Quote:
Originally Posted by Neapolitan
Beatlemania was coined to discribe all the screaming fans at concerts etc., where were the screaming fans at when they stopped touring???
Well, if you knew anything about any Beatle's historical albums you would know they were constantly changing their sound and image, Ad Nauseam!
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Beatlemania was coined by the media in their attempt to mass market the Beatles harmless, clean-cut, asexual image to a bunch of teens. The Beatles were a cash cow for everyone including promoters, record companies, retailers and news organization. Stones, more threatening, didn't get close to the attention, even though, they too produced excellent, albeit a little racy, singles during this period. Lennon, to his credit, submarined the whole Beatlemania enterprise, by doing an album, like Beggars Banquet, of stripped-down and blues rock and folk oriented songs, which failed to produce the type of feel-good pop single from previous albums. Ironically, they too became threatening with songs like "Helter Skelter" "Revolution" 'Happiness is a Warm Gun" and others. Instead of comforting fans, The Beatles made them uncomfortable. Songs like "Revolution 9" scared the sh___t out of those little kids. To compare the the change of musical directions experienced between earlier albums to this is ridiculous, and completely naive. The media, feeling betrayed, no longer gave them as much coverage nor good reviews, the fans became disenchanted. Whether they chose to perform or not, was completely inconsequential. They simply weren't lovable anymore. They became "Stones-like". I'm eternally grateful for John Lennon, in making this grand artistic statement. If you can appreciate his intense desire to distance himself as a artist from the Beatles past, then you can better understand his decision to undertake the weirdness he created with Yoko. But I believe he made that decision to break from the past, before meeting her, so blaming her for the break up of the Beatles is ridiculous as well.