Looking back on this 50th anniversary of the Beatles arrival in America, music fans and cultural observers of all ages often ask, "Can anything like the Beatles happen again?" The question itself is somewhat rhetorical and, a half-century on, acknowledges the singularity of the Beatles phenomenon.
Those who lived through it ask the question to validate their belief in the enormous impact the Beatles had on them, and, by extension, the culture. The Beatles unified boomers across a fifteen-year age range, and these fans, now between fifty-five and seventy, more or less, express gratitude about being born at the right time to grow up with the Beatles, and believe the experience makes their generation special. Perhaps we should blame the Beatles for boomers' supposed narcissism.
Younger people with interest in pop culture also ask the question. Sure, there have been other big pop music phenomena over the years -- Michael Jackson, U2, Nirvana, Madonna, and Prince come to mind -- and there may indeed be various kinds of similarities between the Beatles and these artists. The Bay City Rollers, Oasis, and One Direction could also be added to the list.
But the Beatles qua phenomenon was due to a confluence of forces that defined a historical moment. It's not so much that this perfect storm of factors can't align again, but that time has made these factors irrelevant. The world is a different place, and cultural breakthroughs, by definition, can't happen twice. Here are six reasons why a Beatles-like phenomenon can't happen again:
1. The Beatles had a fan base larger than any performer before or since.
The Beatles were a gigantic multinational corporation, and were the first performers to tap the potential of global mass media and sophisticated marketing to reach a large, young audience, newly recognized as consumers. In the U.S. alone, there were 76 million baby boomers and half the population was under twenty-five. Boomers were sold Beatles just as they were sold Etch-A-Sketch, Hoola Hoops, and Lincoln Logs.
2. There were relatively few entertainment outlets during the Beatle years.
Simply put, it was easier to get hugely famous in the sixties. Today there are an infinite number of entertainment choices, but if you weren't watching the Beatles debut on CBS's Ed Sullivan Show, there were only two other channels to watch. With the proliferation of outlets came market segmentation. Every major city had one or two Top 40 stations that played the Beatles, but when FM radio came along in 1967, it split boomer radio listeners into two camps and exposed listeners to deeper cuts from artists that emerged as a result of the pop music renaissance the Beatles initiated three years earlier. Today, there are more than fifty FM radio formats targeting particular market segments. Artists have smaller audiences now. There can no longer be a "next big thing," only a lot of smaller things.
3. Media saturation in American households reached absolute levels during the Beatle years.
The Beatles came along just as television was becoming an affordable necessity in American homes. There were few channels, but everyone was watching. Consider that when Elvis appeared on Sullivan in 1956, only 65 percent of American households had TV and 52 million people saw him. Eight years later, when the Beatles appeared on the show, 90 percent of households had TV and they were seen by 74 million people. No performer could have an audience bigger than the already biggest, unfragmented, audience.
The Beatles also benefitted from the sudden, quick adoption of inexpensive transistor radios. These "must haves" were the first in a long line of personal listening devices -- another quantum leap that can't happen again. Pop music had been heavily marketed to young people since the teenage market emerged in the post-war period, but the ubiquitous, cheap transistor radio made music a necessity and an integral part of young people's lives, allowing them to stay tuned any time, any place.
4. The Beatles appeared at a time of cultural cognitive dissonance.
Thanks to wartime R&D and post-war prosperity, the pace of technological and social change had never been as rapid as during the Kennedy era. Events demanding that we rethink old assumptions, recalibrate the realm of possibility, and consider new ideas were commonplace--with the Cold War's threat of nuclear annihilation and incremental involvement in Vietnam as the backdrop. At the same time, people outside the power structure -- youth, women, minorities, poor people -- were questioning the status quo and demanding greater voice. These winds of change were reflected in an increasingly cynical and critical pop culture.
So not only did the Beatles have more powerful and effective channels to reach their largest ever audience, but the consciousness of these young people, raised on the sweetly subversive books of Dr. Seuss and the boldly subversive Mad magazine, and some Dylan records, were growing weary of the conformity, constraint, and hypocrisy of the Greatest Generation. Boomers were especially receptive to the shaggy, cheeky foursome whose sound, appearance, and attitude represented freedom, youth empowerment, and self-expression. As the Beatles evolved throughout the decade, fans came to trust them and rely on the ideas embedded in their music to make sense of the chaos.
The pop culture landscape at this moment was uniquely welcoming to the Beatles, allowing them to be catalysts of change and providing fertile ground for their impact and ongoing cultural significance. The moment was ripe for a cultural reboot, and while there were and will be other such moments, this particular configuration of factors was unique, and many of the changes that came about in the sixties are now mainstream.
5. President Kennedy's assassination left young people feeling disillusioned and confused.
Beatlemania would have happened even without the shock and horror of Dallas. But when the Beatles entered the scene, only seventy-nine days later, they may have gotten an extra gush of enthusiasm. They were a fun diversion for the press and the public, as others have noted. But there's more to the "Kennedy Rebound Theory of Beatlemania." With their youthful, positive energy, they seemed to replace something that was lost.
Like Kennedy, they had over-the-top charisma, "now" style, could engage in clever, off-the-cuff banter with a challenging press corps, and were cool, competent citizens of the world. Kennedy was going to land a man on the moon, but the Beatles presented the space-age generation with a new kind of man. Kennedy invited musicians to the White House, but the Beatles opened the ears of a generation that witnessed the creation and evolution of some of the most brilliant music the world has heard. The Beatles brought a new New Frontier.
The seventy-nine day period between the assassination and Sullivan is an historical corridor, with the "Kennedy sixties" at one end and the "Beatles sixties" at the other.
6. The Beatles brought something genuinely new and compelling to the pop landscape.
Their appearance, sound, and attitude grabbed young people's attention in 1964 and they continued to dazzle fans for six years with a nonstop deluge of innovation -- a transformative experience fans describe as a "journey" or an "odyssey." As the Beatles' music became more complex and challenging and their mega fan base moved through childhood and adolescence, the band became a unique source of intellectual, emotional, aesthetic and spiritual nurturance.
The media became obsessed with the generation gap during these years, often identifying the Beatles as leaders of the counterculture while also praising their music and reporting on the activities of their personal lives. This served to enhance boomer generational identity, elevate the Beatles cultural authority, and deepen each fan's feeling of connection to them.
It would be wrong to say that compelling musical breakthroughs can't happen again. And many artists have since enjoyed an extremely large global following over a period of years. It's even possible, though highly improbable, that Lennon and McCartney caliber geniuses could find each other, collaborate, and deliver their product to a mass market.
Wonder about the possibility of anything like the Beatles happening again will continue because there is something awesome, in the true sense of the word, about their music, their story, and their enduring impact. The purpose of the question is not really to get an answer, but to create an opportunity to ponder something bigger than ourselves.