When The Beatles landed at JFK Airport in February of 1964, they heralded the start of what would come to be dubbed “the British Invasion”. Some years later and quite in comparison, The Jackson 5 were believed to represent best Motown's slogan of "The Sound of Young America" – ‘More [so] than any other act on the company's roster’.[1] The Beatles were the British sensation whose mop-top ‘wigs’, quintessential British character and heart-throb status appeared to take the States by storm when they swept their shores in the mid-sixties, whilst The Jackson 5 were the young, black, home-grown family talent whose impressive vocals and perfectly synchronised dance moves attracted fans from both the Northern and Southern states at a time when the Civil Rights movement was dividing them. Despite these differences, both groups can be perceived to be among the first (if not the first) boy bands to be truly commercially successful on both a national and international scale.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a boy band as ‘a young all-male pop group…whose music and image are designed to appeal primarily to a teenage audience’ and whilst acknowledging the teenager as the target audience also suggests that the boy band is ‘designed’ and manufactured in such a way as to purposely appeal to this demographic.[2] Similarly, Claudia Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh agree that ‘the manufacture of… boy bands follows a standard formula’, again emphasising the way in which the boy band and their brand identity is one which is consciously contrived and put on display.[3] Both are good and established definitions yet without wanting to invalidate them, we must pay attention to a problem which lies therein since both descriptions were penned long after the arrival of The Beatles and The Jackson 5 and so might owe more to the later boy bands of the seventies, eighties and nineties. However, although The Beatles and The Jackson 5 did not necessarily invent the boy band, they did certainly provide the prototype from which the definition of the boy band has developed and cultivated throughout the decades into the genre which is instantly familiar in pop culture today. Therefore, to avoid any ambiguity or confusion throughout this paper, the following will be considered as attributes and functions of the boy band and will serve as filters through which I will analyse The Beatles and The Jackson 5 respectively: a primarily female, teenage fan base, co-ordinating uniforms, sentimentality in songs and lyrics which sing of ‘love and teenage matters’, dance routines or group harmony in performance with each member singing to emphasise that there is no intended lead and an entrepreneurial management.[4]
When Tito Jackson refers to the bands early releases as pop music in a ‘bubble-gum’ sense, he openly classifies The Jackson 5 within the realms of the teenage boy band; using the young, playful and fun connotations associated with bubble-gum to do so.[5] Whilst similar quotes from The Beatles which class them in the same pop category are harder to come by, and considering the significant role that audience plays in the identity of the boy band, perhaps we can use Beatlemania as the main indicator of The Beatles as a boy band. As such this essay will focus on The Beatles in the early-mid sixties around the time they commenced upon America and will concentrate on The Jackson 5 towards the end of the sixties through to the early seventies when they too were starting out in America. I will examine how both bands were presented to and received by the American audience under the hypothesis that while The Jackson 5 were, on paper, indeed more of an obvious boy-band in the “bubble-gum” sense of the word owing to their colourfully coordinated clothes, dance routines and familial structure, The Beatles were treated and received as more of a boy band in this same sense despite them being the true song-writing musicians of the two bands, perhaps as a result of Beatlemania and its media representation. The primary sources I have selected to help shape my argument will be clips of both bands performing in America, song lyrics and live reviews.
A lot has been written on The Beatles’ first performance on The Ed Sullivan Show and its effects on popular culture and crime ratings alike, but perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this performance to this study is the heard presence of the fans. Focusing here on the last of the three songs (She Loves You), the crowd are continuously heard, be it the intermittent screeches of a few individuals heard above all else or the collective screams of the majority at particularly exciting points like the line ‘She loves you’, the sharing of microphones and the shaking of heads (6.12).[6] Considering that The Beatles were at first recognisable in America by their mop-top wigs which were ‘selling at three dollars apiece’, the synchronised shaking of their heads is further reinforcement of this contrived brand identity.[7] This trait, which is absent from accounts of their earlier performances in the Hamburg days, suggests that they were perhaps manufactured in such a way as to appeal to the American audience. This seems more plausible when considering the publicity which accounted for the throngs of screaming fans who greeted the band as they landed at JFK on February 7th, 1964.
Like many others, Martin King is of the belief that girls find feminised men appealing. In his book Men, Masculinity and The Beatles (2013), he produces a good argument to suggest that throughout the years of Beatlemania, there was a gender role-reversal between band and audience which stemmed from the femininity of The Beatles’ image, particularly transmitted via performances, and led to the masculinised sexual assertiveness of the girls in the audience.[8] It might then be said that The Beatles were also aware of their status’ as sex icons and adhered to it when the camera finds John stood with his legs wide apart and Paul’s Presley-like wiggle of the hips as he enters into the last few words of ‘[you know you should] be glad’ to a cacophony of screams.
At 6.21, the camera draws back to capture Paul, George and John from a middle side shot which serves to emphasise their similar appearances. This shot also draws comparisons to the performances of Motown girl groups from the earlier years of the decade whose matching costumes and similar hair and make-up came to be synonymous with the label.[9] Considering that this performance was broadcast to an estimated 73 million across the country, it is a good example of both management and media portraying the band similar to these girl groups, thus as a boy band.[10] Here we can also start to pay attention to the uniform of the band. Although described by one reporter some days later as ‘visually… a nightmare: tight, dandified, Edwardian/Beatnik suits and great pudding bowls of hair’, it remains that their appearance is, not only synchronised, but purposely distinctive and furthermore part of their brand identity.[11]
Throughout this performance, the camera also draws back to focus in on the girls in the audience. We see one fan (5.40) who appears to be out of breath from excitement and whose eyes never leave the stage before the camera finds another girl sat clapping along with those around her (6.45), all of whom have eyes transfixed on the band. These frequent shots combined with the aural presence of the fans is a constant reminder of how popular the band are; a result of this is that the focus seems to be less on The Beatles as musicians, and more as pop stars and sex icons.
Perhaps due to the blossoming trends of the seventies or perhaps due to the more soulful music of Motown The Jackson 5’s live performances greatly contrast to The Beatles’. Focusing first on the mise-en-scène aspects of their 1970 performance of I Want You Back on American Bandstand what is immediately noticeable is the colour and energy on display.[12] Disregarding the obvious advancements into colour television which did not manifest itself into American society until the early 1970’s, it is apparent that The Jackson’s set is more aesthetically pleasing with more props and lights surrounding them in comparison to The Beatles’ more traditional stage set-up. The energy is also apparent in the fast yet fluid movements of Michael while he remains note-perfect, the jittery footwork of Jermaine as he continues to play bass and the spinning of Johnny’s drumstick (0.49). In addition to this high energy, the uniforms donned by the band are bright and colourful to reflect the young ages of the group and to appeal to their teenage demographic. That each Jackson wears a different colour might be an early example of the later convention of the boy band which fits each member into a different character type for the benefit of the media and again, the appeal of the audience.
While not disclaiming the great talent of such a young band, this performance particularly emphasises the talent of The Jackson 5 as performers or entertainers. This rings true when considering that Motown artists rarely recorded their own material in the early days and that I Want You Back was both penned and produced by the collective song-writing team The Corporation. Ernest Cashmore believes that Berry Gordy ‘visualized The Jackson 5 quite differently to his other acts’ and that ‘The band were to be a fully marketable phenomenon.’[13] This is a thought widely believed of Gordy and is understood to be true of many other of his artists signed to Motown records.[14] However, in my opinion this performance still better reflects the talents and professionalism of The Jackson 5 better than the Ed Sullivan Show performance does of The Beatles. In the space of The Beatles’ hysterical fans, The Jacksons have close-ups of Michael’s smiling face as the words effortlessly tumble from his young frame and where the excitement in The Beatles’ performance is found as they share microphones (to reiterate, a convention of Motown), I Want You Back is engaging because of the movement and enthusiasm of the band. So while The Jackson’s appear to be the more commercialised and manufactured of the two performances, theirs is all better for it while The Beatles’ show is less engaging and perhaps blighted by the frenzy of Beatlemania.
Focusing on the lyrics of these respective songs is another means of comparing these two boy bands. From just the song titles alone (She Loves You, I Want You Back) there is a noticeable difference in that The Beatles present their piece in third person narrative while The Jacksons are always in first person. This use of first person narrative makes the ‘I’ in question seem strong-willed and determined to get ‘back in [her] heart’. The speaker admits that he was wrong to prematurely throw away his love but in courageously admitting this, shows a very masculine confidence. Alternatively, She Loves You tells of someone being told by a friend that his girl still loves him. Here the male in question is passive to the extent that he is denied a voice in song; he is unsure of where he stands in the situation (‘You think you lost your love’), relies on others to solve the problem (‘And she told me what to say’), and is then given further reassurance that ‘You know you should be glad.’ Moreover, the repetition of the line ‘She loves you’ accompanied by the ever jubilant ‘yeah, yeah, yeahs’ supplies both song and fan with constant sentimentality and implies that males, like females, long to be told that they are loved too. This goes a long way to expressing the often androgynous identity of The Beatles and as described, contrasts to the self-assuredness and resolution of The Jackson 5 lyrics which confidently announce that ‘I want you back.’
Following on from this, I will look at reviews of the bands live shows. Reporting on a show by The Jackson 5 in London, November 1972, Caroline Boucher is nothing but in awe of the professionalism of the group ‘that they could keep going and turn out two excellent performances’, one of which was at the Royal Variety Show.[15] She comments on their ‘impeccable’ dance routines, their unique ability to convey the ‘tightness’ recorded on singles into the live arena and Michael’s ‘[amazingly] …good voice.’ Although she acknowledges that some spectators found them ‘clinical and soulless’, common criticisms of the more manufactured bands especially from Motown, she is able to comment on the talent and performance given by the young group. A later review of the band’s performance at Madison Square Garden in 1974 comments more on the ‘crazed audience’ within the ‘shattering experience, deafening and frenzied beyond anything.’[16] However, this review by Chris Charlesworth still recognises the talent on show and here the mention of the audience is broken down into ’99 per cent black, 75 per cent female and 60 per cent below the age of 16’ to show a demographic of The Jackson’s fans at a time when America was in flux; in the wake of events of the sixties which ‘would highlight divisions of age, race, gender and class’.[17] Unlike The Beatles’ often faceless following, these fans come with an identity which point at the direction in which America is moving.
A live review of The Beatles playing at the London Palladium in late 1963 on the other hand features interviews with George Cooper; ‘the brilliantly efficient and friendly stage door keeper’ who comments that ‘“What made Beatles Day so fantastic was the hordes of reporters and photographers. We’d had crowds of fans as big but never so many journalists…. Every paper sent reporters and photographers.”’[18] Here both spectator and media reporter are enthralled by the hype surrounding Beatlemania but pay little attention to even the band themself, much less their musical talent. Similarly, Derek Taylor’s accounts of The Beatles in California in 1965 are more interested in the celebrity-side of Hollywood. Commenting on the time The Beatles performed at Hollywood Bowl, he describes ‘The story of the actual concert [as] legend’ but doesn’t go into any further detail than this.[19] The article donates much more time to the normalities of a band on the road (‘Then we went to bed for a few hours’) and the dropping of famous names (‘Col. Tom Parker, manager of Elvis Presley, arrived to take Brian Epstein to lunch... In the meantime, Jayne Mansfield had expressed a desire to meet The Beatles.’) Although these review do not suggest that there was anything plastic, manufactured or at fault with The Beatles, it does draw light on how they were placed in society by spectators and media commentators alike.
While live reviews and memoirs from independent media heads may well have their biases, the roles and actions of the bands’ managers at this time (Brian Epstein and Berry Gordy) are somewhat harder to manipulate. While it is perhaps well-known that Motown hand-crafted their talent in an attempt to reach Gordy’s vision of black commercial success and that The Jacksons in particular were moved to Los Angeles ‘to be “professionalized” by Motown’s star-grooming staff’.[20] Brian Epstein’s influence or interference is less dramatic. It has been noted that the image transformation which took The Beatles from the smelly days of Hamburg to the scented days of Beatlemania was ‘something of a melding of the interests of managers and band’ since the four Beatles wore similarly tattered leathers before they were dressed in similarly smart suits.[21]
While not wanting to suggest that The Beatles weren’t as talented as The Jackson 5 or that The Jackson 5 weren’t as appreciated as The Beatles, I have shown how the media’s treatment of The Beatles often focused on the unprecedented hype and popularity surrounding them as opposed to the music they were producing. In this respect, it can be said that The Beatles were more of a boy band in the somewhat less reputable “bubble-gum” sense as opposed to musicians which is of course what they were. Frontani writes that ‘The Beatles’ image was in its most purely and intentionally commercial form with its introduction to American audiences’ and was an image which was to be ‘consistent with the commercially proven model of the teen idol’.[22] Following on from this, I believe that this commercialisation which was received so gratefully by the media was so successful that it provided the blueprint of the manufacturing of later commercially successful pop bands. Nonetheless, it is important to lastly not that 1965 signalled the start of a deviation from commercial as The Beatles’ began to release more autobiographical, self-revelation songs (Yesterday, Nowhere Man, Hey Jude, Julia) emphasising that they were not a mouthpiece but that they had a voice and they intended to use it.
Bibliography
Books
Brackett, David (ed.). The Pop, Rock and Soul Reader: Histories and Debates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
Cashmore, Ernest. The Black Culture Industry (New York, NY: Routledge, 1997).
Cole, Clay. SH-BOOM!: The Explosion of Rock ‘n’ Roll (1953-1968) (London: Wordclay, 2009).
Frontani, Michael R. The Beatles: Image and the Media (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2007).
Gillett, Charlie. The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll (London: Souvenir, 1996).
Kempton, Arthur. Boogaloo: The Quintessence of American Popular Music (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005).
King, Martin. Men, Masculinity and The Beatles (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013).
Mazzarella, Sharon R. ‘Fan Culture,’ in Claudia A. Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh (eds), Girl Culture: An Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2008).
Miles, Barry. The British Invasion: The Music, the Time, the Era (London: Sterling, 2009).
Miller, Janice. Fashion and Music (Oxford: Berg, 2011).
Posner, Gerald. Motown: Music Money Sex and Power (New York, NY: Random House, 2002).
Sawyers, June Skinner. Read The Beatles (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2006).
Ward, Brian. Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness and Race Relations (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998).
Warner, Jay. American Singing Groups: A History from 1940s to Today (New York, NY: Hal Leonard Corporation, 2006).
Articles
‘Boy Band’, Oxford English Dictionary: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/22323?redirectedFrom=boy+band#eid15546830.
Anonymous. ‘Bugs About Beatles’, Newsweek, 24 February 1964.
Aronowitz, Al. ‘The Beatles: Music’s Gold Bugs’, Saturday Evening Post, March 1964: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-beatles-musics-gold-bugs.
Boucher, Caroline. ‘The Jackson Five: The Talk of the Town, London’, Disc and Music Echo, 11 November 1972: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-jackson-five-the-talk-of-the-town-london.
Charlesworth, Chris. ‘The Jackson 5: Madison Square Garden, NYC’, Melody Maker, 10 August 1974: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-jackson-5-madison-square-garden-nyc.
Griffiths, David. ‘The Beatles: at the London Palladium’, Record Mirror, 21 December 1963: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-beatles-at-the-london-palladium.
Hewitt, Paolo. ‘Motown: I Hear A Symphony’, Melody Maker, 3 April 1982: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/motown-i-hear-a-symphony.
St. Pierre, Roger. ‘The Jackson 5: Five Prankster Puppets, NME, 9 December 1972: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-jackson-five-five-pranksters-puppets.
Taylor, Derek. ‘Here Come The Beatles!’, KRLA Beat, 12 May 1965: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/here-come-the-beatles.
Video
‘Please Mr. Postman - The Marvelettes’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipwWNf3NcJg.
‘The Beatles First Ed Sullivan Show Appearance (original)’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JILsCPSyI0.
‘The Jackson 5 – I Want You Back live on American Bandstand 1970 [HD]’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baC3UNBODcs.
[1] Roger St. Pierre, ‘The Jackson 5: Five Prankster Puppets, NME, 9 December 1972: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-jackson-five-five-pranksters-puppets.
[2] ‘Boy Band’, Oxford English Dictionary: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/22323?redirectedFrom=boy+band#eid15546830.
[3] Sharon R. Mazzarella, ‘Fan Culture,’ in Claudia A. Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh (eds), Girl Culture: An Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2008), p.283.
[4] Paolo Hewitt, ‘Motown: I Hear A Symphony’, Melody Maker, 3 April 1982: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/motown-i-hear-a-symphony. Accessed 08/01/2013.
[5] St. Pierre, ‘The Jackson Five’.
[6] ‘The Beatles First Ed Sullivan Show Appearance (original)’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JILsCPSyI0.
[7] Al Aronowitz, ‘The Beatles: Music’s Gold Bugs’, Saturday Evening Post, March 1964: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-beatles-musics-gold-bugs.
[8] Martin King, Men, Masculinity and The Beatles (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013).
[9] ‘Please Mr. Postman - The Marvelettes’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipwWNf3NcJg.
[10] Barry Miles, The British Invasion: The Music, the Time, the Era (London: Sterling, 2009), p.74.
[11] Anonymous, ‘Bugs About Beatles’, Newsweek, 24 February 1964.
[12] ‘The Jackson 5 – I Want You Back live on American Bandstand 1970 [HD]’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baC3UNBODcs.
[13] Ernest Cashmore, The Black Culture Industry (New York: Routledge, 1997), p.126.
[14] Clay Cole, SH-BOOM!: The Explosion of Rock ‘n’ Roll (1953-1968) (London: Wordclay, 2009).
[15] Caroline Boucher, ‘The Jackson Five: The Talk of the Town, London’, Disc and Music Echo, 11 November 1972: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-jackson-five-the-talk-of-the-town-london.
[16] Chris Charlesworth, ‘The Jackson 5: Madison Square Garden, NYC’, Melody Maker, 10 August 1974: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-jackson-5-madison-square-garden-nyc.
[17] Michael R. Frontani, The Beatles: Image and the Media (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2007), p.2.
[18] David Griffiths, ‘The Beatles: at the London Palladium’, Record Mirror, 21 December 1963: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-beatles-at-the-london-palladium.
[19] Derek Taylor, ‘Here Come The Beatles!’, KRLA Beat, 12 May 1965: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/here-come-the-beatles.
[20] Jay Warner, American Singing Groups: A History from 1940s to Today (New York, NY: Hal Leonard Corporation, 2006), p.493.
[21] Janice Miller, Fashion and Music (Oxford: Berg, 2011), p.80.
[22] Frontani, The Beatles, p.125.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a boy band as ‘a young all-male pop group…whose music and image are designed to appeal primarily to a teenage audience’ and whilst acknowledging the teenager as the target audience also suggests that the boy band is ‘designed’ and manufactured in such a way as to purposely appeal to this demographic.[2] Similarly, Claudia Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh agree that ‘the manufacture of… boy bands follows a standard formula’, again emphasising the way in which the boy band and their brand identity is one which is consciously contrived and put on display.[3] Both are good and established definitions yet without wanting to invalidate them, we must pay attention to a problem which lies therein since both descriptions were penned long after the arrival of The Beatles and The Jackson 5 and so might owe more to the later boy bands of the seventies, eighties and nineties. However, although The Beatles and The Jackson 5 did not necessarily invent the boy band, they did certainly provide the prototype from which the definition of the boy band has developed and cultivated throughout the decades into the genre which is instantly familiar in pop culture today. Therefore, to avoid any ambiguity or confusion throughout this paper, the following will be considered as attributes and functions of the boy band and will serve as filters through which I will analyse The Beatles and The Jackson 5 respectively: a primarily female, teenage fan base, co-ordinating uniforms, sentimentality in songs and lyrics which sing of ‘love and teenage matters’, dance routines or group harmony in performance with each member singing to emphasise that there is no intended lead and an entrepreneurial management.[4]
When Tito Jackson refers to the bands early releases as pop music in a ‘bubble-gum’ sense, he openly classifies The Jackson 5 within the realms of the teenage boy band; using the young, playful and fun connotations associated with bubble-gum to do so.[5] Whilst similar quotes from The Beatles which class them in the same pop category are harder to come by, and considering the significant role that audience plays in the identity of the boy band, perhaps we can use Beatlemania as the main indicator of The Beatles as a boy band. As such this essay will focus on The Beatles in the early-mid sixties around the time they commenced upon America and will concentrate on The Jackson 5 towards the end of the sixties through to the early seventies when they too were starting out in America. I will examine how both bands were presented to and received by the American audience under the hypothesis that while The Jackson 5 were, on paper, indeed more of an obvious boy-band in the “bubble-gum” sense of the word owing to their colourfully coordinated clothes, dance routines and familial structure, The Beatles were treated and received as more of a boy band in this same sense despite them being the true song-writing musicians of the two bands, perhaps as a result of Beatlemania and its media representation. The primary sources I have selected to help shape my argument will be clips of both bands performing in America, song lyrics and live reviews.
A lot has been written on The Beatles’ first performance on The Ed Sullivan Show and its effects on popular culture and crime ratings alike, but perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this performance to this study is the heard presence of the fans. Focusing here on the last of the three songs (She Loves You), the crowd are continuously heard, be it the intermittent screeches of a few individuals heard above all else or the collective screams of the majority at particularly exciting points like the line ‘She loves you’, the sharing of microphones and the shaking of heads (6.12).[6] Considering that The Beatles were at first recognisable in America by their mop-top wigs which were ‘selling at three dollars apiece’, the synchronised shaking of their heads is further reinforcement of this contrived brand identity.[7] This trait, which is absent from accounts of their earlier performances in the Hamburg days, suggests that they were perhaps manufactured in such a way as to appeal to the American audience. This seems more plausible when considering the publicity which accounted for the throngs of screaming fans who greeted the band as they landed at JFK on February 7th, 1964.
Like many others, Martin King is of the belief that girls find feminised men appealing. In his book Men, Masculinity and The Beatles (2013), he produces a good argument to suggest that throughout the years of Beatlemania, there was a gender role-reversal between band and audience which stemmed from the femininity of The Beatles’ image, particularly transmitted via performances, and led to the masculinised sexual assertiveness of the girls in the audience.[8] It might then be said that The Beatles were also aware of their status’ as sex icons and adhered to it when the camera finds John stood with his legs wide apart and Paul’s Presley-like wiggle of the hips as he enters into the last few words of ‘[you know you should] be glad’ to a cacophony of screams.
At 6.21, the camera draws back to capture Paul, George and John from a middle side shot which serves to emphasise their similar appearances. This shot also draws comparisons to the performances of Motown girl groups from the earlier years of the decade whose matching costumes and similar hair and make-up came to be synonymous with the label.[9] Considering that this performance was broadcast to an estimated 73 million across the country, it is a good example of both management and media portraying the band similar to these girl groups, thus as a boy band.[10] Here we can also start to pay attention to the uniform of the band. Although described by one reporter some days later as ‘visually… a nightmare: tight, dandified, Edwardian/Beatnik suits and great pudding bowls of hair’, it remains that their appearance is, not only synchronised, but purposely distinctive and furthermore part of their brand identity.[11]
Throughout this performance, the camera also draws back to focus in on the girls in the audience. We see one fan (5.40) who appears to be out of breath from excitement and whose eyes never leave the stage before the camera finds another girl sat clapping along with those around her (6.45), all of whom have eyes transfixed on the band. These frequent shots combined with the aural presence of the fans is a constant reminder of how popular the band are; a result of this is that the focus seems to be less on The Beatles as musicians, and more as pop stars and sex icons.
Perhaps due to the blossoming trends of the seventies or perhaps due to the more soulful music of Motown The Jackson 5’s live performances greatly contrast to The Beatles’. Focusing first on the mise-en-scène aspects of their 1970 performance of I Want You Back on American Bandstand what is immediately noticeable is the colour and energy on display.[12] Disregarding the obvious advancements into colour television which did not manifest itself into American society until the early 1970’s, it is apparent that The Jackson’s set is more aesthetically pleasing with more props and lights surrounding them in comparison to The Beatles’ more traditional stage set-up. The energy is also apparent in the fast yet fluid movements of Michael while he remains note-perfect, the jittery footwork of Jermaine as he continues to play bass and the spinning of Johnny’s drumstick (0.49). In addition to this high energy, the uniforms donned by the band are bright and colourful to reflect the young ages of the group and to appeal to their teenage demographic. That each Jackson wears a different colour might be an early example of the later convention of the boy band which fits each member into a different character type for the benefit of the media and again, the appeal of the audience.
While not disclaiming the great talent of such a young band, this performance particularly emphasises the talent of The Jackson 5 as performers or entertainers. This rings true when considering that Motown artists rarely recorded their own material in the early days and that I Want You Back was both penned and produced by the collective song-writing team The Corporation. Ernest Cashmore believes that Berry Gordy ‘visualized The Jackson 5 quite differently to his other acts’ and that ‘The band were to be a fully marketable phenomenon.’[13] This is a thought widely believed of Gordy and is understood to be true of many other of his artists signed to Motown records.[14] However, in my opinion this performance still better reflects the talents and professionalism of The Jackson 5 better than the Ed Sullivan Show performance does of The Beatles. In the space of The Beatles’ hysterical fans, The Jacksons have close-ups of Michael’s smiling face as the words effortlessly tumble from his young frame and where the excitement in The Beatles’ performance is found as they share microphones (to reiterate, a convention of Motown), I Want You Back is engaging because of the movement and enthusiasm of the band. So while The Jackson’s appear to be the more commercialised and manufactured of the two performances, theirs is all better for it while The Beatles’ show is less engaging and perhaps blighted by the frenzy of Beatlemania.
Focusing on the lyrics of these respective songs is another means of comparing these two boy bands. From just the song titles alone (She Loves You, I Want You Back) there is a noticeable difference in that The Beatles present their piece in third person narrative while The Jacksons are always in first person. This use of first person narrative makes the ‘I’ in question seem strong-willed and determined to get ‘back in [her] heart’. The speaker admits that he was wrong to prematurely throw away his love but in courageously admitting this, shows a very masculine confidence. Alternatively, She Loves You tells of someone being told by a friend that his girl still loves him. Here the male in question is passive to the extent that he is denied a voice in song; he is unsure of where he stands in the situation (‘You think you lost your love’), relies on others to solve the problem (‘And she told me what to say’), and is then given further reassurance that ‘You know you should be glad.’ Moreover, the repetition of the line ‘She loves you’ accompanied by the ever jubilant ‘yeah, yeah, yeahs’ supplies both song and fan with constant sentimentality and implies that males, like females, long to be told that they are loved too. This goes a long way to expressing the often androgynous identity of The Beatles and as described, contrasts to the self-assuredness and resolution of The Jackson 5 lyrics which confidently announce that ‘I want you back.’
Following on from this, I will look at reviews of the bands live shows. Reporting on a show by The Jackson 5 in London, November 1972, Caroline Boucher is nothing but in awe of the professionalism of the group ‘that they could keep going and turn out two excellent performances’, one of which was at the Royal Variety Show.[15] She comments on their ‘impeccable’ dance routines, their unique ability to convey the ‘tightness’ recorded on singles into the live arena and Michael’s ‘[amazingly] …good voice.’ Although she acknowledges that some spectators found them ‘clinical and soulless’, common criticisms of the more manufactured bands especially from Motown, she is able to comment on the talent and performance given by the young group. A later review of the band’s performance at Madison Square Garden in 1974 comments more on the ‘crazed audience’ within the ‘shattering experience, deafening and frenzied beyond anything.’[16] However, this review by Chris Charlesworth still recognises the talent on show and here the mention of the audience is broken down into ’99 per cent black, 75 per cent female and 60 per cent below the age of 16’ to show a demographic of The Jackson’s fans at a time when America was in flux; in the wake of events of the sixties which ‘would highlight divisions of age, race, gender and class’.[17] Unlike The Beatles’ often faceless following, these fans come with an identity which point at the direction in which America is moving.
A live review of The Beatles playing at the London Palladium in late 1963 on the other hand features interviews with George Cooper; ‘the brilliantly efficient and friendly stage door keeper’ who comments that ‘“What made Beatles Day so fantastic was the hordes of reporters and photographers. We’d had crowds of fans as big but never so many journalists…. Every paper sent reporters and photographers.”’[18] Here both spectator and media reporter are enthralled by the hype surrounding Beatlemania but pay little attention to even the band themself, much less their musical talent. Similarly, Derek Taylor’s accounts of The Beatles in California in 1965 are more interested in the celebrity-side of Hollywood. Commenting on the time The Beatles performed at Hollywood Bowl, he describes ‘The story of the actual concert [as] legend’ but doesn’t go into any further detail than this.[19] The article donates much more time to the normalities of a band on the road (‘Then we went to bed for a few hours’) and the dropping of famous names (‘Col. Tom Parker, manager of Elvis Presley, arrived to take Brian Epstein to lunch... In the meantime, Jayne Mansfield had expressed a desire to meet The Beatles.’) Although these review do not suggest that there was anything plastic, manufactured or at fault with The Beatles, it does draw light on how they were placed in society by spectators and media commentators alike.
While live reviews and memoirs from independent media heads may well have their biases, the roles and actions of the bands’ managers at this time (Brian Epstein and Berry Gordy) are somewhat harder to manipulate. While it is perhaps well-known that Motown hand-crafted their talent in an attempt to reach Gordy’s vision of black commercial success and that The Jacksons in particular were moved to Los Angeles ‘to be “professionalized” by Motown’s star-grooming staff’.[20] Brian Epstein’s influence or interference is less dramatic. It has been noted that the image transformation which took The Beatles from the smelly days of Hamburg to the scented days of Beatlemania was ‘something of a melding of the interests of managers and band’ since the four Beatles wore similarly tattered leathers before they were dressed in similarly smart suits.[21]
While not wanting to suggest that The Beatles weren’t as talented as The Jackson 5 or that The Jackson 5 weren’t as appreciated as The Beatles, I have shown how the media’s treatment of The Beatles often focused on the unprecedented hype and popularity surrounding them as opposed to the music they were producing. In this respect, it can be said that The Beatles were more of a boy band in the somewhat less reputable “bubble-gum” sense as opposed to musicians which is of course what they were. Frontani writes that ‘The Beatles’ image was in its most purely and intentionally commercial form with its introduction to American audiences’ and was an image which was to be ‘consistent with the commercially proven model of the teen idol’.[22] Following on from this, I believe that this commercialisation which was received so gratefully by the media was so successful that it provided the blueprint of the manufacturing of later commercially successful pop bands. Nonetheless, it is important to lastly not that 1965 signalled the start of a deviation from commercial as The Beatles’ began to release more autobiographical, self-revelation songs (Yesterday, Nowhere Man, Hey Jude, Julia) emphasising that they were not a mouthpiece but that they had a voice and they intended to use it.
Bibliography
Books
Brackett, David (ed.). The Pop, Rock and Soul Reader: Histories and Debates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
Cashmore, Ernest. The Black Culture Industry (New York, NY: Routledge, 1997).
Cole, Clay. SH-BOOM!: The Explosion of Rock ‘n’ Roll (1953-1968) (London: Wordclay, 2009).
Frontani, Michael R. The Beatles: Image and the Media (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2007).
Gillett, Charlie. The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll (London: Souvenir, 1996).
Kempton, Arthur. Boogaloo: The Quintessence of American Popular Music (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005).
King, Martin. Men, Masculinity and The Beatles (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013).
Mazzarella, Sharon R. ‘Fan Culture,’ in Claudia A. Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh (eds), Girl Culture: An Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2008).
Miles, Barry. The British Invasion: The Music, the Time, the Era (London: Sterling, 2009).
Miller, Janice. Fashion and Music (Oxford: Berg, 2011).
Posner, Gerald. Motown: Music Money Sex and Power (New York, NY: Random House, 2002).
Sawyers, June Skinner. Read The Beatles (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2006).
Ward, Brian. Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness and Race Relations (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998).
Warner, Jay. American Singing Groups: A History from 1940s to Today (New York, NY: Hal Leonard Corporation, 2006).
Articles
‘Boy Band’, Oxford English Dictionary: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/22323?redirectedFrom=boy+band#eid15546830.
Anonymous. ‘Bugs About Beatles’, Newsweek, 24 February 1964.
Aronowitz, Al. ‘The Beatles: Music’s Gold Bugs’, Saturday Evening Post, March 1964: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-beatles-musics-gold-bugs.
Boucher, Caroline. ‘The Jackson Five: The Talk of the Town, London’, Disc and Music Echo, 11 November 1972: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-jackson-five-the-talk-of-the-town-london.
Charlesworth, Chris. ‘The Jackson 5: Madison Square Garden, NYC’, Melody Maker, 10 August 1974: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-jackson-5-madison-square-garden-nyc.
Griffiths, David. ‘The Beatles: at the London Palladium’, Record Mirror, 21 December 1963: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-beatles-at-the-london-palladium.
Hewitt, Paolo. ‘Motown: I Hear A Symphony’, Melody Maker, 3 April 1982: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/motown-i-hear-a-symphony.
St. Pierre, Roger. ‘The Jackson 5: Five Prankster Puppets, NME, 9 December 1972: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-jackson-five-five-pranksters-puppets.
Taylor, Derek. ‘Here Come The Beatles!’, KRLA Beat, 12 May 1965: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/here-come-the-beatles.
Video
‘Please Mr. Postman - The Marvelettes’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipwWNf3NcJg.
‘The Beatles First Ed Sullivan Show Appearance (original)’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JILsCPSyI0.
‘The Jackson 5 – I Want You Back live on American Bandstand 1970 [HD]’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baC3UNBODcs.
[1] Roger St. Pierre, ‘The Jackson 5: Five Prankster Puppets, NME, 9 December 1972: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-jackson-five-five-pranksters-puppets.
[2] ‘Boy Band’, Oxford English Dictionary: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/22323?redirectedFrom=boy+band#eid15546830.
[3] Sharon R. Mazzarella, ‘Fan Culture,’ in Claudia A. Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh (eds), Girl Culture: An Encyclopedia, vol. 2 (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2008), p.283.
[4] Paolo Hewitt, ‘Motown: I Hear A Symphony’, Melody Maker, 3 April 1982: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/motown-i-hear-a-symphony. Accessed 08/01/2013.
[5] St. Pierre, ‘The Jackson Five’.
[6] ‘The Beatles First Ed Sullivan Show Appearance (original)’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JILsCPSyI0.
[7] Al Aronowitz, ‘The Beatles: Music’s Gold Bugs’, Saturday Evening Post, March 1964: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-beatles-musics-gold-bugs.
[8] Martin King, Men, Masculinity and The Beatles (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2013).
[9] ‘Please Mr. Postman - The Marvelettes’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipwWNf3NcJg.
[10] Barry Miles, The British Invasion: The Music, the Time, the Era (London: Sterling, 2009), p.74.
[11] Anonymous, ‘Bugs About Beatles’, Newsweek, 24 February 1964.
[12] ‘The Jackson 5 – I Want You Back live on American Bandstand 1970 [HD]’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baC3UNBODcs.
[13] Ernest Cashmore, The Black Culture Industry (New York: Routledge, 1997), p.126.
[14] Clay Cole, SH-BOOM!: The Explosion of Rock ‘n’ Roll (1953-1968) (London: Wordclay, 2009).
[15] Caroline Boucher, ‘The Jackson Five: The Talk of the Town, London’, Disc and Music Echo, 11 November 1972: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-jackson-five-the-talk-of-the-town-london.
[16] Chris Charlesworth, ‘The Jackson 5: Madison Square Garden, NYC’, Melody Maker, 10 August 1974: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-jackson-5-madison-square-garden-nyc.
[17] Michael R. Frontani, The Beatles: Image and the Media (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2007), p.2.
[18] David Griffiths, ‘The Beatles: at the London Palladium’, Record Mirror, 21 December 1963: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-beatles-at-the-london-palladium.
[19] Derek Taylor, ‘Here Come The Beatles!’, KRLA Beat, 12 May 1965: http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/here-come-the-beatles.
[20] Jay Warner, American Singing Groups: A History from 1940s to Today (New York, NY: Hal Leonard Corporation, 2006), p.493.
[21] Janice Miller, Fashion and Music (Oxford: Berg, 2011), p.80.
[22] Frontani, The Beatles, p.125.