerism and constant aspiration and creating more want out of that." <br /><br /><em>Postcard from the 1967 Montreal World Expo</em>
Consumerism —
"With the new prosperity, there was a lot of advertising, a lot of pushing consumerism. On the one hand, this is the first time people really had money to spend, but on the other hand they were being offered all kinds of things that they perhaps didn't want to spend it on," Broakes said.

"It's not to say people were bad people for wanting to have things after they'd not had anything, but at the same time there are perils to consumerism and constant aspiration and creating more want out of that."

Postcard from the 1967 Montreal World Expo
Victoria and Albert Museum
In 1967, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and <a href="index.php?page=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fedition.cnn.com%2F2015%2F03%2F10%2Fworld%2Fstrong-sweet-smell-incense-portrait-robert-fraser%2F">gallerist Robert Fraser</a> were arrested for drug possession after a <a href="index.php?page=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk%2Fonthisday%2Fhi%2Fdates%2Fstories%2Fmay%2F10%2Fnewsid_2522000%2F2522735.stm" target="_blank" target="_blank">1967 drug bust</a> at Richards' home. All three received sentences, but Jagger and Richards were able to evade them on appeal. <br /><br />"(Mick Jagger's arrest and trial) was was a very important moment because the Times newspaper followed it up after he is sentenced with a leader article that basically says it should not have happened. That's an early example of the establishment -- you think of the Times as being a mainstream newspaper -- coming out in favor of the new movement."
The trial of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards —
In 1967, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and gallerist Robert Fraser were arrested for drug possession after a 1967 drug bust at Richards' home. All three received sentences, but Jagger and Richards were able to evade them on appeal.

"(Mick Jagger's arrest and trial) was was a very important moment because the Times newspaper followed it up after he is sentenced with a leader article that basically says it should not have happened. That's an early example of the establishment -- you think of the Times as being a mainstream newspaper -- coming out in favor of the new movement."
Ted West/Central Press/Getty Images
"On Apollo 8, William Anders took this photograph of the earth called 'Earthrise,' and it changed people's outlook. <br /><br />"Instead of thinking they were going to live in the cosmos, they stop and think that is the blue planet. It's fragile, it's vulnerable. We've got to look after it, we're all in this together. You get this oneness. So that has been called the most important photograph of the 20th century."
"Earthrise" —
"On Apollo 8, William Anders took this photograph of the earth called 'Earthrise,' and it changed people's outlook.

"Instead of thinking they were going to live in the cosmos, they stop and think that is the blue planet. It's fragile, it's vulnerable. We've got to look after it, we're all in this together. You get this oneness. So that has been called the most important photograph of the 20th century."
NASA
Why the 1960s were so revolutionary
CNN  — 

A decade of mass legal, demographic and social change, the 1960s saw widespread upheaval across much of the world. But it was also a time of revolutionary design, music and art.

This season, “You Say You Want a Revolution: Records and Rebels 1966-1970,” a new exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, looks at how the ideas and aesthetics aligned.

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“We are framing this period in the 60s as a moment when people – in particularly the youth across every area of society, and across, Britain, America and most of Europe – went through a series of radical shifts by imagining better worlds, better ways of living that then came to pass,” said co-curator Victoria Broackes ahead of the exhibition’s September 10 opening.

While the exhibition does focus heavily on the music and personalities that shaped the era, Broackes stresses that the exhibition is as much about the radical ideas they represented.

George Harrison’s sitar, idyllic Woodstock footage and Mick Jagger’s velvet Ossie Clark jumpsuit are juxtaposed by the CIA’s anti-Black Panther pamphlets, protest posters from the 1968 French student strikes and Maoist propaganda.

“We started from the point of view that this was not to be a nostalgia trip into the sixties. It wasn’t ‘Oh, wasn’t it so great and groovy?’ In every area there’s a counterpoint to it.”

Click through the gallery above to find out more about some of the most revolutionary moments, personalities and designs of the period.

You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-70 runs from Sept. 10, 2016 to Feb. 26, 2016 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.