Something to celebrate
Friday is Global Beatles Day, a day to celebrate the music and legacy of the Fab Four. But to the Beatles’ legions of fans around the world, pretty much every day is Beatles Day.
There’s plenty to celebrate where the Beatles are concerned. Their position as the greatest rock band of all time remains unassailable, more than 50 years after their split. The music that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr created between 1962 and 1970 remains the gold standard of pop music.
And the legions of Beatles fans in every corner of globe now include young people who were born long after the Beatles became part of history. Visit almost any high school in America and you’re bound to find students who stream the Beatles on Spotify, listen to the Beatles channel on SiriusXM or own a copy of “Abbey Road” on vinyl. No other artists in the history of popular music have had such enduring appeal. Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong were — and still are — towering figures in the history of music, but they did not grab ahold of the imagination of high school students a half-century after their heyday.聽
Critic and historian Richie Unterberger noted on the website allmusic.com that the Beatles “introduced more innovations into popular music than any other group of their time. Moreover, they were among the few artists of any discipline that were simultaneously the best at what they did and the most popular at what they did.”
He added, “Their supremacy as rock icons remains unchallenged to this day.”
There will be more for Beatles fans to celebrate later this year with the announcement last week that “The Beatles: Get Back,” a documentary created by “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson, will be debuting on Disney Plus on Thanksgiving weekend. A hardcover book will accompany it, and so (probably) will previously unreleased audio material.
June 24: National Bomb Pop Day, National Handshake Day, World UFO Day
June 25: National Catfish Day, Take Your Dog to Work Day, Global Beatles Day
June 26: National Barcode Day, National Beauticians Day, Summersgiving
June 27: National Onion Day, National Sunglasses Day, National PTSD Awareness Day
June 28: National Paul Bunyan Day, National Alaska Day, National Logistics Day
June 29: National Camera Day, National Waffle Iron Day
June 30: Social Media Day, National Parchment Day, National Meteor Watch Day