Most people from the US think otherwise.

so... how about filling people in on the rest of the non-US based elements of the 60s that were so amazing? the whole hippie movement directly started in san francisco after all (which indirectly spawned psychedelic music).

so unless there's another major cultural element to the 60s i'm overlooking, in this case the US actually IS the center of the matter.

From where I'm sat, you're the condescending ass here. Dave made a reasonable post and wasn't at all offensive. The first WORD of your post on the other hand was 'Hell' followed swiftly by a little pretentious rant about how woodstock was clearly the most awesme thing ever liek omg.

Not to mention, Dave is right. For everything it did, the hippie movement was total bull**** in the way it portrayed its ideas. It was realyl nothing more than a big excuse for people to feel superior to 'the man' and toke it up. Even the Beatles realised that sooner rather than later, and they were off their faces on drugs more than most. the vast majority of hippies who could even be bothered to HOLD ideals, did so in a half assed way and basically just whined about it without ever doing anything.

Hippiecrosy indeed.

Uh? British f*cking invasion?

That would be me.

*invades*

...and where were they trying to invade? what was the target? where was the center of that matter again?...

i meant the 60's isn't only the war between the US and Vietnam ... it was a major thing, but not the only thing.
and personally i'd want to live in Britain or France in the 60's and definitely not in the US.

and being the #1 power in the world doesn't make the US the only country or culture in the world ... i assure you we weren't thinking about the hippies, the flower power or the vietnam in the middle east ... still even here, the 60's were the best years in the last millennium [musically and culturally, overall] , and not only in the past century.

Invade= The USA, The Target= The US music market.

It could be argued that groups like the Beatles, Rolling Stones and the Who etc were very much the centre of where it was at.

Psychedelia fitted in and around all this and later blossomed prog.

I think Woodstock is idealized more for its cultural douchebaggery than it is for anything else.

Its hard to imagine why anyone would care about music that old and at this point, stale. No one immortalizes the first Boonaroo or lollapalooza.

Its fairly obvious to me it still gives people faith in some vague, shallow notion of peace and love and supposedly tells us what it can do for the world, but just as the assertion the music can "heal the world" is constantly proved wrong, what is similarly constant is that "peace and love" are just taglines to **** stoned blonde-women back in your tour bus.

I'm glad you like playing without your shoes, go nuts. But I paid $60 for this ticket you freeloading moron, now play me some music or I'm going to **** all over your youtube videos.

When you're talking about the 60's, we sorta are. I'm not going to get into a culture war here, but I wouldn't look at the U.S. like you look at Euro countries because we don't operate in the same way. There is nothing that makes a person distinctly "american" and so despite our arrogance, its hard to lay claim to what makes up "better" than anyone else.

You should view U.S. culture as your culture to.

By 1967 America had well caught up to the Brit's if you look at music as a whole. James Brown was arguably the most dominant force out there at the time and as far as revolutionizing a sound few things compare to the godless monster of funk. He gave birth to less bands than the Beatles, or the Stones, but who's going to argue that there are better offspring than PFunk and Prince?

I'm not mindlessly pro-american. I use to think we were **** at one point but thats when I thought I knew everything. We have a great amount of value and I'm not sure what purpose is served by undermining that.

Woodstock was still **** btw.