Today's Article - Beatlemania

This article is for quizzes on Monday April 25th...

Beatlemania is a term that originated during the 1960s to describe the intense fan frenzy directed toward British rock band the Beatles during the early years of their success. The phenomenon began in 1963 and continued past the band's breakup in 1970. The band stopped performing live in 1966.

There are multiple competing theories as to why the Beatles attracted such a fan base, with no clear agreement. After the Beatles, the term mania was used to describe the popularity of later acts, as well as popularity of public figures and trends outside of music too.

Beatlemania was already evident when the band arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York in February 1964, but became common in the United States after the Beatles performed on several editions of The Ed Sullivan Show the same month; an estimated 73 million people tuned in to their February 9 appearance. Their tour of the U.S. was characterised by intense levels of hysteria and high-pitched screaming by female fans both at concerts and during the band's travels. David P. Szatmary explains this phenomena by showing the headlines of Billboard which made almost the entire US nation aware of Beatlemania, and some of the headline examples are: "The U.S. Rocks and Reels from Beatles Invasion," "Chicago Flips Wig, Beatles, and Otherwise," "New York City Crawling with Beatlemania," and "Beatle Binge in Los Angeles."

The extent of Beatlemania in the United States is evidenced by their sales. Szatmary states, "In the nine days during the Beatles' brief visit, Americans had bought more than two million Beatles records and more than 2.5 million US dollar worth of Beatles-related goods. They purchased blue-and-white Beatles hats, Beatles T-shirts and beach shirts, Beatles tight-fitting pants, Beatles pajamas and three-button tennis shirts, Beatles cookies..."^[8] During the 6½ years between the appearance of the "I Want to Hold Your Hand" single on the Billboard Hot 100 and the Let It Be LP, the Beatles had the Number One single in the US for a total of 59 weeks and topped the LP charts for 116 weeks. In other words, they had the top-selling single one out of every six weeks, and the top-selling album one out of every three weeks. The Beatles inspired large numbers of people, especially female fans, to scream with enjoyment while their idols sang.