Beatlemania: Play on

Is one of your first teen/pre-teen memories the night you bounced up and down screaming as The Beatles performed on Ed Sullivan? Did your heart pound when you purchased Twist and Shout with three weeks allowance, your parents lecturing you that the Fab Four were just a flash in the pan? Well, Mom and Dad—you were wrong! Forty-five years later, The Beatles are more popular than ever.

With this year's release of the band's remastered box CD sets and a new video game to boot—The Beatles: Rock Band—40+ females are finding memories are hurtling back faster than they can hum All My Loving. In fact, the box sets have been flying off the shelves ever since they went on sale in early September. The Beatles in Mono box set was sold out in many stores over the fall, with only a few copies left of in Stereo. (The mono set is more popular because The Beatles had a direct hand in mixing it, while studio engineers were responsible for the stereo versions.)

"Turn your stereo up"

Nancy Moore, of Burnaby B.C, says the resurgence of interest in The Beatles music now means her teenaged daughter is listening to the same tunes she did as a teen. "Ever since my daughter saw the movie Across the Universe she loves Beatles songs. It's ironic because she's never listened to music I like. Now she figures it's not that bad."

Debi Eatherley of Toronto says hearing the music takes her back. "I saw The Beatles twice in concert in the 60s. People were screaming so much, I couldn't hear anything at all. But when I hear the very early music now, it reminds me of when my Dad bought me the 45 with I Want to Hold Your Hand—that was so exciting."

The Beatles music has stood the test of time, says Andrew Croft, publisher of Beatlology Magazine, because its quality is vastly superior to that of most other bands, then and now. "They changed with every album, something few bands could do, and evolved from loveable moptops in 1964 to introspective songwriters in 1965, counter-culture subversives in 1966, frontmen for the psychedelic period in 1967, leaders of musical revolution in 1968 and then back to the roots of rock in 1969."