Blogging Blogging The Beatles

As I mentioned here before, my dissertation research paid particular attention to the marking of anniversaries of events in popular music. My fieldwork years coincided with quite a few 40th anniversaries of events (such as concerts or the release of albums) that are now seen as historically important events: History-with-a-capital-H. My argument was that this "historical consciousness" marks a profound shift in the way that popular music (and popular culture more generally speaking) have been viewed. What was previously something trivial and ephemeral was now being treated as something with historical weight, something worthy of being honored, remembered, and--in the case of tribute bands--re-created as "authentically" as possible.

Anyway, such was the case in the late years of the first decade of the 2000s, when 40th anniversaries marking the release of albums like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band or concerts like The Beatles' rooftop concert at Abbey Road studio were celebrated.

Well, a few years later, and now we're beginning to celebrate 50th anniversaries. The Rolling Stones are embarking on a tour to mark their 50th anniversary as a band. And just yesterday, the online news magazine Slate started a new feature called "Blogging the Beatles" to follow, 50 years later, the events of The Beatles' career.

The first entry focuses on the November 26, 1962 recording of their first #1 single, "Please Please Me." I won't say much about the content, other than to say that it seems accurate and well-informed. (Much of its information comes from Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties--a good choice.)

But again, what interests me the most about this is the sheer fact that something like this would exist. The New York Times has a blog called "Disunion" following the American Civil War, exactly 150 years after it took place. The Civil War was obviously a major historical event, with ramifications that can be still be felt. Even concerts marking the 40th anniversaries of the release of "concept" albums make a certain amount of sense; by the time these albums were released in the late 1960s, rock music had already appropriated a certain amount of "artistic" prestige--though I think contemporary observers would have been surprised to see how durable this prestige has been. But the events of early 1960s rock were emphatically NOT viewed as either aesthetically- or historically-important at the time. They really were seen as trivial, ephemeral popular culture. 

So a blog marking the 50th anniversary of these events is really retrospectively giving the prestige and historical importance to events that were not seen as so important at the time. Why are these events seen as important in retrospect? Well, the first answer is because of what the actors involved would go on to do later. The birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. on January 15, 1929 wasn't historically significant at the time, but it became significant (and something we celebrate with a holiday every year) because of what he would later accomplish. Another possible answer is that, in fact, these earlier events were historically significant at the time, that they contain seeds of the greatness that was to come which observers at the time missed. Certainly, this is a popular explanation offered by classic rock fans.

As for myself, I subscribe in part to both those explanations, but I prefer a third idea: that these events have been treated as historically significant because of power. In the case of The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, the events of the early 1960s are treated as significant because the baby boomer generation has succeeded in canonizing the popular culture of their youth. They've done this through sheer demographic might, through purchasing power, and through being in positions of influence as writers, DJs, and record company executives. Nothing nefarious about this. But while we're still trying to understand the music and culture of the 1960s fifty years later, we will understand it better when we realize that its enduring popularity and "historical" nature isn't an accident or a feature of the music itself.