‘I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together’
Transmedia convergence of the Beatles’ psychedelic years (1966–1969)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.19863Keywords:
The Beatles, Psychedelia, Transmedia, Pop Music, neoliberalismAbstract
Seeing Henry Jenkins’s digital-age concept of transmedia convergence as the late-capitalist assembly of 1960s psychedelic intermedia practices, this article adds to a discussion of pre-digital convergence through an examination of the Beatles’ countercultural media production and distribution practices. This research examines how these practices are indicative of their cultural ideologies, and how and why these seemingly countercultural beliefs were vulnerable to (and actively complicit in) the formation of neoliberal movements of the digital age. This work finds the psychedelic values held by members of the Beatles to have shaped their song lyrics, distribution, business model and branding in ways that function effectively similar to Jenkins’s notion of ‘transmedia storytelling’. The result primes audiences for the consumer practices and subjectivity of the postmodern condition. This is accomplished by dispersing narratives and iconography across Beatles’ content such that all texts contribute to an oceanic network while lacking any ‘core’ texts
References
Azuma, H. 2009. Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Beller-McKenna, D. 2002. ‘I Am/Was the Walrus’. Current Musicology 74: 47–68.
Brown, C. C. 2014. ‘Intermedial Being’. PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 36/1: 88–93. https://doi.org/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00181
Bulik, B. 2009. ‘For the Beatles Brand, All They Need is Control’. Advertising Age 80/30: 4.
Burns, G. 2009. ‘Beatles News: Product Line Extensions and the Rock Canon’. In The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles, ed. Kenneth Womack, 217–29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521869652.014
Campbell, C. 2006. ‘“All You Need Is Love”: From Romance to Romanticism: The Beatles, Romantic Love and Cultural Change’. Etnofoor 19/1: 111–23.
Cleave, M. 1966. ‘How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This’. London Evening Standard, 4 March: 10.
Condry, I. 2009. ‘Anime Creativity: Characters and Premises in the Quest for Cool Japan’. Theory, Culture & Society 26/2-3: 139–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276409103111
DeKoven, M. 2004. Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the Emergence of the Postmodern. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11g97v3
DeRosa, C. S. 2020. ‘John Lennon Out and In: “Revolution”, the Beatles, and the Movement in 1968’. Rock Music Studies 7/3: 199–208. https://doi.org/10.1080/19401159.2020.1792183
Dufour, D.-R. 2017. ‘Modern Subjectivity / Post-modern Subjectivity’. In Late Modern Subjectivity and its Discontents, ed. Kieran Keohane, Anders Petersen and Bert Van den Bergh, 8–23. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315447209-2
Frank, T. 1997. The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226924632.001.0001
Freeman, M. 2015. ‘Up, up and Across: Superman, the Second World War and the Historical Development of Transmedia Storytelling’. Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 35/2: 215–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2014.941564
Freeman, M. 2017. Historicising Transmedia Storytelling: Early Twentieth-Century Transmedia Story Worlds. London: Routledge.
Frontani, M. R. 2007. The Beatles: Image and the Media. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Fuchs, C. 2014. ‘Social Media as Participatory Culture’. In C. Fuchs, Social Media: A Critical Introduction, 52–68. London: SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446270066
Hancox, D. 2017. ‘From Subject to Collaborator: Transmedia Storytelling and Social Research’. Convergence 23/1: 49–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856516675252
Inglis, I. 2009. ‘Revolution’. In The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles, ed. Kenneth Womack, 112–24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521869652.008
Jameson, F. 1991. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822378419
Jenkins, H. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press.
Klinger, B. 2015. ‘Pre-cult: Casablanca, Radio Adaptation, and Transmedia in the 1940s’. New Review of Film and Television Studies 13/1: 45–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/17400309.2014.982900
Leary, T. 1964. The Psychedelic Experience; a Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. New York: Kensington.
Leary, T. 1990. Flashbacks: A Personal and Cultural History of an Era. New York: J.P. Tarcher.
Lieberfeld, D. 2017. ‘“Come Together”: Dialogue and (Dis)Connection in the Beatles’ Lyrics’. Rock Music Studies 4/2: 136–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/19401159.2017.1301767
Lennon, J. 1966. ‘Beatles Chicago Press Conference’. [Interview] http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1966.0811.beatles.html
Lewisohn, M. 2000. The Complete Beatles Chronicle. London: Hamlyn.
McDonald, P. 2013. Hollywood Stardom. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.
Palmer, L. 2020. Rock Star/Movie Star. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190888404.001.0001
Philp, D. 2015. ‘Magical Mystery Tour: Failures from the Beatles’ Self-Managed Era and Lessons for Today’s DIY Musicians. (Do It Yourself)’. Music & Entertainment Industry Educators Association 15/1: 37–64. https://doi.org/10.25101/15.2
Reising, R., and J. LeBlanc. 2009. ‘Magical Mystery Tours, and Other Trips: Yellow Submarines, Newspaper Taxis, and the Beatles’ Psychedelic Years’. In The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles, ed. Kenneth Womack, 90–111. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521869652.007
Reiter, R. 2007. The Beatles on Film: Analysis of Movies, Documentaries, Spoofs and Cartoons. Marburg: Philipps Universität Marburg. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839408858
Roessner, J. 2006. ‘We All Want to Change the World: Postmodern Politics and the Beatles’ White Album’. In Reading the Beatles: Cultural Studies, Literary Criticism, and the Fab Four, ed. Kellner Womack and Todd F. Davis, 147–58. Ithaca: State University of New York Press.
Ryan, M.-L. 2015. ‘Transmedia Storytelling: Industry Buzzword or New Narrative Experience?’ StoryWorlds 7/2: 1–19. https://doi.org/10.5250/storyworlds.7.2.0001
Shaw-Miller, S. 2017. ‘A Chorus of Voices: Seeing Music in Cage and Fluxus, the Birth of the Postmodern’. In Visible Deeds of Music, 208–244. New Haven: Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.12987/yale/9780300083743.003.0006
Smith, J. 1998. The Sounds of Commerce: Marketing Popular Film Music. New York: Columbia University Press.
Spitz, B. 2012. The Beatles: The Biography. Boston: Little Brown & Company.
Steinberg, M. 2006. ‘Immobile Sections and Trans-Series Movement: Astroboy and the Emergence of Anime’. Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal 1/2: 190–206. https://doi.org/10.1177/1746847706068903
Szymkowska-Bartyzel, J. 2015. ‘Counterculture and Hyper-Capitalism: Commodifying the Rebel. The Case of Harley-Davidson’. Op. Cit: A Journal of Anglo-American Studies 2/4. https://sites.google.com/site/opcitapeaa/2015---2nd-series-no4
Turner, F. 2006. From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226817439.001.0001
Wenner, J. S. 1971. ‘Lennon Remembers, Part Two’. Rolling Stones, 4 February. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lennon-remembers-part-two-187100/
Youngblood, Gene. 1970. Expanded Cinema. New York: Dutton.
