By Ken Lass
To the surprise of absolutely no one, the recent Super Bowl, better known as the Taylor Swift Bowl, was the most watched program in the history of television in America. An average of 125 million households had the game on. If you figure most of those TV sets had multiple people watching, it means over half of every living, breathing American human being, from infant through senior citizen, saw at least part of the game.
The ratings obliterated the previous record by over eight million households. No doubt this was due in large part to an influx of Swifties who tuned in, not to see the Chiefs play the 49ers, but to revel in every cutaway shot of Taylor Swift in her sky box. The global popularity of the 35-year-old performer has reached epic proportion. Beyond sold out concerts and soaring sales of her music, Taylor’s mere presence at an event makes it a worldwide news item.
I like Taylor Swift, even if she has evolved into a bit of an oversexualized girl next door. Her songs are catchy, she’s a talented on-stage artist, it’s certainly understandable why teenage girls want to look like her and boys are attracted to her. The camera loves her. Media people of all genres are captivated by her every woman charm. Maybe a little too captivated. I was watching a sports talk show the other day when one of the commentators boldly stated, “Talor Swift is bigger now than the Beatles were in their prime.”
Whoa! That’s going too far! Hearing that made me feel called upon to speak up for my entire baby boomer generation!
(Slight pause here. Takes me a little longer these days to climb up on my soap box.)
Clearly this thirty-something sports analyst was not alive in the 1960’s. Taylor Swift is an enormously talented and popular entertainer. The Beatles changed the world. Several times. John, Paul, George, and Ringo redefined the culture. Prior to their arrival in the States in 1964, it was unheard of for a man to wear his hair over the top of his ear lobe. The Beatles’ “mop top” hair style made long hair, even ridiculously long hair, acceptable and often preferable. Even our parents succumbed to their influence. Watch a Lawrence Welk rerun from the 1970’s. You may be shocked to see even his band members had long hair. The Beatles did that. You are hard-pressed today to see an adult man who doesn’t have facial hair of some sort. Moustaches and full beards are the norm. The Beatles made that happen. They destroyed the predominant clean-cut look when they started showing up on record albums and music videos with shaggy, hairy faces to match their shaggy, hairy hair.
Beatlemania shifted the capital of contemporary music from the USA to England and spawned an intense interest in all things British and European. Americans wanted to speak with a British accent. American performers all but disappeared from the pop charts in the wake of the “British invasion”. The Dave Clark Five, the Rolling Stones, Herman’s Hermits, the Hollies, the Searchers, the Animals, the Kinks, and so many more British bands followed on the coattails of the Beatles’ breakthrough. Their debut on the Ed Sullivan show made every teenage boy, including me, want to learn to play the guitar and perform in a rock band. They are credited with causing the decline of the 45-rpm record, making the larger album record more popular because fans couldn’t get enough of their music.
When the members of the group began studying under the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the entire world took a renewed interest in far eastern religion. They caused sales of Nehru jackets, medallions and bell bottom pants to skyrocket. They had their own Saturday morning cartoon show. Paul and Ringo were knighted by the Queen.
Perhaps most telling, more than fifty years after the group broke up, there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of Beatles tribute bands thriving today. I’ve attended concerts by two of them. I saw Liverpool Legends at the Lyric Theater in Birmingham, and Rain at the Birmingham Jefferson concert hall. The events were jam packed with fans of all ages. Their music is as popular as ever, even though half the band has long ago passed away. I wonder how many Taylor Swift tribute performers there will be fifty years from now.
Maybe I’m too far removed from the mainstream, but I just don’t see Taylor having the same kind of earth-altering impact. She surely belongs up there with superstars like Michael Jackson and Prince. The Beatles are in a league of their own. Okay, maybe Elvis, too. I won’t be surprised if history best remembers Taylor Swift as that girl who used to date Travis Kelce.