What is it like to be a fan in 2021? Or to be an artist with a fan club?
Listening to 1960s international Beatles covers last week got me thinking about how mop-top fever spread across the world. And how Brian Epstein recruited Liverpudlian uberfan, 17 year-old Freda Kelly, to be the secretary for the band’s new fanclub home in Liverpool. A bit of a cottage industry: neither of them could have suspected how that job would grow.
Freda had a wide variety of tasks. For example, one fan sent her a pillowcase, asked her to get Ringo to use it for one night and then post it back.
Fast forward to the present. I don’t think BTS get sent my pillowcases.
In April 2020, K Pop boyband SuperM sold over 75,000 tickets to 109 countries for a live-streamed arena concert. A new Korean company, Beyond Live, are developing this new product. When performing live BTS speak in five different languages. The Beatles did rather well in German and French.
Here’s @deramdaze commenting on the difference between Xmas 1963 and April 2021:
”I think we can all agree that fame has changed. It seems mighty strange that » Continue Reading.