Beatlemania

"Beatlemania" is a term that originated and was coined during the early 1960s to describe the intense fan frenzy directed towards the English rock band the Beatles. The phenomenon began in 1963 and continued past the group's break-up in 1970, despite the band ceasing public performances in 1966.

There are multiple competing theories as to why the Beatles attracted such a fan base, with no clear agreement. After the Beatles, the term mania was used to describe the popularity of later acts, as well as popularity of public figures and trends outside the music industry.

The use of the word mania to describe fandom predates the Beatles by more than 100 years. Beginning in 1841, fans of Hungarian pianist and composer Franz Liszt showed a level of fanaticism similar to the Beatles. Poet Heinrich Heine coined the word "Lisztomania" to describe this. At the time, the word was used to indicate that the fan behaviour was a genuine mental illness—an implication that was not part of the later Beatlemania. Like the later Beatlemania, there was no agreement on why Liszt had such a fanatical fan base.

Andi Lothian, a former Scottish music promoter, claims that he coined the term Beatlemania while speaking to a reporter at the Caird Hall Beatles' Concert that took place as part of the Beatles' mini-tour of Scotland on 7 October 1963. An early, printed use of the word is in The Daily Mirror, on 2 November 1963, in a news story headlined "BEATLEMANIA! It's happening everywhere... even in sedate Cheltenham", a report about the previous day's Beatles concert there; however, there is indication that the term was introduced even earlier, on 21 October, in The Daily Mail, for a feature story by Vincent Mulchrone headlined "This Beatlemania".

Beatles' publicist Tony Barrow credited 'the Press' for the term, but saw the phenomenon as beginning with the band's appearance on the London Palladium TV show on 13 October 1963, at which point he no longer had to contact the press, but had the press contacting him instead.Maureen Lipman reported that after attending a concert in Hull that year, she heard that the arena "cleared away 40 pairs of abandoned knickers" from fellow young women fans. On 3 January 1964, NBC-TV talk show host Jack Paar gave Americans their first prime-time glimpse of UK Beatlemania by showing clips of their concerts and crazed fans on his program.

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