Beatles

DISCOGRAPHY

Please Please Me (1963) 4/10

Meet the Beatles (1963) 4/10

With the Beatles (1963) 3/10

Hard Day's Night (1964) 4.5/10

Beatles For Sale (1964) 3/10

Help! (1965) 4/10

Rubber Soul (1965) 5/10

Revolver (1966) 5/10 +

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) 6.5/10 +

Magical Mystery Tour (1967) 6/10

White Album (1968) 6/10 +

Abbey Road (1969) 7/10 +

George Harrison: Electronic Sound (1969) 6/10

Let It Be (1970) 4.5/10

George Harrison: All Things Must Pass (1970) 6.5/10

John Lennon: Plastic Ono Band (1970) 6.5/10

Past Masters (archival, 1962-1970) 5/10

John Lennon: Imagine (1971) 5/10

Paul McCartney: Ram (1971) 5/10

John Lennon: Mind Games (1973) 4/10

Paul McCartney & Wings: Band on the Run (1973) 5/10

John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Double Fantasy (1980) 5/10

Love (remixes, 2006) 5/10 +

    The Beatles were the kings of radio music, but never possessed the true cutting edge of Rock music. While no other band can rival the Beatles' prolific catalog of catchy tunes and hit singles, more than a hundred bands could rival their creativity due to the band's ultimate priority of commercialism. 

   The Beatles have more fans than possibly any other entity that exists in the fifth dimension. I'd argue it was not their music that changed the world, but Beatlemania. Different from the stardom of Elvis, the Beatles embraced the trends of the underground (the true "Rock" culture) and proved to executives that flaunting unconventional ideas (no matter how superficial) can still make money. Thus more experimental musicians were trusted to record their ideas, artists that otherwise may have been ignored had the Beatles not shown that singles like Strawberry Fields actually had a demographic. 

   The Beatles are a good band, but the overwhelming majority's obnoxious praise of them as serious "artists" forces me to deflate them a bit. It's okay to love the Beatles, it's okay to even worship them (as most already do); but unfortunately on my side of things, I've seen and heard too many absolutely mind-boggling music that has inspired me in much more profound ways than the Fab Four's pop tunes. But that's just me. 

   The band's debut LP Please Please Me collects eight original songs and six covers. Among the original material is just diet Buddy Holly. I Saw Her Standing There, Love Me Do, and their cover of Twist and Shout entertain as Merseybeat pop, and though Misery and Please Please Me may have less infectious hooks, they are solid performances nonetheless.

   The rest are rarely remembered even by Beatlemaniacs: the covers Boys, Anna, Chains, A Taste of Honey, and Baby It's You; and the cheesy Ask Me Why (note: not "Tell Me Why"), PS I Love You, and Do You Want To Know a Secret are all obnoxious rides of the boy-band trend for the early 60s. 

   The Beatles' self-titled double LP, (also known as the White Album) further channels the band's obsessive eclecticism. 

1- surf rock

2- psych pop/folk

3- psych rock

4- sunshine pop/ska

5- freak folk?

6- folk rock, children's

7,10,15,19- blues rock

8- hard rock, doo-wop

9,12- vaudeville, baroque pop

11,16- folk pop

13- country, ragtime

14- honky tonk, country rock

17- singer/songwriter? depressing folk pop

18- hard rock, ragtime

21.23- hard rock

22,28- piano rock

20,24- baroque folk

25- acoustic rock

26-ragtime, jazz pop, vaudeville

27- R&B, psych soul

29- sound collage, tape music, musique concrete

30- baroque pop, lullaby, traditional pop

   Lennon's Mind Games serves a collection of duds: more lulling, unmemorable pop ballads aside from Meat City and Mind Games: the former forcing that uncomfortable mix of hard-rock and power-pop (the "cracker blues" sound akin to It's So Hard or Well Well Well) and the latter being abuse of an underwhelming melody to a sleepy tempo. A sort of rockabilly-boogie is attempted with Tight A$, making it one of the few memorable moments on the record. 

   The "avant-garde" Nutopian International Anthem is four seconds of silence, perhaps to illustrate something political and "deep" but it is quite unambitious musically. (Though if they wanted to get my attention maybe four minutes would have done the trick, but four seconds of quiet will pass by unnoticed.)

TOP 10 SONGS

ROCKUMENTARIES

Richard Lester: A Hard Day's Night (1964) 6.5/10

Richard Lester: Help! (1965) 5/10

The Beatles & Bernard Knowles: Magical Mystery Tour (TV, 1967) 4/10

George Dunning: Yellow Submarine (1968) 5.5/10 

Julie Taymor: Across the Universe (2007) 4/10

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