The legacy of The Beatles continues to thrive in the 21st century where their music and image is immortalized in popular culture. Their contributions to the music industry has changed the interactions between musicians and producers where musicians have acquired more creative control over the production of their music. The Beatles had also redefined the purpose and significance of the long-play album as an art form, which, in turn, contributed to the development of the concept of “serious rock.” Their music continues to be remastered and repackaged to be released to a familiar audience and to a new generation of listeners. For the latter, this exposure can be seen as a rite of passage into the world of music and popular culture. However, for those who identify with serious rock, the decision to release these remasters to be heard by new listeners with commercialism and consumerism in mind can be viewed as The Beatles selling out. The Beatles, however, have not sold themselves out as they have already been massively popular for a long time. Instead, their legacy reveals changes in how people receive and discover music.
Although The Beatles have made a significant impact on the reception of the long-play album as an art form, full-length albums are currently a dying concept. In “’An Abstraction, like Christmas’: the Beatles for sale and for keeps,” Kimsey notes a change in purchasing trends: “…online music consumers typically purchase individual songs as opposite to full-length albums, the format thought to feature the Beatles at their best.” The Beatles conceptualized their albums where their songs collectively represented a theme or an idea. However, the ability to purchase individual songs online means that consumers do not have to buy an album in order to listen to the songs they want to hear. As a result, companies have reason to be reluctant in making their catalogs available online since they rely on CDs to generate profits.* Due to these changes in how people purchase music, companies are turning to non-conventional ways of selling music.
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| Image source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_Anthology |
Music companies are utilizing The Beatles’ legacy to translate their music into other avenues of expression. For example, Kimsey mentions the release of Anthology as a documentary and three double-disc albums to give listeners and viewers an insight to the band’s musical history. Anthology gives off a vibe of sentimentality that allows old and new fans to develop a personal connection to The Beatles. This approach offers that incentive when users purchase these albums because it is a piece of history that urges listeners to be a part of. In contrast to the sentimentality offered by Anthology, Kimsey mentions the Love project and how it combined their music with acrobatic performances by Cirque du Soleil. Love reimagines The Beatles and their music and is made for the purpose of reaching a wider audience and inspiring people to see and hear the band under a different context. This context causes a new generation of listeners to have a different understanding of The Beatles where they are to be perceived as “that” band whom everyone should know about versus those who grew up with Beatlemania and came to see it as either history in the making or a fad.
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| Image source: engadget.com
Harmonix, the developers of Rock Band, had released a version centered on The Beatles. The video game is one of the ways that the legacy of The Beatles continues to make an impact on popular culture while their music can reach a younger audience that is adept to playing video games.
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While these different avenues of expression manage to help the concept of albums to survive [to some extent] in a growing online music market, the understanding that comes with it is that The Beatles are idolized and are seen as elite musicians. As a result, it comes across as trendy and exclusive for some to like The Beatles and to listen to their music. However, this causes friction with those who consider themselves to be genuine fans of the band. The Beatles’ image and reputation represent the visual aspects of their success that may attracts fans whereas the self-proclaimed genuine fan is fond of the group for their music. In lecture, Cantrell mentions how The Beatles were objects of the female gaze. How the band presented themselves to their audience vastly differs between their early years and later years where they initially started out as a pop group playing to female audiences and later developed into a serious rock group that focused on creating contemplative works. The duality of The Beatles in this manner is reflected in a statement made by Kimsey in his article: “Keightley argues that rock is a form of popular culture built on elitism and moralism – on ‘processes of exclusion’…” The Beatles and rock music aims to make themselves widely known, but at the same time attempts to filter their fans through exclusion and conformity. The elitist attitudes inherited by fans and the acquisition of new fans contributes to The Beatles’ survival into the present in the music industry where their legacy helps their music to be discovered in new ways.
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| Image source: enca.com Ringo and Paul are two of the four members who remain alive today. |
The Beatles have become a significant cultural figure in popular culture where the group, as a unit, is more recognizable than its individual members. Cantrell mentions in lecture how each of the members’ identities in A Hard Day’s Night were not as recognizable when they were by themselves compared to their identity as a group. Their legacy is tied to the band’s identity and continues to reach new listeners each day. The success of their compilation albums selling at least a million copies shows that CDs are not completely obsolete, but this achievement was attainable largely due to the group’s legacy. As their music continues to be distributed, whether it be through a compilation album or an mp3 file, the executive decisions surrounding how their music is to be released reveals how listeners are receiving and discovering music in modern times.
* Weeks after this essay was written, it was announced in multiple sources that The Beatles' music catalog will be available on streaming services on December 24, 2015 (see one source from Consequence of Sound here). It appears that Beatlemania will soon be revived.
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