Please Please Help! Me with degree
Updated on 03 March 2009
A university is offering what it claims to be the first Masters degree on The Beatles.
The band from Liverpool shot to fame in the 1960s with hits including I Want To Hold Your Hand, Ticket To Ride and Help!
Mike Brocken, course leader and senior lecturer in popular music at Liverpool Hope University, said: "There have been over 8,000 books about The Beatles but there has never been serious academic study and that is what we are going to address.
"The Beatles influenced so much of society, not just with their music, but also with fashion from their collar-less jackets to their psychedelic clothes.
"Their output covered a huge range from the black and white film A Hard Day's Night to Strawberry Fields Forever which was accompanied by arguably the first pop video."
"Forty years on, now is the right time and Liverpool is the right place to study The Beatles."
He added: "It is definitely the first Beatles related MA in this country and I would say probably the first in the world," he added.
Mr Brocken, who is a doctor in popular music studies, said spaces on the MA in The Beatles, Popular Music and Society depended on the number that apply but it would not exceed a "possible" maximum of 30 places.
He said he had received enquiries from people in America about the course, which starts in September, as well as people in the UK.
Similar arts and humanity MAs at the university cost around £3,445 for full-time students from the UK.
The modules in the course include studying the studio sound and compositions of The Beatles.
It will also look at the band members - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison - and how events helped to shape the music emerging in Liverpool.
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