"Non-Original" Beatles Fans - How/When Did You Get Into the Band?

I was born in 1971 and grew up in a rural area. By the time I got to high school, both top 40 pop and country had started to leave me very cold. There was no "classic rock" or oldies radio to speak of, at least where I grew up, so I really had no knowledge of The Beatles outside of maybe "Hey Jude" and "Let It Be." When I was a sophomore, a "cool" teacher in my little school made me a mix tape with stuff off of Rubber Soul and Revolver. This would have been about 1986. I was blown away, and I bought a cassette of The Beatles 20 Greatest Hits at Record Bar in the mall. It was the start of an obsession with classic rock that has continued to this day.

 

I was born in 1971.

My mam and dad had the red and blue LP's, for reasons which escape me as neither like The Beatles. I listened obsessively to these when I was 10 years old until I was about 13. But in those heady adolescent years I got into heavy metal for a little while and from there started exploring the wider world of music in its many forms.

Despite loving the red and blue albums, I didn't come back to the Beatles until early 2000's when I listened to my first full album - Revolver. I was astounded. It is such an amazing piece of work. It is still my favourite LP of all time. But again I stopped there and really it was only with the new releases in 2009 that I finally heard all the albums etc and got to appreciate the full majesty of their work.

I know I'm a newbie so still flush with excitement but they were utterly amazing on so many levels. I love 'em.

My six-year-old daughter's favourite song of all time (so far) is No Reply

 

It was around 1989 or 1990, I think. I was 15-16 years old at the time. Before that, I had mainly been a heavy metal fan, but without any particular collector mentality or so - I had quite a lot of Kiss albums, all the early Iron Maidens and then a few other things here and there. And in 1984, everyone in Sweden - or so it seemed - got Alphaville's "Forever Young" LP as a Christmas gift, but I never was a synth lover (but still I liked Pet Shop Boys, go figure...).

Of course I'd heard Beatle tunes on the radio, they were kinda hard to miss. But it was old music, and therefore not of any interest.

I'd noticed George Harrison's comeback with "Got My Mind Set on You" and "When We Was Fab" and thought they sounded kinda nice, and Traveling Wilbury's were fun too. And then Paul came up with "This One" which I thought was pretty cool for being a song from an old fart.

So, while on vacation summer 1989 in Yugoslavia - it hadn't yet fallen apart - I took a chance and bought two cassette tapes, Roy Orbison's "Mystery Girl" and Paul's "Flowers in the Dirt". And they were played pretty constantly in the family car during those holidays...

So when I came home I decided that I'd check out my parents' collection, in which I found two LPs ("Please Please Me" and "A Collection of Oldies" - and I was so clueless that I didn't understand why that cool song Let It Be was not featured on the latter). The problem with those albums were that they only featured the old type stuff. But luckily, vinyl was on its way out, which meant that supermarkets were selling albums cheaply, and I was amazed to find both the Red album and the Blue album at the same time in their bins. I bought them, and from then on never looked back. First all their albums on vinyl, then I had to replace them on CD, and then came the heavy bootleg phase where I managed to scour record fairs to pick up all the important stuff... And of course I branched out to Beatles solo, other important 60s groups, other important music groups and then on to everything else.

To be honest, I wonder what would have happened to my music collector mentality if I never bought those albums. Compared with most of the people here, my collection is pretty small (and I'm no audiophile, nor a vinyl lover), but to a regular person - it's pretty darn big.

 

I am sure that there are many people who were just too young to appreciate them at that time. Now that they are older, more mature, and knowledgeable enough to figure out how great The Beatles music was, it is fairly simple to figure out and a test of time for Beatles music in general.

 

I was born in 1979, but it wasn't until 2000 when The Beatles 1 came out that I ever gave them a chance. I then started buying individual albums (Eleanor Rigby was my favorite so I started with Revolver), became a die-hard fan and remain one today.

 

I was born in the sixties and too young to remember them first hand. I'm sure I heard a Beatles song or two at that tender age but didn't know who they were. My parents hated the Beatles and any other music that could be associated as "hippie" music. By the early 70s I began associating songs with artists. This was AM Top 40 which was the only option available besides country. Beatles songs were still played along with Beatles hits. "Penny Lane" is probably the first song I recognized. 1973 was the first time I was exposed to FM rock after we moved to a larger city. I had a crude cassette player and would record songs I liked. Top 40, rock and r&b. Some Beatles. Christmas 1976 I got my first all-in-one stereo/turntable. Among my first purchases was "Sgt. Pepper" which led to more. The Beatles along with the Stones, Bowie and Zeppelin were the first artists I got into deeply. By the 80s when I entered High School my interest in mainstream rock began waning but my love for the Beatles, Bowie and the Stones survived.

 

Born 1962
Very early memory of Ringo in the trunk in black and white because we did not have a color tv until the '70s.
Can't Buy Me Love and the guitar rift from Day Tripper have always been with me, just like one cannot remember meeting your older siblings.
I did not know the name of the band though.

1976 listening to the orange and yellow swirl Capitol "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and Apple "Let It Be" 45 on our Zenith console. I really did not know what to make of the B side of "Let It Be".....sounded like some really bad joke to me at the time. I then picked up 1962-1966 at Fisher's Big Wheel soon after that. Like Dylan I thought they were singing "I get high" lol. I did not know who he was at the time either.

 

The Compleat Beatles aired on PBS sometime in 1987 when I was nine or ten.

 

I was already into Dylan, Neil Young, The Velvet Underground and Led Zeppelin but I never even thought about the Beatles. One day I was in a music store and saw a display of all of the original remasters that were with the first Anthology set. I decided to pick up Sgt Pepper on a whim. Went home listened to it a few times and was blown a way so later that evening I went back and picked up Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album and Abbey Road. I think the next day I went back and got the rest of the studio albums and both Past Masters.

 

I became a fan in 1977 when I ran across my mom's copy of Meet the Beatles - sitting there amidst the Mantovani, the Robert Goulet, the Ferrante & Teicher..... mind you , she was in high school when the fabs first came to the USA....

I distinctly remember my surprise to see that Paul McCartney was in a band before he became Paul McCartney & Wings (I was a big fan of "Silly Love Songs").

 

I was going to ask about that!
I was born in October 1964, so I didn't see the Ed Sullivan appearance when it was originally broadcast.
However, I became a huge Beatles fan in mid 1969 through my older brother's copy of the White Album. I remember Abbey Road when it was new, and anticipated Let It Be coming out. So- I'm an 'original fan', right?

 

"SLS" was also my first specific Beatle-related purchase, followed by "Crackerbox Palace" in early 1977. "Wings Over America" was my first Beatle-related album - got it as an Easter present spring 1977. As mentioned, "Hollywood Bowl" followed not long after that.

I actually think the only Beatle-related music I bought between "Hollywood Bowl" and my formal interest in the Fabs spring 1979 was the "London Town" album, which I got May 1978 for my birthday. Not sure why I didn't pick up more albums/singles - well, other than the fact I was a kid and had a limited music budget, I guess!

 

Yeah, I would say so. If you were interested in the band while they still existed, to me that's what "original fan" means. This thread intends to look at those of us who got into the band when they no longer were together.

"Original fan" isn't a very good term, but I couldn't think of anything better/more accurate that easily fit the title line of a thread!

 

I stumbled onto a UK import of A Hard Day's Night in the early 80s, and it was a revelation. I got a UK Revolver shortly afterwards. These would have been the one- or two-box pressings, whichever of those was in print at that time.

 

Recently, and it had a lot to do with this forum.

 

I was born in 1962 which should qualify me for a better understanding and knowledge of their music than I had. My parents didn't really 'do' pop so aside from managing to catch the odd song on the radio, I really didn't know much about them.

Come the 70s, I was discovering music myself pretty easily. I always liked Wings and McCartney's solo records but it still took me until 1993 to buy my first Beatles albums. These of course were the Red and Blue albums, released that year, with much fanfare, on CD for the first time.

I loved both of these and for years that was enough. I had bypassed the studio albums released on CD in the late 80s, but the Red and Blue albums had made me more confident to explore their catalogue further.

So, I mere 16 years later I shelled out for the newly released Stereo box. I liked the fact that it was all in one place and had 'state of the art' mastering. Haven't they all!

 

A Beatles film matinee special at the local movie theater when I was about 9 or 10. They played A Hard Day's Night, Help, and Yellow Submarine. I had heard and loved all those songs on the radio but didn't know who they were. I left the theater a Beatle maniac, and am still to this day.

 

The music had already got my attention. I would listen to my dad's Beatles records, illicitly, especially the red/blue comps.

One late night in the early-mid 1980's: young teen me was away for the summer and listening to the AM radio in grandmother's guest room, which I would turn on as I went to sleep. Peter Brown and Steven Gaines were on Larry King's coast-to-coast radio program (pre-CNN!) to promote their book The Love You Make. As I remember it they were on for two hours - and I didn't sleep.

 

2-box... the 1-box labels were history by 1973.

 

Born in 1972. My mother played Beatles for me as a baby, and I've loved them ever since.

 

After watching the TV movie - " Birth of the Beatles".
Seeing where they came from put it all in perspective.

 

I've not seen that movie since it first aired in 1979! It came on during that first period of personal Beatlemania but I can't remember what I thought of it - I probably loved it because I loved everything Beatles back then.

I'd be curious to see it again now and see how accurate/entertaining it is...

 

That's around when I saw it (I think), and only knew "of" the Beatles generally as I was 10.

I remember the Love Songs album in my parents record collection and that was about it.

But I got hooked because of that movie - I just remember how gritty the early days were for them before they took off and that's what impressed me (and that seems to be accurate).

 

When I was a very young child (less than 5) I had a copy of the Red album on cassette and I played it every night for bed. I always started with side one because I really loved their early stuff. My dad had a copy of other tapes, some copies and some store bought, and I dug all of them. When we got a new house my dad hooked up the old turntable and I got to enjoy both my mom and dad's extensive vinyl collection, mostly American albums but also some imported British. I made tapes endlessly for car listening, a lot of which had serious skips.

My parents would also buy me cassette copies of new albums. A lot of the cassettes had somewhat significant changes to the running order, and I scarcely knew the difference between side one or two, so to me the actual running order of the albums is a departure.