Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    #26
    Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

    The thing about the Beatles is the incredible diversity. Also even now the freshness. I played Rain and hey bulldog do my son in law and he couldn't believe they were just short of 50 years old

    Comment


      #27
      Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

      Imagine The Beatles would not have had to release albums every few months. The tracklistings for Beatles For Sale/Help a Rubber Soul/Revolver combo would have been unbelievable.

      August 1965 might have seen an LP like this (presuming that one or two of For Sale tracks could have been used in the movie, and let's add a single to it as well):

      No Reply
      I'm A Loser
      Baby's In Black
      I'll Follow The Sun
      Eight Days A Week
      Every Little Thing
      I Feel Fine
      Help!
      You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
      I Need You
      You're Going To Lose That Girl
      Ticket To Ride
      It's Only Love
      Yesterday

      And in 1966, Rubber Soul/Revolver

      Drive My Car
      Norwegian Wood
      Nowhere Man
      I'm Looking Through You (though Michelle might more obvious)
      Girl
      In My Life
      If I Needed Someone
      Taxman
      Eleanor Rigby
      Here, There And Everywhere
      Good Day Sunshine
      And Your Bird Can Sing (or I Want To Tell You)
      Got To Get You Into My Life
      Tomorrow Never Knows

      Substitute your least favourite track for the obligatory Ringo track.

      Comment


        #28
        Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

        But would they have been that productive if they hadn't been under pressure to record 2 albums + 4 singles a year? When the pressure was reduced (1967-68) the songs became more fragmentary. Macca was always very active but Lennon could be lazy if nobody was telling him they needed 6 songs by the end of the month.

        Comment


          #29
          Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

          MBEs collected yesterday, recording of Rubber Soul is under way at Abbey Road.

          Comment


            #30
            Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

            Yeah, a few tracks are down already, including Nowhere Man and In My Life, though most will be recorded next month before the early December release. So no pressure.

            Back to the studio in two days time to finish We Can Work It Out.

            And bear in mind that on 6 April next year, they'll be back in the studio to begin recording Revolver, starting with Tomorrow Mever Knows.

            Comment


              #31
              Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

              Good thread, only time for a top 10 for now:

              Ticket to Ryde (John)
              She's a woman (Paul)
              Things we said today (Paul)
              I feel fine (John)
              Norwegian wood (John)
              And your bird can sing (John)
              Penny Lane (Paul)
              Old Brown Shoe (George)
              Don't pass me by (Ringo)
              Here comes the Sun (George)

              Comment


                #32
                Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                G-Man's vision of a world with fewer Beatles songs chills my bones.

                Comment


                  #33
                  Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                  Rubber Soul was released 50 years ago today!

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_Soul

                  Comment


                    #34
                    Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                    Great find! Text to Dad sent.

                    Comment


                      #35
                      Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                      Ah, great, five years of semicentennial Beatles worship ahead. Looking forward to the long debates about which slightly better than average MOR Beatles album is the best album of all time.

                      Comment


                        #36
                        Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                        An MOR song, forty-nine years ago

                        Comment


                          #37
                          Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                          To linus, Bach just hummed, Billie Holiday just crooned, Miles Davis just doodled, B.B. King just strummed, Michael Jackson just hopped, Public Enemy just shouted...

                          Comment


                            #38
                            Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                            linus wrote: Ah, great, five years of semicentennial Beatles worship ahead. Looking forward to the long debates about which slightly better than average MOR Beatles album is the best album of all time.
                            You see, if 'I' were affecting the oh-so-arch anti-Beatles stance, I'd probably have balked at the thread title and gone some place else...

                            Comment


                              #39
                              Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                              I don't dislike the Beatles really, just the notion that their cannon is something that towers over their contemporaries and is stupendously exceptional and the best of their time, and stated in the same sentence as Bach. That's how they are commonly perceived. I wouldn't put any Beatles album in my top 100 from 1965-72 (my list would be about 2,500 deep though.)

                              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE1DDR-oATM

                              The best of the period was more on the margins, although the bigger bands were also really good.

                              Comment


                                #40
                                Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                                The perceptions are correct, though. They belong exactly in the same sentence as Bach on account of the massive influence they had on popular music. You might not enjoy the music, but to ignore or diminish that immense influence is to reveal a certain music-historical illiteracy.

                                Comment


                                  #41
                                  Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                                  Anyway, to mark the 50th anniversary of the release of Rubber Soul last week, here's a mix of cover versions of the albums tracks, in sequence.

                                  The Humble Pie version of "Drive My Car" is quite remarkable.

                                  Comment


                                    #42
                                    Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                                    G-Man wrote: The perceptions are correct, though. They belong exactly in the same sentence as Bach on account of the massive influence they had on popular music. You might not enjoy the music, but to ignore or diminish that immense influence is to reveal a certain music-historical illiteracy.
                                    Yeah, this. And to dismiss what The Beatles did as 'MOR' shows - at best - a lack of understanding of a term/genre that didn't really exist as an expression at the time anyway.

                                    Comment


                                      #43
                                      Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                                      Just listened to Rubber Soul on the way home. Must be at least a couple of years. The funny thing with the Beatles is, I wasn't especially "in a Beatles mood" but chose to listen to it after the thread update reminded me. I was soon right in the mood.

                                      In the past In My Life was always my absolute favourite, in fact one of my top Beatles songs of all. Yet today the one which really had the most impact was Nowhere Man. The melody, and the way John sings

                                      Nowhere man, don't worry
                                      Take your time, don't hurry
                                      Leave it all
                                      Till somebody else lends you a hand


                                      Ah, heaven.

                                      Maybe that's part of it - there's always something new.

                                      Comment


                                        #44
                                        Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                                        Jah Womble wrote: And to dismiss what The Beatles did as 'MOR' shows - at best - a lack of understanding of a term/genre that didn't really exist as an expression at the time anyway.
                                        That point was already answered with the link to "Tomorrow Never Knows". But if by MOR linus meant unadventurous mainstream rock/pop, then I presume that

                                        (a) either his knowledge of Beatles music is limited to stuff like "Let It Be" and "The Long And Winding Road", or

                                        (b) he thinks that the many sonic innovations of The Beatles have been improved upon so much by subsequent generations of experimental musicans as to render them banal. Though I can't think of many songs that sound as innovative (or beautiful) as "Strawberry Fields", even almost 50 yearts after it was recorded.

                                        Comment


                                          #45
                                          Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                                          Well, it was 'highlighted' by that link, rather than 'answered' by it. My point was that MOR is an inspiration that only really came to the fore in the 1970s: The Beatles can be neither considered guilty of it, nor indeed responsible for it.

                                          The fact that MOR as a genre (if it even constitutes one) might since have enveloped some of Lennon and McCartney's output is neither here nor there.

                                          Comment


                                            #46
                                            Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                                            It's the only band where you have a creative tension between two geniuses, and a third member who becomes a great guitarist and songwriter. The former is already there on "A Hard Day's Night" (album) whereas George has major creative input on Rubber Soul and Revolver with his Byrds and Indian flourishes and considerable wit.

                                            Comment


                                              #47
                                              Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                                              G-Man wrote: The perceptions are correct, though. They belong exactly in the same sentence as Bach on account of the massive influence they had on popular music. You might not enjoy the music, but to ignore or diminish that immense influence is to reveal a certain music-historical illiteracy.
                                              You can't accuse me of "music-historical illiteracy" though, because my knowledge of music from the Beatles era is quite extensive, literally tens of thousands of titles deep. It's precisely because of this that I refute the notion that the Beatles, were Bach-like musical gods that towered above their contemporaries.

                                              If anything, it is Beatles fans that are subject to "music-historical illiteracy", and there is a very good example of this in the Satchmo post right above, where he advances the notion that "the Beatles are the only band where you have creative tension between two geniuses". It's as if none of the other bands from that period had more than one great creative member...

                                              The Beatles were in the limelight like no other band before or after them, so much so that they came to define the era and were the conduit to younger generations to that genre. They are part of the cultural fibre of the UK and N. America, their songs are your mum's favorites. That's how their aura was built. Sort of like how Britney Spears is part of the musical driver of many Y-gen women, or Justin Bieber will be for many millennials.

                                              That doesn't mean that the Beatles are as crap as Bieber, but they did not become musical paragons through the quality of their work alone, because they had many contemporaries that were at least as good, some of whom were famous, and many who were outsiders that go little or no recognition.

                                              They were credited for innovations like the invention of the album concept or of psychedelia, when other bands could lay much better claims, like the Misunderstood's 1966 "Before the Dream Faded" album side, or the 13th Floor Elevators who were psychedelic well before the Beatles latched on to paisley and gurus. It is true however that they popularized those innovative concepts, but their work, while the most popular, wasn't the best of the era. Not Bach-like.

                                              Comment


                                                #48
                                                Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                                                There were other artists that produced work that arguably competed with The Beatles at their best, but none that so consistently broke new ground with their songs while always remaining commercial and vibrant.

                                                It's as if none of the other bands from that period had more than one great creative member...
                                                Well, he said 'genius' rather than merely 'creative member' - there's a substantial difference. Many other bands could boast more than one creative in the pack, obviously.

                                                But this is another point that feels a little moot, to be honest.

                                                Comment


                                                  #49
                                                  Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                                                  They are part of the cultural fibre of the UK and N. America, their songs are your mum's favorites. That's how their aura was built.
                                                  Yeah, mums love to dance to "Within You, Without You" and do their ironing to "Revolution #9".

                                                  When I get bored with Sgt Pepper's, I tend to go back to a post AdC wrote some years ago about the mindblowing impact of the album on contemporary culture. It changed everything, he said. Many, many people of that era, musicians and listeners, said the same thing. It's a good reminder that before "A Day In The Life", there was nothing like "A Day In The Life".

                                                  Knowing every bit of music made in the 1960s does not in itself indicate historical literacy, linus. That knowledge also requires accurate interpretation. On this thread (and arguably also in your previous dismissal of Pet Sounds) you have not offered an accurate contextual analysis.

                                                  Your line of argument in this instance is the equivalent of the Brazilian player Denilson: a player with a cupboard full of tricks but without a useful application.

                                                  Comment


                                                    #50
                                                    Beatles Timeline: 50 years on

                                                    "A Day in the Life" remains one of the most extraordinary pieces ever made, even compared to everything Prog Rock could throw at it over the next decade, and is possibly my favourite Beatles track.

                                                    Middle of The Road? You must be on rohypnol.

                                                    Can you imagine (no pun intended) "A Day in the Life" being released as a single, in a later era? Versus Bohemian Rhapsody, for example, that came 8 years later?

                                                    Comment

                                                    Working...
                                                    X