the results of the end-of-year popularity polls conducted by magazines such as the NME, Record Mirror and Bravo. Their comments to the press also reflected a disillusionment with fame. In a feature article in Woman's Mirror magazine, Starr was quoted as saying that their image had become a "trap" in which they were pigeonholed as "Siamese quads eating out of the same bowl", while Lennon said, "We sort of half hope for the downfall. A nice downfall." The Beatles issued a double A-side single containing "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" – their first new music since Revolver – in February 1967. The accompanying promotional films eschewed performance in favour of avant-garde imagery; they showed the band members' adoption of facial hair, a detail that challenged the convention for youthful-looking pop stars. The films confused many of their fans and drew unfavourable responses from the audience on American Bandstand, the leading pop music show in the US. When the single failed to reach number one on the Record Retailer chart, British press agencies speculated that the group's run of success might have ended, with headlines such as "Beatles Fail to Reach the Top", "First Time in Four Years" and "Has the Bubble Burst?" However, the American cultural press, responding to appreciations of the Beatles' artistry in Time and Newsweek, lauded the two songs for their experimental qualities. According to author Bernard Gendron, "An adult Beatlemania was in effect replacing the apparently fading 'teenybopper' Beatlemania, supplanting the screams and rituals of worship with breathless reportage and grandiloquent praise." Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in May and became a major critical and commercial success. According to Gould, the album immediately revolutionised "both the aesthetics and the economics of the record business in ways that far outstripped the earlier pop explosions triggered by the Elvis phenomenon of 1956 and the Beatlemania phenomenon of 1963". Final public gatherings Beatlemania continued on a reduced scale after the band's retirement from live performances and into their solo careers. In late August 1967, 2000 fans protested outside Shea Stadium at the band's failure to perform in the US that summer. When the Beatles traveled around the south of England filming their television film Magical Mystery Tour in September 1967, it was the first opportunity for most members of the public to see the band together in over a year. Gavrik Losey, a production assistant