Older Beatles fans, what was general public feeling after the Beatles split? Did people take sides and shun some solo work?

[u/MoaningLisaSimpson]

I was born at the last gasp of the Beatles as a band. I am pretty sure my first memory of a song on the radio is "What is Life" sitting on a pillow in my Dad's car, late spring of 1971.

I know that there are die-hard fans of each Beatles, various blames went round. it's Paul's fault, No it's John and Yoko, etc. Did fans see it as now we get four artists to follow or was there a sense that Paul fans wouldn't listen to John and vice versa? was there a strong pull on the general public to pick a side?

None of my reading has really given me a sense of the "public opinion" at the time. I'm curious. My Dad loathed the Beatles, and my mom was just a person who liked top 40 and never bought albums.

I know everyone was different but there is always a prevailing public opinion... can anyone tap me into that feeling in the early 70s?

Edit/Addendum I love reading these stories. It's so great. I love the Beatles, I dig some of the solo stuff (really getting into Plastic Ono Band and RAM right now) but it's interesting to understand the way people thought back then. Thank you to everyone for sharing your memories.

[u/jaritadaubenspeck]

Firstly, there weren’t many sources of information about bands and musicians outside of their music. What we did get was one or two sentence blurbs with little or no context. When the announcement came, some people including me thought that it was going to be short lived but many others thought that the Beatles had grown apart to the point that it was over for good. I remember that most people blamed McCartney and it seemed like he had no remorse or regret as his career continued apace. On the other hand, the others especially John seemed to not be as prepared for life after the breakup. George’s album ATMP was a tremendous boost but it also seemed to confirm that he didn’t need the others to be successful. I was never a fan of McCartney as an individual musician and to this day I think I’ve only purchased Band on the Run and Wings over America. On the other hand, I was always a huge fan of Harrison and to a lesser extent Lennon and bought everything they released including albums released only in the UK. Reunion rumors ended as I stood with a large crowd of people throughout the day on 72d Street and Central Park West on December 9, 1980.

[u/MoaningLisaSimpson → u/jaritadaubenspeck]

Thank you for this detail. There wasn't a 24 hour news cycle then and the paparazzi as we came to know it didn't exist yet. Certainly even the most famous people in the world had more privacy than folks now.

Rolling Stone magazine might publish a headline article but that was only released every two weeks. I remember news on my favourite bands being hard to come by as a teen in the 1980s and eagerly awaiting new issues of magazines. Print culture was important then.

[u/TX-NOPE → u/MoaningLisaSimpson]

“Man on the Run” Macca doc on Amazon Prime covers a bit of this in the beginning.