As I’ve noted before, I’m a huge fan of the Beatles. Humongous fan. I have been so since I was in kindergarten (1963-1964). Today, I’m enjoying listening to the newly released digitally remastered stereo recordings of their entire oeuvre [that's French for "oeuvre"].
I am a very happy boy!
And I’m even happier to have read this excellent analysis, by Daniel Finkelstein, of Brian Epstein’s role in managing the Beatles. Here’s a key point from Finkelstein’s article:
Appreciating the role of Epstein, allows one to appreciate that the Beatles are as much a triumph of commerce as of art. They were not merely brilliant musicians fusing avant-garde influences with rhythm and blues music. They were a showbiz act managed by an inspired entrepreneur. They weren’t simply class rebels against the Establishment, they were the brilliant product of capitalist enterprise, the early pioneers of globalisation.
(HT Mason Drake)
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Professor Boudreaux,
I am surprised you missed this from today!!!:
John Stossel on the Beatles, http://blogs.abcnews.com/johnstossel/2009/09/the-beatles-taxman.html
Don,
And their best album would be?
Beatles Rock Band is not too shabby…….just played with my kids……nice experience….
Lennon hated it when people could see that his hip “radical” stance in the the early 1970s was part of a commercial strategy. The more “peace” songs he wrote, the more angry he got — seems like he was ready to bite heads off by the mid-1970s.
But maybe that was just the LSD — and the booze — talking.
Harold Wilson killed the Beatles.
I never though of it that way, but it seems clear he did just that.
I don’t care too much for money. If I did, I’d just become a paperback writer. I have to do something. I don’t keep a ten bob note up my nose. You never give me your money, that’s for sure.
I recently listened to Ruby Tuesday and I just realized its libertarian comments:
Don’t question why she needs to be so free
She’ll tell you it’s the only way to be
She just can’t be chained
To a life where nothing’s gained
And nothing’s lost
At such a cost
There’s no time to lose, I heard her say
Catch your dreams before they slip away
Dying all the time
Lose your dreams
And you will lose your mind.
How about that for socialists to chew on! Rock and Roll is libertarian even though its stars all tend to be supporters of totalitarians. I guess after they make a rhyme, their brains go on auto-pilot.
Don,
Like you, I bought my first Beatle’s album (*Meet the Beatles*) in 1963, when I was in kindergarten.
“Should five percent appear too small, be grateful I don’t take it all. ‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman.”
The Beatles may be a good example of the success of capitalism, but they are provide a good example of excessive property rights limiting creativity. In particular, the well received by critics “Grey Album” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grey_Album) was prevented from being sold by the Beatles record label (and so many people who wanted to listen to it just downloaded it illegaly).