This home movie is part of the footage compiled on CNN’s “The British Invasion,” a one-hour segment of the 10-hour series, The Sixties, which will air in May. The episode premiered January 30, 2014, in advance of the 50-year anniversary of a landmark moment in American cultural history: the Beatles arrival at JFK Airport and their subsequent performance on the Sunday-night standard.

CNN’s documentary recognizes the importance of the televised event as ushering in the British Invasion, an onslaught of English bands that pervaded the musical landscape of the Baby Boomers. These British bands essentially re-introduced American rock and roll but this time with an English twist. Interviews with rock critics and musicians celebrate the cross-cultural exchange between African-American artists (like Chuck Berry and Smokey Robinson) and English rockers (like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones).

But it wasn’t just a boys’ club: the footage of the American girl-viewer and her sisters reminds us of the importance of those girl audiences. In fact, the Beatles’ relationship with girl culture is crucial to understanding their break-through Ed Sullivan moment.

Ed Sullivan brandishes his arm, introducing “The Beatles!”, words that are drowned out by the roar of girls’ screams that will accompany the band. This performance united an entire generation of young people, turned on by the newness of the Beatles sound. The Liverpudlian lads’ fresh youthfulness invigorated a nation still mourning the death of a young, promising president. But the Beatles’ special appeal to girls helps explain why John, Paul, George, and Ringo became the vessels into which so much emotion from female youth was poured.

Prior to 1964, the Beatles had covered a number of girl-group songs, singing through a girl’s point of view in tunes like the Marvelette’s “Please Mister Postman” and the Shirelles’ “Boys.” During The Ed Sullivan Show, they sang a Lennon/McCartney original, “She Loves You.” Jacqueline Warwick (“You’re Going to Lose That Girl” 2000) and Barbara Bradby (“She Told Me What to Say” 2005), recognize how the Beatles act in this song as intermediaries in a relationship between two other people, encouraging “you” to trust in “her” love:

You think you lost your love,
Well I saw her yesterday.
She says she loves you,
And you know that can’t be bad,
Yes, she loves you,
And you know you should be glad.

This position, that of a kind of girlfriend with relationship advice, mirrors the perspective offered by girl-groups, and, as Bradby argues, encouraged the public expression of female desire.

In short, the Beatles spoke to girls in their own language.

In a fascinating twist, the Beatles continue their conversation with these girl groups in songs like “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “I Saw Her Standing There” (also performed during The Ed Sullivan Show). Bradby suggests that “the Beatles’ frequent assertions of ‘I love you’ can be seen as a direct response to the repeated questions and requests for men to voice these words, by the Shirelles and other groups.”

So the Beatles appealed to girls through familiar and comforting girl-group discourse, but they also became the “bad boys” who worried parents. Such rebelliousness, however, was managed through androgyny, not conventional masculinity. Their hair, which shook as they “woo”-ed girls, was considered long and girlish, rebellious and untrustworthy. Their lanky bodies, accentuated by fitted suits, contrasted starkly with the adult male body of 1950s icon, Elvis Presley. The soon-to-be-famous Beatle boots were sleek and pointed, suggesting an artistic sensibility.

On The Ed Sullivan Show that Sunday evening, these haircuts, suits, boots, and boyish bodies were not just alike in androgyny; they were also simply that— alike. Such matching images were complemented by tight harmonies literalized by close body positions. Similar to their girl-group predecessors, as well as the Everly Brothers, the Beatles shared microphones in two-at-a-time pairings. In Meet the Beatles, Steven Stark observes how McCartney’s left-handed bass playing made intimacy even more apparent while creating a pleasing mirror image. Strumming and singing together, they were so close they could almost kiss. Close-up shots that linger on their mouths and faces may have encouraged girl viewers to imagine their own Beatle kiss.

This brotherly togetherness facilitated the image of intimate friends, whose carefree playfulness promised freedom. Famously, Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess, and Gloria Jacobs (“Beatlemania: Girls Just Want to Have Fun” 1992), have theorized the relationship between girls’ screams for the Beatles and sexual desire. They argue that this collective expression had as much to do with girls’ desire to break with restrictive gender expectations as it did with their adoration for the Beatles themselves. Watching these girlish boys on Ed Sullivan—boys who were in conversation with them!—showed girl viewers new possibilities.

The Beatles promise of new possibilities continues to account for their persistence in girl culture today. I will present research in this area at the Penn State Altoona academic conference focused solely on the Beatles from February 7-9, 2014. (Apparently, even academics are not immune from the urge to commemorate the landmark event!) What I find over and over again in online communities of 21st-century fangirls is that the Beatles’ androgynous gender performances, which promised fun, friendship, and freedom, still excite female youth today as they did for girls in the 1960s.

This past weekend some 18,000 fans, not including hundreds more staff and performers, gathered in Chicago’s Union Park for each of three days and nights of the fifth annual Pitchfork Music Festival. Despite temperatures in the 90°s and the fact that most of the indie rock, hip-hop, and electronic music performers on the bill were hardly household names, the sold-out crowd crammed into the small 11-acre urban park to enjoy live performances by 45 musical acts across three stages. The sight of many thousands of fans coming together in a city park or open field has become an increasingly common experience in the U.S. at a time when the music industry is widely proclaimed to be suffering. How is that exactly?

It is well established at this point that the recording industry is hurting big time. But the concert industry has been much more resilient. Granted, live music this summer has had its share of troubles as well: numerous shows on headlining tours by the likes of the Eagles have been canceled or postponed due to poor advance ticket sales, the resurrected Lilith Fair tour cut 10 dates for similar reasons, and Live Nation, the largest concert promoter in the U.S., recently announced a projected 10% income drop below last year’s earnings. According to the concert industry trade publication Pollstar, ticket sales are down about 15% so far this year, and that hit is being felt strongest amongst the “Top 100 Tours.” In other words, it is the big, expensive stadium tours from chart-topping mainstream acts – for which even the lowest-priced tickets often run into the hundreds of dollars – that seem to be going the way of the CD. Smaller acts, though, are weathering the economic slump much better.

Contrary to industry trends, events like Pitchfork – annual multi-day outdoor rock/pop music festivals – have steadily grown in number and popularity over the past decade, and 2010 is shaping up to be a banner year for many music festivals. In the past decade, Pitchfork along with Coachella, Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, Stagecoach, Ultra, Electric Daisy Carnival, and Sasquatch!, to name but a few, were all founded and quickly achieved considerable success. Earlier this year, Coachella recorded its highest attendance in the event’s 11-year history, while Bonnaroo’s attendance was up over the past few years’. Austin City Limits, to be held in October, sold out its three-day passes in a mere 14-hours back in April – before even announcing any performers. Pitchfork – which is a sell out every year – sold out its three-day passes in under a week, breaking last year’s record of two months. With few exceptions, the demand for outdoor music festivals is through the roof.

Moreover, many of these festivals are finding success by targeting niche audiences. The something-for-everyone approach that has been the modus operandi of most large festivals is proving to be less effective (see: Lilith tour), as is the practice of spending huge sums on a few marquee headliners. For instance, Coachella’s bookers purposefully focused on filling out the lineup with “relevant younger bands” this year. Meanwhile, Sasquatch!, the Washington state based festival held in May, sold out in record time without any recognizable mainstream headliners; its headlining acts were the indie rock draws My Morning Jacket and Ween. The electronic music festival the Electric Daisy Carnival drew a record 135,000 people to its two-day installment in LA this year, despite little advance media attention or big names outside the dance music community. Numerous other below-the-radar festivals, such as FYF Fest in Los Angeles and Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, Texas, fill their stages entirely with indie, punk, hip-hop, and experimental acts largely unknown beyond underground circles. Even if the music is eclectic, the audiences come from easily identifiable subcultures. Indeed, the scale of a Pitchfork or All Tomorrow’s Parties is relatively small and the atmosphere is so casual, most everyone in the audience sharing similar tastes (for better or worse), that it almost feels like an indie rock summer camp.

This strategy of curating festivals that appeal to specific musical genres or subcultures is cost effective for organizers and provides attendees with more bang-for-the-buck, which benefits all parties during these hard economic times. Furthermore, it insures a built-in audience of dedicated music fans, rather than trying to appeal to a broad mass of casual fans who may like one or two headlining acts but not care for any of the undercard. In this way, it reflects various trends in the music industry, such as social networking, vinyl, and fan-funded recordings, that favor narrow over mass appeal, community-building, and more direct interaction between fans and artists.