On Saturday, October 28, 1961, around 3 p.m., a young man named Raymond Jones walked into the NEMS music store in Liverpool. He asked the store manager, Brian Epstein, if the Beatles’ single My Bonnie was on sale. The answer was no. But the young man’s question was the first link in the chain of events that changed our world and turned Liverpool into the city of The Beatles.

There are places I remember.

If you fly into Liverpool, your plane will land at John Lennon International Airport. Walking out into the city, next to the cab stand you will see a large (15.6 meters long, 4.6 meters high) yellow submarine.

I, however, arrived in town by rail. But I also encountered the Beatles theme immediately – in the men’s room at the station there was a picture of the memorial to the band members on the Liverpool Promenade hanging over the toilet.
Having sailed the Sea of Time, the Sea of Science, the Sea of Monsters and other seas, the yellow submarine ended its voyage at Liverpool’s John Lennon International Airport.

Having sailed the Sea of Time, the Sea of Science, the Sea of Monsters and other seas, the yellow submarine has completed its journey to Liverpool’s John Lennon International Airport.

There are plenty of places in Liverpool connected in one way or another to The Beatles and their songs, or simply using the Beatles theme for marketing purposes. The Revolver and Yellow Submarine hotels and the Rubber Soul and Revolver pubs, for example. But the most important, most authentic memorable places are in the Matthew Street area.

A hotel room after a hard day

The most affluent Beatlemans stay at the Hard Days Night Hotel. The difference between the name of the hotel and the name of the movie and The Beatles’ 1964 music album (A Hard Day’s Night) is minimal, just an apostrophe before the “s.”

The category of the hotel is four stars. The pathos is all five, but the fifth star is apparently not really needed for brand reasons. “A four sounds better. On the facade of the hotel instead of some caryatids or atlantes there are four sculptures. It is not difficult to guess whose ones. The photos of the Liverpool Four and personal belongings of the band members are used in the decoration of the interiors. The best rooms are not some “presidential” or “royal” suites, but the “Lennon” and “McCartney” suites. The range of room prices is from £100 (if you are very lucky) to £350 per night.

Strategically the hotel is ideally located. It has a side facade facing Matthew Street. Right on that corner in the hotel building is a Beatleman’s store with the boring name The Gallery, but an interesting range of merchandise. The seller is a Beatleman (a non-Beatleman would hardly be able to listen to the same songs every working day from dawn to dusk). Like everyone else associated with the city’s “Beatle” tourist industry, the salesman complains about the pandemic and lockdown. He also says something interesting. But he speaks in Scouse (Liverpool dialect of English), so it’s not easy to understand what he says.

The store has everything a visiting Beatleman might need as a souvenir. T-shirts, baseball caps, pillows, board games, magnets, cups, badges, plastic figurines (at least ten times more expensive than on eBay).

Pedestrian Matthew Street is Liverpool’s most Beatles street. If you call it Beatles Street, you’ll be understood in Liverpool. At 31 Mathew Street there’s another Beatles souvenir store, the Beatles Shop. It differs from the first one in that it has a big antique bias. Every year the store organizes auctions of souvenirs and memorabilia related to Liverpool’s most famous natives. Plastic and wooden figurines of the Liverpool Four, plates and glasses with their portraits, puzzles, old entrance tickets to the Cavern Club, issues of the Mersey Beat newspaper from the early 1960s, photographs, autographs, sheet music and vinyl discs. The hit of the 2021 auction was a sculpture of the goddess Aphrodite, which could be seen in the background during the live televised world premiere of All You Need is Love from the Abbey Road studio on June 25, 1967. The Goddess of Love went under the hammer for £8,400.

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Almost the most discussed topic of this week was Britney Spears’ release from her father’s custody. However, the singer can’t dispose of her money yet. Forbes estimates the pop princess’ fortune at $60 million dollars, but for over 13 years, she can’t spend a penny of it without Jamie Spears’ consent. Britney won’t be able to regain control of her money until Nov. 12. On that date, the court must decide whether the singer can be declared fully competent. Will Britney Spears return to the big stage after custody is revoked? And will she be able to catch up with her colleagues in terms of annual earnings?

The life of one of America’s most popular singers of the early noughties changed dramatically in 2008. After a difficult divorce process, the paparazzi followed the celebrity’s every move. As a result – a nervous breakdown, problems with substances and treatment in rehab. In the end, the singer was declared incompetent, and full control over her life, money and property passed to her father Jamie Spears.

The pop princess was still recording albums, releasing music videos and touring for a while. In 2012, she accepted a seat on the American X-Factor show and ended the year as Forbes’ highest-paid female singer in Hollywood. Two and a half years ago, she suddenly announced that she was taking an indefinite leave of absence, ostensibly to care for her ailing father. Fans did not believe this version and launched a campaign with the hashtag #FreeBritney. This summer, it turned out that the singer really did need help.

“In 2018, I was forced to go on tour. Managers said they would sue me otherwise and even handed me some papers. If I refused to work 10 hours a day, seven days a week, I would not be allowed to see my children and my boyfriend. This is despite the fact that I am the one who has been feeding my relatives and team all these years. Why do I have to be in foster care? It doesn’t make sense,” Spears shared.

Of course, Jamie Spears didn’t like it, and he demanded a $2 million payout from his daughter – the only way he was willing to give up custody. The court, however, sided with Britney and took away her father’s right to control her life. Now he’s likely to pay, with Mr. Spears facing several lawsuits at once, says American lawyer Christopher Melcher: “Her father was always watching her, not out of curiosity, but to isolate her even more. How can you ask for help when you realize that your parole officer will know about it instantly? But it is important to realize that Jamie Spears is only one of many involved in this story. I would be cautious in assessing his role directly. He didn’t act alone, after all.

What the British remember the 1990s.

TV series “Friends” was on the first line in the ranking of the best cultural and social phenomena of the 1990s. This was learned from a poll of more than 2 thousand adult Britons by the resource Myprotein. Second place went to an animated TV series.

All these years, Britney had to pay over a hundred thousand dollars to her father and his lawyer every year. No one knows how much money Jamie Spears could have embezzled without informing his daughter. Now the singer’s finances are being handled by an independent auditor, and her personal life is being overseen by an agreed-upon manager. The question on fans’ minds is: What will happen after custody of the singer is finally removed? Britney Spears’ lawyer Matthew Rosengart answers this question reluctantly: “Her future on stage, if she starts performing again, is a decision that Britney herself will make. For too long, all decisions have been made for her. Now she has the last word. That’s the way it was years ago, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”

Now, however, not everything will depend on the singer’s own wishes, and it’s not certain that listeners will accept her as they did in the noughties, says Vladimir Zavyalov, music editor of Afisha Daily: “How competitive the dream form of the people who write her music is against the people who are on the charts now is a question. The history of pop music doesn’t know very many examples of artists experiencing a second wave of popularity. That’s singer Cher. In 1998, her husband died and the album was dedicated to him. It sold very well, it had multiplatinum circulation in the States and in many countries.
What kind of music do American drivers prefer

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British singer Adele after a six-year break has presented a music video for the song “Easy On Me” and announced the album release. The album is called “30. The record will be available on streaming platforms on November 19. Fans took the news positively, and music critics are discussing how timely will be the return of Adele. Judging by the new track, her style hasn’t changed much in the meantime.

The last album by Adele was released six years ago. The record with a laconic title “25” became platinum right on the day of release, in Britain it was bought by more than 300 thousand people in a day. It brought the singer two Grammy awards. And the tour in support of the record secured the status of Adele as one of the most successful performers. In 2017, the publication Forbes estimated her income in $69 million. Then the singer admitted that she was very tired from the tour, and did not rule out that will not arrange a large-scale tours anymore.

In 2019, Adele said she was ending her music career because she wanted to devote more time to her son. Although the news upset fans, they supported the singer with a flash mob. On numerous videos one of the main hits of Adele was sung by jelly bears and buses.

Lately Adele has been the heroine of socialites. Glossy publications discussed the divorce and the new image – the singer lost a lot of weight. The singer’s return to the stage became known not so long ago. In early October, she posted a small excerpt of a new song on Instagram, and a week ago, she gave her first big interview for several years to Vogue magazine and shot for the cover. By the way, after the photos appeared in the network, the requests for black eyeliner – a trademark element of Adele’s style – jumped dozens of times.

The singer’s new track is called Easy On Me and the title can be translated as “Be gentle with me”. In an interview Adele confessed that she wrote the album for her son. According to her, it is an attempt to explain to her child why she divorced and destroyed his world in pursuit of her own happiness.

The new song was greeted positively by fans and music critics. Rolling Stone published an article with the headline “Adele brings the world to tears”. The singer’s voice is full of regret and determination, writes BBC. Stereo.ru columnist Alexander Belyaev has no doubt that it’s impossible to ignore the singer’s new work: “I would compare Adele to Bjork, which annoyed a lot of people when it appeared, but it was clear that this is a phenomenon and it’s not going anywhere. With Adele, I think, the same thing happened.

For an artist like that, who was making a career systematically, it was a disaster for pop music, of course, to take a break like that. There are very few people who could afford it.

There’s a certain kind of calculation. No matter what she released, there would still be some interest, because it’s clear that she’s a cool artist and she’s a cool person – that’s the main thing.

Nevertheless, some music critics are skeptical about Adele’s comeback. The main arguments are that the industry has changed a lot: during the singer’s absence there have been many of her followers, and listeners are simply bored with piano ballads. Whether that’s true will become clear after November 19.

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