“Are The Beatles relevant today” plus 1

Posted: 28 May 2010 08:03 AM PDT

Brighton High school music students William Coote, Shannon Pearce, Joel Morgan and Caitlin Chick pose like The Beatles did on thir record covers Please Please Me. Picture: Mark Brake Source: AdelaideNow

FROM Justin Beiber to Jay-Z and Lady Gaga, The Beatles' influence on modern music remains strong decades after their split.

They have been covered by some of the greats, while many unknowns try to replicate their sound and success.

With a hugely popular video game, numerous movies and a Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas, The Beatles simply cannot be ignored.

Visits to Adelaide's music schools this week, however, showed that among our state's youth, the importance of The Fab Four and the iconic music they created more than 40 years ago is fading.

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A survey of 100 students from Years 8 to 10 revealed that just more than one third could name the group's four members and only 20 per cent could name three Beatles albums.

That is puzzling considering the band's historical importance in the global music community and the fact more people turned out to see the band in Adelaide than anywhere else in the world.

With another generation of teenagers now discovering music, gone are the days of pulling out mum and dad's old Beatles records.

"Even if they don't know The Beatles, intrinsically they know that they are good," music guru Glenn A Baker says. "These kids are a couple of generations on. This isn't a generation that would have directly been handed down The Beatles.

"You might have kids now that are more familiar with artists from the 1970s and 80s - it's almost like it's up to the grandparents now. But The Beatles' music endures and every so often their music comes back in a big way.

The Beatles' digitally-remastered collection sold more than 2.25 million units in Japan, North America and Britain in just five days when it was released last September.

That is almost 35 million album sales in five days.

Last December, their music took a big leap into the digital age.

The Beatles Stereo Box Set was released as a limited edition of 30,000 apple-shaped USB flash drives. That was the first time The Beatles' catalogue had been released in a digital format better than CD quality.

Video game company Viacom announced it sold 25 per cent of the Beatles Rock Band game inventory in one week.

"There are certain things, like Shakespeare for example, that are eternal," Mr Baker said.

"The Beatles, too, are eternal.Generations now may not know all the details but they know they existed and that they were central to the time in which they performed.

"But if there is anywhere in the world that should know about The Beatles, it is Adelaide. You had more fans come out and welcome them than anywhere else."

Students at the schools visited this week had difficulty answering questions about The Beatles.

Fifty-five per cent of those quizzed knew the famous lyrics of Yesterday while only 27 per cent knew the band only had two remaining members.

Brighton Secondary School student Joel Morgan, 13, admitted he knew little to nothing about the infamous quartet. "I don't really know much about them," he said. "I couldn't answer any of the questions."

Brad Salt, 15, said: "They're not really relevant - but their music is popular."

Gabi Hyde, 17, a gifted singer from Brighton Secondary School, is passionate about The Beatles and their music. "It's the sort of music that always comes full circle," she said.

"The fact that they sounded different on every album represents the progression of music as a whole."

While the school quiz results show young teenagers have poor knowledge of rock music's most iconic band, international figures painted a different picture a decade ago. The biggest demographic of people who bought the band's greatest hits album released in 2000 were 16-to 24-year-olds and those aged more than 45, Nielsen research revealed.

In the wake of the greatest-hits package, the percentage of teens and young adults buying Beatles albums nearly doubled.

Radio personality Bob Francis, the man responsible for bringing the group to Adelaide, believes that with the music market constantly flooded with "the next big thing", it is harder for classic acts such as The Beatles to reach younger audiences.

"With Beatles' music, it was still in an era when people listened to the words and melodies meant something," he said.

"What I used to call one-hit wonders are coming out one after the other these days.

Francis also attributed the declining knowledge of The Beatles to current radio trends, particularly the FM market. "The FM stations today only play current music and it's rare that you hear anything from more than five years ago on any radio station today," he said.

"Nobody really brings stuff forward from yesteryear that I grew up with. Today FM radio plays a set routine of maybe 50 or 60 songs and repeats them 24 hours a day - so how do we bring back The Beatles? I don't know."

While some radio stations may ignore rock classics, many performers are helping keep The Beatles' flame well and truly lit.

Recently, The Beatles were in Adelaide in spirit.

The ASO plays The Beatles received rave reviews for recreating George Martin's original orchestrations to the iconic Beatles songs and in the coming months, yet another Beatles show will hit town.

Let It Be: The Songs of Lennon and McCartney will be performed at The Adelaide Festival Theatre on August 15, featuring John Waters - whose one-man tribute to John Lennon, Looking Through a Glass Onion first hit the stage almost 20 years ago.

Waters said that since he first performed the classic songs in 1993, he has noticed a younger generation of fans come back to the show each time it tours.

"I had a lot of students coming along who had never heard the stuff before," he said.

"It's a very cross-generational thing today. Some kids are in their teens and hearing The Beatles songs for the first time and they're going, wow - that's really great."

Ringo Starr summed up the band's relevance to the younger generation in an interview:

"The music stands up. It's not the silly haircuts or the shoes or the suits," he told a UK journalist. "New generations of musicians and fans are still talking about the music."

Teenagers today may not remember the names of the four boys from Liverpool but with more than 50 per cent knowing the lyrics to at least one of their songs, their music will be cherished for a long time yet.

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