More than 50 years after their breakup, the Beatles are still attracting fans from various generations, all while retaining their original fan base from the 1960s. Why have those first-generation fans continued following the Beatles and are now introducing their grandchildren to the group? Why are current teens affected by the band's music? And perhaps most importantly, how and why do the Beatles continue to resonate with successive generations? Unlike other bands of their era, the Beatles seem permanently frozen in time, having never descended into nostalgia act territory. Instead, even after the announcement of the band's breakup in 1970, the group has maintained its cultural and musical relevance. Their timeless quality appeals to younger generations while maintaining the loyalty of older fans. While the Beatles indeed represent a specific time period, their music and words address issues as meaningful today as they were during the Summer of Love: politics, war, sex, drugs, art, and creative liberation. As the first anthology to assess the nature of fan response and the band's enduring appeal, Fandom and the Beatles: The Act You've Known for All These Years defines and explores these unique qualities and the key ways in which this particular pop fusion has inspired such loyalty and multigenerational popularity.

Sex, death and nostalgia are among the impulses driving Beatles fandom: the metaphorical death of the Beatles after their break-up in 1970 has fueled the progressive nostalgia of fan conventions for 48 years; the death of John Lennon and George Harrison has added pathos and drama to the Beatles' story; Beatles Monthly predicated on the Beatles' good looks and the letters page was a forum for euphemistically expressed sexuality. The Beatles and Fandom is the first book to discuss these fan subcultures. It combines academic theory on fandom with compelling original research material to tell an alternative history of the Beatles phenomenon: a fans' history of the Beatles that runs concurrently with the popular story we all know.

Considered one of the most innovative artists in the history of popular music, John Lennon is also a fascinating example of the relationship between rock music and celebrity. Through investigation of the cultural and historical background of his stardom in England and the United States, this book explores why John Lennon became a much-debated celebrity and why he remains so. Lennon's career from the 1960s until his tragic death in 1980, and even beyond, demonstrates how different expectations articulated by the star, the music industry, the media, and the fans form relations which change in terms of time and place. Using a multidisciplinary approach and intriguing case studies, this book also examines cultural identity, authenticity, and gender in popular music stardom.

Winner of the 2022 Open Publication Prize by the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM-ANZ) A Women's History of the Beatles is the first book to offer a detailed presentation of the band's social and cultural impact as understood through the experiences and lives of women. Drawing on a mix of interviews, archival research, textual analysis, and autoethnography, this scholarly work depicts how the Beatles have profoundly shaped and enriched the lives of women, while also reexamining key, influential female figures within the group's history. Organized topically based on key themes important to the Beatles story, each chapter uncovers the varied and multifaceted relationships women have had with the band, whether face-to-face and intimately or parasocially through mediated, popular culture. Set within a socio-historical context that charts changing gender norms since the early 1960s, these narratives consider how the Beatles have affected women's lives across three generations. Providing a fresh perspective of a well-known tale, this is a cultural history that moves far beyond the screams of Beatlemania to offer a more comprehensive understanding of what the now iconic band has meant to women over the course of six decades.

The Arena Concert: Music, Media and Mass Entertainment is the first sustained engagement with what might said to be - in its melding of concert and gathering, in its evolving relationship with digital and social media, in its delivery of event, experience, technology and star - the art form of the 21st century. This volume offers interviews with key designers, discussions of the practicalities of mounting arena concerts, mixing and performing live to a mass audience, recollections of the giants of late twentieth century music in performance, and critiques of latter-day pretenders to the throne. The authors track the evolution of the arena concert, consider design and architecture, celebrity and fashion, and turn to feminism, ethnographic research, and ideas of humour, liveness and authenticity, in order to explore and frame the arena concert. The arena concert becomes the “real time” centre of a global digital network, and the gig-goer pays not only for an immersion in (and, indeed, role in) its spectacular nature, but also for a close encounter with the performers, in this contained and exalted space. The spectacular nature of the arena concert raises challenges that have yet to be fully technologically overcome, and has given rise to a reinvention of what live music actually means. Love it or loathe it, the arena concert is a major presence in the cultural landscape of the 21st century. This volume finds out why.

The Beatles are probably the most photographed band in history and are the subject of numerous biographical studies, but a surprising dearth of academic scholarship addresses the Fab Four. New Critical Perspectives on the Beatles offers a collection of original, previously unpublished essays that explore 'new' aspects of the Beatles. The interdisciplinary collection situates the band in its historical moment of the 1960s, but argues for artistic innovation and cultural ingenuity that account for the Beatles' lasting popularity today. Along with theoretical approaches that bridge the study of music with perspectives from non-music disciplines, the texts under investigation make this collection 'new' in terms of Beatles' scholarship. Contributors frequently address under-examined Beatles texts or present critical perspectives on familiar works to produce new insight about the Beatles and their multi-generational audiences.

Includes lists of fanzines, conventions, publishing associations, clubs, dealers, and individual fans.

The Beatles arrived in the United States on February 7, 1964, and immediately became a constant, compelling presence in fans’ lives. For the next six years, the band presented a nonstop deluge of sounds, words, images, and ideas, transforming the childhood and adolescence of millions of baby boomers. Beatleness explains how the band became a source of emotional, intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual nurturance in fans’ lives, creating a relationship that was historically unique. Looking at that relationship against the backdrop of the sexual revolution, the Vietnam War, political assassinations, and other events of those tumultuous years, the book critically examines the often-heard assertion that the Beatles “changed everything” and shows how—through the interplay between the group, the fans, and the culture—that change came about. A generational memoir and cultural history based on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with first-generation fans, Beatleness allows readers to experience—or re-experience—what it was like to be a young person during those eventful and transformative years. Its fresh approach offers many new insights into the entire Beatle phenomenon and explains why the group still means so much to so many.

Doss (fine arts and American studies, U. of Colorado-Boulder) examines the image of Elvis from a number of perspectives, including as a religious icon honored in household shrines, as a sexual fantasy for women and men, as an inspiration for impersonators, as a not- altogether positive emblem of whiteness for many blacks, and as a commodity to be protected by Elvis Presley Enterprises. Bandw illustrations. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR