Long Live the Beatles!

I just finished reading the cover story in the latest Rolling Stone on the breakup of the Beatles (which happened forty years ago this year-- though its an odd sort of anniversary to celebrate). It's a good article with at least a couple of details that I didn't know before. Another magazine that I subscribe to, Mojo, seems to have a couple of Beatles related covers every year, and they always take some heat on the letters page from readers who want them to move on. But I have to say that the Beatles phenomenon is hardly limited to those nostalgic for the sixties. You probably have heard that there is an imminent re-release of all their records, remastered and, in some cases, available in stereo for the first time (on cd). Their music is also to be featured in a new version of the popular Guitar Hero video game out shortly.

There appears little decline in the groups popularity, as each generation since their sixties heyday seems to discover them all over again, and fall in love with their music. Their's is the only entire record catalog I can think of that has remained in print continuously from first release to the present, and not only that, none of the records (to my knowledge) have ever been discounted-- that is, they continue to be priced at the prevailing price for new releases. That's an amazing signal of the consistent demand for each of their records over the past nearly five decades. A recent Pew Research Poll shows that the Beatles are popular with every generation under the age of 65, ranking no. 1 with those 50-64, and among the top four in each of the next several generations. That's an incredible testament to their enduring appeal, and speaks indirectly to just how trendsetting-- even ahead of their time-- they were back in the sixties.

I guess what I'm suggesting here is that the Beatles may represent one of the last truly unifying cultural touchstones in our increasingly divided society. There are no TV shows that virtually everyone watches (like Ed Sullivan way back when), no books that virtually everyone reads, no truly national pastime like baseball in the mid-twentieth century. But virtually everyone seems to know, and mostly like, the Beatles, year after year. Fans in the sixties believed that the group was changing the world, and it appears they knew what they were talking about.