Beatlemania

[5] In their 1986 book Re-making Love: The Feminization of Sex, authors Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess and Gloria Jacobs argued that the band's presentable suits meant that they seemed less "sleazy" than Presley to middle-class whites.

[4] In February 1964, Paul Johnson wrote an article in the New Statesman which stated that the mania was a modern incarnation of female hysteria and that the wild fans at the Beatles' concerts were "the least fortunate of their generation, the dull, the idle, the failures".

[7] A 1966 study published in the British Journal of Clinical Psychology rejected Johnson's assertion; the researchers found that Beatles fans were not likelier to score higher on Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory's hysteria scale, nor were they unusually neurotic.

"[19] The Beatles' second nationwide tour began on 9 March at the Granada Cinema in London, where the group appeared on a bill headed by American stars Tommy Roe and Chris Montez, both of whom had firmly established themselves in the UK singles charts.

Orbison had established even greater UK chart success than either Montez or Roe, with four hits in the top 10,[23] but he proved less popular than the Beatles at the tour's opening show staged at the Adelphi Cinema, Slough.

[33] Scottish music promoter Andi Lothian said that he coined "Beatlemania" while speaking to a reporter at the band's Caird Hall concert, which took place as part of the Beatles' mini-tour of Scotland on 7 October.

[36] The band returned from a five-day Swedish tour on 31 October 1963[37] and were greeted at Heathrow Airport in heavy rain by thousands of screaming fans, 50 journalists and photographers, and a BBC TV camera crew.

[41] On the first tour date, at the Odeon in Cheltenham, the volume of sound from the screaming crowds was so great that the Beatles' amplification equipment proved unequal to it – the band members could not hear themselves speaking, singing or playing.

[56] Newspaper and magazine articles about the Beatles began to appear in the US towards the end of 1963, and they cited the English stereotype of eccentricity, reporting that the UK had finally developed an interest in rock and roll, which had come and gone a long time previously in the US.

"[40] David Holbrook wrote in the New Statesman that it was "painfully clear that the Beatles are a masturbation fantasy, such as a girl presumably has during the onanistic act – the genial smiling young male images, the music like a buzzing of the blood in the head, the rhythm, the cries, the shouted names, the climaxes.

[78] An article in The New York Times Magazine described Beatlemania as a "religion of teenage culture" that was indicative of how American youth now looked to their own age group for social values and role models.

[79] The US had been in mourning, fear and disbelief over the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963,[80] and contemporary pundits identified a link between the public shock and the adulation afforded the Beatles eleven weeks later.

[96][nb 6] Contrary to the presentable image the Beatles maintained for reporters covering the tours, their evening parties often descended into orgies with female admirers, which Lennon later likened to the scenes of Roman decadence in Frederico Fellini's film Satyricon.

[102][104] Fans lined the city streets and then lay siege outside the Beatles' hotel; cars were crushed and 50 people were hospitalised, some having fallen from trees in an attempt to gain a vantage point of their heroes.

[116][nb 9] Stanley highlights the Hard Day's Night LP as the album that best demonstrates the band's international appeal, saying: "There was adventure, knowingness, love, and abundant charm [in the songs] ... the drug was adrenaline.

[123] George Martin, the Beatles' record producer, assisted in taping the band's 23 August Hollywood Bowl concert for a proposed live album; given the audience's relentless screaming, he said it was "like putting a microphone at the end of a 747 jet".

In a report from London for the Partisan Review, Jonathan Miller wrote of the effects of the Beatles' extended absence overseas: "They have become a religion in fact ... All over the place though there are icons, devotional photos and illuminated messiahs which keep the tiny earthbound fans in touch with the provocatively absconded deities.

[134][nb 10] As a result, according to Gould, the traditional division between folk and rock enthusiasts "nearly evaporated" over the following year, as the Beatles' fans began to mature in their outlook and Dylan's audience embraced the new, youth-driven pop culture.

[146] In Houston, fans swarmed over the wings of the Beatles' chartered Lockheed Elektra; three days later, one of the plane's engines caught fire, resulting in a terrifying ordeal for the band on the descent into Portland.

[173] A photo from this shoot, showing the group dressed in white butchers' coats and draped with pieces of raw meat and parts from plastic baby dolls, was submitted as the original cover image of a forthcoming US album, Yesterday and Today.

German police used tear gas and guard dogs to control fans in Essen, and in Tokyo, there was fear of terrorism surrounding the band's stay, forcing the members to be placed under heavy security in response to death threats from the country's hardline traditionalists.

In Japan there were student riots, plus people were demonstrating because the Budokan (where we were playing) was supposed to be a special spiritual hall reserved for martial arts ... [In Manila] the whole place turned on us ... there were all the government officials or police, who were trying to punch us ... and then underneath that were the young kids who were still around doing the mania.

[193] Throughout the tour, the US press nevertheless seized the opportunity to predict the end of Beatlemania, citing the bonfires and radio bans, but also, as detrimental factors to the Beatles' teenage appeal, the group's financial wealth and the artiness of their latest records.

[197] By 1966 the Beatles had become disenchanted with all aspects of touring – including fans offering themselves sexually to the band, the high-pitched screaming, and regular confinement in hotel rooms – and they were frustrated that the quality of their live performances was so at odds with the increasingly sophisticated music they created in the studio.

[206] Sensing this, two aspiring Hollywood filmmakers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider created The Monkees, a show starring an eponymous four-piece band in the Beatles' mould[207] and evoking the spirit of their films A Hard Day's Night and Help!

The accompanying promotional films eschewed performance in favour of avant-garde imagery;[218] they showed the band members' adoption of facial hair,[219][220] a detail that challenged the convention for youthful-looking pop stars.

[239] In their 1986 book, Ehrenreich, Hess and Jacobs comment that, but for the girls' hairstyles and clothing, the photos and footage of young Beatles fans in confrontation with police suggest a women's liberation demonstration from the late 1960s rather than a 1964 pop event.

[246] Writing in The Observer in 2013, Dorian Lynskey said, "the tropes of Beatlemania have recurred in fan crazes from the Bay City Rollers to Bros, East 17 to One Direction: the screaming, the queuing, the waiting, the longing, the trophy-collecting, the craving for even the briefest contact.

"[2] In their book Encyclopedia of Classic Rock, David Luhrssen and Michael Larson state that while boy bands such as One Direction continue to attract audiences of screaming girls, "none of those acts moved pop culture forward or achieved the breadth and depth of the Beatles' fandom.

"[247] André Millard similarly writes that, just as Beatlemania's "scale and ferocity" far surpassed the scenes of adulation inspired by Sinatra, Presley and Johnnie Ray, "nobody in popular entertainment has been able to repeat this moment in all its economic and cultural significance.