'The Beatles have become an inexhaustible source of nostalgia-fueled products'
In 2026, the 60th anniversary of The Beatles' first compilation of old hits will be celebrated. A Collection of Beatles Oldies (But Goldies!), released for Christmas in 1966, aimed to satisfy the insatiable appetite of fans frustrated by the gap between the releases of Revolver (August 1966) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (June 1967). The group still had three good years ahead. Even before their break-up, the respectable sales of this premature best-of hinted at the quartet's ability to perpetuate itself beyond its own demise, which was officially announced by Paul McCartney on April 10, 1970.
Since then, from compilations to remixes, from archive discoveries to documentaries, The Beatles, their music, and their legend have become an inexhaustible source of products designed to fuel nostalgia. Logic would suggest that this seam should be running dry – after all, the band's generation, the baby boomers, is nearing extinction, and nostalgia implies having experienced what one now misses.
But that is without counting the digital age and its ability to blur the boundaries of reality. The constant bombardment of Beatles music and footage – from the release of the 1973 compilations (the "blue" and "red" albums) to the streaming (by Disney+ in 2024) of the documentary Beatles '64, edited by David Tedeschi from footage filmed by the Maysles brothers during the group's first visit to the United States in February 1964 – has resulted in a digital contagion made up of both YouTube clips and TikTok memes.
As a result, The Beatles now count among their fans boys and girls young enough to be their great-grandchildren, who consume everything from concert film fragments to AI-generated clips, such as one showing all four octogenarians reunited for a concert at Wembley in London in 2025 – never mind that John Lennon was murdered in 1980 and George Harrison died of cancer 21 years later.
The latest example of squeezing the very last drop from this rich vein is Disney+'s release at the end of November of a new version of the documentary The Beatles Anthology, which first appeared in 1996. This edition comes with a new episode devoted to the making of… The Beatles Anthology, made up of footage captured during the recording of the band's three posthumous tracks – unfinished John Lennon songs that the remaining three members, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, managed to complete as best they could.
Source: Thomas Sotinel/lemonde.fr
