Meet the Beatles: A Cultural History of the Band That Shook Youth, Gender, and the World

Steven D. Stark

Harper Collins, Oct 13, 2009 - Music - 368 pages

Rob Sheffield, the Rolling Stone columnist and bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape, offers an entertaining, unconventional look at the most popular band in history, the Beatles, exploring what they mean today and why they still matter so intensely to a generation that has never known a world without them.

Meet the Beatles is not another biography of the Beatles, or a song-by-song analysis of the best of John and Paul. It isn’t another exposé about how they broke up. It isn’t a history of their gigs or their gear. It is a collection of essays telling the story of what this ubiquitous band means to a generation who grew up with the Beatles music on their parents’ stereos and their faces on T-shirts. What do the Beatles mean today? Why are they more famous and beloved now than ever? And why do they still matter so much to us, nearly fifty years after they broke up?

As he did in his previous books, Love is a Mix Tape, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, and Turn Around Bright Eyes, Sheffield focuses on the emotional connections we make to music. This time, he focuses on the biggest pop culture phenomenon of all time—The Beatles. In his singular voice, he explores what the Beatles mean today, to fans who have learned to love them on their own terms and not just for the sake of nostalgia.

Meet the Beatles tells the story of how four lads from Liverpool became the world’s biggest pop group, then broke up—but then somehow just kept getting bigger. At this point, their music doesn’t belong to the past—it belongs to right now. This book is a celebration of that music, showing why the Beatles remain the world’s favorite thing—and how they invented the future we’re all living in today.

About the author

Steven D. Stark is a writer and cultural commentator. He has been the popular culture analyst for National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Sunday; a contributor to The World, a daily public radio show coproduced by WGBH and the BBC; and a commentator for CNN's Showbiz Today. The author of Glued to the Set and Writing to Win, he has written extensively for the Boston Globe, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the Atlantic Monthly. He has been a Beatles fan since he was a boy and the Beatles first hit America on February 7, 1964.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Meet the Beatles: A Cultural History of the Band That Shook Youth, Gender, and the World
• Author: Steven D. Stark
• Publisher: Harper Collins, 2009
• ISBN: 0061842524, 9780061842528
• Length: 368 pages
• Subjects: Art / Art & Politics; Art / History / General; Biography & Autobiography / General; Biography & Autobiography / Historical; Biography & Autobiography / Sports; History / Social History; Music / History & Criticism; Music / Printed Music / General; Social Science / Ethnic Studies / General; Social Science / Popular Culture; Social Science / Sociology / General