First published 2017
Rolling Stone columnist Rob Sheffield takes readers through his personal exploration of the Beatles' enduring cultural impact. Rather than rehashing familiar band history or analyzing songs, Sheffield examines why John, Paul, George, and Ringo remain more popular today than during their active years. He draws from his experience as the bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape to focus on emotional connections between music and listeners. Sheffield argues that the Beatles transcended nostalgia to become permanently relevant to fans who discovered them decades after the breakup. Through a series of essays, he traces how four musicians from Liverpool became the world's biggest pop phenomenon, disbanded, yet somehow grew even larger in cultural significance. The book celebrates their music while explaining how the Beatles created the cultural framework we still inhabit today.
Genres: biography-memoir, music, 21st-century, cultural-studies
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: cultural-significance, personal-exploration
Setting: Liverpool
Period: 20th-century
1 pages · Audio CD · HarperCollins