The Beatles: Image and the Media [Paperback]

Michael R. Frontani (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 26, 2007

The Beatles: Image and the Media charts the transformation of the Beatles from teen idols to leaders of the youth movement and powerful cultural agents. Drawing upon American mainstream print media, broadcasts, albums, films, and videos, the study covers the band's career in the United States. Michael R. Frontani explores how the Beatles' media image evolved and how this transformation related to cultural and historical events.

Upon their arrival in the U.S., the Beatles wore sharply tailored suits and cast themselves as adorable, accessible teen heartthrobs. By the end of the decade, they had absorbed the fashion and consciousness of the burgeoning counterculture and were using their interviews, media events, and music to comment on issues such as the Vietnam War, drug culture, and civil rights. Frontani traces the steps that led to this change and comments on how the band's mantra of essential optimism never wavered despite the evolution of its media profile.

Michael R. Frontani is associate professor of communications at Elon University. His work has appeared in American Journalism, Journal of American Culture, Journalism History, and African Studies Review.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Frontani (communication, Elon Univ.) prefaces this book with John Lennon's murder and descriptions of the ensuing responses to Lennon's life. He goes on to offer six succinct chapters on how the Beatles became a lightning rod for teens and society. Defining the Beatles' various images by using four categories of media text--promotion, publicity, work product, and commentary--the author demonstrates how Brian Epstein brought Beatlemania to the forefront of music and culture, particularly in the US. Beginning with the oxymoronic "safe/toughness" heralding the Beatles' American introduction in 1964 and concluding with Jann Wenner's promotion of their commentary to launch Rolling Stone magazine, Frontani covers the Beatles' "separate and distinct identity" evolutionary time line. He concludes with the 1995 Beatles Anthology broadcasts. Scholars will appreciate the copious bibliography citing the works Frontani employed to build his case for the Beatles' impact on society and history. Those who witnessed the onset firsthand will enjoy taking the magical mystery tour again; those who came to Beatlemania later will relish this concise retelling of the story from a single focus. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers, all levels."


-- T. Emery, Austin Peay State University


CHOICE


CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2008

"The best study to date of the Beatles' reception in the United States, their successful media images, and debates over their popularity and influence."


---Douglas Kellner

"The Beatles came to the consciousness of United States teenagers, not through extensive touring, but through an image that was created, fostered and redefined by the media and the band. Michael R. Frontani's The Beatles: Image and the Media traces the arc of the Beatles career from the viral days of Beatlemania to their role as mature artists/cultural icons of the late 1960s. Along the way, Frontani gives us one of the must read books for understanding the Beatles lasting hold on our consciousness."---Michael Cheney



"The Beatles didn't just change popular music - they changed the world of their time and that of future generations. Michael Frontani examines how thoroughly the Beatles upended the cultural apple cart in this compulsively readable and exhaustively researched book. The way in which the Fab Four turned the tables on the media, using them for their own devices, illustrates the canny intelligence that lay beneath their image as loveable moptops."


---Parke Puterbaugh

From the Publisher

This study of the forces that transformed four Liverpool musicians into icons for the 1960s

---Offers a fresh look at how this seminal band's popular image was constructed by the media

---Shows how the band manipulated the media to change their image over time from heart throbs to icons of the sixties counter-culture movements

---Offers commentary that spans the course of the band's career, focused specifically on its reception in America --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 302 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (March 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578069661
• ISBN-13: 978-1578069668
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,114,666 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The 20th Century Greatest Romance, August 1, 2007

By 

Yoram Lubling (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Beatles: Image and the Media (Paperback)

Dr. Michael R. Frontani's book: "The Beatles: Image and the Media" provides a brilliant insight into the Sixities co-energizing forces through which the Beatles shaped the American popular culture, and the way the latter transformed the Beatles into a universal phenomenon. In the best tradition of Erik Barnouw's "Tube of Plenty," Frontani brings to light the political context and the role the media played as they first challenged, and later celebrated, the revolutionary and creative soul of the Beatles. The book, furthermore, is not merely an historical account of the engagement between the Beatles and the American media, but also an inspiring demonstration of the creative power contained within the original tradition of the American intellectual life. Through their engagement with America's open-ended universe in which, as Emerson observed, "the only sin is limitation," the Beatles were transformed from a local European sensation into universal prophets of the new age. Frontani is correct in describing this engagement as "the Twentieth Century's Greatest Romance." The book is well researched, creatively written, and destined to become a milestone in the ongoing scholarship and inquiry into America's contemporary popular culture. The book's well painted picture of this unique and dynamic period should be of great interest to all serious scholars of music history, media studies, American popular culture, and for all serious students of the Beatles's music and creative imagination. In particular, Frontani's book must be essential to anyone who wishes to understand the political and social upheaval of the Sixties in America, the role the Beatles played in the anti-war movement, and the profound consequences which still shape our contemporary experience. Together with the poet we still hope for "Strawberry Fields Forever."

Yoram Lubling

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars That Extra That Was the Beatles, September 3, 2007

By 

Robert Hislope (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Beatles: Image and the Media (Paperback)

This is an intriguing, stimulating, accessible, and lively text that follows the path of the Beatles in America and their evolving image, from lovable Liverpudlian, working class "moptops" to their ascendancy to the forefront of the youth countercultural movement. In the words of Frontani, this is a "thorough time capsule" that explores how the Beatles' image was carefully promoted by their manager Brian Epstein, and as the turbulent events of the `60s unfolded, how that initial image gave way to one more authentic, more in tune with the hopes, aspirations, and frustrations of the time, and one more consonant with the group members' self-perceptions and self-understandings. Anyone who has an appreciation for the Beatles will find much that is satisfying in this text. But just as the Beatles were so much more than the music (as great as that music is), so this book examines the various social and institutional forces that shaped our understanding of the Fab Four. Towards this end, Frontani introduces critical theories (the Frankfurt School, star theory, hegemony) that illuminate the contested social terrain where image is forged. As a book that follows the Beatles' journey through America, Frontani has much to say about American society and who we are as a culture and a people. This book, therefore, has appeal to readers interested not just in music, but also for those who appreciate history, culture, power, media, and politics. Still, the centerpiece of the book is the magic that was the Beatles. As Frontani writes, many artists have obtained great success in America, but "with the Beatles, there is something extra." It is this "extra" that Frontani skillfully explains.

Robert Hislope

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read Work on the Beatles, September 23, 2009

By 

Michael R. Cheney (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Beatles: Image and the Media (Hardcover)

The Beatles came to the consciousness of United States teenagers, not through extensive touring, but through an image that was created, fostered and redefined by the media and the band. Michael R. Frontani's THE BEATLES: IMAGE AND THE MEDIA traces the arc of the Beatles career from the viral days of Beatlemania to their role as mature artists/cultural icons of the late 1960s. Along the way, Frontani gives us one of the must read books for understanding the Beatles lasting hold on our consciousness.