Posted on 01/13/2002 9:55:09 AM PST by UnBlinkingEye
Curse of Beatlemania
by Joseph Sobran
A few weeks ago I wrote some mild criticisms of the Beatles and the sky fell. Angry readers called me "ignorant," "vicious," and various other things displaying blindness to my finer qualities. I hadnt realized there was a militant Beatle Taliban, and I was an infidel. I was lucky to escape a fatwa.
Some of the Beatles fans did make civil and reasonable arguments; they defended George Harrison as a guitarist and reminded me that such musical luminaries as Leonard Bernstein and Frank Sinatra had praised them.
But Bernstein was surely over the top when he called Lennon and McCartney the greatest composers of the twentieth century. What about sticking to pop music
Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, Harry Warren, Richard Rodgers, and Frank Loesser? And when Sinatra called Harrisons "Something" one of the greatest songs of its era, I think it did more credit to his generosity than to his judgment. (Sinatra went to unfortunate lengths to prove he wasnt an old fogey, as witness his excruciating recording of "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.")
Its not that I hate the Beatles; Ive always liked them well enough. I used to play their tapes on long drives with my kids, and we all enjoyed them.
What I did hate from the beginning was Beatlemania. It made me uneasy for reasons I didnt quite understand at the time. The main reason was that the enthusiasm was so synthetic. My generation didnt discover the Beatles in the normal way; the Beatles were imposed on us by publicists and marketers.
Once upon a time, fame was slowly acquired. A mans reputation spread gradually, and his good name was so hard-won that he might fight a duel over an insult or a libel. Abraham Lincoln nearly had to cross swords (literally) with a man he had ridiculed in a newspaper.
Even in the world of pop music, a singer used to have to perform for years, making contact with small audiences from town to town, before he "hit the big time." He had to earn appreciation. It was hard work, but local fame necessarily preceded national fame.
With the Beatles something new was happening. National fame (at least on this side of the Atlantic) was created instantly. It wasnt due to their music; it was due to their promoters. Millions of kids allowed themselves to be manipulated into an enthusiasm few of them would have arrived at on their own. Pop music was no longer really "pop" the result of interaction between music and listener.
As soon as they got off the plane, the Beatles were mobbed. This was not a phenomenon of musical taste. Their screaming fans wouldnt even allow them to be heard, werent interested in listening.
It was weird. I felt a pang of sympathy for the boys, because they obviously wanted to perform; they wanted to be musicians, and their own fans were making it hard. Could they be enjoying that kind of attention, which ruled out any real connection with the audience?
To me it all smacked of the "two-minute hate" in Nineteen Eighty-Four far more benign, but equally mindless. It wasnt the Beatles fault. Their fans neither knew nor cared who was engineering the mass emotions that swamped the music. Even as a kid, I didnt want to be part of that, the submergence of the self in the mass.
Since then, what we call "pop" culture has become uncomfortably close to totalitarian politics. Even our aesthetic tastes are increasingly formed by forces of which we know little. It cant be good for the soul to be subject to so much calculating hype and promotion.
Democracy too has come to mean mass manipulation, with lots of focus groups, demographic studies, and advertising techniques replacing rational persuasion. The individual who prefers to make up his own mind knows he counts for nothing in todays "democratic process" (eerie phrase!). You have a choice of which mass to join, thats all. Either way, youll make no difference to the outcome.
On the other hand, some people find it thrilling to be part of a stampeding herd, without asking what started the commotion. They should feel right at home in these times.
We live in a world in which the passive and malleable mass has become prior to the individual and the community. Beatlemania didnt originate this condition, but in its own way it was an intimation.
January 12, 2002
Tin-foil hat, and a complete tin-foil suit for that one! ;>)
You must be young. Didn't happen that way. The Beatles were a decent rock 'n roll band that learned their chops and paid their dues in Liverpool dives and German strip clubs. They were a road-hardened band long before they ever took their first trip to the States. The "cute little boy bands" thing isn't very new. The Beatles sure didn't start that...............but the examples you give certainly ARE pre-fabricated acts designed to get prepubescent girls to part with their parents' dough.
"Now they're starting with the girls; see Britney Spears."
Nope. You're about fifty years too late. Girl acts have been pre-packaged (individual "singers" or girl groups) since the '50's, certainly...........and it can be intelligently argued that this began long before then.
And you're right re: girl bands.
lol....Bernstein actually said that!?!?
Just off the top of my head I can think of Piston, Stravinsky and R. Strauss, each of whom completely outclassed Lennon and McCartney's work on every level.
Bernstein's recordings of Beethoven's 9 symphonies always made me question his judgment but, now I know he was just plain goofy.
Ummm, by the time my friends and I got around to caring about the Beatles, it was already late in the 60s and we were able to choose among the Doors and the Airplane and others (Zappa existed, too...).
(People lose sight of how diverse the US music scene was -- and, beyond the pop albums, there was a thriving live music scene back then and just about every city had a dozen or so "local" bands that had sounds all their own.)
(And people lose sight of just how influential US bands really were. Paul & John have spoken of how "pressured" they felt to produce songs as popular and as good as the Beach Boys. If I remember right, Helter Skelter was thought of and recorded as a direct attempt to "out rock" some Beach Boy song... And, of course, Pete Townsend has often spoke of how his notion of a "rock opera" came after listening to some Zappa album (or some Zappa thing with Captain Beefheart...))
Mark W.
By the late 70s around the Seattle area, none of the radio stations played much Beatle music, where were you?
Back in the U.S.S.R. was the Beatles tribute to the Beach Boys.
Sorry I have to disagree here.
Ricky Nelson: "I went to a garden party"....no more than three note changes throughout.
Nancy Sinatra: "These boots are made for walking"
Then there was the flute freak, James Galway, who gained the usual top fame until his records stopped selling.
Well, I don't mean "flute freak".
He is/was an accomplished flautist...but the Mad Ave folks turned him into 'big seller' for their advantage.
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