THE RETURN OF A LITTLE BAND FROM LIVERPOOL by Michael S. Malone
Fifty years later, can the Fab Four do it one more time?
If you have even the slightest contact with computer game industry – or walked into a Blockbuster video store in the last month – you know that the biggest thing in the gamer world is the impending (September 9) release of MTV Games/Electronic Arts’ “The Beatles: Rock Band” for the Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft XBox 360 and Nintendo Wii. Posters have been plastered everywhere, and it seems as if every TV screen is carrying animated images of John, Paul, George and Ringo in their Sgt. Peppers gear.
Like the real Beatles themselves, everything about “The Beatles: Rock Band” screams first-class project. Game designer Harmonix has thrown everything into this project, starting with the fact that it contains 45 classic Beatle songs, from “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to “Get Back”. The graphics are equally impressive: not only have all of the Rock Band 2 graphics been upgraded, but actually retooled; a three microphone set-up allows for multi-user harmonies; the soundtrack includes never-before released conversations by the band during sessions at Abbey Road studios; backgrounds that range from the Cavern Club to the Apple Corp. roof (what, no Hamburg strip club?) and, coolest of all, user controllers in the iconic shapes of Lennon’s Rickenbacker 325 guitar, Harrison’s Gretsch DuoJet, and McCartney’s Hofner violin bass.
As you might expect, that same premium attitude is also reflected in the price: for the XBox version, you’re going to pony up sixty bucks – and $250 for the premium “bundle” with the microphones, new guitar controllers, etc.
Will it work?
One answer is: it had better succeed. The electronic game business is in something of a funk these days, which might come as a surprise given that economic downturns are usually a good time for home entertainment as consumers trade down from more expensive sources of fun and cocoon in their dens. The last few days have seen Microsoft announce a $100 cut in the price of its XBox 360 Elite console and the discontinuation of its cheaper Pro version; and Sony’s announcement of a new budget Playstation 3 ‘Slim’ model (essentially obsoleting older versions). This puts the second and third largest game console makers in the position of offering competing products at the same price. Only Nintendo, still enjoying the phenomenal success of the Wii, remaining above the fray . . .but it seems likely that the industry won’t be able to stay out of this price war forever.
Meanwhile, with mostly the usual crop of upgrades and new versions of old best-sellers, this has not been a particularly interesting season for new game releases. And since it is typically new breakthrough games that drive the sale of players to first-time customers, something of a vicious cycle has been created.
There are other factors as well. One is that game players, like most electronic devices, follow Moore’s Law, which means that a new generation of more powerful machines comes out every two or three years – sometimes longer if the development costs are high and the manufacturer needs to more time to gets its money back. As it happens, right now we are in one of those troughs between product generations – which means there is little compulsion to buy any new hardware.
Moreover, there is also a larger demographic factor as well. Ever since Atari’s Pong it’s been obvious that electronic gaming is a cyclical business, booming whenever a new cohort of young people reaches their teen years, then slumping about the time they graduate from college and go to work. Right now we are at the tail end of one of those long waves, this one the Baby Boom Echo, which is currently heading into its twenties. The Millennials, which follow, may have been born in the gamer mileu, but their numbers aren’t as great (nor is their purchasing power right now).
Sorry, Michael, but as a first-generation Beatles fan, I have no interest in Rock Band, and hope it has disappointing sales. For the Apple Organization, reportedly at the urging of 30-year-old Dhani Harrison, to focus its attention on a project like this is a slap in the face to the most dedicated longtime Beatles fans. We have been waiting for years for authorized releases of Let It Be, Shea Stadium, and the promo videos, to name but a few items on a very long wish list. According to USA Today, these projects are not in the pipeline, and aren’t expected to be anytime soon.
Everyone is very excited about the remasters, which are long overdue and far more important to us older fans than Rock Band. Someone interviewed on the radio last week revealed that he has played the game all the way through, and he feels that it “isn’t as great as advertised.” Have you seen the graphics? They don’t live up to the hype, some fans have even called them cheesy. Yet McCartney has been running what basically amounts to a Rock Band commercial at his concerts. I guess, post-divorce, he needs the money.
It is the younger generations that tend to be video gamers, and Apple is desperate to turn that demographic into Beatles fans. Not only is it an unfair strategy insofar as the longtime fans are concerned, it’s doomed to failure. No matter how much they enjoy Rock Band, the kids will never be as loyal as those of us who experienced Beatlemania firsthand, and they will not become lifelong consumers of Beatles product. There are just too many other products and interests vying for their dollars, and let’s be truthful–they have limited attention spans.
Paul, Ringo, Olivia and Yoko are being shortsighted. We first-gens aren’t getting any younger, and our wallets won’t be ripe for the picking forever. Why are they concentrating on the kids, and virtually ignoring the very fans who were responsible for making the Beatles a musical phenonmenon in the first place?
I couldn’t stand the Beatles when I was a junior in High School and they came to the States and nothing they have ever sang, said or done since then has changed my mind. I thought they were not very talented, scrawny little creeps whose music was wimpy.
“When you actually hear the backing tracks of the Beatles without their voices, they’re pretty lousy.” — Pete Townshend, 1966, 4:20
Still true today.
As a 54 year old, I still love the Beatles. I’ve been to scores of concerts by artists of all stripes, but I never got to see the Fab Four in person. In 2002, I had the thrill of a lifetime when my husband took me to see Paul McCartney perform in Fort Lauderdale. It stands out as the greatest concert I’ve ever seen. What a fantastic, high-energy performance. He commanded the stage for 2-1/2 hours and his sheer joy in performing was contaigous. The SRO crowd was on its feet the entire time. Still reeling just months after the horrors of 9/11, I was very moved by Paul singing “Freedom” and proudly waving an American flag.
Pete Townshend was then, and is now, and has always been, a second rate hack. His motivation for ‘Tommy’ was Sgt. Pepper, and the Beatles motivation was ‘Pet Sounds’. He is a jealous, small, semi-talented pedophile (doing research, he says). Thirty-nine years later, the Beatles continue to gain new fans, because their music is timeless. He is Salieri to McCartney’s Mozart….talent, trumped by talent so great,so magnificent, that his small mind can’t quite grasp it…………he was and is diminished by that comment.
The Beatles conquering of American was all a sexual thing and basically affected the girls. Their music was catchy at the time and very showmanship. Their earlier stuff has of course not stood up to the test of time.
Paul lost his enthusiasm to play years ago, his concerts are usually quite wooden, although he surrounds himself with great supporting rock artists
Please, Sammy……”…does not stand the test of time” ? Just what in the hell does that mean ?? They gain new fans every day !! Millions of albums sold…..what other band can say that ? The STONES would have been forgotten years ago, if thay had broken up, just as the KINKS have been forgotten , and the WHO and every other flame out band from that era. Most of the albums sold today by the sixties groups are ‘Greatest Hits” compilations, not the individual albums. People know each song on each album…..what other band can match that ?? Do you actually think people will be listening to Madonna 40 years from now ? Will they listen to M&M. You know the answer to that question. NO and HELL NO. How about J-Zee ? Puff Diddy, or any of the other no-talents today. You will be embarrased to play that crap for your kids. Beatles are GODS !!!
I’m thirty-eight, a huge Beatles fan, but not into video games at all (not since high school and the original Nintendo, anyway). I have never had any interest in Rock Band or Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Somthing-or-other.
However! My husband and I are *buying* any and all stuff necessary to sing and “play” Beatles songs for an audience in the Cavern, dammit! Game, console, controller-thingies– you name it.
So count me in as one for whom “normal [video game-purchasing] metrics just don’t work.” And I suspect there will be a lot more of me (metaphorically speaking).
Welcome to the new world order, where accusations are proof! The right likes to jettison standards of fairness just as quickly as the left, when it suits their preconceptions and needs.
The Beatles are overrated as musicians. Always have been, always will be.
After the concert for 9/11 in Madison Square Garden, every critic and attendee was talking about The Who’s performance, not Paul McCartney’s “we are the world” gangbang at the end. Just as in the Rolling Stones’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus 30 years earlier, The Who stole the show from the headliner.
You know Richard, facts are a curious thing……everything you said was an ‘opinion’….YOURS….. and everyone is entitled to one, but NOT your own ‘facts’. You went into these venues with a preconceived opinion and it bore itself out……HOW DID POLITICS ENTER INTO THIS ?? The ‘RIGHT’??? Once again…..It was ONE Beatle against the WHO. Macca is the lone Spartan against the hordes, against the rabble, against over achievers. “….See Me, Feel Me , Touch Me….” ??? Was that Pete talking to an eight year old ???????? (again, it was ‘research’)
“The Beatles are overrated as musicians. Always have been, always will be.”
Yeah, there were lots of people who could play their instruments as good or better than the Beatles, though Paul and George were quite good. But nobody in the rock era is within a million miles of Lennon/McCartney as songwriters – they not only wrote over a hundred good, catchy melodic songs but rarely repeated themselves. If you know anything about the music business, you know that is where the real value is. And I say that as someone who 1) is a musician myself and 2) stylistically is more attuned to blues/R&B-influenced music a la the Rolling Stones.
OK, I probably overstated my point a bit about the Beatles’ songwriting – there was Dylan of course, and Stevie Wonder overall is probably close. But there were other enormously talented, legendary songwriters whose total output pales next to the Beatles, such as Brian Wilson and Smokey Robinson. The point is that if you “rate” a band by summing the instrumental talent of the individual musicians you are really missing the point. Having said that, Ringo was damned lucky to be a member.
All these comments prove that everyone has an opinion, most that resemble a well known certain part of the human anatomy.
All these definitive judgments reflect the self absorption of the writers as they pronounce the verdict over the relative goodness or poorness of the music and the musicians. None seem to realize that others have different tastes or viewpoints.
The marketplace sorts it all out (if left alone by social scientists). Over time the endurance of a certain style or popularity reflects whatever universal themes the output possesses. In the case of the Beatles, response has been unbelievable for those of us who were witnesses to the beginning of the phenomenon. Even Elvis and the late Wacko Jacko don’t engender as much debate as the 4 lads from Liverpool 40 years after their last gig.
The video game is dimply another outlet to reach a new audience in a manner in which that audience is most receptive. Every media format, from LP to 8 track to CD and MP3 is an adjustment to the product delivery system, not the original product. Video, movies, video games are visual presentations of the same art form.
No one is required to appreciate another wave of Beatlemania rolling around the Earth. The fact that it happens and is controversial is undeniable. Certain artists appear in human history that change the discussion, from Mozart to Beethoven to Beatles, who spark the energies of their generations to greater achievement. Each manifestation may not be the most talented or “best”, but they caught the imagination of their world to move beyond what came before.
Like it or not, the Beatles were “game changers” for the last half of the 20th Century. It remains to be seen by our progeny 100 years from now if the Beatles music has the same “legs” as what we now call “classical” orchestra music of the late 18th and early 10th centuries.
My money says Beatlemania will still be in the vocabulary in 2080.
As players, yes, Entwhistle, Townshend and Moon were better instrumentalists than McCartney, Lennon and Starr. Ringo was a rock solid backbeat drummer, but Keith Moon was arguably the best drummer of his generation. Entwhistle played bass like a lead guitar player and Townshend is one of the great, great rhythm guitarists ever – though not as good as Keith Richards.
To draw a comparison to the San Francisco music scene in the 1960s, there were a lot of bands that could sing, but everyone in the scene acknowledged that the Grateful Dead were the best players. Jorma and Jack were/are great musicians, but even the Airplane acknowledged the Dead’s musical chops. Hell, they hired Garcia to do the production on their music.
I really have to debunk the total inaccurate ignorant things some have said about The Beatles on here.
Even, Ozzy Osbourne said in an online 2002 Bender Magazine interview that The Beatles Are The Greatest Band To Ever Walk The Earth. He’s been a huge fan since he’s been a teenager and he says not loving The Beatles is like not loving oxogen! The Rolling Stones were very good friends and fans of The Beatles and Mick Jagger was at 4 Beatles recording sessions and Keith Richards was at 2 of them with them. Also,The Beatles even wrote one of The Rolling Stones first hits with the song, I Wanna Be You’re Man in late 1963. As for the other inaccurate comments that some people say The Beatles didn’t even stay together for 2 decades, well they didn’t have to because they did about 50 years worth of innovative, creative, diverse, prolific great critically acclaimed popular songs and albums in just a remarkable 8 year recording career!
The Beatles are in The Song Writing Hall Of Fame & The Vocal Hall of Fame, and As The All Music Guide says in their excellent Beatles biography, “So much has been said and written about The Beatles and their story is so mythic in it’s sweep that it’s difficult to summarize their career without restating cliche’s that have already been digested by tens of millions of rock fans, to start with the obvious, they were the greatest and most influential act of the rock era, and introduced more innovations into popular music than any other rock band of the 20th century.” “As voсalists John Lennon & Paul McCartney were among the best and most expressive in rock and the groups harmonies were intricate and exhillirating.”
And music critics as well as brilliant classical composer Leonard Bernstein called John & Paul the most brilliant song writers of the 20th century when they were still a band . As for The Beatles playing live, they sounded pretty good playing live considering that when they were playing in 1963, 1964, 1965, and 1966 the sound systems back then were very limited and primitive, they only had 100 watt amplifiers, no feedback monitors so they couldn’t even hear themselves play and sing, yet they amazingly played in tune and in sync anyway, and at the August 1965 Shea Stadium concert which was the first big outdoor rock concert with over 55,000 fans, they were plugged into the PA system that they announce baseball games with plus the screaming crowds drowing out their great music! Can you imagine The Rolling Stones and The Who playing on these very limited primitive sound systems? They wouldn’t have sounded much better! Thats why they gave up touring, because they were serious music artists, composers, and musicians and they wanted their great music to be heard and valued. It would be like Beethoven playing on these limited primitive sound systems and screaming crowds! Also they were now writing music that was too complex to reproduce on stage at that time.
On the roof top concert in The Let It Be Film, they sounded great, because by January 1969 the sound systems had improved somewhat(although not anywhere near the 1970′s, 1980′s, 1990′s and especially today’s!) and they had changed and people had changed so there were no more screaming crowds so they could be heard. When I was a teenager I met 3 people who saw The Beatles in concert two of them were teachers who saw them in 1966 and he and she told me they were great,and my cousin saw them at age 16 at The Baltimore Colsieum in 1964 the year before I was born, and she said they were great.
Former Kiss guitarist and grammy winning producer Bob Kulick who made the heavy metal Beatles tribute album Butchering The Beatles last year, says in an online interview, that he saw The Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1966 and that he could only make out pieces of the songs because of the screaming, but he could make out the songs Baby’s In Black and Paperback Writer and he said they sounded amazing! He also calls The Beatles The Greatest Rock Band Ever! George Harrison at only age 14 would stay up playing his guitar until he got all of the chords exactly right and his fingers were bleeding! And One of The Beatles engineers Geoff Emerick says that in early 1966 when The Beatles were recording John’s song I’m Only Sleeping, George Harrison played backwards guitar the most difficult way possible even though he could have taken an easy way,and it took him 6 hours just to do the guitar overdubs! He then made it doubly difficult by adding even more distorted gitars and Geoff says this was all George’s idea and that he did all of the playing!
Eric Clapton said in a 1992 interview when he and George were asked what they admired about each other during their Japan tour, that George is a fantastic slide guitar player. He and George were very good friends and they obviously admired and respected each others guitar playing and George played guitar on Cream’s song Badge. Roger McGuinn of The Byrds says The Beatles used unusual folk rock chords in their early music and that they invented folk rock without even knowing it! He started to play a 12 string guitar after he saw and heard George Harrison playing one in The Beatles great film A Hard Day’s Night in early 1964. In an online Eric Clapton interview called, Eric Clapton In His Own Words, he says that John Lennon was a pretty good guitar player and he would have known since he played live in concert with John as a member of John’s 1969 Plastic Ono Band.
On an excellent site called,The Evolution Of Rock Bass Playing McCartney Style by Dennis Alstrand Stanley Clarke, Will Lee, Billy Sheehan, Sting, George Martin, and John Lennon are all quoted saying what a great, melodic, influential bass guitar player Paul McCartney has always been!
Wilco’s John Stirratt also said in a Bass Player interview online when asked what bass players has had the most impact on his playing and the first thing he said is,”Paul McCartney is one of the greatest bass players of all time,if you listen to what he was tracking live in the studio it’s unbelievable.” “With his tone and musicality he was a huge influence =,he covered all of his harmonic responsibilities really well but his lines were absolutely melodic and inventive.”
The 1992 Rolling Stone Album Guide calls Paul a remarkable bass player and rightfully calls John & Paul the 2 greatest song writers in rock history! Both Phil Collins and Max Weinberg both Beatles fans and both praise Ringo’s drumming and Phil Collins says that Ringo’s great drumming on A Day In The Life can’t be repeated even by him! Also on Rankopedia The Beatles are # 1 Greatest Rock Band,# 1 Greatest Most Innovative Rock Band,John &Paul are # 1 Greatest Rock Song Writers, John &Paul are on The Greatest Rock Male Vocalist list, and Paul McCartney is # 2 after John Enwistle as Greatest Rock Bass Players, John Paul Jones is # 6, and Bill Wynman is # 20! And on Digitaldreamdoor where many musicians post,The Beatles are # 1 Greatest Rock Artists,John &Paul are # 1 Greatest Rock Song Writers, they are both on The Greatest Rock Male Vocalists list, and Paul McCartney is # 8 out of 100 Greatest Rock Bass Players, John Paul Jones is # 21, and Bill Wynman is # 95! George Harrison is # 54 On The Greatest Rock Guitarists out of over 100.
And there are many music professors teaching music courses at good universities on the brilliance of The Beatles especially of John &Paul, including by award winning music professor and composer Dr.Glen Gass, who has been teaching a course on The Beatles and rock music at Indiana University since 1982. On his web site for his course it says the main purpose of this course is to get students to have a better appreciation of this extraordinary group and their remarkable recordings. Dr.Gary Kendal’s Beatles course is the most requested course at North Western University. And a music professor by the last name of Heinonen teaches a Beatles course at JYVASKYLA University in Finland, and the university of California also teaches a Beatles course etc.
Also check out Keno’s Classic Rock n Roll Site he also runs a Rolling Stones &John Lennon fan site. And he made a Top 10 List and voted and the fans voted. He voted John &Paul # 2 after Bob Dylan as Greatest Rock Song Writers, the fans voted them # 1! He voted Paul McCartney # 2 after John Entwistle as Greatest Rock Bass Player, the fans voted Paul # 3. He voted John Lennon # 2 after Keith Richards as Greatest Rock Rhythm Guitarist, and the fans voted John in a tie with Jimi Hendrix and Brian Jones at # 4 ! He voted John Lennon # 1 in a tie with Elvis as Greatest Male Rock Vocalist and the fans voted John # 1, he voted Paul # 6 and the fans voted him # 7. Ken says Darn The Beatles were one great group in his review of The Beatles album 1967-1970, and he also says that John on Get Back showed why he should have played lead guitar more often because he did such a good job! He also said that John on their hard rocking great 1968 single Revolution,played one of the first and best acid guitar parts.And he also said that John played a pretty good slide guitar on George’s For Your Blue. And he says in his review of The Beatles 1962-1966,that if you don’t love or at least like The Beatles and their music than you are not a true rock fan and more than likely will never get it. And Brian Wilson said on a 1995 Nightline TV Beatles tribute show, that Sgt.Pepper is the single greatest album he ever heard, and he played With A Little Help From Friends on the piano and he said I just love this song. He also said he thinks John Lennon &Paul McCartney were the 2 greatest song writers of the 20th century! He also said when he first heard The Beatles great 1965 album Rubber Soul, that he was blown away by it, he said all of the songs flowed together and it was pop music but folk rock at the same time, and this is what he couldn’t believe. He said this inspired him to make Pet Sounds. Elton John said in a 1991 CBS morning news show, when he was asked who he musically admires, he said You can talk about your Rogers &Hammerstein but for the quality of quanity songs that Lennon & McCartney did in that short period of time, they were the 2 greatest song writers of the 20th century! Most music artists want to believe and want the public to believe that *their* the greatest so when they say other music artists are the greatest it really means a lot! The Beatles are also the most covered music artists of all time with everyone from Motown, jazz, classical, and even heavy metal music recording their great diverse music!
And in 2001 VH1 had a panel of well known musicans and music critcs, that voted The Beatles The Greatest Rock Band Ever, and in 2004 Rolling Stone did the same thing and several people said on message boards that Rolling Stone had a recent pael poll like this and The Beatles were voted # 1 again and for darn great reasons too! Nobody created as much innovative, creative, quality,critically acclaimed, popular diverse songs and albums in such a short amazing period of time as The Beatles and thats why most people know that The Beatles Are The Greatest Rock Band That Ever Was Or Will Be!!!! Oh and A Day’s Night is a great pop rock album!!!! And even Bob Dylan said decades ago about The Beatles early music, that their chords were outrageous, and the harmonies were wonderful and they were doing things in music that nobody had done before, and music critics of The London Times were praising their interesting and unusual chords that they used even in early songs like She Loves You & I Want To Hold Your Hand. Which were not as simple as they seemed and had clever subtleties in them. In fact Bob Dylan said in a Rolling Stone interview this Spring that he’s in awe of Paul McCartney and he said he’s the only one he’s in awe of. He said that Paul has the melody, he has the rhthym and he can sing the ballad very good, and he can play any instrument.
He also said there were no better singers than John Lennon &Paul McCartney and he said if George wasn’t stuck in the shadow behind John &Paul and he said who wouldn’t get stuck, he would have emerged as a great song writer in his own right anyway.
And by the way I have read some people saying on message boards that they don’t think The Rolling Stones were the best technical musicians, and many even some fans have said they haven’t done anything good in 35 years, and that their overrated and I have also found many people saying they hate or don’t like The Rolling Stones and many people say the only Rolling Stones song they like is Paint It Black! Oh and by the way, in every major poll of The Beatles vs The Rolling Stones, The Beatles always win as # 1 even on sites and message boards that are not Beatles fan sites! And when we look at the solo career comparison of Mick Jagger’s and Keith Richards solo careers with John, Paul & George’s, the facts are John Lennon’s first brilliant solo album, and his second great album Imagine are rightfully critically acclaimed, and I love John’s Walls & Bridges album and Paul McCartney’s first solo album McCartney is very good, and he played every instrument all by himself at age 27, and he played so many different instruments great! Wings 1975 Venus &Mars is a great rock album too!
And he and Denny Laine are the only musicians on Paul’s great 1973 Band On The Run album, which is critically acclaimed and popular, and he played every instrument by himself again on McCartney 2 in 1979, and most of the instruments on his 1997 Flaming Pie album, and his 2 recent acclaimed popular albums, Chaos And Creation In The Backyard, and Memory Almost Full. And John Paul Jones, David Gilmore, John Bonham &Pete Townsend all played on 2 songs with Paul and Wings on the last Wings album Back To The Egg, in 1979, and they played in the last Wings concert too in December 1979. You know I have found over 50 former Beatles haters on many message boards and web sites that are noe HUGE Beatles fans and many say they are now their favorite band and that they were the Greatest Band Ever! I didn’t communicate with these people but they said in their posts that they had a lot of inaccurate misperceptions of The Beatles and they hadn’t even heard most of The Beatles great songs and albums!
Most people don’t hate The Beatles in the first place, most people of all ages all around the world love or at least like their music, but it’s really something for former haters to turn into big fans and it just goes to show how Great The Beatles music is!!!!
And I and many people understandably feel that John Lennon had the best rock voices ever! George Martin said John’s voice was one of the best he ever heard, and in May 1967 when The Beatles were recording their song, Baby You’re A Rich Man, two recording engineers said they were always fascinated with the sound of John Lennon’s voice, and they always wanted to record it live and when they heard him singing this song live they said they couldn’t believe how great his voice was and that anyone could sing that well live.
And there are many people on message boards saying they can’t stand the sound of Robert Plant’s and Mick Jagger’s voices, and Bruce Springteen has one of the worst voices I have ever heard, he sounds like he’s throwing up to a music backing! I have to turn the radio off as soon as he’s on, and the same thing with Tom Petty, he has a terrible nasally bad voice! Bob Dylan has never been considered to have a good voice but I can tolerate him!
Also, The Beatles were *NEVER* a boy band at all not even in 1963, 1964 and 1965, and they were Mostly a Great *ROCK* Band from the start! They started out playing 8 hours a night for two years in a row playing in the sleazy strip clubs of Hamburg Germany wearing tight leather black pants and jackets, cursing and smoking on stage, and taking speed pills to awake, and going to bed with many young women groupies. The cleaned up image was a fake joke that their manager Brian Epstein created which John hated and resented the most.
There were a lot of rough thugs who came into those clubs, and if they played bad live, they would have beaten the crap out of them playing 8 hours a night for 2 years! Instead they became the most popular successful group in these German clubs even with all of the competition from other groups from England and Germany! They also played live in The Cavern Club for several years. They worked very hard to get where they got!
The Beatles wrote many great rock songs that were pretty rocking for the time, John’s great song You Can’t Do That from early 1964 which he played lead guitar on for the first time, Paul’s great blues rocker, She’s A Woman from late 1964, John’s I Feel Fine from late 1964, with the first use of feedback guitar, and one of the first songs to have a great guitar riff, a year before The Rolling Stone’s Satisfaction came out, Paul’s screaming hard rocker especially for 1965, I’m Down which they played even louder and more screaming at the August 1965 Shea Stadium concert, plus Day Tripper, Paperback Writer, She Said She Said, And You’re Bird Can Sing, Taxman, all with heavy electric guitar sounds, John’s 1968 hard rocking single Revolution, Yer Blues, Birthday, Back In The USSR, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me & My Monkey, plus Paul’s Helter Skeklter which as many people have pointed out was the first heavy metal songs, plus John’s I Want You She’s So Heavy on Abbey Road which many people have also pointed out was one of the first heavy metal songs, plus his great rocker Come Together, Paul’s Oh Darling, You Never Give Me Your Money, and the hard rocking jam of Paul, George,and John on the song The End, etc!! So anyone saying The Beatles were not a rock band You Are Wrong!!
The Rolling Stones were very good friends and fans of The Beatles and Mick Jagger was at 4 Beatles recording sessions and Keith Richards was at 2 of them with them! The Beatles even wrote one of The Rolling Stones first hits with the song, I WAnna Be You’re Man in late 1963.
Mick Jagger was such a big Beatles fan that when The Beatles were recording their song, Baby You’re A Rich Man in May 1967, he came there and stood on the sidelines just to watch and listen to them record it and his name was on the tape box because he likely sang at the end verses.
I also have to say, that I have always totally hated Led Zeppelin they truly sound like one of the worst groups I have ever had the misfortune of hearing! They along with Queen and Pink Floyd are the only 3 groups that I have to get up off of my chair even if I’m very tired and turn off immediately!
The Who, The Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix are all a million times better! And The Beatles are Certainly a ZILLION times BETTER!!!!
I have also found many other people who hate Led Zeppelin and feel they are one of the worst bands ever too, and even some people on heavy metal sites. Oh and I have also read many people on music boards saying that Led Zeppelin’s lyrics are simple,and not that good and like a teenage boy wrote them !
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The Beatles are the Most Creative Band of All Time
BACKGROUND HISTORY: The first musical bands originated in New Orleans among black musicians who have traditionally been the innovators. The first jazz record ever recorded was by The Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1917, and of course they were white because racism always rears its ugly head to hold black people back. But during the Roaring 20′s, young white people couldn’t resist the dance beat laid down by the black jazz bands. Fletcher Henderson, a black man, became the first band leader to achieve national fame possibly because he featured Louis Armstrong on trumpet. Duke Ellington, a classically trained musician, brought a level of style and sophistication to jazz that hadn’t been seen before. But it wasn’t until 1935 that jazz bands with a “swing beat” achieved national attention due to Benny Goodman who I think was the best clarinet player ever to blow air into that instrument. Benny also had the good sense and taste to bring the first great drummer, Gene Krupa, into his band.
When rock and roll exploded into human consciousness during the early 1950′s, black musicians like Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Smokey Robinson pioneered the way, but a white DJ named Alan Freed is believed to have coined the term “rock and roll”. The first real rock and roll record was “Shake, Rattle and Roll”, written by Jesse Stone who was black and recorded by Big Joe Turner who was also black but it wasn’t a hit. The first big hit rock and roll record was “Rock Around the Clock” written by James Meyers and Max Freeman of obvious ancestry, and that one catapulted Bill Haley and his Caucasian Comets to stardom. During the 1950′s and early 60′s, there were countless “do wop” groups, rock groups, singers and songwriters but until The Beatles hit the charts, there had been very few bands which contained talented songwriters. The vast majority of jazz and rock bands recorded songs written by songwriters who were not performers, with occasional exceptions like Duke Ellington and Buddy Holly. As time goes on, it’s increasingly clear that Lennon/McCartney songs are brilliant classics which will never be forgotten. Now here’s why The Beatles are the most creative band of all time:
1. BEST EXAMPLE OF FORM = CONTENT
As I sit here writing this at the keyboard of my computer facing the unique and colorful Beatles poster in my bedroom, I’m aware that I have been directly and indirectly inspired by John Lennon’s music as well as by the way he lived his life offstage. Squarely in front of me is a full color poster of all four Beatles standing in a heavenly-like flower garden at about the time of the Abbey Road album. Paul is angelic in his pink suit with a white laced shirt. John is enigmatic peering out from the background. George is charismatic staring directly into the camera from the lower right. Ringo is on the left with a stylish blue suit and his pink ruffled shirt. I always wished I could dress like those guys but obviously there’s a bit of a problem with a money differential there. Surrounding this gorgeous poster which I have never seen elsewhere are my 45 speed original Beatles hit records, including I Want to Hold Your Hand, She Loves You, Please Please Me, Twist and Shout, Can’t Buy Me Love, She’s A Woman, Yesterday, and of course, Hey Jude. And surrounding all that is a chain of 1-1/2″ long orange flicker flame lights which are the most beautiful and unique Christmas lights I’ve ever seen. I chose to decorate the wall directly in front of my work station this way because, as I’ve written elsewhere on this site several times, The Beatles were my major musical influence and having them on the wall in front of me inspires me to write web pages like this one. I was also among the millions of people who were inspired by how The Beatles were actually living their off stage lives. The Beatles’ music creatively stimulated millions of people to change the way they were living, and The Beatles behavior encouraged people to have fun by trying new life style experiences. That’s what I call a perfect example of FORM = CONTENT. In this case it means that the creatively and masterfully varied music The Beatles were producing (form) embodied the real life styles which each of the four Beatles were living (content), together as a band as well as separately as unique individuals.
2. BEST SONGWRITERS
This should be self-evident, but just because Paul McCartney has the title of the most popular songwriter in history doesn’t necessarily make him the best songwriter in history. The qualities which do make both Paul and John the best songwriters in history go beyond writing the greatest number of catchy classic songs. “Catchy” means that their melodies and lyrics are instantly memorable. “Classic” means that they stand the test of time. But both Paul and John wrote very sophisticated melodies that moved beyond the simple groups of 2, 4 and 8 patterned phrases used by almost all other songwriters. John and Paul’s melodies soared, floated, cascaded, dived and peaked with true dynamics, naturally following the syllabic lyric patterns – but not always. Sometimes the melodic and lyric patterns were independent of each other, almost counterpoint in nature, and as a songwriter, they never ceased to astonish me with their brilliance and originality. In the beginning, their lyrics were simple and their songs were simple love songs. But they soon began exploring new territory by writing about subjects that hadn’t been covered before. Inspired by Bob Dylan, they wrote true poetry with feeling and depth, using evocative and unusual words. Rubber Soul marked the beginning of their evolution as mature songwriters, Revolver was a break-out album, and Sergeant Pepper was an historic landmark album in terms of new and innovative songwriting as well as production. Every song they wrote was significantly different from the last one even though each song had their unmistakable sound.
Most songwriters are only average players on their instruments, but John and Paul are both sophisticated guitarists who were able to integrate their playing into their songs and even into their song structure so that the “licks” they played became as catchy a part of their songs as the choruses and verses. Blackbird and Dear Prudence are only two examples of songs which couldn’t possibly be written by any other songwriter because of the guitar playing which forms an integral part of the song structure. In similar fashion, Lady Madonna is the best example of a great song which derives from the unique and beautiful bass part which only Paul could possibly have created.
Average songwriters achieve the catchy quality by repeating a phrase endlessly or by beating a chorus to death. John and Paul found countless ways to be memorable without ever overly repeating something. The only time they repeated something over and over again for a long time was in Hey Jude, and what they chose to repeat is so gorgeous that one can only wish they had never ended the song. The Beatles were my biggest musical influence and I used to think, “If I could write just one song that’s as good as John and Paul’s worst song, I’d be happy.” People tell me I accomplished that goal and they say one good example is John is Alive, which is my sincere tribute to Sir Lennon.
3. BEST SINGERS
Even Ringo could sing when he got a little help from his friends who lived in the yellow submarine. But to say that Paul and John are two of the best singers in rock and roll is to state the obvious. Combining John, Paul and George created the best harmony vocals the world has ever experienced. Even their two part harmonies were unusual, catching us all by surprise on their first hit record with the fast harmony melisma in the chorus of I Want to Hold Your Hand. John had a knack of placing a unique low harmony line underneath Paul’s high melody line so as to form a second melody which created unusual harmony effects. He did that right from the beginning in the verses of She Loves You. Both Paul and John could blast out screaming rock and roll (i.e. Long Tall Sally and Twist and Shout), and both could break our hearts with touching, deep feeling ballads (i.e. Yesterday and Julia). There seems to be no end to their emotional vocal range, and John even explored the heights of vocal psychedelia in songs like She Said (Revolver) and Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.
4. MOST CREATIVE PLAYERS
Paul brought a new style of melodic playing to the bass guitar, reaching a new high of creativity on Sergeant Pepper with a level of sophistication never heard before. Many other musicians besides me recognize Paul as being one of the best bass guitar players ever. George is underrated as a lead guitarist by people with average or below average musical knowledge or ability, but most guitarists (including Eric Clapton) know better. George’s strength is in melody, pure and simple. It would be difficult to find a George Harrison lead which is not melodic, and each of his leads has a strong beginning, a stronger middle and a well defined ending. In fact, that’s Eric’s definition of what makes a good guitar lead. George continually developed new guitar sounds for each Beatles song. John and Paul are also excellent guitarists and both recorded great leads as well as innovative rhythm tracks. All three of the Beatles guitarists may lack showy technical fireworks but they make that definition of guitar mastery irrelevant by overwhelming the senses with creativity, style, and pure melody. The exact same thing can be said about John and Paul’s keyboard playing. Ringo may be underrated as a drummer by the public but he is not underrated by other professional drummers. Ringo mastered the art of drum sounds. No drummer has ever recorded so many different sounds on so many different sounding records. Ringo invented a new style of slow drum playing, epitomized on A Day in the Life and Strawberry Fields Forever. John said many times, “Ringo has the best back beat in the business” and the successful studio drummers understand why John was correct.
5. TOTAL CHARISMA
A good definition of charisma needs to include “an unusual ability to influence people and arouse devotion” and “a personal attractiveness which enables a person to influence others”. No musical group prior to or after The Beatles features true charisma emanating strongly from the entire group as well as separately from each member. The Beatles stunned the world with their photogenic quality, their charm, their bubbling and lovable personalities, their cuteness and their unique style. Even before The Beatles achieved fame, people in Liverpool were imitating their haircuts, the way they dressed, the way they behaved, and the way they lived. Such a simple subliminal message about smoking marijuana got communicated to all the hippies who were waiting to happen without actual words ever being spoken. The Beatles had a lot to lose by being explicit on that subject, but they successfully avoided trouble by keeping it very subtle while at the same time clear enough so that we all got it. The Fab Four kept changing their styles rapidly, almost with each album cover, and soon the message became one of explicit spiritualism. After visiting India, The Beatles introduced eastern mysticism and meditation to the Western world for the first time through the mass media. John’s long saga with internal angst, drugs, spiritualism, politics, personal battles, and ultimately his marriage to Yoko played out like a movie the whole world got to watch in fascination. Paul’s happy life with Linda, George’s great focus on meditation, and Ringo’s equanimity throughout were all perfect examples of the power, the truth, and the effectiveness of true charisma.
6. SEXUAL AURA
Need I say it? Ask the millions of girls who were screaming and fainting at the very sight of them. “The Boys” didn’t move like Elvis or dance like Mick, they just stood there shaking their “mop top” heads around, smiling, laughing, and looking gorgeous as they performed great music and that was it. On their first visit to America, some enterprising weirdo from New York City managed to cut up the hotel bed sheets The Beatles had slept on into 1″ square pieces, and these things were actually sold to girls over the public airwaves by adult DJ’s on the AM radio stations who should have known better. The Beatles phenomenon went way beyond the rock and roll sex star status that had been seen before. Teenage girls in uncountable numbers fell in love, their hearts to be trapped, their heart strings to be continually plucked, and ultimately, their hearts to be broken by the unobtainable object of their love. Worshiping a star from afar? Infatuation? Obsession? Not real love? For many of them, it was their first experience feeling love for a man/boy. Whatever it was, it was very real to all of them, and we all soon understood that The Beatles were The Real Thing.
That’s why I call The Beatles the Most Creative Band of All Time. They were The Real Thing. The Creative Zenith. The high point on the bell curve of musical history.
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You know your music – so do we. THE ALLMUSIC Guide BLOG
Overview Biography Discography Songs Credits Charts & Awards
The Beatles
Formed
1960 in Liverpool, England
Disbanded
1970
Genre Styles
Pop/Rock
Early Pop/Rock
Rock & Roll
British Invasion
Psychedelic
Merseybeat
Pop/Rock
British Psychedelia
AM Pop
Folk-Rock
Moods
Ambitious
Complex
Exciting
Fun
Bright
Lively
Witty
Carefree
Happy
Sentimental
Wistful
Searching
Sweet
Warm
Yearning
Whimsical
Amiable/ Good-Natured
Poignant
Laid-Back/ Mellow
Lush
Literate
Biography by Richie Unterberger
So much has been said and written about the Beatles — and their story is so mythic in its sweep — that it’s difficult to summarize their career without restating clichés that have already been digested by tens of millions of rock fans. To start with the obvious, they were the greatest and most influential act of the rock era, and introduced more innovations into popular music than any other rock band of the 20th century. Moreover, they were among the few artists of any discipline that were simultaneously the best at what they did and the most popular at what they did. Relentlessly imaginative and experimental, the Beatles grabbed a hold of the international mass consciousness in 1964 and never let go for the next six years, always staying ahead of the pack in terms of creativity but never losing their ability to communicate their increasingly sophisticated ideas to a mass audience. Their supremacy as rock icons remains unchallenged to this day, decades after their breakup in 1970.
Even when couching praise in specific terms, it’s hard to convey the scope of the Beatles’ achievements in a mere paragraph or two. They synthesized all that was good about early rock & roll, and changed it into something original and even more exciting. They established the prototype for the self-contained rock group that wrote and performed its own material. As composers, their craft and melodic inventiveness were second to none, and key to the evolution of rock from its blues/R&B-based forms into a style that was far more eclectic, but equally visceral. As singers, both John Lennon and Paul McCartney were among the best and most expressive vocalists in rock; the group’s harmonies were intricate and exhilarating. As performers, they were (at least until touring had ground them down) exciting and photogenic; when they retreated into the studio, they were instrumental in pioneering advanced techniques and multi-layered arrangements. They were also the first British rock group to achieve worldwide prominence, launching a British Invasion that made rock truly an international phenomenon.
More than any other top group, the Beatles’ success was very much a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Their phenomenal cohesion was due in large degree to most of the group having known each other and played together in Liverpool for about five years before they began to have hit records. Guitarist and teenage rebel John Lennon got hooked on rock & roll in the mid-’50s, and formed a band, the Quarrymen, at his high school. Around mid-1957, the Quarrymen were joined by another guitarist, Paul McCartney, nearly two years Lennon’s junior. A bit later they were joined by another guitarist, George Harrison, a friend of McCartney. The Quarrymen would change lineups constantly in the late ’50s, eventually reducing to the core trio of guitarists, who’d proven themselves to be the best musicians and most personally compatible individuals within the band.
The Quarrymen changed their name to the Silver Beatles in 1960, quickly dropping the “Silver” to become just the Beatles. Lennon’s art college friend Stuart Sutcliffe joined on bass, but finding a permanent drummer was a vexing problem until Pete Best joined in the summer of 1960. He successfully auditioned for the combo just before they left for a several-month stint in Hamburg, Germany.
Hamburg was the Beatles’ baptism by fire. Playing grueling sessions for hours on end in one of the most notorious red-light districts in the world, the group was forced to expand its repertoire, tighten up its chops, and invest its show with enough manic energy to keep the rowdy crowds satisfied. When they returned to Liverpool at the end of 1960, the band — formerly also-rans on the exploding Liverpudlian “beat” scene — were suddenly the most exciting act on the local circuit. They consolidated their following in 1961 with constant gigging in the Merseyside area, most often at the legendary Cavern Club, the incubator of the Merseybeat sound.
They also returned for engagements in Hamburg during 1961, although Sutcliffe dropped out of the band that year to concentrate on his art school studies there. McCartney took over on bass, Harrison settled in as lead guitarist, and Lennon had rhythm guitar; everyone sang. In mid-1961, the Beatles (minus Sutcliffe) made their first recordings in Germany, as a backup group to a British rock guitarist/singer based in Hamburg, Tony Sheridan. The Beatles hadn’t fully developed at this point, and these recordings — many of which (including a couple of Sheridan-less tracks) were issued only after the band’s rise to fame — found their talents in a most embryonic state. The Hamburg stint was also notable for gaining the Beatles sophisticated, artistic fans such as Sutcliffe’s girlfriend, Astrid Kirchherr, who influenced all of them (except Best) to restyle their quiffs in the moptops that gave the musicians their most distinctive visual trademark. (Sutcliffe, tragically, would die of a brain hemorrhage in April 1962).
Near the end of 1961, the Beatles’ exploding local popularity caught the attention of local record store manager Brian Epstein, who was soon managing the band as well. He used his contacts to swiftly acquire a January 1, 1962, audition at Decca Records that has been heavily bootlegged (some tracks were officially released in 1995). After weeks of deliberation, Decca turned them down as did several other British labels. Epstein’s perseverance was finally rewarded with an audition for producer George Martin at Parlophone, an EMI subsidiary; Martin signed the Beatles in mid-1962. By this time, Epstein was assiduously grooming his charges for national success by influencing them to smarten up their appearance, dispensing with their leather jackets and trousers in favor of tailored suits and ties.
One more major change was in the offing before the Beatles made their Parlophone debut. In August 1962, drummer Pete Best was kicked out of the group, a controversial decision that has been the cause of much speculation since. There is still no solid consensus as to whether it was because of his solitary, moody nature; the other Beatles’ jealousy of his popularity with the fans; his musical shortcomings (George Martin had already told Epstein that Best wasn’t good enough to drum on recordings); or his refusal to wear his hair in bangs. What seems most likely was that the Beatles simply found his personality incompatible, preferring to enlist Ringo Starr (born Richard Starkey), a drummer with another popular Merseyside outfit, Rory Storm & the Hurricanes. Starr had been in the Beatles for a few weeks when they recorded their first single, “Love Me Do”/”P.S. I Love You,” in September 1962. Both sides of the 45 were Lennon-McCartney originals, and the songwriting team would be credited with most of the group’s material throughout the Beatles’ career.
The single, a promising but fairly rudimentary effort, hovered around the lower reaches of the British Top 20. The Beatles phenomenon didn’t truly kick in until “Please Please Me,” which topped the British charts in early 1963. This was the prototype British Invasion single: an infectious melody, charging guitars, and positively exuberant harmonies. The same traits were evident on their third 45, “From Me to You” (a British number one), and their debut LP, Please Please Me. Although it was mostly recorded in a single day, Please Please Me topped the British charts for an astonishing 30 weeks, establishing the group as the most popular rock & roll act ever seen in the U.K.
What the Beatles had done was take the best elements of the rock and pop they loved and make them their own. Since the Quarrymen days, they had been steeped in the classic early rock of Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, and the Everly Brothers; they’d also kept an ear open to the early ’60s sounds of Motown, Phil Spector, and the girl groups. What they added was an unmatched songwriting savvy (inspired by Brill Building teams such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King), a brash guitar-oriented attack, wildly enthusiastic vocals, and the embodiment of the youthful flair of their generation, ready to dispense with postwar austerity and claim a culture of their own. They were also unsurpassed in their eclecticism, willing to borrow from blues, popular standards, gospel, folk, or whatever seemed suitable for their musical vision. Producer George Martin was the perfect foil for the group, refining their ideas without tinkering with their cores; during the last half of their career, he was indispensable for his ability to translate their concepts into arrangements that required complex orchestration, innovative applications of recording technology, and an ever-widening array of instruments.
Just as crucially, the Beatles were never ones to stand still and milk formulas. All of their subsequent albums and singles would show remarkable artistic progression (though never at the expense of a damn catchy tune). Even on their second LP, With the Beatles (1963), it was evident that their talents as composers and instrumentalists were expanding furiously, as they devised ever more inventive melodies and harmonies, and boosted the fullness of their arrangements. “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” established the group not just as a popular music act, but as a phenomenon never before seen in the British entertainment business, as each single sold over a million copies in the U.K. After some celebrated national TV appearances, Beatlemania broke out across the British Isles in late 1963, and the group generating screams and hysteria at all of their public appearances, musical or otherwise.
Capitol, which had first refusal of the Beatles’ recordings in the United States, had declined to issue the group’s first few singles, which ended up appearing on relatively small American independents. Capitol took up its option on “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” which stormed to the top of the U.S. charts within weeks of its release on December 26, 1963. The Beatles’ television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in February of 1964 launched Beatlemania (and the entire British Invasion) on an even bigger scale than it had reached in Britain. In the first week of April 1964, the Beatles had the Top Five best-selling singles in the U.S.; they also had the first two slots on the album charts, as well as other entries throughout the Billboard Top 100. No one had ever dominated the market for popular music so heavily; it’s doubtful that anyone ever will again. The Beatles themselves would continue to reach number one with most of their singles and albums until their 1970 breakup.
Hard as it may be to believe today, the Beatles were often dismissed by cultural commentators of the time as nothing more than a fad that would vanish within months as the novelty wore off. The group ensured this wouldn’t happen by making A Hard Day’s Night in early 1964, a cinéma vérité-style motion picture comedy/musical that cemented their image as “the Fab Four”: happy-go-lucky, individualistic, cheeky, funny lads with nonstop energy. The soundtrack was also a triumph, consisting entirely of Lennon-McCartney tunes, including such standards as the title tune, “And I Love Her,” “If I Fell,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” and “Things We Said Today.” George Harrison’s resonant 12-string electric guitar leads were hugely influential; the movie helped persuade the Byrds, then folksingers, to plunge all out into rock & roll, and the Beatles (along with Bob Dylan) would be hugely influential on the folk-rock explosion of 1965. The Beatles’ success, too, had begun to open the U.S. market for fellow Brits like the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the Kinks, and inspired young American groups like the Beau Brummels, Lovin’ Spoonful, and others to mount a challenge of their own with self-penned material that owed a great debt to Lennon-McCartney.
Between riotous international tours in 1964 and 1965, the Beatles continued to squeeze out more chart-topping albums and singles. (Until 1967, the group’s British albums were often truncated for release in the States; when their catalog was transferred to CD, the albums were released worldwide in their British configurations.) In retrospect, critics have judged Beatles for Sale (late 1964) and Help! (mid-1965) as the band’s least impressive efforts. To some degree, that’s true. Touring and an insatiable market placed heavy demands upon their songwriting, and some of the originals and covers on these records, while brilliant by many group’s standards, were filler in the context of the Beatles’ best work.
But when at the top of their game, the group was continuing to push forward. “I Feel Fine” had feedback and brilliant guitar leads; “Ticket to Ride” showed the band beginning to incorporate the ringing, metallic, circular guitar lines that would be appropriated by bands like the Byrds; “Help!” was their first burst of confessional lyricism; “Yesterday” employed a string quartet. John Lennon in particular was beginning to exhibit a Dylanesque influence in his songwriting on such folky, downbeat numbers as “I’m a Loser” and “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.” And tracks like “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party” and “I’ve Just Seen a Face” had a strong country flavor.
Although the Beatles’ second film, Help!, was a much sillier and less sophisticated affair than their first feature, it too was a huge commercial success. By this time, though, the Beatles had nothing to prove in commercial terms; the remaining frontiers were artistic challenges that could only be met in the studio. They rose to the occasion at the end of 1965 with Rubber Soul, one of the classic folk-rock records. Lyrically, Lennon, McCartney, and even Harrison (who was now writing some tunes on his own) were evolving beyond boy-girl scenarios into complex, personal feelings. They were also pushing the limits of studio rock by devising new guitar and bass textures, experimenting with distortion and multi-tracking, and using unconventional (for rock) instruments like the sitar.
As much of a progression as Rubber Soul was relative to their previous records, it was but a taster for the boundary-shattering outings of the next few years. The “Paperback Writer”/”Rain” single found the group abandoning romantic themes entirely, boosting the bass to previously unknown levels, and fooling around with psychedelic imagery and backward tapes on the B-side. Drugs (psychedelic and otherwise) were fueling their already fertile imaginations, but they felt creatively hindered by their touring obligations. Revolver, released in the summer of 1966, proved what the group could be capable of when allotted months of time in the studio. Hazy hard guitars and thicker vocal arrangements formed the bed of these increasingly imagistic, ambitious lyrics; the group’s eclecticism now encompassed everything from singalong novelties (“Yellow Submarine”) and string quartet-backed character sketches (“Eleanor Rigby”) to Indian-influenced swirls of echo and backward tapes (“Tomorrow Never Knows”). Some would complain that the Beatles had abandoned the earthy rock of their roots for clever mannerism. But Revolver, like virtually all of the group’s singles and albums from “She Loves You” on, would be a worldwide chart-topper.
For the past couple of years, live performance had become a rote exercise for the group, tired of competing with thousands of screaming fans that drowned out most of their voices and instruments. A 1966 summer worldwide tour was particularly grueling: the group’s entourage was physically attacked in the Philippines after a perceived snub of the country’s first lady, and a casual remark by John Lennon about the Beatles being bigger than Jesus Christ was picked up in the States, resulting in the burning of Beatle records in the Bible belt and demands for a repentant apology. Their final concert of that American tour (in San Francisco on August 29, 1966) would be their last in front of a paying audience, as the group decided to stop playing live in order to concentrate on their studio recordings.
This was a radical (indeed, unprecedented) step in 1966, and the media was rife with speculation that the act was breaking up, especially after all four spent late 1966 engaged in separate personal and artistic pursuits. The appearance of the “Penny Lane”/”Strawberry Fields Forever” single in February 1967 squelched these concerns. Frequently cited as the strongest double A-side ever, the Beatles were now pushing forward into unabashedly psychedelic territory in their use of orchestral arrangements and Mellotron, without abandoning their grasp of memorable melody and immediately accessible lyrical messages.
Sgt. Pepper, released in June 1967 as the Summer of Love dawned, was the definitive psychedelic soundtrack. Or, at least, so it was perceived at the time: subsequent critics have painted the album as an uneven affair, given a conceptual unity via its brilliant multi-tracked overdubs, singalong melodies, and fairy tale-ish lyrics. Others remain convinced, as millions did at the time, that it represented pop’s greatest triumph, or indeed an evolution of pop into art with a capital A. In addition to mining all manner of roots influences, the musicians were also picking up vibes from Indian music, avant-garde electronics, classical, music hall, and more. When the Beatles premiered their hippie anthem “All You Need Is Love” as part of a worldwide TV broadcast, they had been truly anointed as spokespersons for their generation (a role they had not actively sought), and it seemed they could do no wrong.
Musically, that would usually continue to be the case, but the group’s strength began to unravel at a surprisingly quick pace. In August 1967, Brian Epstein — prone to suicidal depression over the past year — died of a drug overdose, leaving them without a manager. They pressed on with their next film project, Magical Mystery Tour, directed by themselves; lacking focus or even basic professionalism, the picture bombed when it was premiered on BBC television in December 1967, giving the media the first real chance they’d ever had to roast the Beatles over a flame. (Another film, the animated feature Yellow Submarine, would appear in 1968, although the Beatles had little involvement with the project, either in terms of the movie or the soundtrack.) In early 1968, the Beatles decamped to India for a course in transcendental meditation with the Maharishi; this too became something of a media embarrassment as each of the four would eventually depart the course before its completion.
The Beatles did use their unaccustomed peace in India to compose a wealth of new material. Judged solely on musical merit, The White Album, a double LP released in late 1968, was a triumph. While largely abandoning their psychedelic instruments to return to guitar-based rock, they maintained their whimsical eclecticism, proving themselves masters of everything from blues-rock to vaudeville. As individual songwriters, too, it contains some of their finest work (as does the brilliant non-LP single from this era, “Hey Jude”/”Revolution”).
The problem, at least in terms of the group’s long-term health, was that these were very much individual songs, as opposed to collective ones. Lennon and McCartney had long composed most of their tunes separately (you can almost always tell the composer by the lead vocalist). But they had always fed off of each other not only to supply missing bits and pieces that would bring a song to completion, but to provide a competitive edge that would bring out the best in the other. McCartney’s romantic melodicism and Lennon’s more acidic, gritty wit were perfect complements for one another. By The White Album, it was clear (if only in retrospect) that each member was more concerned with his own expression than that of the collective group: a natural impulse, but one that was bound to lead to difficulties.
In addition, George Harrison was becoming a more prolific and skilled composer as well, imbuing his own melodies (which were nearly the equal of those of his more celebrated colleagues) with a cosmic lightness. Harrison was beginning to resent his junior status, and the group began to bicker more openly in the studio. Ringo Starr, whose solid drumming and good nature could usually be counted upon (as was evident in his infrequent lead vocals), actually quit for a couple of weeks in the midst of the White Album sessions (though the media was unaware of this at the time). Personal interests were coming into play as well: Lennon’s devotion to romantic and artistic pursuits with his new girlfriend (and soon-to-be wife) Yoko Ono was diverting his attentions from the Beatles. Apple Records, started by the group earlier in 1968 as a sort of utopian commercial enterprise, was becoming a financial and organizational nightmare.
These weren’t the ideal conditions under which to record a new album in January 1969, especially when McCartney was pushing the group to return to live performing, although none of the others seemed especially keen on the idea. They did agree to try and record a “back-to-basics,” live-in-the-studio-type LP, the sessions being filmed for a television special. That plan almost blew up when Harrison, in the midst of tense arguments, left the group for a few days. Although he returned, the idea of playing live concerts was put on the back burner; Harrison enlisted American soul keyboardist Billy Preston as kind of a fifth member on the sessions, both to beef up the arrangements and to alleviate the uncomfortable atmosphere. Exacerbating the problem was that the Beatles didn’t have a great deal of first-class new songs to work with, although some were excellent. In order to provide a suitable concert-like experience for the film, the group did climb the roof of their Apple headquarters in London to deliver an impromptu performance on January 30, 1969, before the police stopped it; this was their last live concert of any sort.
Generally dissatisfied with these early-1969 sessions, the album and film — at first titled Get Back, and later to emerge as Let It Be — remained in the can as the group tried to figure out how the projects should be mixed, packaged, and distributed. A couple of the best tracks, “Get Back”/”Don’t Let Me Down,” were issued as a single in the spring of 1969. By this time, the Beatles’ quarrels were intensifying in a dispute over management: McCartney wanted their affairs to be handled by his new father-in-law, Lee Eastman, while the other members of the group favored a tough American businessman, Allen Klein.
It was something of a miracle, then, that the final album recorded by the group, Abbey Road, was one of their most unified efforts (even if, by this time, the musicians were recording many of their parts separately). It certainly boasted some of their most intricate melodies, harmonies, and instrumental arrangements; it also heralded the arrival of Harrison as a composer of equal talent to Lennon and McCartney, as George wrote the album’s two most popular tunes, “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun.” The Beatles were still progressing, but it turned out to be the end of the road, as their business disputes continued to magnify. Lennon, who had begun releasing solo singles and performing with friends as the Plastic Ono Band, threatened to resign in late 1969, although he was dissuaded from making a public announcement.
Most of the early-1969 tapes remained unreleased, partially because the footage for the planned television broadcast of these sessions was now going to be produced as a documentary movie. The accompanying soundtrack album, Let It Be, was delayed so that its release could coincide with that of the film. Lennon, Harrison, and Allen Klein decided to have celebrated American producer Phil Spector record some additional instrumentation and do some mixing. Thus the confusion that persists among most rock listeners to this day: Let It Be, although the last Beatles album to be released, was not the last one to be recorded. Abbey Road should actually be considered as the Beatles’ last album; most of the material on Let It Be, including the title track (which would be the last single released while the group was still together), was recorded several months before the Abbey Road sessions began in earnest, and a good 15 months or so before its May 1970 release.
By that time, the Beatles were no more. In fact, there had been no recording done by the group as a unit since August 1969, and each member of the band had begun to pursue serious outside professional interests independently via the Plastic Ono Band, Harrison’s tour with Delaney & Bonnie, Starr’s starring role in the Magic Christian film, or McCartney’s first solo album. The outside world for the most part remained almost wholly unaware of the seriousness of the group’s friction, making it a devastating shock for much of the world’s youth when McCartney announced that he was leaving the Beatles on April 10, 1970. (The “announcement” was actually contained in a press release for his new album, in which his declaration of his intention to work on his own effectively served as a notice of his departure.)
The final blow, apparently, was the conflict between the release dates of Let It Be and McCartney’s debut solo album. The rest of the group asked McCartney to delay his release until after Let It Be; McCartney refused and, for good measure, was distressed by Spector’s post-production work on Let It Be, particularly the string overdubs on “The Long and Winding Road,” which became a posthumous Beatles single that spring. Although McCartney received much of the blame for the split, it should be remembered that he had done more than any other member to keep the group going since Epstein’s death, and that each of the other Beatles had threatened to leave well before McCartney’s departure. With hindsight, the breakup seemed inevitable in view of their serious business disagreements and the growth of their individual interests.
As bitter as the initial headlines were to swallow, the feuding would grow much worse over the next few years. At the end of 1970, McCartney sued the rest of the Beatles in order to dissolve their partnership; the battle dragged through the courts for years, scotching any prospects of a group reunion. In any case, each member of the band quickly established a viable solo career. In fact, at the outset it could have been argued that the artistic effects of the split were in some ways beneficial, freeing Lennon and Harrison to make their most uncompromising artistic statements (Plastic Ono Band and All Things Must Pass). George’s individual talents in particular received acclaim that had always eluded him when he was overshadowed by Lennon-McCartney. Paul had a much rougher time with the critics, but continued to issue a stream of hit singles, hitting a commercial and critical jackpot at the end of 1973 with the massively successful Band on the Run. Ringo did not have the songwriting acumen to compete on the same level as the others, yet he too had quite a few big hit singles in the early ’70s, often benefiting from the assistance of his former bandmates.
Yet within a short time, it became apparent both that the Beatles were not going to settle their differences and reunite, and that their solo work could not compare with what they were capable of creating together. The stereotype has it that the split allowed each of them to indulge in their worst tendencies to their extremes: Lennon in agitprop, Harrison in holier-than-thou mysticism, McCartney in cutesy pop, Starr in easy listening rock. There’s a good deal of truth in this, but it’s also important to bear in mind that what was most missing was a sense of group interaction. The critical party line often champions Lennon as the angry, realist rocker, and McCartney as the melodic balladeer, but this is a fallacy: each of them was capable, in roughly equal measures, of ballsy all-out rock and sweet romanticism. What is not in dispute is that they sparked each other to reach heights that they could not attain on their own.
Despite periodic rumors of reunions throughout the 1970s, no group projects came close to materializing. It should be added that the Beatles themselves continued to feud to some degree, and from all evidence weren’t seriously interested in working together as a unit. Any hopes of a reunion vanished when Lennon was assassinated in New York City in December 1980. The Beatles continued their solo careers throughout the 1980s, but their releases became less frequent, and their commercial success gradually diminished as listeners without first-hand memories of the combo created their own idols.
The popularity of the Beatles-as-unit, however, proved eternal. In part, this is because the group’s 1970 split effectively short-circuited the prospects of artistic decline; the body of work that was preserved was uniformly strong. However, it’s also because, like any great works of art, the Beatles’ records carried an ageless magnificence that continues to captivate new generations of listeners. So it is that Beatles records continue to be heard on radio in heavy rotation, continue to sell in massive quantities, and continue to be covered and quoted by rock and pop artists through the present day.
Legal wrangles at Apple prevented the official issue of previously unreleased Beatle material for over two decades (although much of it was frequently bootlegged). The situation finally changed in the 1990s, after McCartney, Harrison, Starr, and Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, settled their principal business disagreements. In 1994, this resulted in a double CD of BBC sessions from the early and mid-’60s. The following year, a much more ambitious project was undertaken: a multi-part film documentary, broadcast on network television in 1995, and then released (with double the length) for the home video market in 1996, with the active participation of the surviving Beatles.
To coincide with the Anthology documentary, three double CDs of previously unreleased/rare material were issued in 1995 and 1996. Additionally, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr (with some assistance from Jeff Lynne) embellished a couple of John Lennon demos from the 1970s with overdubs to create two new tracks (“Free as a Bird” and “Real Love”) that were billed as actual Beatles recordings. Whether this constitutes the actual long-awaited “reunion” is the subject of much debate. Certainly these cuts were hardly classics on par with the music the group made in the 1960s. Some fans, even diehards, were inclined to view the whole Anthology project as a distinctly 1990s marketing exercise that maximized the mileage of whatever could be squeezed from the Beatles’ vaults. If nothing else, though, the massive commercial success of outtakes that had, after all, been recorded 25 to 30 years ago, spoke volumes about the unabated appeal and fascination the Beatles continue to exert worldwide.
As The Rolling Stone Album Guide said,not liking The Beatles is as perverse as not liking the sun. And Ozzy Osbourne said not loving The Beatles is like not loving oxogen. And a guy who runs Keno’s Classic Rock n Roll Site and who runs a Rolling Stones and John Lennon fan site says damn The Beatles were one great group and he said in his great review of The Beatles 1962-1966 Red album, that if you don’t love or at least like The Beatles and their music then you are not a true rock fan and more than likely will never get it.
Bob Dylan ,Roger McGuinn of The Byrds and music critic William Mann of The London Times as early as 1963 and 1964 pointed out that even in early Beatles songs like She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand had unusual and interesting chords and they arranged them.
And as early as late 1963 a music critic Richard Buckle in The London Times called John and Paul the two of the most briliant composers since Beethoven after John and Paul composed the music for a ballet Mods and Rockers.
Customer Reviews
Beatles Recording Sessions By Mark Lewishon
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
THE DEFINITIVE REFERENCE BOOK, January 11, 2000
By John Moulis (Australia) – See all my reviews
This review is from: The Beatles: Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962-1970 (Paperback)
Anybody with even a passing interest in The Beatles must have this book. Set out in a diary format it gives details of all recording sessions by the group. Sometimes it gets fairly technical with details about recording equipment, overdubs, etc but it is still essential information. One criticism, if you can call it that – most Beatles songs have gained legendary status and it can be quite disconcerting at times to have them clinically dissected in this fashion. But that is a small criticism. The fact that the book is apparently out of print is deplorable. It would be good if it were issued free whenever anybody buys their first Beatles CD, it is that important. It isn’t a book, it’s a rite of passage.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Beatles Recording Facts, Secrets, Gossip, Timeline, Trivia!, December 3, 2001
By First Things First “captainreflection” (Burbank, CA United States) – See all my reviews
I am simply dumbfounded that this book has gone out of print. There is simply no other source for the information contained in this book, and it is consistently fascinating, entertaining and enlightening. In view of the never-ending interest in The Beatles CDs, and the fascination with how the band was able to make such huge strides forward in the evolution and revolution of pop and rock music, not to mention our popular culture in general, it is amazing that this book even exists in the first place as a miraculous wellspring of information. It contains virtually everything you would ever want to know about how all of the Beatles songs were recorded, from many different perspectives including producer George Martin, engineer Geoff Emerick, the Beatles crew members, and anyone and everyone who was present. You will see the exact sequence of events as song ideas turned to demos, demos to masters, overdubs, special effects, recording accidents, mixes and mastering. You will see how albums took shape, and songs from one period ended up on albums from another period. Amazing facts abound…how about the fact that in the entire recording history of The Beatles, drummer Ringo Starr never made a musical mistake which caused the tape machines to stop rolling. Think about it…a perfect record of studio drumming! With all the complexity and variety of the music, not to mention 16-20 hour recording sessions for months on end, with guitars hitting wrong notes, voices cracking, piano note bloopers etc. A truly amazing feat! As the owner of both a Hardcover copy and a Softcover copy of this book, I suddenly realize that I am far richer than I thought! Find this book, read it, study it, and treasure it!
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Behind the Creative Genius of a Groundbreaking Band, March 4, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: The Beatles: Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962-1970 (Paperback)
This is the real thing. Instead of concentrating on third-hand gossip and rumors or the trivialities of a group that was much more humble than its devotees, Mark Lewisohn delves into the actual music of the Beatles. I loved the accounts of the Fab Four recording “A Day in the Life,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” and “Tomorrow Never Knows.” This amazingly rich book gives detailed accounts of how the Beatles, AS A GROUP, came up with the sounds that broke down the barriers of pop music. As a musician, I found Mark Lewisohn’s portrayal of the Beatles genius (especially that of John Lennon and Paul McCartney) to be completely thorough and accurate, as well as insightful. If you are to buy any one Beatles book, buy this one!
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
An excellent resource for those who care how the Beatles made
magic, August 19, 2005
By Danno (NY, NY) – See all my reviews
Some Beatles books are gossipy, and others feature questionable armchair critical analyses of their music. Lewisohn takes a totally different approach. Working with the original Abbey Road studio logs, he’s created a day-by-day record of what the Beatles were doing in Abbey Road studios, who played what instruments, and how long it took them to record and write their songs.
I own a first edition of this book and have used it ever since I bought a used copy sometime in the early 1990s. I reread it many times that summer, and that somewhat battered, oversized copy still sits on my shelf. It’s a book I returned to when I set up a mini home recording studio, and returned to yet again when I was learning how to mix my sounds. Although this is not a “how-to” book, you can learn an awful lot about good recording and mixing technique by carefully reading it.
Furthermore, Lewisohn packed his text with surprises. I, for one, was shocked to learn how primitive Abbey Road’s technology was, even by the standards of a British studio in the 1960s. I was also surprised to learn why the mono and stereo mixes of the Beatles’ music often sounded so different from one another even though they were mixed from the same masters. Also, it’s amazing to learn just how quickly some seemingly complex tracks were put together, while some seemingly simple songs took far more work. As a side benefit, Lewisohn’s comprehensive notes probably knocked the wind out of more than one bootlegger trying to pass off BBC radio performances as lost studio recordings of Beatle tracks! Throughout, there are many, many excellent photos – many of which have not been reproduced elsewhere. Just when you think Lewisohn’s run out of goodies, there’s a rare interview with Paul McCartney that touches on the songwriting process.
I can’t rate this as a five star book although I’d like to. As good as Lewisohn is, there are a lot of minor details here that are misleading or just plain wrong. Lewisohn can’t seem to tell phasing from flanging (two very different techniques to create swirling electric guitar sounds). He also prints quotes from studio musicians without elaboration, leading me to believe he has a weak grasp on performance and theory. For example, one horn player describes a McCartney song as being “between the cracks” of two different keys; the song in question actually seems to have been recorded slightly flat and sped up to normal pitch upon playback, but we have no way of knowing what the horn player actually meant without more information. The average reader might walk away thinking that the song used two different keys, unless he also knew that the song was in a single key. I’m surprised an editor didn’t catch this stuff.
If you’re a Beatles fan who could care less about their personal lives, but would love to learn more about how they created their studio albums – this book is for you. If you’re interested in home recording, you’ll learn lots of tidbits here too. Lewisohn deserves a lot of credit for creating this resource, and I wish that it weren’t such a difficult book to find.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Invaluable and Insightful-Here, There, and Everywhere, June 9, 1999
By Tim Steinert Portland, Oregon – See all my reviews
This review is from: The Beatles: Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962-1970 (Paperback)
This book has been a constant source for Beatles trivia- not to mention a roaring good read! I read through it 3 or 4 times a year. As a musician myself, I find its insights into the Beatles “what the hell- let’s try it!” mentality refreshing (in a time where the music business has become stiflingly boring and so much music is trite and disposable). Unfortunately, my cat had a great love for the book as well-especially page 91 and 92, so now I’m screwed!! Please reprint this book!!!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A must-have for musician Beatlemaniacs, February 13, 2005
By twinsongsun “twinsongsun” (New England, USA) – See all my reviews
This review is from: The Beatles: Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962-1970 (Paperback)
I love The Beatles records and have since my Dad purchased “Meet the Beatles” in 1966. The first records I bought on my own, as soon as I had a paper route and spending money, were The Beatles’ LPs, in order of American release. I even knew the exact running time of every Beatles song and couldn’t imagine that there were people in the world who didn’t know every Beatles song. If you’re like me, the revelation of the details of the recording of every Beatles track, as detailed in this book, will be a thrill to pore over.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Beatles recording history,
January 1, 2001
By RAS (Vancouver Canada) – See all my reviews
This review is from: The Beatles: Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962-1970 (Paperback)
I walked into my university bookstore years ago during a book sale and I spotted this book… “Some Beatle garbage” I said to myself. Then I found myself buying the book…!
Then I found myself buying all the Beatles CD’s so I could listen to the music that was described in the book…
I think the Beatles ARE BRILLIANT and I despair what to think my life would have been without the Beatles!! I just spent the whole day of New Year’s Eve listening to various Beatle cds and other sources!! This is a great book! and it’s not being published…!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A Must Read for any Beatle Fan, January 29, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: The Beatles: Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962-1970 (Paperback)
By far, the most complete and technically articulate of any of the Beatle’s books in print. Lewisohn crafts a marvelously detailed chronological sequence of all of the Beatles’ sessions from their debut meeting with George Martin to the last days of “Let It Be”. The result is a perfect blend of both the artistic and often overlooked technical genius of both the Beatles and the various studio engineers that made it all happen.
If (like me) you have ever wondered why “Rain” sounds raised an octave, just how Mr. Martin managed to meld two different songs in “Strawberry Fields”, or what the heck instrument they used for the its intro, you will not be dissappointed in this reference.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
one of the best Beatles books, October 13, 1998
By A Customer
Painstakingly researched, beautifully written, and containing many good photographs, this is surely one of the best books on the Beatles ever written. The creation of the Beatles’ enduring body of work is lovingly described. A must for all recording buffs or Beatles fans – a great reference tome, fun for browsing, and best when read cover-to-cover with obsessive delight. The facts herein speak for themselves.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
AMAZING, April 14, 2005
By D. Thomas “vpmad@aslan.com” (NY) – See all my reviews
This review is from: The Beatles: Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962-1970 (Paperback)
This book is a must for any Beatle-fan, or anyone working in a studio who knows the Beatles’ music. The book is a cornucopia of information on how the Beatles’ music was created in the studio. Sit down with the book and the CDs, and listen to each song as your read Lewisohn’s description of the recording session. It’s like being there!
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I got news for you FJR on Last FM. The Rolling Stones only had 80 members of their fan group in 2007, The Beatles had over 2,000 which is now over 4,000 and the average age of fans is 22 more guys than girls and they are from all over the world! The Beatles were the # 1 listened to artists on Last.FM in 2006,2007 and 2008.
The Beatles are still rightfully regarded by most people, most rock critics, and many other music and rock artists as The most creative, innovative, and prolific rock band ever!
As many people even some Rolling Stones fans have said, The Rolling Stones haven’t made a great record in at least 25 years or more.The Beatles wrote, played and recorded so many critically acclaimed,loved, popular songs and albums of all different styles of music, and did them all great, in just an 8 year recording career so they really made about over 50 years worth of mostly great music in such a short period of time and that is why they are/ were so amazing and great!
And The Rolling Stones copied The Beatles in many ways including trying to rip off sgt.Pepper with Their Satanic Majesties Request album.And it was John & Paul who wrote one of their first hits, I Wanna Be You’re Man in early 1964 and they wrote it right in front of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards who were blown away and said how can you just write a song just like that?! And it inspired them to start writing their own songs.
Infact The Rolling Stones were big fans of and good friends with The Beatles and Mick Jagger was at 4 Beatles recording sessions and Keith Richards was at 2 of them with him. And Mick can be seen clapping his hands and singing along to All You Need Is Love in the TV show Our World from June 1967 which is in The Beatles Anthology video series. Keith Richards was there too but Mick was sitting right up in the fron in front of The Beatles playing. Eric Clapton and Graham Nash were there to along with a whole bunch of their other friends.
And Mick Jagger is also in the news film of The Beatles arriving in Bangor in August 1967 when they went up to study meditation with the Maharishi and he was with them there when they got the terrible call that their manager Brian Epstein was found dead at age 32.
The Beatles wrote *plenty* of great rock songs including hard rock on The White Album and Abbey Road and as many have rightfully pointed out Paul invented heavy metal with his 1968 song Helter Skelter and people have also said John’s I Want You She’s So Heavy on Abbey road was also one of the first heavy metal songs.
Even in their early days they wrote some great rockers that were very rocky for the times, as The All Music Guide said,in their very good review of Past Masters Volume 1 that they proved they could rock really really hard,with John’s I Feel Fine from late 1964 which featured the very recorded feedback guitar on a rock song,and Paul’s great blues rocker,She’s A Woman also from late 1964,and what they called the peerless I’m Down which is Paul’s screaming rocker from mid 1965 which they performed even harder rocking,and screaming in August 1965 at Shea Stadium.
Also John’s You Can’t Do That from early 1964,is a great rock song, so is Day Dripper,Paperback Writer, And You’re Baird Can Sing, She Said She Said,Taxman,Ticket To Ride which has also been pointed out as having a very heavy electric guitar sound etc!
Also,
on a fan site for the rock group Yes, called, Yesfans.com ( who are also big Beatles fans themselves and they recorded and played live several Beatles songs and member Rick Wakeman did a whole Beatles tribute album in 2000) they had a topic called exactly this, from 2004-2008 and over 70% of the Yes fans voted the first choice, No Of Course Not They Were Not Overrated How Can You Even Ask This Question.
And one of the Yes fans posted in early 2008,” The Greatest Band of all time overrated? Phuck no!”
And another Yes fan quoted him and said I second what he said! Another Yes fan quoted his own post from a year before when he had said he thought The Beatles were overrated and he now quoted his old post with an I’m stupid emoticon and he said how could I have been so stupid,of course The Beatles are not overrated.
Also, guitarist Frank Marino of the hard rock group Mahogany Rush said in several online interviews that he hates The Rolling Stones but he likes The Beatles,Jimi Hendrix,and The Doors etc. And Dave Navarro of the rock group Jane’s Addiction said in Guitar World in 1991 and 1996 that he has always hated The Rolling Stones and he will never play one of their records.
Also there used to be an online interview with Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts from a 1973 Magazine called Zig Zag,and the interview was called,The Drinking Man’s Rolling Stone. He says in this interview that The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were a lot alike as people and were friends. He also said what made The Beatles so great is that they made one great single and great album after the next!
Z401: The Music of The Beatles
Dr. Glenn Gass
Indiana University School of Music
An in-depth, song-by-song look at the music, lives and times of this extraordinary group and songwriting partnership. Offered at Indiana University since 1982, the course focuses on the Beatles’ music and is aimed at heightening student listening skills as well as fostering a deeper appreciation for the Beatles’ remarkable recordings. The music is supplemented by a multimedia course companion that provides biographical information, audio and video clips and a closer look at the Beatles’ songwriting and recording process.
Fall 2009
Tues & Thurs 7:00 – 9:00 in Ballantine Hall 013
Instructor: Dr. Glenn Gass, Sycamore 139, 855-9460; GASS@INDIANA.EDU
Grading Assistant: Kelsey McCardle
Required text: “The Beatles” by Bob Spitz
Recommended Text: “The Beatles” by Hunter Davies
Listening: The Beatle albums are on reserve at the School of Music Library and at the Media Center in the Main Library
Click here for instructions on using the on-line reserve listening at the School of Music Library
Listening via Variations2 is also available for use at home (click here for information and for software downloading and installation instructions).
Students will be responsible for knowing all of the Beatle albums, along with the singles collected on the two Past Masters cd’s.
Students are strongly encouraged to buy all of the Beatle CD’s and have them in your permanent collection.
On 9/9/09 the long-awaited Beatle remasterings will be released making this an ideal time to purchase the Beatle catalog.
COURSE GRADES will be based on four exams, all of equal weight.
No make-ups will be given without a documented and officially sanctioned excuse. Instead, students who must miss an exam will take a comprehensive makeup exam at the end of the semester, following the final exam. This option is also available to students who wish to use the makeup to take the place of a lower exam score (it cannot hurt your grade).
The course grade is determined entirely by the results of the best four scores from the five exams (including the comprehensive make-up). The grading scale is fixed and must remain so in a class this size in the interest of fairness. All requests to “round up” a score or receive extra credit will be regretfully declined. The grading scale is:
A+ = 98%; A = 93%; A- = 90%
B+ = 88%; B = 83%; B- = 80%
C+ = 78%; C = 73%; C- = 70%
D+ = 68%; D = 63%; D- = 60%
Fall 2009 test dates:
TEST ONE: September 29 (Please Please Me, With the Beatles & Hard Day’s Night; Spitz chapters 1 – 26)
TEST TWO: October 20 (Beatles For Sale, Help!, Rubber Soul; Spitz ch. 27 – 28)
TEST THREE: November 12 (Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine; Spitz ch. 29 – 35)
TEST FOUR/Final Exam: Thursday December 17 at 7:15pm in BH 013 (White Album, Let It Be, Abbey Road; Spitz: read to end)
Note: the singles from Past Masters will also be included on the exams for the appropriate period.
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LAPTOPS, Texting, Twittering, etc. will not be allowed in class. I apologize for this but the use of laptops and online devices of any sort has proven to be too much of a distraction.
Final note: I am no happier about our late exam date than you are, but there is nothing we can do to change it. Please keep it in mind and do not make plans to leave Bloomington until after the exam(!)
Grades will be available via the “Post ‘Em” link on our class Oncourse site.
Beatles In London: Summer IU Office of Overseas Studies course
Music in General Studies homepage
Beatle Sites in England:
Glenn’s Guide to the Beatles’ England website: Beatle sites in London and Liverpool
A video tour of Beatles sites in London and Liverpool (17 minutes long: may take a while to load):
A shorter Beatle tour is also posted on YouTube.com (please view in “High Quality” mode if possible)
Two Beautiful Boys, Mathew and Julian (YouTube video, High Quality mode please)
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Some WWW Beatle links:
Glenn’s interview with Beatle biographer Hunter Davies
Bill Harry’s Merseybeat online. Feedback and suggestions welcome and appreciated.
Another guide to Beatle Locations in London
Info on guided walking tours of Beatle sites in London.
A Liverpool Beatle locations site
The official BEATLES website
George’s All Things Must Pass. website
Beatles Discography and Day-By-Day website.
The Beatles Lyrics webpage
Beatle lyrics from rare-lyrics.com
Beatles Number 9 website, a great site for archived interviews, books excerpts, history etc.
The massive Beatles Index site.
Beatle discography site.
Beatles triva quiz site.
Beatle Fan Club Christmas Records.
Beatlelinks
The Internet Beatles Recording Index: a fantastic central point for cross-indexed information about every song
Steve’s Beatle Page, with lyrics and song info
Beatlelinks.net: Beatle Internet Resource Guide
The Bootleg Zone, with detailed information about Beatles recordings (and many other bands)
Songsofbeales.com: song lyrics and info
Forever: A Tribute to the Beatles (Beatles Tribute Band)
Give Peace a Chance, a John Lennon Tribute site.
Harmony Central, for chords and other music info for Beatle songs.
The Complete Beatles UK Discgraphby
The Usenet Guideto Beatle Recording Variations
The Beatles Ultimate Experience website
The official Abbey Road Studios website
Beatle City from Merseyworld.com, with Liverpool guides, song lyrics, etc
Beatle song lyrics
Another song lyrics site
Beatles Website, with song links, guitar chords, biographical info, etc.
Beatles London News and Information Service
Help! info website
Beatles Karaoke(!)
Operation Big Beat anniversary celebration, November 2001.
Liverpool Beatlescene International Fan Club
Beatles 64 Liverpool site
Ottawa Beatles Site
Subscribe to the World Beatles Forum, a great newsletter from Canada
RollingStone.com Beatle website
Beatles Portal on PopTopix
The University of Liverpool Institute of Popular Music.
The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts
A good Hamburg and Astrid site
Helena’s site of links
Beatles screensavers
David Rowley’s ” Story of the Beatles Songs”
Liverpool Books Online
Visit the on-line Beatles Karaoke(!) site
The Ultimate Beatles Archives
Join the Beatles newsgroup (rec.music.beatles)
Alan W. Pollack’s Notes On series
The British Export webpage (a Beatles tribute band).
Lennon-McCartney website
Wonderwall website
The July 6, 1957 page
“Help! In the World”page from Spain
Misc Saki posts and facts
Links to some worldwide Beatle homepages
Here, There & Everywhere Beatle links
A great site from Japan, with information on Japanese Beatle releases
The Internet Beatle album (click on song titles)
A good John Lennon site
Beatle magazines and related periodicals
Beatlefest homepage
Some Beatle reference books
University of Liverpool Beatle info site
A virtual tour of Mathew Street, Liverpool
The online Mathew Street Beatles Store
Liverpool tourism info, with maps, etc.
A guide to the real Blue Jay Way
A good page exploring the Paul Is Dead myth.
The butcher cover page (click here to see the butcher cover)
A listing, with pictures of Beatle stamps from around the world.
Paul McCartney 1984 Playboy interview
An account of meeting the Beatles in 1968.
1989 Good Day Sunshine tour with Beatle site photos
A Beatle travel guide
Liverpool Productions Magical Mystery Tour to England
Glenn’s Beatle concert ticket stub, Washington DC, 1966
Click here to return to Rock History at IU homepage
Still relevant after decades, the Beatles set to rock 9/9/09
Story Highlights
9/9/09 a big day for The Beatles
“Rock Band” video game and remastered albums both to be released
Apple Inc. expected to make “music-related” announcement the same day
Expert compares The Beatles to Picasso, says their music will endure
By Doug Gross
CNN
(CNN) — “Number nine. Number nine. Number nine.”
The repetitive refrain from one of The Beatles’ most mind-bending journeys into psychedelia — “Revolution 9,” the audio pastiche from “The White Album” — is now serving as the backbeat of a big day for the biggest band in rock ‘n’ roll history.
On Wednesday — 9/9/09 — remastered versions of the Beatles catalogue will be released, giving listeners what the remaining members of “The Fab Four” say is the closest reproduction ever of how their music sounded in the studio.
The same day, the video game “The Beatles: Rock Band” is set to be released by Harmonix. Modeled after the already popular “Rock Band” game, and closely supervised by The Beatles and their estates, the game lets players sing and strum along on a huge list of Beatles classics over scenes ranging from Liverpool’s Cavern Club to their final performance on a London rooftop.
And on top of that, there’s rampant speculation that a planned “music-themed” announcement by Apple Inc., also scheduled on 9/9/09, could involve the supergroup.
The Beatles are one of a handful of groups whose music has never been approved for sale by Apple’s iTunes, and the timing of the announcement has fueled speculation that could finally change — or even that specialized Beatles iPods, like the ones sold in 2004 loaded with U2′s music, could be in the works.
It’s a remarkable amount of buzz for a band whose roots stretch back nearly five decades. And it’s a clear sign, observers say, that through time and a multitude of cultural shifts, the group’s hold on the public’s imagination has endured.
“People are still looking at Picasso. People are still looking at artists who broke through the constraints of their time period to come up with something that was unique and original,” said Robert Greenfield, a former associate editor at Rolling Stone magazine who has written about the band. “In the form that they worked in, in the form of popular music, no one will ever be more revolutionary, more creative and more distinctive than The Beatles were.”
Research shows that more than 40 years after their last public performance, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr’s music remains as interesting to young people now as it ever was.
A Pew Research survey released last month showed that 81 percent of respondents between ages 16-29 said they liked The Beatles. Eleven percent said they dislike the band and only 4 percent said they have never heard of them.
By comparison, current rockers Coldplay received 39 percent positive responses, with 45 percent saying they’d never heard of them. Forty-two percent said they like hip-hop star Kanye West.
“To put this in perspective: Try imagining young adults back in the 1960s putting the big jazz bands of the roaring ’20s at the top of their list of favorites,” the survey reads. “Not very likely.”
Walter Everett, professor and chairman of music theory at the University of Michigan, said his students know The Beatles catalogue as well today as they would have 30 years ago.
He said the cultural phenomenon that was The Beatles — the frenzy-inducing early concerts, the furor when John Lennon said the group was “more popular than Jesus,” the pre-Internet obsession over “Paul is dead” rumors — made them something more than just another rock group.
“They were just idolized,” said Everett, who has written several books on the band. “It was a musical revolution, but [also] the hair, the clothing, their attitude about the establishment, their support of everybody, young and old alike, to try to understand each other at a very difficult time.
“Some of that message endures.”
But at the heart of the phenomenon, experts agree, is the music. From the charming, school-boy bop of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” to the blistering assault of “Helter Skelter,” the songs, they say, were just that good.
“The point is how great the music is,” Greenfield said. “It isn’t about the fact that The Beatles were willing to practice and get better at what they did — it was the fact that that band contained at least two-and-a-half geniuses [Lennon, McCartney and, at times, Harrison].”
Wednesday’s announcements — and, in Apple’s case, possible announcement — show that the minders of The Beatles legacy are keeping up with how today’s music consumers behave, said Bruce Burch, director of the University of Georgia’s music business program.
“A lot of bands and artists have been slow to embrace the fact that technology is driving the industry,” Burch said. “Their music is not going away and this is a step for them for their music to come into the 21st century.”
EMI, which will be releasing the remastered recordings, has been famously protective of The Beatles brand and music. Digital reproductions like MP3s have lower sound quality than albums or compact discs — one of the reasons they’ve been slow to embrace iTunes.
But if an announcement on that front is coming, Burch said, it would signal an acknowledgement that such quality-control concerns may be obsolete for the majority of the music-buying public.
“It’s just a different audience out there,” he said. “They’re used to listening on ear buds. The sound quality, in some cases, maybe isn’t’ as important to them.”
Everett said that, even with all of the news expected Wednesday, the Beatles music will no doubt remain popular for decades to come — meaning more new wrinkles are almost certain.
“There’s still more that can be done,” he said. “Who knows where technology may be in another 10 years? We may have holographic images.”
And regardless of how it’s delivered, no one’s expecting another band to ever eclipse the four lads from Liverpool who would go on to shape popular culture the world over.
“There will probably be another artist that comes along and captures the imagination,” Burch said. “But it will never be like The Beatles.”
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Comment (1)
That the Beatles mean so much to so many people who make music in so many genres goes without saying. What doesn’t go without saying is what John, Paul, George and Ringo mean to these musicians, who share in their own words the important role the Fab Four have played in their songs and in their lives.
“The three of us [in Nirvana] grew up listening to the Beatles, then classic rock and punk. Somehow, it all came together.” –Dave Grohl
“I don’t think I could write with John Lennon. He’s too genius … All you [could] do is mess it up.” –Miley Cyrus
“In Dublin we think the Beatles are Irish. There’s a revenge against [the] class system that’s a very Irish preoccupation… Here were the Fab Four spitting out a new vocabulary, that comes from that kind of revenge against the old idea of England that wasn’t inclusive of the working class.” –Bono
“I love the Beatles. What more can I say? I’m not gonna lie to you. I love ‘em. They make me happy. And I think they were the best, and still are.” –Liam Gallagher
I don’t think anybody comes close to the Beatles, including Oasis.” –Brian May of Queen
“I heard ‘Rubber Soul’ one night in my house here in LA, and I was so blown out that I said, ‘I have to record an album as good or better than ‘Rubber Soul.’ If I ever do anything in my life, I’m going to make that good an album.’” –Brian Wilson
“You can’t beat the Beatles. You join ‘em.” –Peggy Lee
“The first [record] I can remember buying was ‘Meet the Beatles!’ at a garage sale for five cents.” –Billy Corgan
“The Beatles really synthesized what I wanted to do. The single biggest moment that I can remember being galvanized into wanting to be a musican for life was seeing the Beatles on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show.’” –Billy Joel
“I bought [John Lennon's] ‘Plastic Ono Band,’ and I listened to it over and over for months. It’s a monumental work of genius… The attitude and emotion of that album are harder than any punk rock I’ve ever heard.” –Lenny Kravitz
“The Beatles were why we turned from a jug band into a rock ‘n’ roll band. What we saw them doing was impossibly attractive.” –Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead
“To be in the same room as the four of them caused me to not sleep for, like, three days.” –Jeff Lynne
“The Beatles defined their own sense of values and honor. They took stances without ever being politically correct. And they did it all with incredible humor… I honestly think that there are certain things in life that help people understand themselves. I think the Beatles are one of those things. They resonate the journey of true selfhood, really.” –Sophie B. Hawkins
“I’m probably the biggest Beatles fan on the planet.” –Robin Zander of Cheap Trick
“A lot of that Beatles influence comes from Steven [Tyler]’s collaboration with Mark Hudson, both of whom are absolute Beatle freaks… I guess the goal is to try and emulate probably some of the best music of the last 50 years, which has to be the Beatles.” –Brad Whitford of Aerosmith
“We looked deep down inside the very core of our souls and there was a little Ringo sitting there. Sure, we like telling people it’s John Lennon or George Harrison, but when you really look deep inside of Soundgarden, there’s a little Ringo wanting to get out.” — Kim Thayil of Soundgarden
“[The Beatles were] the start of the reason why we’re doing a band.” –Vicki Peterson of the Bangles
“How could you not be influenced by the Beatles if you write songs?” –Sean Lennon
Which Beatle Are You? QuizFiled under: The Hit List Share & Bookmark : Print | Email More
Reader Comments(1 of 1)
Neutral4165
at 9-15-2009I’m really surprised that you didn’t include quotes from Ozzy Osbourne who was interviewed I think in your very own magazine in 2002 where he calls The Beatles The Greatest Band To Ever Walk The Earth and said that he loved them since he was a teenager and called Paul McCartney a musical genuis.
Also Bob Dylan praised John,Paul and George last year in Rolling Stone.And Roger McGuinn is also a big fan and The Rolling Stones were fans and friends with them too.Also,
Artist Main:
The Beatles
The Beatles
Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready Praises The ‘Phenomenal’ Beatles
But he might not be so good at the just-released ‘Beatles: Rock Band’: ‘I need to work on my skills.’
by Kyle Anderson
Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready (MTV News)
Pearl Jam already have several links to “Rock Band,” as they have made their classic debut Ten available in its entirety as a playable download and will be dropping their forthcoming album
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Backspacer in the same fashion once it’s released September 20. And though founding guitarist Mike McCready has played the game and is excited for the Wednesday (September 9) release of “The Beatles: Rock Band,” he has a confession to make.
“I honestly grew up listening to the Stones more,” McCready told MTV News at the Outside Lands Festival. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t love the Beatles.”
McCready cited the band’s harmonies as a musical development that really inspired him, and he also gave a nod to a classic piece of video. “The concert footage on the roof was probably something that was integral in my growing up.”
The footage in question is the surprise show the Beatles gave in January 1969 that marked the end of the recording of Let It Be and ended up being the band’s final public appearance together. McCready did learn one profound thing from the Beatles. “My manager says you never want to release anything against the Beatles, because they’ll always win,” he joked. “And they should, because they were phenomenal.”
As for “Rock Band,” McCready admitted he needs practice. “I play ‘Rock Band’ with my friends’ kids, and they completely beat me senseless with it,” he admitted. “I feel like I’m holding them back. I try to play the drums, and I just can’t play the drums. I think I need to work on my skills.”
But when Backspacer becomes available as a playable full-album download, McCready said players will be able to develop their skills on a few of his favorite tracks. “I would say try the solo on ‘Amongst the Waves.’ And just rock out to ‘Gonna See My Friend.’ That’ll be fun to jump around to and play. Stomp as much as you possibly can. That’s rock!”
For more on “The Beatles: Rock Band” check out Multiplayer.MTV.com.
This report is from MTV News.
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You know your music – so do we. THE ALLMUSIC BLOG
She’s a Woman
The Beatles
Composed By
John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Song Review by Richie Unterberger
“She’s a Woman” was one of the hardest-rocking early Beatles originals, and although it was the B-side to “I Feel Fine,” it was almost as big a hit in its own right, reaching number four on the American charts. Sung and primarily written by Paul McCartney, it’s a belter that illustrates how the Beatles could be bluesy without writing conventional blues songs that stuck to normal blues progressions. Right from the start, the track has a brash, almost harsh edge, with choppy guitar chords that are more like barks than power chords.
McCartney, too often unfairly pegged as a sweet balladeer, demonstrates that he was also one of the best white rock hard singers of all time with his shrill yet rich, even ballsy, vocal. Certainly his vocal style here betrays a strong trace of Little Richard, but it’s unfair to accuse him of imitating or lifting wholesale from his idol.
In its confidence and assertiveness, McCartney’s high-octane style is most assuredly his own. The basic, R&B-derived melody is effectively counterpointed with one of the briefer Beatle bridges on record, in which the Beatles detour into some non- blues chords and melodies for just a few bars before returning to the main thrust of the tune.
McCartney, while devoting most of the words to celebration and praise of his woman, throws in a couple of phrases as evidence that he’s starting to think in more sophisticated terms, particularly the line “turns me on when I get lonely” (a very, very early use of “turn me on” slang). There’s also the declaration that his love doesn’t buy him presents, even though she’s no peasant.
Peasant’s an unusual word to use in a pop song no matter what the era, and McCartney’s value of true love over money (as previously also stated in “Can’t Buy Me Love”) is eternally hip. George Harrison executes a crafty blues-rock solo with a touch of country influence that’s, as was his wont, just right for the song at hand.
The ending is uncommonly unimaginative for a Beatles track, with McCartney repeating the title phrase several times over a fade; a more basic alternate take exists (on bootleg) in which he extends this section by improvising on that title line for a few minutes. He’d have to wait until “Hey Jude,” however, to take that approach to the multi-extended fade onto an official single.
As a rabble-rousing rocker, “She’s a Woman” was a natural for the Beatles’ live shows; a 1965 version was recorded for their The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl album, and it was still part of their set on their final world tour in 1966. The most famous, or notorious, cover of “She’s a Woman” was done by Jeff Beck in the mid-’70s, employing a voicebox on his guitar to sing-play the lyrics.
That version was an FM radio favorite for a while, and subsequently sometimes scorned (as were Peter Frampton’s voicebox-heavy tracks) as an example of mid-’70s hard rock excess.
Appears On
Rating
Year
Album
Length
Label
1964 Beatles ’65
2:57 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
No Reply, I’ll Follow the Sun, I Feel Fine
196Z Beatles in Italy EMI
1977 Live at the Hollywood Bowl 2:47 Capitol
1984 The Compleat Beatles [Video] MGM
1988 Past Masters, Vol. 1
3:03 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, I Feel Fine, I’m Down
1988 Past Masters, Vols. 1 & 2 Capitol
1988 The Beatles Box Set [1988] 3:03 Capitol
1988 Ultra Rare Trax, Vol. 1 The Swingin’ Pig
1989 Documents, Vol. 2 6:31 Oh Boy
1989 Five Nights in a Judo Arena Swingin’ Pig
1989 Hold Me Tight 6:34 Condor
1989 Ultra Rare Trax, Vol. 6 6:32 The Swingin’ Pig
1989 Unsurpassed Masters, Vol. 2 (1964-1965) Yellow Dog
1991 British Rock: 1st Wave [video] RCA
1991 I Feel Fine/She’s a Woman Capitol
1992 Ready Steady Go!, Vol. 3 [Video] Pioneer
1992 The Beatles Box Set [1992] Capitol
1993 Artifacts, 1958-1970 6:32 Big Music
1993 Compact Disc Singles Collection 3:01 Capitol
1994 Artifacts II 1960-1969 3:19 Big Music
1994 Complete BBC Sessions Great Dane
1994 Live at the BBC 3:14 Apple/Capitol
AMG Track Picks
I’ll Be on My Way, Soldier of Love (Lay Down Your Arms)
1996 Anthology 2
2:54 Apple/Capitol
AMG Track Picks
Yes It Is, If You’ve Got Trouble, That Means a Lot, I’m Looking Through You, Strawberry Fields Forever
1996 Anthology Video, Vol. 5 Apple
1998 Live in Japan 2:52 Walrus
1999 CD Singles Collection
3:01 EMI
AMG Track Picks
We Can Work It Out, Paperback Writer, Strawberry Fields Forever, Don’t Let Me Down, I Am the Walrus, I’m Down, Ticket to Ride, She’s a Woman, Revolution, All You Need Is Love
1999 EP Boxset 3:05 EMI
2001 Beatles Story CTA
2003 Around the World Import
2004 The Capitol Albums, Vol. 1 3:01 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
I Want to Hold Your Hand, It Won’t Be Long, I Wanna Be Your Man, Roll Over Beethoven, You Can’t Do That, She Loves You, I’ll Cry Instead, Things We Said Today, And I Love Her, No Reply, I’m a Loser, She’s a Woman, I Feel Fine
2009 The Beatles: Stereo Box Set Capitol
Budokan Concert VAP Inport
Concerts 1964-66 [DVD]
Unauthorised Live, Vol. 1 Joker
You know your music – so do we. THE ALLMUSIC BLOG
I’m Down
The Beatles
Composed By
John Lennon/Paul McCartney All Performers that have performed this Title
Song Review by Richie Unterberger
“I’m Down,” the B-side of “Help!,” was one of the most frantic rockers in the entire Beatles catalog. The very first line — sung a cappella by the principal writer, Paul McCartney — was about as larynx-twisting an upper-register, non-falsetto vocal as was possible in rock music.
Critics have often noted that the vocal and the song itself are very much in the Little Richard style, and some see it as little more than a rewrite of Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally.” It’s true there are some similarities between “I’m Down” and “Long Tall Sally,” but it’s not just a blatant copy.
For one thing, there are the great call-and-response vocals between McCartney and the other Beatles, as well as the sudden jerky shifts in tempo in which the instruments periodically stop altogether. George Harrison lets loose with one of his patented bluesy, slightly disheveled, growling guitar solos, and then it’s back to a final verse where McCartney really climbs the high notes for emphasis.
That done with, it’s time for one of the group’s more crazed and elongated fadeouts, kicked off by a hair-raising McCartney scream, then settling into more vocal trades between him and the group as well as some wild organ playing by John Lennon. Although The Beatles Recording Sessions tells listeners that seven takes were completed at the session, the song has a wonderfully loose, almost jammy feel.
Listen to the part where McCartney starts the final verse, for instance, and his first line is answered with a lazy, almost diffident guitar sliding slowly up the low notes. Not that it hurts the song any, but there’s a contradiction between the mood of the lyrics — ostensibly a guy down in the dumps about being dumped — and the delivery.
McCartney does not sound down in the dumps; he sounds like he’s having the time of his life, with an energy that’s incredibly infectious. “I’m Down” was a great live favorite of the Beatles’ mid-’60s shows, as seen in the famous footage of their 1965 Shea Stadium concert, which closed with an especially wild performance of the song.
There have not been many covers of “I’m Down”; indeed, for years it was surprisingly hard to hear, as it didn’t get issued on a Beatles LP until the mid-’70s. There were a couple of surprising attempts, however, one a live version (recorded in 1966, released in the 1980s) by the 13th Floor Elevators, with Roky Erickson contributing a demented lead vocal that was grating where McCartney’s was uplifting. Even more surprisingly, Yes, a group not known for rock-’em-sock-’em party tunes, did “I’m Down” in concert.
Appears On
Rating
Year
Album
Length
Label
1976 Rock & Roll Music 2:32 Capitol
1980 Rock & Roll Music, Vol. 2 2:38 Capitol
1988 Past Masters, Vol. 1 2:31 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, I Feel Fine, I’m Down
1988 Past Masters, Vols. 1 & 2 Capitol
1988 The Beatles Box Set [1988] 2:31 Capitol
1989 Five Nights in a Judo Arena Swingin’ Pig
1991 Help/I’m Down Capitol
1993 Artifacts, 1958-1970 2:18 Big Music
1993 Compact Disc Singles Collection 2:33 Capitol
1996 Anthology 2 2:53 Apple/Capitol
AMG Track Picks
Yes It Is, If You’ve Got Trouble, That Means a Lot, I’m Looking Through You, Strawberry Fields Forever
1996 Anthology Video, Vol. 5 Apple
1998 Live in Japan 3:40 Walrus
1999 CD Singles Collection 2:33 EMI
AMG Track Picks
We Can Work It Out, Paperback Writer, Strawberry Fields Forever, Don’t Let Me Down, I Am the Walrus, I’m Down, Ticket to Ride, She’s a Woman, Revolution, All You Need Is Love
2001 Beatles Story CTA
2003 Around the World Import
2008 Cartoons Brainmade
2009 The Beatles: Stereo Box Set Capitol
Budokan Concert VAP Inport
Concerts 1964-66 [DVD]
Unauthorised Live, Vol. 1 Joker
Video Scrapbook Encore Entertainment Imprort
You know your music – so do we. THE ALLMUSIC BLOG
You Can’t Do That
The Beatles
Composed By
John Lennon/Paul McCartney All Performers that have performed this Title
Song Review by Richie Unterberger
As the B-side to “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “You Can’t Do That” was a worthy companion to the more well-known hit, particularly as it was also one of the Beatles’ grittiest and hardest-rocking early originals. The track was introduced by a ringing, circular George Harrison guitar lick that marked the first time he played 12-string electric guitar on a Beatles recording — an innovation that would figure strongly not just in the Beatles’ mid-’60s records, but also in the development of folk-rock.
Rhythmically the song has a funkier, more soulful beat than anything else the Beatles had previously done, perhaps sparked by increased exposure to American soul music as the group began to tour the U.S. John Lennon, in fact, specifically cited Wilson Pickett as an inspiration for the song, although since Pickett had barely begun to record under his own name when “You Can’t Do That” was written in early 1964, one wonders if Lennon was influenced by Pickett only in hindsight.
The song had no shortage of dynamite hooks, particularly the insistent stuttering beats at the end of each verse and bridge, the thrilling soulful responsive harmonies that answer Lennon’s lead vocal, and the dramatic rising harmony vocals that accompany Lennon on the bridge.
Lennon lets loose with one of his all-time great screams to launch the instrumental break, in which he makes his debut as a lead guitarist on a Beatles record, with crunchy, frenetic riffing that suits the tune well. Listen also for the very end, in which a reprise of the principal 12-string guitar riff suddenly slows to a crawl for the last three notes.
Lyrically this is one of the toughest Lennon- McCartney songs, principally written by Lennon , and verging almost on misogyny in its threats to leave a girl if she so much as talks to another guy. There’s an underlying note of insecurity, however, in his laments that others will laugh in his face if they see her acting the way she does.
“You Can’t Do That” was honored with a most unusual cover version by Nilsson a few years later on his debut album, in which he did not so much sing “You Can’t Do That” as use its main motifs for the body of a track which interwove brief phrases from other Beatles classics like “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Day Tripper,” “You’re Going to Lose That Girl,” and “Drive My Car.”
Appears On
Rating
Year
Album
Length
Label
1964 A Hard Day’s Night [UK] 2:37 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
A Hard Day’s Night, I Should Have Known Better, And I Love Her, Can’t Buy Me Love
1964 The Beatles Beat Odeon
1964 The Beatles’ Second Album 2:23 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
You Can’t Do That, I’ll Get You, She Loves You
1976 Rock & Roll Music 2:37 Capitol
1980 Rock & Roll Music, Vol. 1 2:33 Capitol
1988 The Beatles Box Set [1988] 2:37 Capitol
1990 Ready Steady Go!, Vol. 1 [Video] Pioneer
1991 Can’t Buy Me Love/You Can’t Do That Capitol
1993 Artifacts, 1958-1970 2:38 Big Music
1993 Compact Disc Singles Collection 2:34 Capitol
1994 Complete BBC Sessions Great Dane
1994 Complete BBC Sessions Great Dane
1994 The Making of a Hard Day’s Night MPI
1995 Anthology 1 2:42 Apple/Capitol
AMG Track Picks
Free as a Bird, Ain’t She Sweet, One After 909, All My Loving, A Hard Day’s Night, Leave My Kitten Alone
1999 CD Singles Collection 2:34 EMI
AMG Track Picks
We Can Work It Out, Paperback Writer, Strawberry Fields Forever, Don’t Let Me Down, I Am the Walrus, I’m Down, Ticket to Ride, She’s a Woman, Revolution, All You Need Is Love
199Z The Get Back Journals VigoTone
2001 Beatles Story CTA
2001 The Beatles Beat: The Beatles Sessions [Bootleg] Odeon Bootleg
2004 The Capitol Albums, Vol. 1 2:40 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
I Want to Hold Your Hand, It Won’t Be Long, I Wanna Be Your Man, Roll Over Beethoven, You Can’t Do That, She Loves You, I’ll Cry Instead, Things We Said Today, And I Love Her, No Reply, I’m a Loser, She’s a Woman, I Feel Fine
2009 The Beatles: Stereo Box Set Capitol
It’s All in the Mind Y’know Beat
The Beatles, Vol. 3 Beat/Cool Daddy
The Beatles: 16 Superhits, Vol. 3 2:36 Dorado
You know your music – so do we. THE ALLMUSIC BLOG
Revolution
The Beatles
Composed By
John Lennon/Paul McCartney All Performers that have performed this Title
Song Review
by Richie Unterberger
As the B-side of “Hey Jude,” “Revolution” formed one-half of a worthy contender for the best rock single of all time. As with another contender, “Penny Lane”/ “Strawberry Fields Forever,” each side represented one of the best and most characteristic songwriting efforts by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, respectively (even if they were billed to Lennon- McCartney jointly, out of contractual custom).
“Revolution” was, of course, quite different in tone from “Hey Jude,” one of the group’s best ballads. In contrast, “Revolution” was one of their greatest, most furious rockers, also featuring some of Lennon’s most challenging, fiery lyrics. It must first be noted that two entirely different arrangements of “Revolution” were recorded and released.
A slow one with doo wop-inspired harmonies, officially titled “Revolution 1,” appeared on The Beatles (popularly known as the White Album); the faster and, most would agree, superior version appeared on the B-side of the “Hey Jude” single. The song described here will be the single version, simply entitled “Revolution.”
Leading off with a startling machine-gun fuzz guitar riff and a scream, the heart immediately starts pounding before Lennon goes into the first verse. (Trivia note: An obscure 1954 recording by bluesman Pee Wee Crayton, “Do Unto Others,” has an opening riff that sounds almost identical to the riff that opens “Revolution.”
Coincidence, or not?) Combining one of his throatiest vocals and the consistently buzzing, fuzzy guitars, you have one of the most down-and-dirty Beatles tracks ever.
In “Revolution,” Lennon seems to be questioning, quite reasonably, the validity of changing the world through violent means. He was setting himself up for criticism from all sides here, particularly in the turbulent year of 1968: the establishment was angered by anyone talking about “Revolution” in any context, while some of the left viewed refusal to overthrow society by any means necessary as a cowardly sellout.
Lennon is quite emphatic, however, that when it comes to violence, you can count him out. (Typically, he would sit on the fence on this issue over the years, and in “Revolution 1,” qualify his observation by immediately singing the word “in” after declaring that he could be counted out.)
Characteristically, optimism prevails in the Beatles’ world, even when taking on one of the most explosive subjects possible, as on the uplifting chorus (helped greatly by harmony vocals), when the group urgently and repeatedly reassures listeners that everything’s going to be all right.
Those reassurances become sing-shouts in the final refrain, though the loud guitar figures in the background imply that everything might not be all right, as does a final near-hysterical repetition of the phrase by Lennon. “Revolution,” incidentally, was one of the few Beatles tracks to feature a contribution from an outside rock session musician, Nicky Hopkins, who adds ebullient keyboards to the performance.
Appears On
Rating
Year
Album
Length
Label
1968 Hey Jude [Single] Apple
1970 Hey Jude
3:21 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
Paperback Writer, Hey Jude, Old Brown Shoe
1973 1967-1970
3:25 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, I Am the Walrus, Hey Jude, Don’t Let Me Down, Here Comes the Sun, Something
1976 Rock & Roll Music 3:24 Capitol
1980 Rock & Roll Music, Vol. 2 3:21 Capitol
1984 The Compleat Beatles [Video] MGM
1988 Imagine: John Lennon [Original Soundtrack]
3:22 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
Real Love, In My Life, The Ballad of John and Yoko, Jealous Guy, (Just Like) Starting Over, Imagine
1988 Past Masters, Vol. 2
3:24 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
Day Tripper, We Can Work It Out, Rain, Hey Jude
1988 Past Masters, Vols. 1 & 2 Capitol
1988 The Beatles Box Set [1988] 3:24 Capitol
1989 Ultra Rare Trax, Vol. 5 3:19 The Swingin’ Pig
1991 Hey Jude/Revolution Capitol
1991 Unsurpassed Masters, Vol. 7 (1962-1969) Yellow Dog
1993 Artifacts, 1958-1970 3:19 Big Music
1993 Compact Disc Singles Collection 3:22 Capitol
1993 Unsurpassed Demos Yellow Dog
1994 Artifacts II 1960-1969 3:58 Big Music
1994 Revolution Vigotone
1996 Anthology Video, Vol. 8 Apple
1999 CD Singles Collection
3:22 EMI
AMG Track Picks
We Can Work It Out, Paperback Writer, Strawberry Fields Forever, Don’t Let Me Down, I Am the Walrus, I’m Down, Ticket to Ride, She’s a Woman, Revolution, All You Need Is Love
199Z The Get Back Journals VigoTone
2000 Imagine: John Lennon [Japan] 3:24 EMI
2006 LOVE [Bonus DVD] 2:14 Capitol/Apple
2006 LOVE 2:14 Capitol/Apple
AMG Track Picks
Drive My Car/The Word/What You’re Doing, Strawberry Fields Forever, Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows, While My Guitar Gently Weeps
2008 LOVE [Special Edition] EMD Int’l
2009 The Beatles: Stereo Box Set Capitol
You know your music – so do we. THE ALLMUSIC BLOG
Abbey Road
The Beatles
Artist
The Beatles
Album
Abbey Road
Rating *****
Release Date
Sep 26, 1969
Label
Capitol
Genre Styles
Pop/Rock
Album Rock
Rock & Roll
Pop/Rock
British Psychedelia
Psychedelic
Sunshine Pop
Prog-Rock/ Art Rock
AM Pop
Hard Rock
Moods Themes
Whimsical
Naive
Elegant
Sophisticated
Cheerful
Freewheeling
Complex
Brassy
Fun
Romantic
Bittersweet
Sweet
Refined/ Mannered
Brash
Laid-Back/ Mellow
Hypnotic
Intimate
Self-Conscious
Lush
Energetic
Passionate
Road Trip
Reflection
Summertime
Housework
AMG Album ID
R 1525
Corrections to this Entry?
Review by Richie Unterberger
The last Beatles album to be recorded (although Let It Be was the last to be released), Abbey Road was a fitting swan song for the group, echoing some of the faux-conceptual forms of Sgt. Pepper, but featuring stronger compositions and more rock-oriented ensemble work. The group was still pushing forward in all facets of its art, whether devising some of the greatest harmonies to be heard on any rock record (especially on “Because”), constructing a medley of songs/vignettes that covered much of side two, adding subtle touches of Moog synthesizer, or crafting furious guitar-heavy rock (“The End,” “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” “Come Together”).
George Harrison also blossomed into a major songwriter, contributing the buoyant “Here Comes the Sun” and the supremely melodic ballad “Something,” the latter of which became the first Harrison-penned Beatles hit. Whether Abbey Road is the Beatles’ best work is debatable, but it’s certainly the most immaculately produced (with the possible exception of Sgt. Pepper) and most tightly constructed.
Tracks
Title
Composer
Time
1 Come Together Lennon, McCartney 04:20
2 Something Harrison 03:02
3 Maxwell’s Silver Hammer Lennon, McCartney 03:27
4 Oh! Darling Lennon, McCartney 03:26
5 Octopus’s Garden Starkey, Starr 02:51
6 I Want You (She’s So Heavy) Lennon, McCartney 07:47
7 Here Comes the Sun Harrison 03:05
8 Because Lennon, McCartney 02:45
9 You Never Give Me Your Money Lennon, McCartney 04:02
10 Sun King Lennon, McCartney 02:26
11 Mean Mr. Mustard Lennon, McCartney 01:06
12 Polythene Pam Lennon, McCartney 01:12
13 She Came in Through the Bathroom Window Lennon, McCartney 01:57
14 Golden Slumbers Lennon, McCartney 01:31
15 Carry That Weight Lennon, McCartney 01:36
16 The End Lennon, McCartney 02:19
17 Her Majesty Lennon, McCartney 00:23
indicates Track Pick
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You know your music – so do we. THE ALLMUSIC BLOG
I Feel Fine
The Beatles Send to Friend
Composed By
John Lennon/Paul McCartney All Performers that have performed this Title
Song Review by Richie Unterberger
“I Feel Fine” was a typically first-class 1964 Beatles single, topping the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. It was distinguished from its predecessors by a more complex guitar sound, particularly in its introduction, a sustained plucked electric note that after a few seconds swelled in volume and buzzed like an electric razor.
This was the very first use of feedback on a rock record. It’s been claimed that others (such as the Who, the Yardbirds, and Creation guitarist Eddie Phillips) had developed guitar feedback, or something approximating it, live before the Beatles did “I Feel Fine.” It seems inarguable, however, that the Beatles were the first to use it on disc; probably no other group had the clout to get away with that experiment in late 1964.
Anyway, the brief feedback was but a preamble to a bubbly Beatles song paced by a brilliantly active and difficult George Harrison guitar riff, inspired perhaps by a similar line in obscure soul singer Bobby Parker’s 1961 single “Watch Your Step.”
Ringo Starr deserves commendation himself for the series of four urgent drum beats that kicks off both the first verse ( after Harrison has gone through the principal riff) and the return to the verse after the instrumental break.
The singing, as usual, was John and Paul’s show primarily, with particularly sumptuous harmonies counterpointing John’s lead in the bridge. Rather than coming to a cold stop after the last chorus, an unaccompanied electric guitar continues to noodle as Lennon wordlessly scats, while the Beatles faintly bark (like dogs, yes) in the background — another imaginative ending from a group that used them often.
Lennon, the more prominent songwriter than McCartney on “I Feel Fine,” has rightly been noted as having the more doubtful and pessimistic view of the pair in his lyrics, even in the early days.
There’s no trace of doubt or pessimism, however, in “I Feel Fine,” which certainly is one of his most positive and optimistic musical statements.
Appears On
Rating
Year
Album
Length
Label
1964 Beatles ’65 2:20 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
No Reply, I’ll Follow the Sun, I Feel Fine
1965 The Beatles’ Million Sellers [EP] Parlophone
1966 A Collection of Beatles Oldies 2:21 Parlophone
196Z Beatles in Italy EMI
1973 1962-1966 2:19 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
Please Please Me, I Want to Hold Your Hand, A Hard Day’s Night, Ticket to Ride, Help!, We Can Work It Out, In My Life, Paperback Writer
1982 The 20 Greatest Hits 2:20 Capitol
1988 Past Masters, Vol. 1 2:19 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, I Feel Fine, I’m Down
1988 Past Masters, Vols. 1 & 2 Capitol
1988 The Beatles Box Set [1988] 2:19 Capitol
1989 Documents, Vol. 2 5:50 Oh Boy
1989 Five Nights in a Judo Arena Swingin’ Pig
1989 Ultra Rare Trax, Vol. 4 The Swingin’ Pig
1989 Unsurpassed Masters, Vol. 2 (1964-1965) Yellow Dog
1991 I Feel Fine/She’s a Woman Capitol
1991 Unsurpassed Masters, Vol. 7 (1962-1969) Yellow Dog
1992 The Beatles Box Set [1992] Capitol
1993 Artifacts, 1958-1970 2:51 Big Music
1993 Compact Disc Singles Collection 2:24 Capitol
1994 Artifacts II 1960-1969 2:25 Big Music
1994 Complete BBC Sessions Great Dane
1994 Live at the BBC 2:12 Apple/Capitol
AMG Track Picks
I’ll Be on My Way, Soldier of Love (Lay Down Your Arms)
1996 Anthology 2 2:15 Apple/Capitol
AMG Track Picks
Yes It Is, If You’ve Got Trouble, That Means a Lot, I’m Looking Through You, Strawberry Fields Forever
1996 Anthology Video, Vol. 5 Apple
1998 Live in Japan 2:19 Walrus
1999 CD Singles Collection 2:24 EMI
AMG Track Picks
We Can Work It Out, Paperback Writer, Strawberry Fields Forever, Don’t Let Me Down, I Am the Walrus, I’m Down, Ticket to Ride, She’s a Woman, Revolution, All You Need Is Love
1999 EP Boxset 2:22 EMI
1999 Forever Gold 2:22 Diamond
2000 1 2:18 Apple/Capitol
AMG Track Picks
She Loves You, I Feel Fine, Ticket to Ride, We Can Work It Out, Penny Lane, Hey Jude, Something
2001 Beatles Story CTA
2003 Around the World Import
2004 The Capitol Albums, Vol. 1 2:23 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
I Want to Hold Your Hand, It Won’t Be Long, I Wanna Be Your Man, Roll Over Beethoven, You Can’t Do That, She Loves You, I’ll Cry Instead, Things We Said Today, And I Love Her, No Reply, I’m a Loser, She’s a Woman, I Feel Fine
2006 Tribute to the Beatles: The Essential Collection 2:13 Red Box
AMG Track Picks
Day Tripper, I Feel Fine, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Paperback Writer
2008 Cartoons Brainmade
2009 The Beatles: Stereo Box Set Capitol
Budokan Concert VAP Inport
Concerts 1964-66 [DVD]
Unauthorised Live, Vol. 1 Joker
You know your music – so do we. THE ALLMUSIC BLOG
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I Feel Fine
The Beatles Send to Friend
Composed By Other Links
John Lennon/Paul McCartney All Performers that have performed this Title
Song Review by Richie Unterberger
“I Feel Fine” was a typically first-class 1964 Beatles single, topping the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. It was distinguished from its predecessors by a more complex guitar sound, particularly in its introduction, a sustained plucked electric note that after a few seconds swelled in volume and buzzed like an electric razor. This was the very first use of feedback on a rock record. It’s been claimed that others (such as the Who, the Yardbirds, and Creation guitarist Eddie Phillips) had developed guitar feedback, or something approximating it, live before the Beatles did “I Feel Fine.” It seems inarguable, however, that the Beatles were the first to use it on disc; probably no other group had the clout to get away with that experiment in late 1964. Anyway, the brief feedback was but a preamble to a bubbly Beatles song paced by a brilliantly active and difficult George Harrison guitar riff, inspired perhaps by a similar line in obscure soul singer Bobby Parker’s 1961 single “Watch Your Step.” Ringo Starr deserves commendation himself for the series of four urgent drum beats that kicks off both the first verse ( after Harrison has gone through the principal riff) and the return to the verse after the instrumental break. The singing, as usual, was John and Paul’s show primarily, with particularly sumptuous harmonies counterpointing John’s lead in the bridge. Rather than coming to a cold stop after the last chorus, an unaccompanied electric guitar continues to noodle as Lennon wordlessly scats, while the Beatles faintly bark (like dogs, yes) in the background — another imaginative ending from a group that used them often. Lennon, the more prominent songwriter than McCartney on “I Feel Fine,” has rightly been noted as having the more doubtful and pessimistic view of the pair in his lyrics, even in the early days. There’s no trace of doubt or pessimism, however, in “I Feel Fine,” which certainly is one of his most positive and optimistic musical statements.
Appears On
Rating
Year
Album
Length
Label
1964 Beatles ’65 2:20 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
No Reply, I’ll Follow the Sun, I Feel Fine
1965 The Beatles’ Million Sellers [EP] Parlophone
1966 A Collection of Beatles Oldies 2:21 Parlophone
196Z Beatles in Italy EMI
1973 1962-1966 2:19 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
Please Please Me, I Want to Hold Your Hand, A Hard Day’s Night, Ticket to Ride, Help!, We Can Work It Out, In My Life, Paperback Writer
1982 The 20 Greatest Hits 2:20 Capitol
1988 Past Masters, Vol. 1 2:19 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, I Feel Fine, I’m Down
1988 Past Masters, Vols. 1 & 2 Capitol
1988 The Beatles Box Set [1988] 2:19 Capitol
1989 Documents, Vol. 2 5:50 Oh Boy
1989 Five Nights in a Judo Arena Swingin’ Pig
1989 Ultra Rare Trax, Vol. 4 The Swingin’ Pig
1989 Unsurpassed Masters, Vol. 2 (1964-1965) Yellow Dog
1991 I Feel Fine/She’s a Woman Capitol
1991 Unsurpassed Masters, Vol. 7 (1962-1969) Yellow Dog
1992 The Beatles Box Set [1992] Capitol
1993 Artifacts, 1958-1970 2:51 Big Music
1993 Compact Disc Singles Collection 2:24 Capitol
1994 Artifacts II 1960-1969 2:25 Big Music
1994 Complete BBC Sessions Great Dane
1994 Live at the BBC 2:12 Apple/Capitol
AMG Track Picks
I’ll Be on My Way, Soldier of Love (Lay Down Your Arms)
1996 Anthology 2 2:15 Apple/Capitol
AMG Track Picks
Yes It Is, If You’ve Got Trouble, That Means a Lot, I’m Looking Through You, Strawberry Fields Forever
1996 Anthology Video, Vol. 5 Apple
1998 Live in Japan 2:19 Walrus
1999 CD Singles Collection 2:24 EMI
AMG Track Picks
We Can Work It Out, Paperback Writer, Strawberry Fields Forever, Don’t Let Me Down, I Am the Walrus, I’m Down, Ticket to Ride, She’s a Woman, Revolution, All You Need Is Love
1999 EP Boxset 2:22 EMI
1999 Forever Gold 2:22 Diamond
2000 1 2:18 Apple/Capitol
AMG Track Picks
She Loves You, I Feel Fine, Ticket to Ride, We Can Work It Out, Penny Lane, Hey Jude, Something
2001 Beatles Story CTA
2003 Around the World Import
2004 The Capitol Albums, Vol. 1 2:23 Capitol
AMG Track Picks
I Want to Hold Your Hand, It Won’t Be Long, I Wanna Be Your Man, Roll Over Beethoven, You Can’t Do That, She Loves You, I’ll Cry Instead, Things We Said Today, And I Love Her, No Reply, I’m a Loser, She’s a Woman, I Feel Fine
2006 Tribute to the Beatles: The Essential Collection 2:13 Red Box
AMG Track Picks
Day Tripper, I Feel Fine, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Paperback Writer
2008 Cartoons Brainmade
2009 The Beatles: Stereo Box Set Capitol
Budokan Concert VAP Inport
Concerts 1964-66 [DVD]
Unauthorised Live, Vol. 1 Joker
SunSport Columnists Exclusive
Roger’s journey with The Who By SIMON COSYNS
Published: 21 Dec 2007
HIS blond curls are way shorter than the lion’s mane of his Tommy days.
But there’s no mistaking the iconic singer sitting opposite me – The Who’s Roger Daltrey.
At 63, he looks in fine fettle. He comes across as thoughtful, perceptive yet prone to throwing his head back in peels of laughter when recounting the good times.
To celebrate the brilliant new DVD, Amazing Journey: The Story Of The Who, Roger takes SFTW through the highs and lows of his own amazing journey. He talks about how music became his passion, how he met The Who’s other members – Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon – how they became superstars and the time he got expelled from the band after a ruck with Moon.
Out now … DVD
He says rock opera Tommy was the band’s defining moment. He remembers performing at Woodstock in 1969 and talks about the thrill of playing Glastonbury this year. He speaks of his sadness at the early deaths of Moon and Entwistle but says their spirit lives on in The Who today. On the DVD, through countless interviews and fantastic footage, you can follow the story of a Great British Band but here we get the remarkably candid views of its singer.
I’M A BOY
Roger Harry Daltrey was born on March 1, 1944, during an air raid.
What was it like in the late Forties and early Fifties?
It was post-war England. People say “everyone was very poor” but I never felt we were poor. We had an incredible social structure that supported us. The neighbourhood was working class Shepherds Bush. My life was really good up to when I passed my 11-plus. From then on, it all turned to s**t!
Why was that?
My parents moved to Chiswick which is, as the crow flies, probably no more than a mile and a half away, a much more dormant neighbourhood, more of a suburb. I had to move to Acton County Grammar School which took in kids from middle class areas. I’d never met a middle class person in my bloody life! They were talking a foreign language.
Did you become a tearaway?
No, I didn’t. First of all, I shut off and then I started getting a little bit bullied ‘cos I’m a little bloke. I had a terrible, terrible explosive temper. One time I got bullied, I lost my temper and I went off like a firework. When I was a strong young man, it was terrifying. It used to frighten me ‘cos I didn’t used to know what I became but people backed off. From then on, I got a reputation as a tearaway but I don’t think I knowingly picked on anyone. I just loved to fight . . . that’s what boys did.
ANYWAY, ANYHOW, ANYWHERE
After discovering Elvis, all Roger wanted to do was hear music and play it – anyway, anyhow, anywhere.
You discovered you could sing?
Yeah, I had perfect pitch. I didn’t know what perfect pitch was but I actually had it, which was a help! Then when I saw Elvis it was just “f*** me, what’s that?” He turned my head. It was like watching someone from outer space. I said to my teacher: “Did you see Elvis on the TV?” and he said: “It was bloody disgusting, wasn’t it?” That did it!
Curly look … Daltrey
Who else made an impact?
Well, Elvis made me notice “that’s a good thing to do” but Lonnie Donegan made me realise “I can do that”.
You played guitar in your first band?
The skiffle thing was taking off. I just had to get a guitar. We couldn’t afford to buy one so I bought some wood and some guitar strings and made one. It wasn’t very good, like playing a cheesewire, but it taught me. It made the noise of a guitar and I could play, relatively in tune, the first three chords that anyone needed for most skiffle songs.
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT
Teenage Roger was expelled from school and had to get a job. By day, he was an apprentice sheet metal worker, by night he played guitar.
How did your band progress?
We got our skiffle group together but my first guitar folded up within three to four months. It literally couldn’t stand the strain on the strings. The second one was quite reasonable. Someone at my dad’s work had a guitar and we copied it. It was a big step up and allowed me to go on playing.
Influential … The Who
Did you write your own stuff or was it all covers?
It was all copy, copy, copy, copy. We went through the Buddy Holly/Cliff Richard period and, all of a sudden, instead of acoustic guitars there was this spaceship, the Fender. Wow!
How was school by this point?
On my 15th birthday I was thrown out. They wanted to get rid of me and used the excuse that I was smoking. My mum and dad were devastated. In those days it was a big deal and, on reflection, I’m sad I didn’t learn more because I’m a bright bloke. But in a lot of ways it was the best day of my bloody life because I got out into the “real” world. I was not untalented and I was willing to work. The first job I did was for £2.50 a week in today’s money as an electrician’s mate. It was the winter of ’62 and, after six weeks, I thought “this is slavery”. It was also bloody freezing. I became a tea-boy and apprentice sheet metal worker.
But you still had these music ambitions burning inside you?
Oh, yeah, I was still playing every night at the boys’ club in the Goldhawk Road. I went from acoustic material into electric. My Fender was copied from a guitar shop window. They were more than £100 then. You could buy a house for £100. That’s how much money they were. My dad had to get the equivalent of a mortgage to buy my first factory-made guitar.
Following … girls came in tow
When did you think you could make a living out of music?
It was just a progression. We got “would you come and play my party?” and we’d say “yeah, all right”. By then we were The Detours. We were doing covers of whatever was in the charts. We had a Cliff Richard sound-a-like singer and I was the guitarist. We all did the leg movements like every band. It was wonderfully, innocently magical.
WHO ARE YOU
Things really began to take off for Roger when he met bassist John Entwistle, who introduced him to guitarist Pete Townshend. Then a certain larger-than-life drummer barged his way in.
How did you get to the next level?
John Entwistle joined. Our bass player left and I saw Entwistle walking down the street with a homemade bass. There was immediate kinship. I recognised John from Acton County Grammar. He was in a band, playing bass but also trumpet, doing trad jazz along with pop. In those days you did what people wanted.
Bass … John Entwistle
Did you feel something different when John joined?
What’s weird is how I remember John from school. I was a year older but I remember his character. He stuck out in a crowd. He had a wicked sense of humour and was a nice, quiet guy, a technically and immediately brilliant musician.
Then what happened?
Our rhythm guitarist left and John introduced Pete and again, when Pete joined, he stood out like a sore thumb. Of the 100 kids who came through that year, I remember those two.
Guitar and vocals …. Pete Townshend
What was Pete like then?
Same as he is now. He had a certainty about him. He knew that what he was going to do was always going to be different. I recognised that. As a musician, he just had it. I had a thing about making the music “drive” and he understood it. When it gets sloppy, it’s all over.
At what point did you have confidence to take over the singing?
Singers came and went. I started singing because we were let down by them getting drunk. Lead singers are f***ing temperamental, you know. So I started filling in for the singer as well as being the roadie. Driving the van was useful ‘cos I got to use it for all kinds of extra-curricular activities!
Did you meet girls as a musician?
Oh, mate, it was amazing. That’s all you want to do at that age. You just want to party every night. Go out and play music, dance, have fun and have women. It was easy access. Your brain doesn’t go any further at that age. It’s what we’re put here for. It was wonderful.
Drums … Keith Moon
How did Keith Moon come into the picture?
That was after The Beatles had arrived which was “whoa, whoa, whoa, this is all different.” We started doing their numbers and then we discovered Tamla Motown and the blues.
What other things did you play?
Lots of blues bands did Chuck Berry but we did Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker. They were doing the easy, accessible stuff but we were doing Smokestack Lightnin’. Imagine this 18-year-old Roger Daltrey singing Howlin’ Wolf songs, f***ing terrifying, frightening the women to death! I did quite a good impression.
Sell Out … third album
What was it like as the frontman?
Maybe because I don’t see the band at all (being out front), everything comes to me through a sixth sense. All I can tell you is that when Moon joined, we’d found the missing link. Our whole world changed.
Moon introduced himself by saying “He’s crap (about our drummer). I’m going to be your new drummer, can I have a go?” We started playing Bo Diddley’s Roadrunner and Moon got on the drums. All of a sudden, Moon started doubling the beat and this roar started up. Then there was Townshend with his rhythmic sense. It was magic, like putting the key into the most perfect Ferrari you’ve ever driven. With Entwistle and his melodic bass, everything gelled.
I CAN’T EXPLAIN
By the mid-Sixties, The Who’s blend of power chords and stirring melodies gave them that elusive, superstar quality and Roger and Co had turned from scruffs into sharp-suited Mods.
Who chose the name The Who?
A guy called Richard Barnes, a friend of Pete’s at art school, came up with it. We were throwing up all kinds of absurd names but we kept coming back to The Who. The sound of it is encompassing.
Can you explain your success?
I ask myself, “How did it come together, how?” It’s like Lennon and McCartney. The sound of their voices together was so unique. You think of all the billions of f***ing people on this planet, so how did they go on the stage and do what they did? There must be a God.
What about your image?
We were like most blues bands in London – long hair, scruffy, like the Stones, the Yardbirds, everyone. Then we met a guy who had worked for Andrew Oldham with the Stones and he understood the value of image and he recognised things were changing very, very fast. He recognised this new wave of youth culture coming through. The Mod era. He said: “They need spokesmen” and overnight we were turned from long-haired scruffs into Mods.
Mod era … band were at forefront
Didn’t Mods get terrible publicity during that period over their fights with Rockers?
You can’t judge what’s really going on by tabloid newspapers. You should know that! It was more about kids running around more than anything. It wasn’t like it is today with guns and knives. If anyone got killed, it was probably by accident. When you look back at the photographs, you see one copper on the beach with a truncheon chasing 500 Mods. it was more “let’s just cause a bit of havoc”. Every teenage group with that energy will do something.
Did The Who have screaming girls at that point?
Not in the early days but after Can’t Explain, yeah. It was the screaming era every band had on the way up. It was fun but the trouble for a performer when you’re that young and inexperienced, you start to judge your performance by the amount they scream. It’s nonsense, which is why Lennon gave up.
MY GENERATION
Songs like My Generation (“hope I die before I get old”) and The Kids Are Alright were rallying cries for Sixties youth everywhere. But Roger kept his feet on the ground.
How did you regard Pete’s classic early Who songs?
He had his finger on the pulse and we suddenly saw it. He’s always had the courage to break away from the norm.
What was it like when you first sang My Generation?
It was just another song, to be honest. I remember saying “this is a good song, Pete, let’s do this, yeah great”. But it’s only another song.
When were The Who first mentioned in the same breath as The Beatles and the Stones?
Well, people probably perceive it as being around the My Generation era but there was a fallow period after that. We had hit singles and we were a singles band. What cemented us with any kind of musical cred was Tommy.
A Quick One … fun
Pete developed the “concept album” with A Quick One.
A lot of it was to do with our producer Kit Lambert because his father was Constant Lambert, who founded Sadlers Wells. Pete and Kit used to talk about a pop single being great for three minutes but how it could be much more. A Quick One is a kind of mini-opera, basically a tribute to the pirate radio stations. It’s one of my favourite Who albums. So much fun.
TOMMY, CAN YOU HEAR ME
The revolutionary rock-opera concept album Tommy told the story of a deaf, dumb and blind kid who sure played a mean pinball. The Who came of age.
Iconic … Tommy
How did Tommy come into being?
Pete didn’t come with it. It just grew from one or two songs. Then it was going to be the story of a deaf, dumb and blind boy. “Oh, really!?” Again I just trusted that Pete could carry all before him. Each day, he would say “here’s another song” and we built it up in the studio.
How important was the album for you?
It was doubly important for me because in ’65, after My Generation, I got expelled from the band on our first tour of Europe. I had a ruck with Keith. The others had started taking amphetamines. I wasn’t because I’m a singer.
Start taking that stuff and the first thing that happens is your voice disappears. At the end of the tour, they were playing so bad, a f***ing racket. It was awful. I went in the dressing room and flushed the gear down the toilet. Moon went nuts. Of course, I was the wrong person to have a go at. Ended up in a huge brawl and I was thrown out for six to eight weeks.
On stage … Roger
How did you feel during that time you were out?
I thought “If they want to be like that, b******* to them. I started a band once and I’ll do it again”. I was never down about it but when I got the chance to go back, it was all I wanted. Once I was back in on parole, they made life miserable for me for the first year! Then in 1967, we went to America and bonded again, especially on the Herman’s Hermits tour. Even then, if you were the butt of some of Moon’s jokes, it wasn’t always very funny.
Tommy turned things around?
Once we started doing Tommy, I suddenly realised that I was singing about me. I’d been the deaf, dumb and blind boy. I’d become compressed into that character. So I had something. I came out of myself and thought “f*** it, I’m going to do it this way”.
What was it like playing the Tommy songs live?
Often when I come off stage, people will say: “God, you’re so unhappy, what’s the matter?” I’m actually not unhappy at all. I’m actually, in my life, very happy. I suggest that Pete writes songs from very complicated parts of our psyche and if I really want to inhabit a song, I have to go to where he’s been to sing the damn thing.
I CAN SEE FOR MILES
By the end of the Sixties, The Who were one of the world’s most celebrated live acts, playing to ever larger audiences, including Woodstock.
How did it feel playing to all those people?
It was an extraordinary period. It felt like it just happened overnight. We went from 500 people at a gig which was a big crowd in those days to 5,000. And we did Woodstock and we did the Isle Of Wight over here with Bob Dylan.
Prime … memorable summers
What was Woodstock like?
It was amazing to be there because it was one of the first concerts that had captured the public’s imagination. It was more than just a concert. It was a movement. Woodstock did change America’s thinking about the war. It was the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War but when people ask me about the show, my memory of it is that we weren’t very good.
Your shows got pretty long.
It’s always several hours. And it’s never half throttle.
The Who got a reputation for smashing things up on stage.
What people don’t get about the smashing thing is that wasn’t just violent destruction. It created sound you can only get by smashing instruments. Like Harrison Birtwistle got it from hoovers or boiling kettles.
WON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN
The early Seventies marked a purple patch with Live At Leeds and Who’s Next and Quadrophenia.
Who’s Next … ahead of its time
Who’s Next was a terrific album.
It was ahead of its time. People weren’t ready for it and it didn’t do very well initially. It was, “What’s this weird music?” It came off the back of Live At Leeds.
That’s regarded by some as the best live album ever.
Yet I was unhappy after Leeds. Like I say, the artist is always, “Oh, that could have been better” and I know Pete feels the same. I thought, “Oh f***, we were recording it”. But I can hear it now and say, “Yeah, we were quite good”.
Then, Quadrophenia revisited the Mod era.
You can hear Townshend’s progression in his writing and the classical qualities of Quadrophenia. To write a psychologically-driven musical without it being about “what you had for tea” was so, so clever.
It’s amazing how he got inside the character of Jimmy.
He’s always had that ability but I think Pete is the kind of guy who could possibly write some of his best work at the age he is now because of the way his brain works – with the immensity and complexity of his brain. And you have to have tremendous courage to do what he does.
YOU STAND BY ME
When Keith Moon died aged 32 in 1978, things were never the same. After many fallow years, punctuated by the occasional show and the sad early death of John Entwistle, the remaining members are back. New album Endless Wire appeared last year and this year they headlined Glastonbury.
Why was there such a long time when The Who didn’t happen?
I think other ego drives got in the way. The biggest problem in this business is the ego. It can collapse any artist. But the ego drops away, as with looks and everything else, and you become invisible. Then you can be happy just to be here.
On your recent album Endless Wire, there was this flicker of a new rock opera, wasn’t there?
I know that was Pete’s intention but listen to the album as a whole. It’s a wonderful opera. The album is you and me and everyone. That’s what’s so cool about it. I think it’s a great album but how the f*** do you get it heard in today’s world?
Finger on the pulse … Pete
It’s very difficult to get actual exposure for most bands.
We don’t even get played on Radio 2 and, if they don’t play you, you don’t get heard.
But you feel The Who is an ongoing project?
Very much. We’re enjoying ourselves. If Pete plays one of his songs, it will be this thing. If I play one of his songs, it will be another thing. When we play one of his songs together, it becomes The Who and that is so special. That ingredient, f*** knows what it is! It’s there and stronger than ever. I hope Pete enjoys it as much as I do ‘cos it’s just as good as sex.
Losing Keith and then, recently, John must have been hard.
Keith was so young and that was hard to deal with. With John, you saw it coming. You wouldn’t have changed him. He was a real rock ‘n’ roll character and that’s how he wanted to go and I’ve got to respect that. In some ways, I admire it because he made no compromises. I’m sure he knew what road he was on and didn’t give a toss. But I think the underlying reasons we carried on was the subconscious knowledge the music between the two of us, or the three of us with John, had the same drive as the music between the four of us. When either of us goes now, it’s going to be a solo act but that doesn’t matter. The spirit will carry on.
So, you’ve never reunited?
People keep saying ours’ is a reunion. Can we please, please have the luxury of giving up first? We would love to have the luxury of saying, “Oh f*** it, we’ve had enough, we’re giving up” and then we can reunite. I’m sick of being called the former singer of The Who.
How did you find Glastonbury?
Fantastic. Wonderful. We thought who the f***’s going to be there after three days of horrendous weather? It was like Paschendaele. The conditions were horrendous and you think no one is going to stay to the end. It was like the Seventies when the crowds got bigger.
You’re in The Who for life, aren’t you?
Yes. I’ve only ever wanted to be the singer in The Who.
I recently discovered your blog/website and have really enjoyed reading this and some of your other posts. I thought I would dive out from the shadows and leave my first comment. I am not sure what to say other than I have enjoyed reading and will continue to visit as often as I can.
Paul McCartney was always my favourite Beatle. Perhaps he was always destined for a lifetime of fame, as he has probably been the most prominent Beatle of them all.