Fandom and the Beatles: The ACT You’’ve Known for All These Years

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.

Kenneth Womack is one of the world’s foremost writers and thinkers about the Beatles. In addition to such titles as Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of the Beatles (2007) and The Beatles Encyclopedia: Everything Fab Four (2014), he is the author of a two-volume biography of the life and work of Beatles producer George Martin, including Maximum Volume (2017) and Sound Pictures (2018). His latest work, Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles (2019), was feted as the go-to book by the Los Angeles Times for readers interested in learning about the band’s swan song.

Kit O’Toole is a Chicago-based independent scholar who has written about rock, jazz, and R&B for over 25 years. She is the author of Michael Jackson FAQ (2015) and Songs We Were Singing: Guided Tours through the Beatles’ Lesser-Known Tracks (2015). O’Toole is a contributor to the anthologies Interdisciplinary Essays on Environment and Culture: One Planet, One Humanity, and the Media (2016), New Critical Perspectives on the Beatles: Things We Said Today (2016), and The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper, and the Summer of Love (2017).