For Gen Y, The Beatles Still Resonate

They usually smell like someone's basement, but in record stores everywhere - the Garwood Turnabout and  included – used Beatles records are moving off the shelves.

While Baby Boomers sell them off by the binful, Generation Y is snatching them back up. I have three. My friend has five. My other friend has four. When my sister bought a record player, she carried an armful of Beatles LPs to college.

More than 40 years after the band broke up, The Pew Research Center found that the Beatles are the second-favorite band of individuals aged 16-29 in a 2009 survey that measured older bands against today's popular performers, including Kanye West, Carrie Underwood and others.

My parents are aghast. Here are LPs, a playback medium they ditched long ago for the relative ease of tapes and then CDs. And we're all listening to The Beatles, the band they savored in their teenage years.

Today is the anniversary of John Lennon's murder in Manhattan in 1980 – in 2010 we're still memorializing the late singer. The Guardian covered a well-attended memorial service in Central Park. A New York Times blog today cataloged the gut reactions of Baby Boomers when they first heard the news of Lennon's death – which ranged from stone faced shock to outright sobbing. When Yoko Ono wrote a elegy for John Lennon on her blog yesterday, Rolling Stone devoted a feature piece on it.

What is going on here? What is it about The Beatles that keep them popular through the ages? I ask this as I listen to one-half of The Magical Mystery Tour today for the sixth time.

A quick Google search turns up a number of unproven theories. Some say it's because the music appeals to everyone – and that appeal continues to this day. The Beatles have been responsible for the gentle, innocent "I Want to Hold Your Hand," the psychadelic-tinged  "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds," and the rock anthem "Helter Skelter."

Another theory: The Beatles have attained a status that is outright mythological perhaps due to their instant popularity. One of the first bands chased by packs of teenage girls, the boom period of the Fab Four is one that has gone down in history.

And while its true that the Beatles wrote music that drew from a variety of different styles, another bloggers suggests that there's a common thread drawing people to the group; an undercurrent of optimism, of a 1960s idealism. After all, who doesn't want world peace?

Indeed, it's hard to think of the Beatles and feel depressed at the same time. Unless of course, you're going through a breakup and All You Need is Love blares out of your car radio.

But regardless of what draws people to the Beatles, it's clear that Beatlemania has buzzed down through the ages; and they're here to stay.