Word: beatlemania
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...about the conflict between the Old World and the New, about how the old-fashioned denizens of Europe were supposedly corrupting their fresh, young American counterparts with deceit and superficiality. Almost 60 years later, American journalists and teenybopper magazines used the same analogy of a "British invasion" to describe Beatlemania, couching it in terms of a phenomenon which could not be repelled but which also should not be embraced unequivocally...
...rich, smarmy suspect; a crafty defense attorney--it paled only next to that other courtroom drama in L.A. 3 THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY (ABC) Remember an age of rock so innocent that young stars actually enjoyed being famous? The grand old geezers--Paul, George, Ringo--recalled the genial hysteria of Beatlemania in a three-night show of rare clips and rockin' good music. Nostalgia nirvana...
...decent boy-os from Liverpool. They worked fantastically hard--a concert in Hull, then drive down to London for a recording session and back home the same day for a radio interview. They appeared on all the popular TV variety shows, allowing the hosts to make genial mock of Beatlemania. The album underlines the band's close ties to mainstream British show biz. It was this grounding that helped them endure and enjoy their success with such amazing poise...
From the start John had a spooky, modernist poise. His taut mouth, his appraising eyes made him the group's soul and wit as surely as McCartney became its prime musical mover. Cynical, cool, Lennon was the eye of sanity in the Beatlemania hurricane. Asked, during the first U.S. tour, when the Beatles found time to rehearse their songs, he replied, "We wrote 'em; we recorded 'em; we play 'em every day. What do you rehearse? Smilin'--that's all we rehearse." His edginess suggested a roiling interior life; you could write a novel about what you imagined...
...interviews, George talks as if he's Old Gramps in the garden on a fine Sunday afternoon. Every remembered epiphany evokes a dry giggle, except when he's waxing wrothful on Beatlemania ("They used us as an excuse to go mad, the world did, and then they blamed it on us"). Paul sounds earnest and superficial, like a Tory spokesman, and Ringo is still the ideal, unflappable pub mate. Even the grating last years, when Paul would rag George about his guitar playing, or sneak in to redub Ringo's drum parts, are events to look back on in sorrow...