Tiresias
20th Jan 11, 7:10 AM
There are a lot of superlatives thrown at The Beatles, and thus I think it does wind people up how they’re given extra special status and honours, above all other groups, and this in many ways is fair enough. Out of the huge 60s groups there are people who go for the Beatles, those who go for the Stones, those for the Kinks, and those who just wait for Led Zepplin a decade later. This kind of tribalism I think is a bit unhelpful, but I’ve always been a Beatles fan and oddly struggled with the Stones (though getting into them now).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXHO7hScOCA
The Beatles made some astonishingly brilliant records, a plethora of brilliant songs, but what I think maybe creates superlatives in critics eyes but doesn’t make much difference is that they were massively groundbreaking at the time. They pioneered production effects (Yellow Submarine was apparently amazing at the time, but now it is the worst song on Revolver, why oh why did they let Ringo write songs :P tad unfair he later made some alright ones) but they were the first to bring in an orchestra, the first to use backwards guitars, the first to make a concept album (though this is very exaggerated, it’s basically two tracks introducing their concept band and then saying goodbye, without them it wouldn’t change the album at all from any other Beatles record), the first to bring in exotic instrumentation, George Harrisson never gets enough credit I think, a lot of his songs are great and he produces some amazing guitar lines particularly on Revolver).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz7IjXu0DfQ
I have to say I am a fan of the latter half of the Beatles work, when they started hitting the drugs and writing about odd things. However there are plenty of great early albums and songs. I always preferred the later psychedelic stuff. They’re veering off the pop love song produced some of the best songs I know of. (Lennon spent the years after the beatles railing about how he never managed to shake off that pristine image even through the white album era, but also against the Beatles, which if you’ve heard Some Time in New York City makes any claims that he is better without them a bit hollow)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY5i4-rWh44
I would say however that Sgt Peppers is actually a bit over-rated, as I said earlier it’s not much of a concept album, and actually has some weaker elements than revolver. I think this was the beginning of the end for the beatles, you can very much start to hear them spinning off in their own directions when once they were such a cohesive whole. Harrisson indulges his drug habit with Within You Without You which is largely considered quite boring (I have a soft spot for it), and McCartney indulges his sentimentalism that would go on to be a scourge of his solo career (though his solo stuff is maybe underrated as a result) on the quite obnoxiously twee “when I’m 64”. The album is saved however by some astonishingly brilliant stuffed up...finished with maybe my favourite song of all time, A Day in the Life, having introduced orchestration into pop they were already bored of it, and used it totally differently. They cut up two different songs, one Lennon one McCartney, probably marking the last true collaboration between the two of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCUeia-nEio
By the time of the White Album the Beatles as a unit were dead and buried. This isn’t a band playing together it was 3 solo artists and Ringo (rimshot ;p) each acting as session musicians for the others and grudgingly at that. (Ringo stormed out of the sessions at the start actually, funny to think he was the first to actually quit the group, but he came back though McCartney played drums on several of the tracks as a result. Lennon’s famous jibe ‘Ringo wasn’t even the best drummer in the beatles’ seems a tad unfair though and even Lennon can’t have really meant it considering he got Ringo in to play on a lot of his solo stuff) Anyway the White Album is the result of them flying off to India in seach of hippy heaven, they came back disillusioned and absolutely hating free love and all of that. The album they grudgingly put together (Lennon and McCartney recorded in different rooms frequently) was...a complete and utter mess, indulgently a double album, many tracks that should probably be cut (though revolution no 9, 9 minutes of random sounds and odd phrases). However I love the White Album because of this, it is nearly my favourite Beatles Album, even at their worst they made so many brilliant songs on it, so many gems. It maybe is a great ‘what might have been’, what would have this album had been if they were as united as they were on Revolver? Who knows, it has gone down as a great indulgence but I am glad of its existence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrkwgTBrW78
After the White Album the writing was on the wall, and what’s more they still made more albums which is miraculous somehow, but maybe down to the fact that back then bands just didn’t split up and call it day without disappearing all together. They tried to go back to their roots and record a new album quickly, the sessions were unsurprisingly a total disaster but an album did eventually emerge called ‘let it be’. This was called their last album wrongly as though it was released after Abbey Road. It was produced by Phil Spector, and to be honest I’m not a big fan, has a few lovely tunes (two of us, across the universe) but not a fan of the added interludes by Spector. Abbey Road however tussles for top spot for me. McCartney pitched it famously (and maybe other mythologised) as “once more, like we used to”. One more final go then, and god did it deliver, but not for too long. Come Together as a post-hippy anthem is great (including Lennon whispering to the drums ‘shoot me’ oooh eer) Something is Harrison’s finest piece, followed perhaps by Here Comes the Sun. McCartney contributes the fun but maybe a bit naff Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and his best vocal performance in ‘Oh Darling’ and Lennon delivers the 7 minute brilliance of I Want You (She’s So Heavy) which just lures you into this hypnotic groove. Possibly my high point of the Beatles, but also with a low point, they foolishly let Ringo add a song and we get the turgid Octopuses Garden that processes a long with a funereal pace that is wholly inappropriate for such a childish ditty. Then since they couldn’t even get along long enough to finish an album anymore they put together a suite of half finished songs for the second half that are glorious, ending not where intended either with ‘The End’ but with a 40 second acoustic ditty that an engineer added as he was literally told by the beatles to “include all our spare recordings, literally” and he could only fit it in there. They loved the undermining of their ending song so much they kept it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTUi9l84fRw
I love the Beatles, they were melodic in the extreme(and underrated as musicians, McCartney is actually an amazing bassist), and it is very very rare to find a group that strained and tested against what was musically possible at the time so much, and with such panache and musical sensibility. They even invented the inglorious spectacular band breakup.
(damn you EMI not allowing embedding)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXHO7hScOCA
The Beatles made some astonishingly brilliant records, a plethora of brilliant songs, but what I think maybe creates superlatives in critics eyes but doesn’t make much difference is that they were massively groundbreaking at the time. They pioneered production effects (Yellow Submarine was apparently amazing at the time, but now it is the worst song on Revolver, why oh why did they let Ringo write songs :P tad unfair he later made some alright ones) but they were the first to bring in an orchestra, the first to use backwards guitars, the first to make a concept album (though this is very exaggerated, it’s basically two tracks introducing their concept band and then saying goodbye, without them it wouldn’t change the album at all from any other Beatles record), the first to bring in exotic instrumentation, George Harrisson never gets enough credit I think, a lot of his songs are great and he produces some amazing guitar lines particularly on Revolver).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz7IjXu0DfQ
I have to say I am a fan of the latter half of the Beatles work, when they started hitting the drugs and writing about odd things. However there are plenty of great early albums and songs. I always preferred the later psychedelic stuff. They’re veering off the pop love song produced some of the best songs I know of. (Lennon spent the years after the beatles railing about how he never managed to shake off that pristine image even through the white album era, but also against the Beatles, which if you’ve heard Some Time in New York City makes any claims that he is better without them a bit hollow)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY5i4-rWh44
I would say however that Sgt Peppers is actually a bit over-rated, as I said earlier it’s not much of a concept album, and actually has some weaker elements than revolver. I think this was the beginning of the end for the beatles, you can very much start to hear them spinning off in their own directions when once they were such a cohesive whole. Harrisson indulges his drug habit with Within You Without You which is largely considered quite boring (I have a soft spot for it), and McCartney indulges his sentimentalism that would go on to be a scourge of his solo career (though his solo stuff is maybe underrated as a result) on the quite obnoxiously twee “when I’m 64”. The album is saved however by some astonishingly brilliant stuffed up...finished with maybe my favourite song of all time, A Day in the Life, having introduced orchestration into pop they were already bored of it, and used it totally differently. They cut up two different songs, one Lennon one McCartney, probably marking the last true collaboration between the two of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCUeia-nEio
By the time of the White Album the Beatles as a unit were dead and buried. This isn’t a band playing together it was 3 solo artists and Ringo (rimshot ;p) each acting as session musicians for the others and grudgingly at that. (Ringo stormed out of the sessions at the start actually, funny to think he was the first to actually quit the group, but he came back though McCartney played drums on several of the tracks as a result. Lennon’s famous jibe ‘Ringo wasn’t even the best drummer in the beatles’ seems a tad unfair though and even Lennon can’t have really meant it considering he got Ringo in to play on a lot of his solo stuff) Anyway the White Album is the result of them flying off to India in seach of hippy heaven, they came back disillusioned and absolutely hating free love and all of that. The album they grudgingly put together (Lennon and McCartney recorded in different rooms frequently) was...a complete and utter mess, indulgently a double album, many tracks that should probably be cut (though revolution no 9, 9 minutes of random sounds and odd phrases). However I love the White Album because of this, it is nearly my favourite Beatles Album, even at their worst they made so many brilliant songs on it, so many gems. It maybe is a great ‘what might have been’, what would have this album had been if they were as united as they were on Revolver? Who knows, it has gone down as a great indulgence but I am glad of its existence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrkwgTBrW78
After the White Album the writing was on the wall, and what’s more they still made more albums which is miraculous somehow, but maybe down to the fact that back then bands just didn’t split up and call it day without disappearing all together. They tried to go back to their roots and record a new album quickly, the sessions were unsurprisingly a total disaster but an album did eventually emerge called ‘let it be’. This was called their last album wrongly as though it was released after Abbey Road. It was produced by Phil Spector, and to be honest I’m not a big fan, has a few lovely tunes (two of us, across the universe) but not a fan of the added interludes by Spector. Abbey Road however tussles for top spot for me. McCartney pitched it famously (and maybe other mythologised) as “once more, like we used to”. One more final go then, and god did it deliver, but not for too long. Come Together as a post-hippy anthem is great (including Lennon whispering to the drums ‘shoot me’ oooh eer) Something is Harrison’s finest piece, followed perhaps by Here Comes the Sun. McCartney contributes the fun but maybe a bit naff Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and his best vocal performance in ‘Oh Darling’ and Lennon delivers the 7 minute brilliance of I Want You (She’s So Heavy) which just lures you into this hypnotic groove. Possibly my high point of the Beatles, but also with a low point, they foolishly let Ringo add a song and we get the turgid Octopuses Garden that processes a long with a funereal pace that is wholly inappropriate for such a childish ditty. Then since they couldn’t even get along long enough to finish an album anymore they put together a suite of half finished songs for the second half that are glorious, ending not where intended either with ‘The End’ but with a 40 second acoustic ditty that an engineer added as he was literally told by the beatles to “include all our spare recordings, literally” and he could only fit it in there. They loved the undermining of their ending song so much they kept it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTUi9l84fRw
I love the Beatles, they were melodic in the extreme(and underrated as musicians, McCartney is actually an amazing bassist), and it is very very rare to find a group that strained and tested against what was musically possible at the time so much, and with such panache and musical sensibility. They even invented the inglorious spectacular band breakup.
(damn you EMI not allowing embedding)