Lhe Beatles, in The worldit was first of all “uproar”. The one complained about by the neighborhood of the Casbah, one of the cellars in Liverpool where the group started. And even “hyena cries”, as described by a detractor whose name the newspaper had the modesty to withhold. Correspondent in London, Henri Pierre, in a long article published on December 12, 1963, reported for the first time the craze for music born in the great English port and described as “sound of the Mersey”, named after its famous river.
If he gave voice to grumpy local residents and aesthetes, the journalist focused mainly on a musical current “carried to the four corners of the country by a young rock quartet, now millionaires, the Beatles”. The journalist described the meteoric rise of “George, John, Ringo and Paul”, there “tribal frenzy” which had developed around the group, the young girls who “faint and go into convulsion”.
The article mainly delves into the popular and even working roots of group and the young people who listen to it. Thus they entered The world, well after entering the charts, the Beatles and their procession of Beatlesmania. Sixty years after this article, the enthusiasm for the group continues. As demonstrated by the success achieved by Now and Then, a new and unfinished piece, whose release on Thursday, November 2, was made possible by the contribution of artificial intelligence. The song immediately topped the charts. charts British.
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If the musical critics who succeeded one another in World have honored the iconic group since its dissolution in 1970, it was not the same in its beginnings. Thus, none of his albums was the subject of criticism at the time of its release. exit. A few weeks after Henri Pierre, on January 18, 1964, Claude Sarraute reported on the concert given by the Beatles at the Olympia. From the noise, we move on to noise. “Four knights of “rock” in shiny armor of iron-gray tergal, with luscious fringe, child-like cheeks, perfectly relaxed, joyful, content. The noise in this temple of the twist, then reaches fury. We no longer knows exactly where the yelps and cries are coming from. The Beatles pass over our bowed heads more shattering than the aerial metro, when, suddenly, oh! miracle, it’s silence, that is to say the breakdown of the “sound system”: here they are gesticulating without managing to emit a sound. […] We repair, we leave in a loud snore, spitting, belching and vibrating. » And the journalist concludes: “I left from there staggering, dazed, her brain in a comote, completely surprised to find the hushed calm of the street, a fine example of what is commonly called the civilization of noise. »
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