The Peculiarities of the Beatles
A Cultural-Historical Interpretation

Author: Heilbronner, Oded¹

Source: Cultural and Social History, Volume 5, Number 1, March 2008 , pp. 99-115(17)

Publisher: Berg Publishers

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Abstract:

This article represents an interpretation of the success of the Beatles in Britain. The anti-revolutionary Beatles habitus was nourished by a cultural capital intrinsic to the Beatles, which originates in cultural values inherent in some notions of Englishness, the Beatles' northern English working- or lower middle-class roots, and the adoption of characteristics typical of English popular culture. I argue that their English cultural capital, among other things, may explain the Beatles' success in Britain, as well as the way in which the band embraced anti-revolutionary and anti-anarchistic views in contrast to other groups of the era. To me, the Beatles are a consensual band representative of English society in the early and mid-1960s, a consensual society in which the class, ethnic and economic differences that were so defining up to the 1940s were briefly felt as less significant, before re-emerging with full force in the early 1970s.

Keywords: BEATLES; ENGLISHNESS; 1960S; IDENTITY; NORTHERN ENGLAND; POPULAR MUSIC

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.2752/147800408X267274

Affiliations: 1: Shenkar College for Design, Tel Aviv; the Hebrew University, Jerusalem;, Email: heilbron@mscc.huji.ac.il

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