I really can’t afford to spend all day on this but something is compelling me to write my latest RANT on the inexplicable phenomenon known as ‘Bieber Fever’ and the media reaction to it. A young Canadian pop singer named Justin Bieber arrived in Australia this week on a promotional tour that was to have included an outdoor performance of three songs at Circular Quay for Channel 7’s Sunrise program. After an unexpected 5,000 fans showed up, the concert was cancelled by NSW Police and later moved to the Channel 7 studios in Martin Place, where Bieber performed one song and flicked his hair a lot.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the kid and his throwaway pop songs; he is just the latest in a long, long line of teen sensations treading a well-known path to obscurity. From his ‘a star is born’ turn on YouTube, Justin has ticked all the right boxes, and now he - and the mighty machine behind him - are reaping the rewards.

The media reaction to this fad is just as predictable; the story runs as high rotation on 7’s news coverage and to a lesser extent on the rival networks keen to downplay the apparent ‘coup’ of having Bieber perform exclusively for Seven, unless of course it’s to highlight the dangerous situation many tweens found themselves in crushed behind barricades waiting for a glimpse of their teen heartthrob.

Then they roll out the tired cliché that nothing like this has been seen since Beatlemania swept the world in 1964.

In Adelaide in 1964, 30,000 people turned out to see The Beatles wave at them from a balcony. Men, women and children, teenage boys and girls- the fair people of Adelaide turned out en masse to see a group that had gone from regional UK to the world stage in less than 18 months, at a time before Twitter, Facebook, mobile phones, the Internet, oh yeah and colour television.

I understand that because of the huge cultural significance of the Beatles, that any comparison to their feats and achievements, not to mention the mania that accompanied there every move, is a press officer’s dream come true. “Bigger than The Beatles” is a headline that harks back to John Lennon’s own misquote about the Bealtes being ‘bigger than Jesus’ and it has been used to describe the career trajectory of pretty much every music artist that crosses over into the cultural milieu ever since. From acts such as ABBA and Oasis, still very popular to the types of artists most would rather forget, say for example, The Bay City Rollers, nothing approaching the fever generated by this act has been seen since The Beatles. The Beatles themselves were surely subject to this type of comparison from none other than Elvis Presley.

The fact remains though, that in a society still in its technological infancy, The Beatles managed to stay at the absolute peak of culture for eight years, crafting something like 12 albums, 5 films and worldwide tours before disbanding amidst the kind of acrimony that surely must come to people under the intense glare of the media and their fans. They released chart-topping singles that weren’t included on their albums, because at the time, that was seen as cheating your fans out of new music.

Justin Bieber, god love him, has just released his first album where, if you check the credits, has so many professional writers, groomers, A&R, executive producers and stylists that his MTV Award speech is likely to run into hours. He hasn’t won one yet, but I have no doubt he will.

Make no mistake, Justin Bieber is popular. But when it comes to tracking the trajectory of his career, he’s barely out of the starting blocks. When the media makes Beatle-related comparisons backed by footage of fainting, screaming hordes of girls, they are only succeeding in highlighting their own ignorance of popular culture history.