New Critical Perspectives on the Beatles
New Critical Perspectives on the Beatles

Author: Kenneth Womack

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-06-09

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 113757013X

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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 New Critical Perspectives on the Beatles offers a collection of original, previously unpublished essays that explore 'new' aspects of the Beatles.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.

The Beatles and the Historians
The Beatles and the Historians

Author: Erin Torkelson Weber

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2016-04-27

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1476624704

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Hundreds of books have been written about The Beatles. Over the last half century, their story has been mythologized and de-mythologized and presented by biographers and journalists as history. Yet many of these works do not strictly qualify as history and the story of how the Beatles' mythology continues to be told has been largely ignored. This book examines the band's historiography, exploring the four major narratives that have developed over time: The semi-whitewashed "Fab Four" account, the acrimonious breakup-era Lennon Remembers version, the biased "Shout!" narrative in the wake of John Lennon's murder, and the current Mark Lewisohn orthodoxy. Drawing on the most influential primary and secondary sources, Beatles history is analyzed using historical methods.

Fandom and The Beatles
Fandom and The Beatles

Author: Kenneth Womack

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-02-26

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0190917881

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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.

The Beatles through a Glass Onion
The Beatles through a Glass Onion

Author: Mark Osteen

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2019-03-11

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 0472074083

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The Beatles, the 1968 double LP more commonly known as the White Album, has always been viewed as an oddity in the group’s oeuvre. Many have found it to be inconsistent, sprawling, and self-indulgent. The Beatles through a Glass Onion is the first-ever scholarly volume to explore this seminal recording at length, bringing together contributions by some of the most eminent scholars of rock music writing today. It marks a reconsideration of this iconic but under-appreciated recording and reaffirms the White Album’s significance in the Beatles’ career and in rock history. This volume treats the White Album as a whole, with essays scrutinizing it from a wide range of perspectives. These essays place the album within the social and political context of a turbulent historical moment; locate it within the Beatles’ lives and careers, taking into consideration the complex personal forces at play during the recording sessions; investigate the musical as well as pharmaceutical influences on the record; reveal how it reflects new developments in the Beatles’ songwriting and arranging; revisit the question of its alleged disunity; and finally, track its legacy and the breadth of its influence on later rock, pop, and hip-hop artists. The Beatles through a Glass Onion features the scholarship of Adam Bradley, Vincent Benitez, Lori Burns, John Covach, Walter Everett, Michael Frontani, Steve Hamelman, Ian Inglis, John Kimsey, Mark Osteen, Russell Reising, Stephen Valdez, Anthony D. Villa, Kenneth Womack, and Alyssa Woods. John Covach’s Afterword summarizes the White Album’s lasting impact and value. The Beatles through a Glass Onion represents a landmark work of rock music scholarship. It will prove to be an essential and enduring contribution to the field.

A Women’s History of the Beatles
A Women’s History of the Beatles

Author: Christine Feldman-Barrett

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2021-01-28

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1501348043

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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 Beatles and the 1960s
The Beatles and the 1960s

Author: Kenneth L. Campbell

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-08-12

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 135010745X

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The Beatles are widely regarded as the foremost and most influential music band in history and their career has been the subject of many biographies. Yet the band's historical significance has not received sustained academic treatment to date. In The Beatles' Reception in the 1960s, Kenneth L. Campbell uses the Beatles as a lens through which to explore the sweeping, panoramic history of the social, cultural and political transformations that occurred in the 1960s. It draws on audience reception theory and untapped primary source material, including student newspapers, to understand how listeners would have interpreted the Beatles' songs and albums not only in Britain and the United States, but also globally. Taking a year-by-year approach, each chapter analyses the external influences the Beatles absorbed, consciously or unconsciously, from the culture surrounding them. Some key topics include race relations, gender dynamics, political and cultural upheavals, the Vietnam War and the evolution of rock music and popular culture. The book will also address the resurgence of the Beatles' popularity in the 1980s, as well as the relevance of The Beatles' ideals of revolutionary change to our present day. This is essential reading for anyone looking for an accessible yet rigorous study of the historical relevance of the Beatles in a crucial decade of social change.

Fandom and the Beatles
Fandom and the Beatles

Author: Kenneth Womack

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-02-15

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0190917873

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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.

The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper, and the Summer of Love
The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper, and the Summer of Love

Author: Kenneth Womack

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2017-07-03

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 1498534759

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For the Beatles, 1967 marks a signal crossroads that would both transform the group’s career and place them on a trajectory towards their eventual disbandment. It was a year in which they exploded prevailing rock music demographics through the global onslaught and international success of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band beginning in June 1967. Yet it was also a period that saw them in a precarious state of flux throughout the summer and fall months, as the band attempted to recapture their artistic direction in the wake of Sgt. Pepper and the untimely death of manager Brian Epstein. The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper, and the Summer of Love draws readers into that pivotal year in the life of the band. For the Fab Four, 1967 would see the band members part ways with psychedelia and the avant-garde through the trials and tribulations of the Magical Mystery Tour, a project that resulted in a series of classic recordings, while at the same time revealing the bandmates’ aesthetic vulnerabilities and failings as would-be filmmakers and auteurs.

What Goes On
What Goes On

Author: Walter Everett

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-06-21

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0190949880

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In a stretch of just seven years, the Beatles recorded hundreds of songs which tower above those of their worthy peers as both the product of cultural leadership and an artistic reflection of their turbulent age, the1960s. Walter Everett and Tim Riley's What Goes On: The Beatles, Their Music, and Their Time blends historical narrative, musicology, and music analysis to tell the full story of the Beatles and how they redefined pop music. The book traces the Beatles' development chronologically, marking the band's involvement with world events such as the Vietnam War, strides in overcoming racial segregation, gender stereotyping, student demonstrations, and the generation gap. It delves deeply into their body of work, introducing the concepts of musical form, instrumentation, harmonic structure, melodic patterns, and rhythmic devices in a way that is accessible to musicians and non-musicians alike. Close readings of specific songs highlight the tensions between imagination and mechanics, songwriting and technology, and through the book's musical examples, listeners will learn how to develop strategies for creating their own rich interpretations of the potential meanings behind their favorite songs. Videos hosted on the book's companion website offer full definitions and performance demonstrations of all musical concepts discussed in the text, and interactive listening guides illustrate track details in real-time listening. The unique multimedia approach of What Goes On reveals just how great this music was in its own time, and why it remains important today as a body of singular achievement.

The Beatles and Humour
The Beatles and Humour

Author: Katie Kapurch

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2023-08-10

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1501379372

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The Beatles are known for cheeky punchlines, but understanding their humor goes beyond laughing at John Lennon's memorable “rattle your jewelry” dig at the Royal Variety Performance in 1963. From the beginning, the Beatles' music was full of wordplay and winks, guided by comedic influences ranging from rhythm and blues, British radio, and the Liverpool pub scene. Gifted with timing and deadpan wit, the band habitually relied on irony, sarcasm, and nonsense. Early jokes revealed an aptitude for improvisation and self-awareness, techniques honed throughout the 1960s and into solo careers. Experts in the art of play, including musical experimentation, the Beatles' shared sense of humor is a key ingredient to their appeal during the 1960s-and to their endurance. The Beatles and Humour offers innovative takes on the serious art of Beatle fun, an instrument of social, political, and economic critique. Chapters also situate the band alongside British and non-British predecessors and collaborators, such as Billy Preston and Yoko Ono, uncovering diverse components and unexpected effects of the Beatles' output.