The Beatles

You know, it's hard to look back on The Beatles' early years in some ways, simply because everything was so very different then:

the world was in black & white
everybody believed in politeness
acted with formality &
an seemed to have an undying belief in The Future

And then it all changed.

Did The Beatles cause that?

Certainly not!

But for six or seven years they were the most famous young men in the world, who seemed to be single-handedly changing the world year by year by:

raucous rock'n'roll that had teenage girls screaming
snappy Beatle boots and long hair
having the audacity to believe "...We're bigger than Jesus..."
taking LSD
talking to Indian Gurus
singing about Revolution

There's no doubt that by the time The Beatles acrimoniously called it a day in 1970:

the world was definitely in color
there was Violence in the air as the Vietnam war split Western culture
young people had broken the bonds of Formality but unleashed the hounds of Slovenliness &
no-one cared to guess what lay in The Future

The Beatles are the biggest part of the soundtrack of that time and few who went through it can separate their brave musical development from the the rapid changes that occurred in a few short years.

However, it's important to remember that irrespective of the music, The Beatles, as a phenomenon, were originally launched onto the world via a chaotic marketing machine. Quite logically, manager Brian Epstein's idea was "take the money and run" and divided their activities into 3 areas:

Beatlemania...all those years ago.

Area 1

1.1 writing & recording quality singles...She Loves You, I Wanna Hold Your Hand etc. (see: The Beatles 1962-1966 )

1.2 touring as often as possible

1.3 hooking up with as many merchandising tie-ups as possible...from fake wigs to pecil sharpeners...(Beatle Books #12 & #13)

1.4 movies: The 1964 A Hard Days Night movie & soundtrack & The 1965 Help movie & soundtrack

Area 2

In order to cary out the plans of Area 1, two small projects needed to be completed:

A Hard Days Night filler for side 2 of an album
Help filler for side 2 of an album

Area 3

And of course, as an afterthought, really, the release of albums. In hindsight, three of their first four albums were predominantly issued to feed a voracious public...rather than released for their merit.

The idea was to fill them with 50% Lennon-McCartney originals, songs seldom as good as their innovative singles...and 50% quality R'n'B covers. This modus operandi produced three such albums, recorded in next to no time...because they had been playing the covers for years:

Please Please Me 1963
With The Beatles 1963 &
Beatles For Sale 1964

With Capitol, The Beatles' record company in the USA, compiling its own versions of the albums, that legacy is a little confusing for fans who lived through Beatlemania with Americans having allegiance to their Stateside releases and the rest of the world remembering their British releases.

It's all a bit pointless, really, and so very long ago, especially when the three albums were just a minor component in the global blitz that was Beatlemania. In fact, I'm not even reviewing them, preferring to remember the best of the tracks via Greatest Hits 1962-1966 and picking up the story with their first movie, A Hard Days Night:

Beatle Albums:

A Hard Days Night

After the initial U.S. Beatlemania rush, the fortuitous timing of the movie A Hard Day's Night, which chronicled British Beatlemania, played an extremely important part in establishing The Beatles as "lovable" with middle America...and laid the groundwork for their continued success

Beatles cartoon dolls

Help

Help was an insanely silly, fun follow-up movie to A Hard Day's Night which became a great success. However, the soundtrack had mostly shifted from raucous Rock'n'Roll to melodic, acoustic guitar strum-alongs...with the obvious exceptions of the diametrically opposed monster hits, Help & Yesterday.

Rubber Soul

By 1965 John Lennon was really hitting his stride and his songs were head and shoulders above the rest of the band (and anyone else in the pop world):

In My Life
Girl
Nowhere Man &
Norwegian Wood

McCartney's contribution was slim but important, charming the mums and dads with the sweet but saccharine Michelle. Looking back, Rubber Soul contains some of The Beatles' best mid-period work. Delicious!

Revolver

The next album, Revolver displayed a ridiculous abundance of strong tracks with sumptuous melodies, powered by McCartney's sunny optimism and Lennon's mostly druggy lyrics. This album is THE sound of the Swinging Sixties.

Sgt. Pepper's

McCartney's masterpiece...still wonderful...but...oh, it could have been so much better!

Magical Mystery Tour

The Beatles bombed with this McCartney-inspired made for TV film. In hindsight, Magical Mystery Tour isn't so much bad...as weird...and seriously under-developed.

The soundtrack was released as a double-maxi-single in the UK but as a well-loved album in America with a glossy Magical Mystery Tour color booklet. Side 2 consisted of the A & B sides of their 1967 singles:

Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields Forever
All You Need Is Love &
Hello Goodbye

The White Album

In 1967 the Beatles became involved with a bona-fide guru, The Maharishi, who had come to the West to teach a simple form of Meditation, called TM. Lennon hoped it would be his answer to Life's mysteries and the whole band went to India in early 1968 to study with him.

When that episode ended acrimoniously (Ringo & Paul had left early), The Beatles gathered in the UK to record the songs they had written in India in an atmosphere of dissatisfaction and hardly-repressed anger.

Originally to be called Doll's House, finally The Beatles...and known generally as The White Album, the 1968 double album is a sprawling affair with many great individual performances...and little cohesion, reflecting the atmosphere. Still, many consider it their greatest achievement.

Yellow Submarine

Fantastic animation movie that because of the pervading atmosphere, The Beatles treated with disdain, declining to even dub their voices in for the Beatle characters.

That's sad because Yellow Submarine is really both under-rated and under-appreciated. It's truly superb...but is it a Beatle product?

Let It Be

Sequentially released after Abbey Road but recorded six months prior, at the beginning of 1969. Let It Be was another McCartney-inspired project, this time to capture the band in rehearsals for a new album.

Let It Be captured the ill-tempered sessions on film and tape, making:

an ultimately depressing film (Apple has not been particularly excited about releasing it on DVD) &
an erratic...though memorable album

Abbey Road

The Dream is over. Beautifully sounding but ultimately lightweight, a triumph of mood over substance, Abbey Road saw The Beatles create a delightful piece of fluff before they went their seperate ways.

The Beatles Greatest Hits 1962-1966

The Beatles Greatest Hits 1967-1970

Two double album compilations that create the atmosphere of the times and have all the Beatle singles not released on their albums.

Past Masters Volume 1 & 2

All the A & B-sides of singles not released on conventional albums (includes the two German tracks).

Anthology

After hundred of Beatle books had been released, these are:

the albums
the DVD &
the coffee table book

...that tell their story their way. Strongly recommended.

Love

George Martin & son Giles are encouraged by The remaining Beatles to remix the original tapes and create a new soundtrack for Cirque de Soleil's Las Vegas Beatles extravaganza, Love. The results please some and appall others.

Beatle Books

What I believe to be the best Beatle books...and why. I've categorised them into sections:

In Their Own Words
Data
Friends & Associates
Technicians
Beatlemania
Hatchet Jobs