The Beatles Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The Beatles - Essay Example Two of the Beatles are now dead, but the icon of "Beatles" remains, having moved from a Modernist, central position within world culture to a postmodernist, ironic placement as a mixture of nostalgia and commercialism. When The Beatles first appeared on music scene in 1963, the idea of a musical band being anything more than simply a group of young men (and sometimes women) who played live and who would, if successful, release records, had yet to be invented. Pop groups, even those that became phenomenally successful in a manner never seen before, were clearly definable, and limited Modernist figures. A clear delineation could be made between the pop group and the musical culture/general world in which they performed and lived. In a modernist and semiotic sense, the relationship between signifier ("The Beatles") and signified (the live performances and records) was fairly clear (Barthes, 1978). But as early as the late stages of Beatlemania in 1964, a postmodern uncertainty was coming into the sign "Beatles" as a slippery commutability between signifier and signified started to occur. Essentially "The Beatles" became a signifier for much more than the signified of their music. The hysterical "love" that surrounded the four young from Liverpool reached such extreme and massive proportions that some seriously suggested that the fans were suffering from some kind of mass hysteria. "The Beatles", to put them in a Freudian context, were bringing out an id within their fans that dominated their ego and superego. While the raw sexuality of Beatles music was making the previous icon of rebellion, Elvis Presley, seem relatively tame by comparison, their success within Britain caused them to become icons of the mainstream establishment as well. In 1965 Queen Elizabeth II bestowed the MBE, a civil honor, on the band. Their dominance of the music industry - on April 4th 1964 they had all top five records on the Billboard Top 100 (Spitz, 2006) - had apparently led them to become icons of that most traditional of British institutions, the monarchy. When John Lennon told the Royal Command Audience that they should applaud, only the rich should jangle their jewelry the "servants" of the Queen who had been commanded to perform for her (and who bowed so low) were now ironically commenting upon the British class system. The move to postmodern irony had already started before the famous mop-tops were grown long, the Beatles stopped performing live, and the concept studio album took over. The role of the Beatles as something more than merely a pop group began to take on far greater proportions as the Sixties rolled on. Thus they were seen as having snubbed the President of the Philippines' wife and barely escaped the country with their lives, and John Lennon caused a huge uproar by his less-than-diplomatic, but probably correct assertion that the Beatles were at the time more popular than Jesus (Spitz, 2006). Much of 1970's fashion can be traced to a single Beatles album cover: that of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Thus the sheer range of culture and society that the Beatles influenced eventually drowned out the importance of their music. An ideal symbol of this tendency was the perhaps apocryphal moment when the band stopped playing at a gig only for the audience not to notice because of the noise they were

Modern Imperalism(The british Empire) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Modern Imperalism(The british Empire) - Essay Example Being often dubbed â€Å"internal colonialism†, those relationships, according to Levine, did little, if anything, to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, but exploited the divide for colonial ends (11). Insofar as the poor had found a solution, although not always an easy one, to their problems, migrating in large numbers from their impoverished regions into distant lands, the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British Empire is largely considered â€Å"a significantly Scottish enterprise† (Levine 11). On the other hand, as Judd points out, the primary motive and most powerful drive behind the establishment of the Empire and its global growth was the â€Å"desire for profitable trade, plunder and enrichment† (3). Thus, having served many useful purposes, besides bringing wealth to a substantial part of the British population, the Empire was seen as both â€Å"a mainstay† of the restored Stuart monarchy after the period of republican rule known as â€Å"the Commonwealth and Protectorate† and the stabilising factor in â€Å"the post-revolutionary Britain of the late seventeenth century† (Judd 3-4). ... d been perceived as â€Å"underwriting the nation’s future in a variety of ways†, including as â€Å"a means of uniting the British people in a common cause, a means of â€Å"inspiring a sense of international mission†, as well as a â€Å"device to blunt the edge of class warfare and egalitarian philosophies†; most notably, however, the Empire helped boost both the confidence of the individual and the nation, stifling fears of degeneration and decline. (Judd 4-5). This essay is intended to review the reasons for the British invasion in Egypt in 1882, including such as the situation in Europe, imperial geopolitics, commercial and strategic interests, as well as domestic economic concerns due to the pressure of increased international competition. The essay argues that the invasion was necessitated by a cocktail of factors, whose relative weigh varied with each stage of the British involvement. 2. Historical Background Porter point out that the British Empi re significantly changed over the nineteenth century; thus, the West Indian islands rapidly lost their relative importance in the British trade after 1815, whereas the westward extension of Canada to the Pacific, along with the emergence of six colonies in Australia, transformed not only altered the pattern of investment distribution within the Empire, but also created a number of â€Å"self-governing, self-confident ‘settler capitalist societies’†, which generated nearly â€Å"16.5 per cent of Britain’s overseas trade† (Porter 5). Despite the changes, India, which underwent a consolidation of the British control over its territories between 1819 and 1870 – remained of â€Å"paramount importance in any assessment of Imperial assets† (Porter 5-6). This expansion, in turn, brought about other significant developments,