GamesBeat

Not sure that all sales units are created equal here. Beatles Rock Band has 3 different retail price points, $250, $180, $50, compared to Halo 3's $50.

I just can't justify getting the game alone as I'll want the guitar controllers. If you get the whole kit it's over $500 with tax just for 2 guitars, the bass and drums-no mic and the game. That does not include a console. I expect it will drop in price for Xmas and thereafter.

Recession + high price points = lower sales than expected. Remember that the 18-35 demographic (particularly the 25-35 demographic) DOES know who the Beatles are and that the Beatles have a good following in that demographic, but that it is also the demographic hardest-hit (fresh out of college or grad school and/or freshly laid off from their first/second job) by the recession.

The Beatles are a 40 year band. Get real.

I was surprised when I saw a game coming up about one band, even if it was the Beatles. I suppose there isn't as much overlap in classic Beatles fans and Guitar Hero/Rockband players as we would like.

I dislike the Beatles intensely. More so for their being continuously brought up as if they are the most culturally relevant thing ever. They are ugly, pompous, untalented products of the beginning stages of modern media hype. Find an open crater and throw the footage in there and give us all a rest.

The Beatles (especially John and Paul were brilliant as singer song composers!) and they were *NOT* "average" musicians and untalented (yeah I can believe they were when they first started playing in the clubs in Hamburg Germany before they had played 8 hours a night for 2 years in a row and at The Cavern in Liverpool starting in 1960) John, George and Ringo were all very good and Paul Paul McCartney was and is rightfully considered one of the best rock bass players including by many well known accomplished bass players and rock artists,and he's always been a very good multi intstrumentalist and can play just about any instrument very well!


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 Da*n 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 panel 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 Hard 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 cr*p 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! Their cleaned up image was a fake image created by their manager in their early days.


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.John and Paul even wrote it right in front of them and Keith and Mick were like wow, how can you write a song just like that and it inspired them to start writing their own songs.


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 ands 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 !

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
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.




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)



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

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.

And George Martin himself said in an online interview I found around 2002 said that he has worked with many different music artists but that he has never known or worked with anyone as brilliant as The Beatles!


He says in his biography All You Need Is Ears refutes that he was the one who had most to do with The Beatles music. He admits most of the ideas came from them.


And if anyone ever reads the excellent book,The Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn which is a very detailed music diary of of every recording session in their amazing only 8 year career, which has interviews with their recording engineers,tape operators,George Martin quotes,and a very good interview with Paul in the beginning,they would see how truly creative,and innovative especially John and Paul were in the recording studio and that most of these great musicial ideas came from them.

George Martin was also once inerviewed on a rock station Beatles program and he said what is clearly obvious and true, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were incredibly talented people, they both were extrodinarily talented song composers and great singers.

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? Quiz

Artist Main:
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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.



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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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.

And John and Paul wrote one of The Rolling Stones first hits, I Wanna Be Your Man in late 1963 right in front of them. And Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were impressed and said wow,how can you write a song just like that and it inspired them to start writing their own songs.


John Lennon and Paul McCartney were such amazingly talented singer song writers that they were already writing hit songs for other artists as early as 1963 when their own song writing success was getting off the ground,besides The Rolling Stones,they also wrote hit songs in 1963 for Billy J.Krammer and The Dakatos,Celia Black,and Peter and Gordon etc.


Paul wrote his first song at age 14 and was playing guitar,John wrote heavy deep poetry but didn't start writing songs until he met Paul and was impressed that he wrote his own songs,and he too started to write his own songs at age 17,and they wrote together and never stopped from then on.Paul wrote the very pretty song I'll Follow The Sun at only 16!

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Tom Petty: what The Beatles mean to me
A one-time Traveling Wilbury speaks

Tom Petty, Fri 11 Sep 2009, 7:26 pm UTC


Petty honors George Harrison with Paul McCartney and Olivia Harrison (© C3396 Hubert Boesl/dpa/Corbis)

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"Most magic is a trick, an illusion. But [when The Beatles played the Ed Sullivan Show], this was real. Man oh man, was it real.

"I think the whole world was watching that night. It certainly felt that way - you just knew it, sitting in your living room, that everything around you was changing. It was like going from black-and-white to color. Really.

"I remember earlier that day, in fact, a kid on a bike passed me and said, 'Hey, The Beatles are on TV tonight.' I didn't know him, he didn't know me - and I thought to myself, This means something.

"[The Beatles] came out and just flattened me. To hear them on the radio was amazing enough, but to finally see them play, it was electrifying. They did those three songs at the top of the show and then you had to wait till the end for them to come back on. It felt like an eternity, watching these comedy skits and, like, guys spinning plates - and remember, this is the biggest show on TV, but to us kids, we wanted The Beatles, so to have to watch a guy spinning plates, it was total torture.

"Plus, the girls screaming, I never seen or heard anything like that in my life. Girls were going insane, crying and waving. You just knew the TV studio was being turned upside down.

"And they couldn't even hear themselves. The producers of the show didn't want amps in the shots - if you recall, it's just the Beatles and those big arrows pointing toward them - so all the band's gear was pushed to the sides. They didn't even have monitors! I suppose it was good practice for what they were going to face playing stadiums, when they really couldn't hear themselves!

"[At school] you either had a copy of Meet The Beatles or you didn't, and if you didn't it was like something was wrong with you. Come to think of it, that was the first time anLP was a significant thing. Up till then people only bought singles. But with Meet the Beatles, that was a record you really wanted to listen to - both sides of it.

"Changed happened so fast once The Beatles hit. I went to see a band in Gainesville [Florida], and it was The Escorts, Gregg and Duane Allman's first band. They were already pretty good, but what knocked me out was their hair - it was already long! This was only a few weeks after The Beatles played.

"I was into rock and roll before them, but they were the first band I saw where everything was so self-contained. They were so young and in control of what they were doing. They were the first people we could relate to who showed us that your dreams were within your reach. That's what I found so liberating about seeing The Beatles."

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Tom Petty: what The Beatles mean to me
A one-time Traveling Wilbury speaks

Tom Petty, Fri 11 Sep 2009, 7:26 pm UTC


Petty honors George Harrison with Paul McCartney and Olivia Harrison (© C3396 Hubert Boesl/dpa/Corbis)

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"Getting to know George and actually being in a band with him, that's one of those 'pinch me' moments in life.


"You try not to think about it, and there'd be times we'd all in the room playing together, and then out of nowhere it pops into your head, 'Oh my God, I'm playing with one of The Beatles!' That's usually when I'd hit a wrong chord.


"When you think about the '60s you can't not think The Beatles. George knew he was part of history, and he was pretty cool about it, as cool as a person could be, I imagine. I would ask him questions about what it was like, Shea Stadium, the Maharisi, Sgt Pepper - how could I not?


"The thing that surprised me, when I asked him about playing The Ed Sullivan Show, was how nervous he said they all were. 'Seventy-three million people,' he said. 'That's a pretty big gig.'


"I know I might sound jaded, but I don't think anything could ever grab us in quite the same way. Plus, they were really, really great."


Tom Petty's comments originally appeared in Guitar World magazine, 2004.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' newest release, The Live Anthology, will be issued on 10 November.



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Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora: what The Beatles mean to me
Guitar hero writes exclusively for MusicRadar

Richie Sambora, Wed 9 Sep 2009, 6:42 pm UTC


Seeing The Beatles made Sambora dream of becoming a rock star (© Scott McDermott/Corbis)

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"One of my earliest memories was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the living room of the house I grew up in and looking up at the black-and-white TV set and watching The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.


"I was five years old and I remembering thinking, 'Wow! That's what I want to do.' I know it sounds absurd - most five-year-old boys say they want to be firemen or policemen or baseball players, or even the president. Not me. I wanted to be one of The Beatles.


"They were the most incredible thing I ever saw. I couldn't put it into any kind of historical context at the time - I couldn't rank it with the Kennedy assassination or anything like that - but I knew, even at that young age, when I barely knew anything about anything, that I was witnessing something truly life-changing. And not just for me, but for everybody as well.


"Of course, they were just fun, too. Seeing The Beatles on TV was the biggest blast there was. Every one of their Ed Sullivan appearances was a major event. All those girls screaming and going batshit crazy - I guess the same thing happened with Elvis, but he was before my time. But seeing the kind of reaction The Beatles got from girls…hey, what guy wouldn't say, 'That's what I want!'?


"I always knew I wanted to be a rock star, and The Beatles set that in motion."
"My whole family was into them. I remember other kids' parents wouldn't let them watch The Beatles or buy their records; they wouldn't let them grow their hair. My parents weren't like that, thank God.


"I think it's because my parents were dancers - ballroom dancers - so there was always a lot of music in the house. They got The Beatles right off the bat. There was no age gap between me and my folks as far as The Fab Four were concerned. I was really lucky in that way. Other kids had to sneak around to listen to Beatles records, which I guess made it more of a taboo thing for them.


"I could never see The Beatles being considered off-limits, though. It's like banning great works of art just 'cause there's nudity or something - why would somebody want to do such a thing? The whole thing's crazy.


"I didn't get a guitar and join bands till much later - not till my early teens. But in my heart, I always knew I wanted to be a rock star, and The Beatles set that in motion. I used to stand in front of my bedroom mirror and play their records, doing air guitar before anybody even knew to call it air guitar."


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Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora: what The Beatles mean to me
Guitar hero writes exclusively for MusicRadar


Richie Sambora, Wed 9 Sep 2009, 6:42 pm UTC


"I don't think I had a favorite Beatle. Whoever sang a particular song, that was the Beatle I wanted to be. If it was a Help!, I was John. If it was Michelle or Sgt Pepper, I was Paul. I was probably George during all the guitar solos. And I think I even fantasized about being Ringo, too, whenever he sang or did something extraordinary on the drums.


"The Beatles mirrored the times, but they also defined the times - they did things first and everybody followed.


"Beyond that, they did something even more important: They made people feel good. They gave people hope. They brought people together. Forty, almost 50 years later they're still doing it. Don't they give out Nobel Prizes for that sort of thing, and how come The Beatles haven't gotten any?


"Picking a favorite record? Impossible. If it's a desert island where I can only have one Beatles record, then I refuse to go to that island.


"Beatles albums are weird, beautiful things: they seem to change when you're not looking. You can play The White Album, then you might put it away for a few months. When you come back to it, it's like a whole new record and you hear all these different parts that you never heard before. That just doesn't happen with other bands.


"How did they do it? It's such a mystery, how these four guys came up with such a body of work in such a short period of time. I've had conversations with George Martin and Paul McCartney, and even they can't tell me how they did it. Believe me, I've tried to find out the secrets!


"Genius just happens, I guess. It can't be explained or duplicated, only appreciated."


Richie Sambora is a guitarist, songwriter and singer for the band Bon Jovi. The group's newest album The Circle will be released on 10 Nov

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Aerosmith's Joe Perry: what The Beatles mean to me
Guitar star writes exclusively for MusicRadar

Joe Perry, Tue 8 Sep 2009, 4:09 pm UTC


Joe Perry remembers the night he first saw The Beatles (© James Palmer/Retna Ltd./Corbis)

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"I was already into rock 'n' roll and pop music before The Beatles hit America. I remember being a little kid and seeing this guy Elvis Presley on TV - the girls would scream when he came on. That kind of stuck with me.


"The stuff I was into were things like Roy Orbison and the Phil Spector hits. I was definitely a music loving kid. From my earliest days, whenever I heard music, I felt happy and forgot all my problems.


"In fact, I even started playing guitar at a young age. My parents bought me a Silvertone acoustic guitar that cost $12.95 and it came with a little 45 single that said, 'Hold the plectrum with the right hand and the neck with the left.' I'm naturally left-handed, but since that's how the record said to play guitar, that's how I did it - it never occurred to me to change.


"The night The Beatles first played the Ed Sullivan Show, boy, that was something. Seeing them on TV was akin to a national holiday. Talk about an event. I never saw guys looking so cool. I had already heard some of their songs on the radio, but I wasn't prepared by how powerful and totally mesmerizing they were to watch. It changed me completely. I knew something was different in the world that night.


"The night The Beatles first played the Ed Sullivan Show, boy, that was something. Seeing them on TV was akin to a national holiday."
"Next day at school, The Beatles were all anybody could talk about. Us guys had to play it kind of cool, because the girls were so excited and were drawing little hearts on their notebooks - 'I love Paul,' that kind of thing. But I think there was an unspoken thing with the guys that we all dug The Beatles, too. We just couldn't come right out and say it.


"All of that changed when I went to see A Hard Day's Night. I wasn't into sports, I wasn't a great student, I didn't go out for school activities or anything - I was just kind of into my own little world. But seeing The Beatles on screen, running around and laughing, plus seeing them play all these incredible songs, I started to think, 'Hey, I wouldn't mind doing that.' It was like The Beatles were their own gang, and that seemed so cool to me."


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paulwduncan

8 weeks ago.


Great Interview of a totally underrated guitarist


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Aerosmith's Joe Perry: what The Beatles mean to me
Guitar star writes exclusively for MusicRadar


Joe Perry, Tue 8 Sep 2009, 4:09 pm UTC


Joe Perry remembers the night he first saw The Beatles (© James Palmer/Retna Ltd./Corbis)

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"Quite soon after, I started getting into the Stones and other British groups, and the idea of playing the guitar seriously and being in a band really took hold. I followed all The Beatles records, of course.


"What's funny is, even though they were making so many breakthroughs sonically and changing the way music could be presented, I didn't process it that way at the time.


"Everything seemed to flow so naturally from them. You'd pick up Rubber Soul and it was fantastic. Then you'd get Revolver and it was amazing, too. You just came to expect it from them. I had no idea what hard work went into doing what they did.


"Guitar-wise, it's hard to say specifically what I got from them, other than their licks became part of my DNA like so many of the British bands I stated to follow, like The Yardbirds and Cream and Zeppelin. It all became this fantastic cocktail of guitar greatness that I was only too happy to drink in.


"The Beatles taught us all so much. They taught us to be brave, to follow our dreams and aim high.""Later on, probably around the late '60s, when they were getting ready to break up, that's when I started to appreciate what geniuses The Beatles were, how they set trends and broke every rule in the book. How they went from being this live group to mastering the recording studio and showing everybody that nothing was impossible, as long as you had the imagination and the guts to go for it.


"Plus, they had gone from singing these simple love tunes to writing songs about any topic you could think of. I think that's what really impressed me the most - they taught me that music could liberate you, teach you, take you somewhere else, expand your consciousness, all of that.


"The Beatles taught us all so much. They taught us to be brave, to follow our dreams and aim high. That's a wonderful legacy to leave."


Joe Perry is a guitarist, songwriter and singer for the band Aerosmith. His newest solo album Have Guitar, Will Travel comes out 6 October.

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comments (1)paulwduncan 14 weeks ago.


Great Interview of a totally underrated guitarist


Related Links
REVIEW: The Beatles remasters 1963-66
Part one of our definitive guide

REVIEW: The Beatles remasters 1967-70
Read part two right here!

FIRST LOOK: The Beatles' remastered catalogue
See them unboxed on video

What's the greatest Beatles song?
Ask MusicRadar wants to know

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) -- "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."

All AboutThe Beatles • Rock Band (Video Game)




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© 2008 Cable News Network

The Beatles are the Most Creative Band of All Time By Musician Peter Cross


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.






Web page design copyright 1996 © , text copyright 2005 © Peter Cross

Also Brian Wilson was interviewed on a 1995 ABC news Nightline Beatles tribute show which had music artists of all ages and from all different music fields including a middle aged black Opera singer,a young black jazz musician,Steve Winwood,Meatloaf,and classical violinist Itzhak Perlman who said he plays his children Bach,Beethoven and The Beatles.

Anyway Brian Wilson was playing and singing The Beatles With A Little Help From My Friends on the piano and said he just loves this song. He then said that he thinks John Lennon and Paul McCartney were the 2 greatest song composers of the 20th century. And he said he thinks that Sgt.Peeper is the greatest album he's ever heard!

Brian also said that when he first heard The Beatles brilliant 1965 Rubber Soul album he was just blown away by it. He said all of the songs flowed together and that it was folk rock but pop music at the same time,and he said he couldn't belive that they did this so well.This album inspired him to make Pet Sounds.

And both Bob Dylan and Roger McGuinn both have said that even in early songs like She Loves You and I want To Hold Your Hand The Beatles used interesting and unusual chords and arrangements.

Roger McGuinn is quoted in online interviews and on message boards from his interviews saying that in The Beatles early songs they were using folk rock chords and that it had never been done in pop/rock songs before and that he thinks they invented folk rock without even realizing it.He played Beatles songs in clubs in the 1960's and after he saw George Harrison playing his new at the time 12 string guitar in The Beatles great film,A Hard Day's Night,he bought one soon after.

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In 1962, an unknown group from Liverpool entered Abbey Road Studios to record their debut single. During the next eight years they created what is arguably regarded as the greatest collection of studio recordings of the 20th century. This special charts The Beatles' extraordinary journey in the studio from "Please Please Me" to "Abbey Road" and reflects on how they developed as musicians, matured as songwriters and created a body of work that sounds as fresh in 2009 as the time it was recorded. Narrated entirely by John, Paul, George, Ringo and Sir George Martin, the documentary features over 60 classic songs, rare footage and photos from The Beatles' archives and never heard before out-takes of studio chat from the "Abbey Road" recording sessions.


Rating: TVPG

Running Time: 60 minutes



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As a musician said on a message board last year when the new John Lennon biography came out,John Lennon:Th Life,he said watch The Beatles Anthology Video series and learn how immensely talented this band really was.

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Alan W. Pollack's musicological journey through the Beatles' songs
by Ger Tillekens


In many ways the songs of the Beatles are exemplary for the musical innovations the British beat explosion wrought onto the domain of popular music in the sixties. With their music the British groups forged a highly original combination out of the erstwhile separate elements of other musical styles, which quickly evolved to become a full-blown style of its own: the music we nowadays know as pop or rock music. The Beatles stood at the front-lines of this artistic movement and their songs offer worthwhile material for those who want to know more about the musical characteristics of rock music. And, there's help for those who want to study these songs. Since 1989 everyone can look for assistance on the internet in the Notes on ... Series, written by the American musicologist Alan W. Pollack on each and every Beatles' song.



1 Chains of pan-diatonic clusters. Think yourself back to the city of London at the end of the year 1963 and meanwhile keep in mind that the virus of Beatlemania at that moment still was restricted to the British Isles and beat music was seen as music for adolescent boys and girls. Then and there only a few adults took the sound of the four Beatles seriously. Yet there were some who did and among them there was at least one real musicologist. If you had been there on the right day and you had bought the distinguished British paper The Times, out of the first hand you could have read an extensive musicological article devoted to the Beatles. This early assessment was full of praise for their musical accomplishments, but also phrased in a kind of learned musicological language that contrasted sharply with the self-concept of the rising youth culture. Read the next quote to know what the author heard in songs, most young people in those days just danced or sat down to listen to.


"Their noisy items are the ones that arouse teenagers' excitement. Glutinous crooning is generally out of fashion these days, and even a song about "Misery" sounds fundamentally quite cheerful; the slow, sad song about "That Boy", which figures prominently in Beatle programmes, is expressively unusual for its lugubrious music, but harmonically it is one of their most intriguing, with its chains of pan-diatonic clusters, and the sentiment is acceptable because voiced cleanly and crisply. But harmonic interest is typical of their quicker songs too, and one gets the impression that they think simultaneously of harmony and melody, so firmly are the major tonic sevenths and ninths built into their tunes, and the flat submediant key switches, so natural is the Aeolian cadence at the end of "Not a Second Time" (the chord progression which ends Mahler's "Song of the Earth")." [1]



2 From our Music Critic. "Chains of pan-diatonic clusters", "major tonic sevenths and ninths" and "Aeolian cadences", all these qualifications seem to be far removed from the daily experiences and expressive motives of the buyers of the early Beatles' records. Though the article was regarded as a kind of official recognition of popular music, many people — including the Beatles themselves — made fun of it. John Lennon himself mockingly said, he thought Aeolian cadences to be some kind of "exotic birds". The piece was neutrally signed "From our Music Critic", but is commonly ascribed to William Mann, the regular music critic of the London paper at that time. But whoever wrote the commentary, he was not the last serious musicologist trying to get hold of the musical peculiarities of the Beatles' songs. As rock music was to become a major cultural force, others were to follow.
3 Eight books and more ... In 1979 the British musicologist Wilfrid Mellers published his analyses in a full-length book Twilight of the Gods. It was followed by a whole series of other books, now coming from people who themselves grew up with rock music. In 1983 both Steven Porter's Rhythm and Harmony in the Music of the Beatles and Terence O'Grady's The Beatles: A Musical Evolution tried to get at the musicological core of the Beatles' musical innovations. In the same year in Germany Volkert Kramarz published his insightful Harmonie-analyse der Rockmusik, while Alexander Villinger tried to relate Die Beatles-songs to the musical tradition of the Classical and Romantic Styles. Some five years later Tim Riley wrote his telling insights down in Tell Me Why (1988) and shortly thereafter Heinz Bamberg made an in-depth comparison of several cover versions of the song "Money" by the Beatles and other British beat-groups in his Beatmusik (1989). More recently Allan Moore published his study of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1997) in the prestigious Cambridge Music Handbook Series, parachuted right between studies of Bartók's Concerto for Orchesta and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. This is just to name a few of the most important ones. But wait: there's yet another publication that unmistakably belongs in this series, though it is not published on paper, but on the internet.



4 If this guy ... In 1998 I myself earned my Ph.D. with again another book, about the early Beatles' songs, arguing their music signaled the beginnings of a completely new style of popular music, which was to become the style of nowadays pop and rock music. No, wait, that book is not on the internet and it certainly is not the book I want to talk about here. However, it is relevant in an indirect way. As I started to think about the book in the last months of 1994, I knew less than nothing about music theory — and even less about "pan-diatonic clusters" — and of course I leaned heavily on the books I mentioned above. As my book was the first academic book on this subject in the Netherlands, it got a lot of attention from the press as soon as it was published. Many reviewers were rather positive about the musicological analyses I made of the first fifty Beatles' songs. Some, however, expressed their doubts. Not even having read the book, someone for instance wrote the next critical comment in one of the major Dutch papers: "If this guy has not used Alan W. Pollack Notes on ... Series on the internet, he immediately must return his Ph.D. to his university." Luckily I had not overseen Pollack's work in my literature search, so I still have got my grade. In one respect, however, the remark was right at target. One cannot write about the music of the Beatles, without having read, next to some of the above books, also Pollack's analyses.


5 Two big hot buttons. Though Pollack is not the first to write about the Beatles' songs, his analyses are — in respect to the musicological aspects of the Beatles' repertoire — by far the most detailed ones. Each and every song gets the attention it deserves and Pollack never tires to explain the little details. It is clear, that he has put a great amount of work in it, and even so it did cost him a lot of time. His Notes on ... Series started in May 1989 — it now really is a ten year Odyssey — with a short note on "We Can Work It Out" and then it went on and on. It all began, Pollack writes himself, "... as a way of indulging two very big hot buttons: re-emerging Beatlemania on the threshold of middle age, and an ingrained hunger for playing the part of the ol' professor." The next button, Pollack confides, was pushed by D.L. MacLauchlan, who under the internet pseudonym of "saki" runs the rec.music.beatles.info newsgroup, and who double-dared him to write his views down for the newsgroup. Her invitation did work. To date there have been around 160 installments of the Notes on ..., varying in frequency of appearance, as Pollack says, "in a manner directly inverse to the pace of his combined family and professional life."


6 From ASCII to HTML. Pollack certainly is a fan of the Beatles, but he also has quite an amount of expertise in music theory. He knows what he is doing. He has a Ph.D. in music theory and composition (University of Pennsylvania, 1977) and he has taught these same subjects on the college level. For reasons he himself calls too personal and boringly complicated to go into, he's been working in the field of software engineering since 1978. Using the tools of his daily profession, Pollack wrote the originals as plain ASCII text files, using the Unix editor "vi". At first they were send as e-mail to the rec.music.beatles newsgroup on the internet. Next they were conversed to HTML by Ed Chen, Mike Markowski, Bruce Dumes, and Maurizio Codogno and published on The "Official" rec.music.beatles Home Page and now you can also read them on the pages of soundscapes. Many people already have read his notes, but — just like way back in 1963 — still not everyone is as happy with a musicologist dissecting the Beatles' songs with the tools of his trade.



7 Beatles' fans versus Classical Music Academia. "I've done the series as a labor of love for its own sake," Pollack tells us, "Yet, I've often felt like the results "fall between two stools" (a British expression for saying "it's neither here nor there")." He describes this uneasy position as follows: "The average Beatlemaniac doesn't have the musicological discipline with which to understand the notes, and my erstwhile academic buddies look down at me for not choosing a more worthy subject in which to invest my time. The chronic sticking points I run into with the pop culture crowd is the old saw about: "but these guys couldn't even read music, so how can you possibly attribute intellectual compositional motives to them?" At least in so-called Classical Music Academia, people understand that my style of analysis is a kind of after-the-fact linguistic analysis based on actual, vernacular usage. Trained musicologists understand that the theory books are based on the music of the great composers; not the other way around. My problem with the musicological establishment is their condescending attitude toward pop music per se."


8 Breaking all the rules. The arguments of those Beatles' fans who disagree with a musicological analysis of their favorite songs, are summing up to an impressive list. First and for all they say, the serious labor of study takes the fun out of the pleasure of listening to the music; next they argue it neglects the feelings of the listener and — above all — they hold the musicological approach to be far removed from the way the music was produced by the artists. The first two arguments seem to be irrelevant as they only concern the level of abstractness or directness of listening. Abstract or direct listening are just two different ways to listen to a song and both ways of listening can be pleasant as well as informative and one can easily shift between them. On the third point they, however, are absolutely right. Of course, the Beatles sought and found their way to their songs playing and improvising on their instruments. It's right, rock music was and is not designed from a theoretical perspective nor written out in advance on music sheets. More important even, the Beatles violated all existing musicological rules, trying to express their emotions with all musical means. One could even say that breaking the rules was the one big thing where the Beatles' songs were really all about. The Beatles used many chords, not resolving properly according to the teachings of "functional harmony" and there are, as Pollack calls them, a lot of "synthax errors" in the grammatical meaning of the harmonic order. However, just this aspect of the Beatles' songs shows the relevance of a musicological approach. Which where all those rules, how did the Beatles break them and and how did they, at the same time, succeed in keeping their songs understandable for their listeners? When you're trying to find some answers to these kinds of questions, musicology will lend a helping hand.



9 A punchlist of Beatles' trademarks. There's one last point often made against musicologists meddling with rock music: reducing rock productions to sheet music and musical notation misses the most important aspects, as rock songs have to be taken as recorded music in its unique combination of all the specific details of the performance by the artist. As far as this point of criticism goes, it certainly does not hold for Pollack. In his notes he takes the songs as they are recorded. He does not recur to sheet music, as he is analyzing them by ear. Thus far he has quoted only three books for reference: Lewisohn's (1988) extensive overview of the recording sessions, the text inventory of Campbell and Murphy (1980) and — in a critical sense — the works of Terence O'Grady (1983). In fact, each of his analyses itself is a most powerfull counter-argument by showing, that the musicological approach to rock music offers an insightful view into the musical innovations of the style of music that was initiated by the Beatles and their fellow musicians of the British beat explosion. In this respect Pollack's analyses are very usefull, as they have much to show of the intricacies of the Beatles' songs. Just like the main body of rock music, that was to develop in the wake of British beat explosion, the songs of the Beatles are very complex. In his essay on the cover songs on the album "Please Please Me" Pollack summarizes: "... the punch list of early Beatles musical trademarks: the tricky chord progressions, the pungent vocal harmonies, the clever word play etc." Let's take a short walk along the most important ones, just as they arise out of Pollack's studies.


10 Extended harmonic material. The Times' critic typified the Beatles' compositions as "harmonically intriguing" and, indeed, the first and most striking characteristic of the Beatles' songs is the use of extended harmonic material. Simply said the Beatles applied all kind of chords seemingly at random in their songs, thereby neglecting or varying at will on standard cadences. Many people still think pop songs are just simple three-chord songs, but that's really seldom the case. Even when a rock songs is built around only three chords, they're seldom the three basic chords. Let's start with those famous three basic chords: the tonic (I), the dominant (V), and the subdominant (IV). In musicological vernacular they are symbolized with roman numerals I, V and IV, indicating the tone steps. When we take for instance the C chord as the tonic I, then the dominant V is the G chord — counted five steps upward: C -» D -» E -» F -» G — and the F is the subdominant IV. Each of those chords consists of three tones. Figure 1 shows an example of the basic chords organized around the root note of C (I).


Figure 1: The standard chords (red): tonic (I), subdominant (IV) and dominant (V); and their relative minors (yellow): submediant (vi), supertonic (ii) and mediant (iii)



11 Relative and parallel minors. In figure 1 we have painted the basic chords red. Here we see, that the C chord consists of the tones: C, E, and G. We also notice that the subdominant F and the dominant G are neatly ordered on both sides of the tonic. In short there is some system to these three chords. There are also some chords colored yellow. These are the so-called relative minors. As the tonic C is built out of the notes C, E, and G, the building blocks of its relative minor vi (a-minor) are A, C, and E. You see both chords have two tones in common and that's why they are harmonically related. The same goes for C-Major and c-minor (i), which combines the tones of C, G, and E-flat. Because of the harmonic congeniality of these chords, one would expect, that they could easily be used together in one and the same composition. That's, however, not the case. The a-minor chord belongs to another key and the c-minor — though it has the same root as C-Major — threatens the key by its relation to notes such as E-flat. In the English language the c-minor chord is called the "parallel" minor of C-major. By the way, compared to the language of music itself the musicological vernacular is not very universal. Confusingly in German and Dutch relative minors are called parallel minors (respectively "moll Parallelle" and "parallelle mineuren").
12 Bimodal and trimodal keys. Breaking the rule of not mingling these relative and parallel chords was one of the things the Beatles really seemed to like. In their songs they treated the harmonic system freely as if the parallel and relative minors (and sometimes even their parallel and relative Majors) are "co-tonics". Many of their songs are erected on bimodal of even "trimodal" keys, with clusters of relative and parallel minors and Majors, e.g. the cluster of e minor and its relative Major E and its parallel Major G, or the combination of C, a minor and A Major. For that matter, this mix of Major and minor keys is just what the Aeolian cadence is all about. These combinations not only mean a break of the rules, but — more important — a conflict with the existing conventions and the expectations of listeners at the time of their first recordings.



Figure 2: The harmonic structure of the chords in the Beatles' songs
13 A diagonal tone matrix. In fact the Beatles systematically approached the harmonic grammar as if they always had several co-tonics ready at hand. From the tonic I, they as easily switch to the relative minor vi as its parallel major VI. A favorite is also the parallel minor i and its relative major, flat-III. This harmonic chord material is neatly ordered along the lines of the minor thirds (look at figure 2 and see why, in my book, I call it a diagonal tone matrix). In some of his early articles, it seems, Pollack's classical trained ears sometimes lead him astray on this point. In his analysis of "It Won't Be Long" for instance he calls the relative minor of the tonic a pseudo dominant, as indeed in the Classical Style it often is. Later on, however, he typifies the interchange between relative and parallel keys as one of the trademarks of the Beatles' songs. In his review of "Free As Bird" this characteristic for him is an important reason to treat this song as a real Beatles' song; and one has to agree with his arguments. Paging through Pollack's notes one finds many examples of these switches to these keys, and also of more accidental, "borrowed" chords from these related keys, like for instance the flat-VI — the "Peggy Sue" chord — in "I Saw Her Standing There". And, as Pollack shows over and over again, this play with different related keys is accentuated by the Beatles' preference of starting the intro in another key than the home key.


14 Harmony and melody. So why, you will say, all this fuzz about co-tonics? Well, there's one good reason: because the rules of functional harmonics forbids all too free access to them. Importing chords from other keys endangers the original key and threatens to make music sound false. It's here where the melodies of the Beatles play an important role as a powerfull antidote to the tonal ambiguity. Let's quote again The Times of 1963, where the music critic wrote: "... one gets the impression that they think simultaneously of harmony and melody (...)." That observation is unmistakably true and, sure enough, it is the second characteristic of the Beatles' songs as it emerges out of Pollack analyses. Regarding "Day Tripper", he writes for instance: "The melody of the voice parts is very difficult to sing, particularly without the underlying chords to keep you oriented; have you tried singing this song in the shower lately?" In this observation Pollack is as right as the music critic of The Times. The Beatles' songs have a special way of making melody and harmony go together and often it is the melody which tempts the listener to take the strange and wild chord progressions for granted. In his analysis Pollack tries to get at the overall musical flavor of each song, taking in regard all aspects of the music as recorded: harmony, melody, rhythm, overlayered dubs etcetera. But, rightly so, his studies give special attention to the interaction between harmony and melody as conveyed by inner voices, bass and lead guitar. In this context Pollack also introduces his readers to the concept of "false relations".


15 New and unexpected modulations. The third main characteristic of the Beatles' songs regards some intricate, highly original, and thus unexpected modulations or tone shifts. To analyze these Pollack uses the tools developed by the Austrian musicologist Heinrich Schenker. Schenker's analysis is based on so-called "Ur-Sätze". Simply said these "primal sentences" are recurrent cadences of just those chords which unmistakably belong to a certain key, like the tonic, the dominant and the subdominant (e.g. I -» V -» I), or those chords which role can be reduced to simple cadences like the chain of fifths. In a chain of fifths like II -» V -» I, the second step II — though not one of the basic chords — for instance is legitimate, because it can be interpreted as a secondary dominant, a "V-of-V". Otherwise, to account for other chords in a composition, one has to recur to modulations or tone shifts. To describe these modulations and shifts Schenker introduced a method of diagrams, which later on appeared very usefull for the analysis of jazz and rock music. The method also is a favorite of Pollack, as it reveals much of the Beatles' use of "co-tonics". But using related co-tonics, the Beatles also discovered some wilder modulations. As Pollack shows, these too can be made clear by means of Schenker diagrams. For an example, let's take a quick look at "From Me To You":


m.13
C: |I |vi |I |V |

m.17
C: |IV7 |vi |I V |I |

m.21
F: |ii |V7 |I |- |
C: |v |I7 |IV |- |

m.25
F: |VI7 |- |II |II+ |
C: |II7 |- |V |V+ |



16 A big departure. The example above starts in measure 13 on the second verse (notice the typical use of the relative minor (vi) in measure 14 and 18). Next the bridge or middle-eight starts in measure 21 with the words: "(I've got) arms that long to hold you". Here we find a surprising modulation a fifth downward from C Major to F Major, by way of the g-minor (v) which is "borrowed" from the parallel "co-tonic" of c minor. In his interview with Mark Lewisohn (1988: 10) Paul McCartney himself enthousiastically voiced it this way: "... that middle eight was a very big departure for us. Say you're in C then go to a-minor, fairly ordinary, C, change it to G. And then F, pretty ordinary, but then it goes [sings] "I got arms" and that's a g-minor. Going to g-minor and a C takes you to a whole new world. It was exciting."



Figure 3: Pivot modulation in "From Me To You" with an enharmonic change on g-minor (v)


17 Pivot chords. The g-minor itself is typical for the Beatles' usage of "co-tonics". Here, however, it also gives way to a modulation, which means the listener has to reorient to the new key after-the-event. The chord on which this reorientation happens to take place, is called a "pivot chord". Here Pollack identifies the C Major seventh in measure 22 as the pivot chord in question. First the C-Major chord undoubtedly is heard as the tonic. "But", as Pollack says, "once the bridge begins, the ear retrospectively reinterprets it as though it were the V of the key of F." In short the modulation turns the F chord into the tonic, while transforming the original tonic C into its dominant. It is indeed a whole new world, as we arrive from the world of C Major into the world of F Major. Here, as an extra to Pollack's analysis, we can add the observation that this pivot modulation also implies an enharmonic change (figure 3; see also the study of Volkert Kramarz, page 51-53). The g-minor of the middle eight really belongs to another musical continent, because in its role as the relative minor of B-flat the g-minor chord sounds slightly different from the g-minor that is the parallel minor of G. Though on instruments of even temperament both g-minors are played with exactly the same finger settings, one's ears have to adjust to the shift by bringing the chord in relation to the new key.


18 A complex of emotions. Next to the extended harmonic material, the interplay of melody and harmony and all the new modulations, there's a fourth characteristic element to be found in the Beatles' songs. That's the almost direct relationship between music and lyrics. In his notes Pollack often calls this aspect to the attention of his readers. In his analysis of "Things We Said Today" he for instance signals: "... the way in which the details of the music assist the words in the evocation of an otherwise difficult to verbalize complex of emotions." Again he is right, as the connectedness between words and chords seems to be a typical trait of all Beatles' songs. However, that's as far as his analysis of this crucial aspect of the Beatles' song goes. Moreover, though Pollack recognizes the originality of the Beatles songs, thus far he has written almost nothing about the question if the music of the Beatles represents a new style of popular music in its own right. But, it's yet too early for these kind of critical comments, as Pollack has not yet finished his notes.


19 Getting back. Reading Pollack's Notes on ... one learns almost everything there is to know of the Beatles' songs and even a lot about musicology, included the "major tonic sevenths and ninths" and "Aeolian cadences" mentioned in The Times' early review (except of course for the "chains of pan-diatonic clusters", which really were a literary invention flowing poetically out of the pen of "our Music Critic"). [2] Eventually Pollack intends to publish the completed set of his notes in the form of a book. "This will, of course", he warns us, "take a while, and I'm hardly thinking of quitting my day job in the meanwhile. I'm more than happy to share the work with the net as it emerges, but I will humbly ask you all for your courtesy in honoring my copyright of the material." He has now been away in Beatles' territory for ten years, a real Beatles' Odyssey. Unlike Ulysses, however, Pollack has not yet returned from his travels. But, rest assured, he will get back, as he wrote us recently: "I've put the series on hold for the last month or so because home life has been unusually hectic, but I'm excited about jumping into the "Get Back" period with both feet very soon. At the rate I'm going, I hope to complete this first pass on the songs within two years." Here at Soundscapes we will keep you informed about his progress.



Notes

1. One can read the full article in Michael Braun's fly-on-the-wall account of Beatlemania: Love Me Do. The Beatles' Progress. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964, 1995 reprint, pages 66-68.
2. In his notes on "Getting Better" Pollack (1995) himself describes the phrasing "pan-diatonic" as "a fancy way of saying that no notes appear anywhere in the song that are not native to the home key, and that they are all considered consonant amongst each other." This goes largely for "This Boy" (key: D Major). Only the added seventh in the sung harmonies (F#-A-B) over the b minor chord poses some problems to the definition of this song as "pan-diatonic", as it introduces a subtile dissonance.



References
Bamberg, Heinz (1989), Beatmusik. Kulturelle Transformation und musikalischer Sound. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus 1989.
Braun, Michael (1964), Love Me Do! The Beatles Progress. London: Penguin Books, 1995.
Campbell, Colin, and Allan Murphy (1980), Things We Said Today. The Complete Lyrics and a Concordance to the Beatles' Songs, 1962-1970. Ann Arbor: Pierian Press, 1980.
Kramarz, Volkert (1983), Harmonie-analyse der Rockmusik. Von Folk und Blues zu Rock und New Wave. Mainz: Schott, 1983.
Lewisohn, Mark (1988), The Beatles Recording Sessions. The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes 1962-1970. New York: Harmony, 1988.
Mellers, Wilfrid (1976), Twilight of the Gods. The Beatles in Retrospect. London: Faber and Faber, 1976.
Moore, Allan (1997), The Beatles. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
O'Grady, Terence (1983), The Beatles: A Musical Evolution. Boston: Twayne, 1983.
Porter, Steven (1983), Rhythm and Harmony in the Music of the Beatles. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International, 1983.
Riley, Tim (1988), Tell Me Why. A Beatles Commentary. London: The Bodley Head, 1988.
Tillekens, Ger (1998), Het geluid van de Beatles. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 1998.
Villinger, Alexander (1983), Die Beatles-songs. Analysen zur Harmonik und Melodik. Freiburg: Hochschulverlag, 1983.




1999 © Soundscapes

Allan W.Pollack is a university of Penn graduate musicologist.

Copyright © 2000 by the Music Library Association, Inc. All rights reserved.
Notes 57.1 (2000) 157-159
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Access article in PDF]

Book Review
The Beatles as Musicians:
Revolver through the Anthology
Twentieth Century

The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver through the Anthology. By Walter Everett. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. [xix, 395 p. ISBN 0-19-509553-7 (cloth); 0-19-512941-5 (pbk.). $65 (cloth); $24.95 (pbk.).]


This long-awaited book by popular-music scholar Walter Everett is the first work to [End Page 157] attempt a comprehensive historical, descriptive, and analytic discussion of compositions, finished or in sketch form, written by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, or Ringo Starr while they were collectively known as the Beatles. In its original version, the book covered the entire Beatles repertory, but at approximately three hundred thousand words (according to the author), the draft was too large to be published as a single volume. As a result, the present volume examines every opus written during the period from Revolver in 1966 through the breakup of the group in 1969/70--a period in which the maturation of the ensemble, as well as developments in recording technology, led to a proliferation of important and creative works. At this writing, Everett's book has gone through a second printing. A "prequel" volume, covering every composition written by the group from the time they were known as the Quarrymen to the album Rubber Soul, is scheduled for publication in late 2001; it will complete Everett's substantial contribution to popular-music and Beatles scholarship.



Everett sets the standard for popular-music analysis and research, partly because there has been a dearth of major studies that have treated this genre with the seriousness it deserves, but primarily because Everett's effort is so definitive and thorough. Wilfrid Mellers' Twilight of the Gods: The Beatles in Retrospect (London: Faber & Faber, 1973) is the only other work that has examined a similarly large number of Beatles compositions with a strong analytical emphasis, but that volume is largely descriptive, with analysis generally aimed at naming unusual chord functions and progressions. Everett, by contrast, discusses the historical background--he includes anecdotes that will be new even to knowledgeable fans--and the evolution of compositional process, with a revolutionary elevation of the recording studio as a primary compositional determinant. He also provides analysis of each composition, close examination of instrumentation, and an extensive bibliography. The Beatles as Musicians will be an invaluable resource for scholars in many different fields as well as for interested musicians and fans.


The book's chapters are largely organized around the albums, including singles that were originally released at the same time and later re-released on "cumulation albums." Chapter 1 encompasses the period of Revolver; chapter 2, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour; chapter 3, the White album; and chapter 4, Let It Be and Abbey Road. In addition, a "prelude" chapter summarizes pre-1966 accomplishments, an "interlude" examines the important singles "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane," and a "postlude" briefly covers the post-Beatles careers of the four musicians. At the beginning of the book is a helpful map of London that shows the locations of the Beatles' homes, recording studios, and commercial ventures (the Apple offices and boutique), as well as other significant landmarks. Each chapter opens with a time line marking important events such as studio work, releases of recordings, and other occurrences (e.g., the "Paul-is-dead" rumors). Appendix A summarizes the various instruments used by the Beatles, delineating technical capabilities and sound qualities (reported in even more detail in the text), and appendix B lists rock performers associated with the group. Everett also provides a glossary of terms and a table of chord functions; the latter recapitulates basic and unusual harmonies and cites examples of works in which they occur. The bibliography will be a valuable resource for the reader with little music background as well as the scholar seeking specific information on individual songs and their genesis in the recording studio.


As the basis for much of his discussion of Let It Be and Abbey Road, Everett relies on 967 films documenting intense rehearsal and composition at the Twickenham and Apple studios in January 1969; these films have been cataloged by Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt in Drugs, Divorce, and a Slipping Image: The Unauthorized Story of the Beatles' "Get Back" Sessions (Princeton Junction, N.J.: The 910, 1994), but they are not easily accessible to the scholar who wishes to verify Everett's analyses. Another of Everett's main sources, more readily available than Sulpy and Schweighardt, is The Beatles: Complete Scores (London: Wise Publications; distributed in the U.S. by H. Leonard, 1993), a volume containing transcriptions of the Beatles' songs in complete score form. These transcriptions sometimes [End Page 158] do not agree with Everett's analyses even in fundamental elements such as key and instrumentation, a circumstance that leads the reader to wonder whether Everett has occasionally written out his own adjustments to the score but has not included these because of space constraints. For example, Everett interprets the opening of "If I Fell" in C# major (eventually III# of V in D major; an upper third mirrors the rising melodic third of the verses, D to F#) but does not inform the reader that the song is transcribed in Eb minor (pp. 27-29).


Numerous dense passages of analytic prose descriptions, often without voice-leading graphs or music examples, will be obscure to anyone who is not studying the compositions in great detail and at great length, preferably at a piano. Yet Everett more than compensates for this density with many brilliant and innovative explanations of technology-aided composition.


The Beatles as Musicians is the most authoritative work to date on the Beatles' music. In time, other scholars will offer more complete analyses of individual compositions, but they will first need to consider Everett's remarks with great care.


Steven Block
University of New Mexico

You know your music - so do we. THE ALLMUSIC BLOG


You Can't Do That

The Beatles

Composed By Other Links
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

Year
Album



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

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
Year
Album


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






Artist/Group Album Song Classical Work


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I'm Down
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'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
Year
Album


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


Artist/Group Album Song Classical Work


Revolution
The Beatles


Composed By Other Links
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

Year
Album


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
indicates a click-through to a song review




Releases
Year
Type
Label
Catalog #

1987 CD Capitol C2-46446
1987 CS Capitol C4-46446
1978 LP Capitol SEAX-11900
1987 LP Capitol C1-46446
1991 LP Capitol 003831
1991 CS Capitol 003834
1978 LP Capitol 119001
1989 LP Parlophone 1042431
2007 CD Toshiba EMI 51122
1983 CD Toshiba EMI 353016
2009 CD Capitol 82468

The Beatles were also all good looking men,especially George and Paul when they were young,Paul was the most gorgeous looking rock star ever! But none of this is relevant to their musical genuis.

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Introduction

How Did He Become An Icon?

1966

Post Beatles

Thanks

Pre-1963

1967
Five String Taste

Influential Bass Players of the '60s

1963

1968
Driving Rain

Large Scale vs. Small Scale Basses

1964/1965

1969

What Do Others Say?

contact the author

Bibliography


My thoughts on Paul's playing on John's songs


WHAT DO OTHERS SAY?


George Martin

" There's no doubt that Lennon and McCartney were good musicians. They had good musical brains, and the brain is where music originates - it has nothing to do with your fingers. As it happened, they could also play their own instruments very well.


And since those early days they've all improved, especially Paul. He's an excellent musical all-rounder, probably the best bass-guitarist there is, a first-class drummer, brilliant guitarist and competent piano player."



Sting


" It's hard to separate McCartney's influence on my bass playing from his influence on everything else-singing, songwriting, even becoming a musician in the first place. As a child, I would play my Beatles albums at 45 RPM so I could hear the bass better. He's the Guvnor."


Will Lee


" Growing up in Texas in the early '60s I was so obsessed with the Beatles' music that I didn't feel like a fan, I felt like I was in the Beatles. About the same time I switched from drums to bass I became aware of who gave the band its charm and personality, from visual tunes like "Penny Lane" to the group's repartee with the press. It was the same fellow who was able to take a poor-quality instrument like the Hofner bass and create magic on it. I especially dug Paul's funky, Motown-influenced side, evident in the bass line from Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey," or even in the syncopated part from "A Day In The Life.


Paul's influence on bassists has been so widespread over numerous generations that there's no denying he's in everybody's playing at this point. We're all descendants. He played simple and solid when it was called for. But because he had so many different flavors to add to a song, he was able to take the instrument far beyond a supportive role. Paul taught the bass how to sing."



Stanley Clarke


"Paul definitely had an influence on my bass playing, not so much technically, but more with his philosophy of melodic bass lines - especially as I hit my teens and the Beatles' records became more adventurous. On tracks like "Come Together," the bass line WAS the song. I've always liked that. The only other person I knew of who was doing that was James Jamerson. That was one of the reasons I was inspired to write "School Days": so I could just play the bass lines and people would hear a whole song.


I had the honor of being contacted by Paul through George Martin to play on Tug of War, and I also appeared on Pipes of Peace [both on Capitol]. Paul was very nice. He asked me to show him how to slap. During Pipes we got a groove going in a studio jam, and it ended up making on the album as "Hey Hey." He graciously gave me a co-writing credit, and it's still a thrill to see my name next to his above the music in the song book."




Billy Sheehan


" The reason I got involved with music in the first place was because I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. I watched all the girls going crazy, and I figured this was the best business in the world to be in. Later on, when I got more deeply into music, Sgt. Pepper was a break-through record for me. I must have listened to it several hundred times. What intrigued me was how totally musical every aspect of it was, especially Paul's melodic, fluid bass lines. When my band Talas was starting in the mid '70s, [the Beatles' tribute show] Beatlemania was big, and we used to play entire gigs of just Beatles tunes. I've learned so much from Paul about playing, writing, and playing and singing at the same time that I should probably start sending him checks.


Most bassists get into the flashy players, but I think the reason Paul is often overlooked is that what he was doing wasn't really obvious. It was so brilliantly woven into the context of the songs. One of my favorites is the bass line from "Rain." I still use it to test the low end of an amp. That Paul happens to play bass is a great boon to all of us, because he made us realize that there are no limitations to being a bass player."




John Lennon


"Paul was one of the most innovative bass players ever. And half the stuff that is going on now is directly ripped off from his Beatles period."

Super Seventies Rock Site
presents

Eric Clapton - In His Own Words



In the Yardbirds, Cream, Derek and the Dominos, and his own bands, guitarist extraordinaire Eric Clapton has continually redefined his own version of the blues. He discusses his epic career and how he coped with drug and alcohol problems to become one of the most revered guitarists and dependable hitmakers of the past thirty years.



At a certain point the Yardbirds started getting package tours, with the Ronettes, Billy J. Kramer, the Kinks, the Small Faces, lots of others, and we lost our following in the clubs. We decided to get suits, and I actually designed suits for us all. Then we did the Beatles' Christmas show, and at that point we really began to feel the lack of a hit. We'd be on for twenty minutes or half an hour, and either you were very entertaining or you did your hits. A lot of times the raveup bit got us through, and a lot of times it didn't. It became very clear that if the group was going to survive and make money, it would have to be on a popular basis. We couldn't go back to the clubs, because everyone had got that taste and seen what fun it would be to be famous.



So a lot of songs were bandied about, and we came up with a song by Otis Redding. I thought that would make a great single, because it was still R&B and soul, and we could do it really funky. Then Paul [Samwell-Smith, bassist] got the "For Your Love" demo, and so we went into the studio to do both songs, but we did "For Your Love" first. Everyone was so bowled over by the obvious commerciality of it that we didn't even get to do the Otis Redding song, and I was very disappointed, disillusioned by that. So my attitude within the group got really sour, and it was kind of hinted that it would be better for me to leave. 'Cause they'd already been to see Jeff Beck play, and at the time he was far more adaptable than I was. I was withdrawing into myself, becoming intolerable, really, dogmatic. So they kind of asked me to leave, and I left and felt a lot better.



Eric Clapton's Seventies
Billboard Top 40 Singles

"After Midnight" 11/70 #18
"I Shot The Sheriff" 8/74 #1
"Willie And The Hand Jive" 11/74 #26
"Hello Old Friend" 11/76 #24
"Lay Down Sally" 2/78 #3
"Wonderful Tonight" 6/78 #16
"Promises" 11/78 #9
"Watch Out For Lucy" 3/79 #40


All during Cream I was riding high on the "Clapton is God" myth that had been started up. I was flying high on an ego trip; I was sure I was the best thing happening that was popular. Then we got our first kind of bad review, which was in Rolling Stone. The magazine ran an interview with us in which we were really praising ourselves, and it was followed by a review that said how boring and repetitious our performance had been. And it was true! The ring of truth had just knocked me backward; I was in a restaurant, and I fainted. And after I woke up, I immediately decided that that was the end of the band.



There toward the end, we'd been flying with blinkers for so long, we weren't aware of the changes that were taking place musically. New people were coming up and growing, and we were repeating ourselves, living on a legend, a year or two years out of date.


We didn't really have a band with Cream. We rarely payed as an ensemble; we were three virtuosos, all of us soloing all the time. We did a lot of acid, took a lot of trips in our spare time. And we did play on acid a couple of times.



I met John Lennon and would see him a lot around the London clubs. I got the impression that he was very shy, slightly bitter but also a very sweet young man. There seemed to be a sort of game between John and George [Harrison], partly because John was a pretty good guitar player himself. When I was with Cream, George became interested in my playing, and I think he might have told John that he liked my work. So John assumed that if George liked me, I was probably better than George. So we got into the "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" sessions.



A few years later John called me one Saturday morning and said, "Do you want to go to Toronto?" I said, "Sure. When?" And he said, "In a couple of hours." I happened to have my equipment at home, so I met them at the airport, with [bassist] Klaus Voorman and [drummer] Alan White. We all got first-class seats on the plane and I learned the repertoire on the way.



"The idea of dying from drugs didn't bother me... But as I grow older, as I live more, death becomes more of a reality, something I don't choose to step toward too soon."



I got slightly disillusioned when we landed at the other end and John and Yoko were whisked off in a limousine and all the band was left standing in the rain. We didn't know how we were going to get to the gig or anything, but that wasn't their problem. Then before the gig, we did so much coke that I actually threw up and passed out. They had to take me out and lay me on the ground. And at the last minute we realized that we were going on between... I think it was Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry, and we were terrified. We were shaking. But it turned out to be a great experience.



There was a lack of direction in Blind Faith, or a reticence to actually declare among ourselves where we were going. Because it seemed to be enough just to be making the money, and that wasn't good; the record company and the management had taken over. I felt that it wasn't good; the record company and the management had taken over. I felt that it was too soon for Steve [Winwood]. He was feeling uncomfortable, and since it had originally been my idea, I was uncomfortable. I started looking for somewhere else to go, an alternative, and I found that Delaney and Bonnie [Bramlett] were a godsend. After the Blind Faith tour, I lived with Delaney for a while.



After the Dominos' Layla album, the band did a very big tour of America. We copped a lot of dope in Miami -- a lot of dope -- and that went with us.



Eric Clapton's Seventies
Billboard Top 10 Albums

History Of Eric Clapton 6/72 #9
461 Ocean Boulevard 8/74 #2
Slowhand 3/78 #2
Backless 1/79 #8
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


By the end of the tour, the band was getting very, very loaded, doing way too much. Then we went back to England, tried to make a second album, and it broke down halfway through because of the paranoia and the tension. And the band just dissolved. I remember to this day being in my house, feeling totally lost and hearing Bobby Whitlock pull up in the driveway and scream for me to come out. He sat in his car outside all day, and I hid. And that's when I went on my journey into smack. I basically stayed in the house with my girlfriend for about two and a half years, and although we weren't using any needles, we got very strung out. All that time, though, I was running a cassette machine and playing; I had that to hold on to. At the end of that period I found I had boxes full of playing, as if there was something struggling to survive.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Clapton Lyrics


I had no care for the consequences; the idea of dying didn't bother me. Dying from drugs didn't seem to be a terrible thing. When Jimi Hendrix died, I cried all day because he'd left me behind. But as I grow older, as I live more, death becomes more of a reality, something I don't choose to step toward too soon.

I did the Rainbow Concert in January 1973 very much against my will. I wasn't even really there. It was Pete Townshend's idea, and I didn't know what I'd done to earn it. It's simply that he's a great humanitarian and cannot stand to see people throw their lives away. It didn't matter to him if I was willing or unwilling; he was making the effort so that I would realize, someday, that somebody cared. I'm always indebted to him for that.

The thing that finally drew me out was when Carle Radle, the Dominos' bassist, sent me a tape of him playing with Dick Sims and Jamie Oldaker. I listened to it and played along with it, and it was great. So I sent him a telegram saying, "Maintain loose posture, stay in touch." And at some point after that I started to get straight.



Main Page | Seventies Superstars | The Classic 400 | Seventies Almanac | Search The RockSite/The Web

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 Are The Beatles Overrated? 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!

Windy City Wingman Lays Roots With Wilco



In the family tree of alternative country-rock, John Stirratt’s roots go deep. When he got the call in 1993 to take over bass duties from singer/ songwriter Jeff Tweedy in alt-country supergroup Uncle Tupelo, he began a working relationship with Tweedy that led to Wilco, one of the genre’s greatest success stories. It’s a tale marked by multiple personnel changes and high-drama record-label relations—the band was dropped from its label, Reprise, after delivering tapes for what would become 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. The making of that watershed album is the subject of Sam Jones’s documentary film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.


Amid the changes, Stirratt’s warm tone and dynamic fingerstyle and pickstyle attack have formed the foundation of Wilco’s seven albums (including two with singer Billy Bragg), which have ranged from raw and rootsy (1995’s A.M.) to richly textured and intricate (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot). The band’s latest, A Ghost Is Born, witnesses Stirratt at his best, especially on the loping bass-driven single “Handshake Drugs.” Stirratt’s thumpy pickstyle line—played on a flatwound-strung Hofner—forms a balanced countermelody to Tweedy’s throaty vocals. Elsewhere, Stirratt’s playing is more staid and supportive, especially on the driving “Spiders (Kidsmoke),” an homage to Krautrock duo Neu!. With Jeff Tweedy at the helm and Stirratt in the engine room, the Chicago-based six-piece is currently touring with guitarist Nels Cline, drummer Glenn Kotche, keyboard player Mikael Jorgensen, and multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone. When he is not touring or recording with Wilco, John plays with the Autumn Defense—a band formed with longtime friend Sansone—and with his twin sister in their group, Laurie & John.



Credit: Zoran Orlic

John Stirratt plays half the time with his fingers, the other half with a heavy-gauge Planet Waves pick. When he’s playing fingerstyle, he keeps the pick tucked under his pinkie and ring fingers so it’s easy to access. “I play with my right hand pretty close to the neck,” Stirratt explains, “and when I’m picking, I mute the strings a lot with the heel of my hand. In the studio, I put sponges or Styrofoam near the bridge to mute the strings so there’s no sustain.”


You and Jeff are the only original members of Wilco. How has your playing changed with the various lineups?


We were a four-piece in our previous incarnation, so I felt naked at times. I love having all of the musical information to feed off in this bigger ensemble. With the bigger group, my playing has gotten a lot more melodic, because in a smaller setting, my role is to just hold it down. Now I’ve got more room to move around, and I don’t have to stay on the root as much, because chances are someone else is covering it.


Wilco has always been a band of multi-instrumentalists. Do you ever share bass duties?


On Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and the new album, we had Leroy Bach in the band, and he’s a fantastic bass player—he played on a few tracks, like the ones with bowed upright. In Wilco we’ve always been generous about passing instruments around—I’ve done a lot of the basic tracks on piano or guitar. Having a different voice in the low end from track to track is great. On arabella, my sister and I had a fantastic bass player from Nashville, Brad Jones, on upright and electric. He plays a Gibson EB-2 and a Gibson Les Paul Studio bass through a SansAmp; he’s got a fluid, growly style.



What is the greatest strength you bring to Wilco?


I think I can hear what songs need. In learning to be a songwriter and singer first and foremost, I’ve come to realize the bass’s responsibility. Also, Jeff and I have been singing together for so long, I bring a lot of harmony to the band. That’s a big part of it, for sure. Over the years, the harmonies were either written by me or by [former Wilco bandmate] Jay Bennett. He’s an inventive writer of harmony and countermelodies and I learned a lot from playing with him.


Which bass players have had the most impact on your playing?


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 his harmonic responsibilities really well, but his lines were absolutely melodic and inventive. Also, Rick Danko of The Band was a huge influence on me. I love the idea of a bassist providing the high vocal harmony.


What is your favorite song to play live?


“Hummingbird” has great changes, and it’s one of the most inventive pop arrangements we’ve done, so that’s fun to play as an ensemble. On the other hand, there’s “Spiders (Kidsmoke),” which basically has a one-note line for the whole ten minutes. But there’s a whole world of dynamics that I explore with that song. Every stage is different, and by playing with dynamics, you can turn the stage itself into an instrument. It’s fun to see how that song works in different spaces night-to-night. It really has a life of its own.



Bass Player is a trademark of New Bay Media, LLC. All material published on www.bassplayer.com is copyrighted @2009 by New Bay Media, LLC. All rights reserved

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.









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Bass Player is a trademark of New Bay Media, LLC. All material published on www.bassplayer.com is copyrighted @2009 by New Bay Media, LLC. All rights reserved

I posted all of this because I just wanted to show how totally ignorant and foolish what Renata and others like him/her said really is. I'm sick of reading such ignorant garbage said about The Beatles on so many other message boards and sites.

I just googled your name Renata and I learned that you are the founder of EmployeeBuddy.com and a law graduate.It just goes to show that there are many people who are intelligent about some things,but very ignorant about others!

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

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Cleveland Leader


The Beatles Take Over the World's Music Charts with Re-masters Catalogue Release

Submitted by Leader Staff on September 22, 2009 - 3:34pm.


Entertainment
Music
News


On September 9, 2009, The Beatles released their digitally re-mastered catalogue. The band showed their timeless appeal and unique position in the world of music and history, by selling more than 2.25 million copies of The Beatles re-mastered albums during the first five days of release in the major music markets including North America, Japan and the UK.


The Beatles' original UK studio albums were re-mastered by engineers at Abbey Road Studios in London over a four year period. The fruit of their meticulous labor is the highest fidelity the band's catalogue has seen since its original release. Each of the re-mastered albums were made available for purchase individually and in two multiple-CD box sets - one in stereo and one in mono.



Decades after their original releases, The Beatles albums sold amazingly with the re-masters' release this month, as evidenced by their unparalleged global chart performance:



US: During the first five days of release, consumers purchased more than one million copies of re-mastered Beatles titles, and the individual CD and boxed sets debuted strongly across multiple Billboard charts.
On Billboard’s Comprehensive Albums chart, which lists the most popular album releases in the US, including current and catalogue titles, The Beatles set a new record for the most simultaneous titles by a single artist (18), including five of the top 10 and nine of the top 20.



On the Pop Catalog chart, The Beatles achieved another new Billboard chart first for the most simultaneous titles in the top 50 (16), a record they previously set themselves with 12 titles in December 1995. The Beatles have nine of the chart’s top 10 titles, and all 14 re-mastered CDs are in the top 20, led by ‘Abbey Road’ at number one and ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ at number two.



On the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart, ‘The Beatles’ stereo boxed set debuted at number 15, and ‘The Beatles in Mono’ limited edition boxed set debuted at number 40.



UK: In last week’s chart, The Beatles had four titles in the top 10, seven in the top 40 and 16 in the top 75, including both the stereo and mono boxes, as well as 2000’s ‘Beatles 1’ compilation. This set a new record for the most simultaneous albums in the UK charts according to the UK Official Charts Company. In this week’s UK chart, The Beatles have 13 albums in the top 75. A further 84,000 CDs were sold last week, bringing their total sales of the re-masters to more than 354,000 in 11 days and their total UK sales this decade to 6,755,000.



Japan: All 14 re-mastered titles and boxed sets debuted in the top 25 of the international chart, including seven of the top 10, led by the stereo boxed set at number two, the mono boxed set at number three, ‘Abbey Road’ at four and ‘Let It Be’ at six. Across all titles and box sets, more than 840,000 albums were purchased by consumers in Japan in the first three days of sales.



Canada: The Beatles have 15 of the top 20 catalogue titles including all of the top 11. The stereo boxed set is a new entry in the current albums chart at number four, the highest debut for a boxed set in Canada since Nielsen SoundScan started tracking sales. Cumulative sales across all titles were just under 160,000 over the counter.



France: All 14 of the re-mastered titles and boxed sets entered the latest album chart, including three in the top 10, led by ‘Abbey Road’ at number four, a new record for the most original studio albums in the French album chart in one week.



Italy: The Beatles have 17 titles in the current chart – all 14 re-mastered titles, the two boxed sets, plus the ‘1’ compilation, a record for the most simultaneous entries in the album chart.



Belgium: With 17 entries in the current chart - the 14 re-mastered titles, two boxed sets and ‘1’ compilation – The Beatles have set a new record for the most simultaneous albums in the Belgian chart as confirmed by chart compiler Ultrapop.



Sweden: The Beatles have 16 titles simultaneously in the top 60, led by ‘Abbey Road’ at number six. Local industry body IFPI have confirmed that this is a record for the Swedish charts.



Argentina: Seven of the current top 10 albums are Beatles re-masters, led by ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band at number two, ‘Abbey Road’ at number three and ‘The Beatles’ (The White Album) at number four. All 14 re-mastered titles are in the top 20 and the boxed sets are at numbers 73 and 74 in the chart.



Spain: 13 Beatles albums plus both boxed sets debuted in the latest chart, a record for a single artist. The combined sales of the boxed sets places them at number four in the chart


Poland: All 14 re-mastered albums and two boxed sets debuted in the current top 100, led by ‘Abbey Road’ at six. This is a record for the highest number of simultaneous entries in the Polish chart.



Switzerland: 14 Beatles titles, including the stereo boxed set, debuted in the most recent album chart, a record for the most simultaneous titles in the album chart.



Denmark: The latest album chart includes 15 re-mastered Beatles titles, plus the ‘1’ compilation, including four of the top 20.



Australia: The Beatles have 14 titles in the current chart, including the ‘1’ compilation.



Germany: The combined sales of the stereo and mono boxed sets, with one boxed set counted as one unit sale, places them as the number three best seller in the latest chart.



Austria: The current top 75 contains 1
2 re-mastered titles plus the stereo boxed set.



Portugal: The re-mastered titles occupy 11 places in the current top 30 album chart, including three of the top 10.



Norway: The combined stereo and mono boxed sets debut at number three with a further 12 re-mastered titles in the top 100.



Colombia: Half of the current top 10 albums are re-mastered Beatles titles.



Korea: During the first sales week The Beatles occupied 16 out of the top 17 spots in Korea’s Hottracks album chart.





© 2006-2008 Cleveland Media Group

Also, The Beatles not only wrote so many great timeless rock songs,but so many beautiful acoustic ballads,even as early as on their great early 1964 A Hard Day's Night album,John's beautiful If I Fell, I'll Be Back and Paul's beautiful And I Love Her and Things We Said Today which he wrote for his then girlfriend who he later became engaged to,(she left him in 1968 after they had been lovers for 5 years from the time she was 17 and he was 21,and they were engaged to be married for 7 months,when she came home unexpectedly and found him in their bed with another woman) the very pretty red haired British actress Jane Asher,he also wrote Here There And Everywhere and ,the great blues rocker She's A Woman,for and or about her,he also wrote great songs about his arguments with her over him wanting her to give up her acting career and devote herself to him,We Can Work It Out,You Won't See Me,I'm Looking Through You and For No One.


Paul McCartney says in his authorized biography Many Years From Now, that 12 years after his beloved mother Mary who was a nurse and a midwife died when Paul was only 14 and his brother only 12,died from breast cancer within a month of being diagnosed,he had a realistic vivid dream where he saw his mother alive again and she told him to just accept things as they are.Some people including Paul himself say he subconciously wrote Yesterday 3 years brfore he wrote Let It Be also about his mother's death.Especialy when he sings the words,why she had to go I don't know she wouldn't say, and how he sings I said something wrong and he longs for yesterday when she was still living and all of his troubles seemed so far away,and he's not half the man he used to be, and wants to find a place to hide away,and how there is a shadow hanging over him and yesterday came suddenly. Like Let It Be it's a sad song especially for an extremely talented,great looking, very successful 22 year old rock artist to write.


He said when he woke up from this dream he thought how wonderful it was to see her again,and that's what he wrote the beautiful song Let It Be About,it's his dead mother Mary who comes to him in his times of trouble in his hours of darknes speaking words of wisdom Let Be.John Lennon's beautiful song Julia on The Beatles great rock album,The White album is about his mother Julia who gave him away at 5 to be raised by her older sister,and just when John was getting close to her she was killed in a hit and run car accident by a drunk off duty cop while she crossed the street in front of the house John lived in,he was at her boyfriend's house waiting for her.

good article...thanks a lot for the information!

good article...thanks a lot for the information!

What is your favorite song to play live?