The Beatles: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo StarrThe impact of the Beatles upon popular music is limitless; they revolutionized the music industry and touched the lives of all who heard them in deep and fundamental ways. Arriving in US on February 7, 1964, they literally stood the world of pop culture on its head. The Beatles' buoyant melodies, playful personalities and charisma have created a mass adulation coined as Beatlemania. Without exaggeration, they transfixed and transformed the world in music, fashion, lifestyle and popular culture in general.
Beatles’ first Number One single in the U.S. was I Want to Hold Your Hand. During the week of April 4, 1964, the Beatles set a record that is likely never to be broken when they occupied all top 5 positions on Billboard's Top Chart, with Can't Buy Me Love at Number One, followed by Twist and Shout, She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, and Please Please Me. The Beatles had twelve songs on the Top-100 charts that week, a feat never matched before or since.
The Beatles can unassailably be regarded as the top group in rock and roll history. Yet their significance as a band extends beyond numbers to encompass their innovations in the recording studio. The Beatles' legacy as a concert attraction is distinguished primarily by the deafening screams of fans overcome b
y the group's very appearance.For various reasons, ranging from safety concerns to frustration that no one could hear or was listening, the Beatles retired from touring after a San Francisco concert on August 29, 1966. Consequently, they began to indulge their creative energies in the studio, experimenting with sounds in ways no one had attempted before. The results included such musically expansive and lyrically sophisticated albums as Rubber Soul (1965) and Revolver (1966).
They released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), an album that has almost universally been cited as the creative apotheosis of rock and roll, a watershed event in which rock became serious art without losing its sense of humor (or sense of the absurd).
The Beatles have amassed the greatest sales for any artist. All-time sales have been estimated by EMI at over one billion discs and tapes to-date. In 2001, they had been certified for album sales of 163.5 million in the US alone. The Beatles have numerous other world records, including most recorded song Yesterday had 1,600 versions recorded between 1965 and 1985. Their compilation album 1 (released on 13 Nov 2000) sold13.5 million copies around the world in its first month, making it the fastest-selling album in music history. It's something unthinkable for a band that broke up in 1970.
Their latest album Love (released on 21 November 2006) has also topped album charts all over the world.
John Lennon was shot dead by a deranged fan in 1980 while George Harrison died in 2001 due to cancer.
5 comments:
Yes it's true. The Beatles are the greatest ever band in the world. Lennon/McCartney are the greatest songwriting team of the century.
For years I accepted on faith that the best album ever made was Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
While that album remains a stunning example of the summer of love, the true trinity of the Beatles oeuvre are Rubber Soul, Revolver and Abbey Road -- with the nod going to Abbey Road as the Beatles final studio album.
There is not a false note on this album. It kicks off with a forceful vocal from John Lennon on "Come Together," which is balanced by the tenderness of "Something," one of George Harrison's best songs (and only Beatles A-side single contribution). With "Because" Lennon wrote one of the loveliest melodies of his career. Even the silliness of McCartney's "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and Ringo Starr's child-like "Octopus's Garden" exude charm and warmth from a band that was on the verge of fragmenting forever and taking some of the innocence of the sixties with them.
And then there's the side-2 suite which still makes for powerful listening thirty years later. Paul McCartney summed it all up in "The End" -- "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." And so the curtain rang down on the best rock 'n' roll band in our lifetime.
From All Time Top 1,000 Albums by Collin Larkin..
1 Beatles-Revolver (1966)
2 Beatles-Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
3 Beatles-White Album (1968)
4 Nirvana-Nevermind (1991)
5 Beatles Abbey road (1969)
6 Beach Boys-Pet Sounds (1966)
7 R.E.M.-Automatic For The People (1992)
8 Pink Floyd-Dark Side Of The Moon (1973)
9 Oasis-What's the story - Morning Glory? (1995)
10 Radiohead-The Bends (1995)
11 David Bowie-The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust (1972)
12 Jimi Hendrix-Electric Ladyland (1968)
13 Sex Pistols-Never Mind The Bullocks (1977)
14 Stone Roses-The Stone Roses (1989)
15 Van Morrison-Astral Weeks (1968)
16 David Bowie-Hunky Dory (1971)
17 Bob Dylan-Blonde On Blonde (1966)
18 U2-Joshua Tree (1987)
19 Fleetwood Mac-Rumours (1977)
20 Beatles-Rubber Soul (1965)
From BBC reports:
In a recent rock and pop memorabilia auction at Christies, items from influential artist such as The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison have sold for insane amounts.
The guitar on which Paul McCartney learned his first chords has sold for US$640,000 at an auction at London's Abbey Road Studios.
McCartney's handwritten lyrics for The Beatles' "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" sold for US$192,000.
A Gibson SG guitar used by George Harrison from 1966 to 1969, including during the recording of Revolver and White Album sessions has fetched US$570,000 at auction in New York.
An undocumented John Lennon recording was sold for US$38,400.
In 2004, a guitar thought to have belonged to John Lennon and found in a New York rubbish bin went on sale with an auction price of US$2.4 million.
A leather collar worn by John Lennon during the late 1960s has fetched US$227,230 at auction - nearly eight times its expected sale price.
A signed copy of a management deal involving the Beatles and their manager Brian Epstein also smashed its estimate, reaching US$219,000.
A Vox Kensington guitar used by Lennon and George Harrison went for US$193,880.
The sale at Christie's in London was the most successful pop auction in the company's history, making US$1.53 million.
The Lennon neckwear, which he wore throughout 1967 and 1968, went to a private collector in the US.
A coloured felt-pen drawing by Lennon fetched US$19,400; a letter with his signature US$10,700; and a pen-and-ink drawing called Happy Fish, US$18,420.
Christie's head of popular entertainment Sarah Hodgson said there had been "frenzied" bidding from international collectors.
It has been 36 years since the Beatles broke up, and still no other band has demonstrated the range of their artistry. From bubblegum come-ons to adult love songs, with stops at cartoonish psychedelia, Twenties pop, trippy circus music, and maharishi-inspired chant-alongs in between, the band defied genre labeling. Instead of jumping ship after the harmonies of Help! and Rubber Soul shifted into the swirling soundscapes of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the White Album, fans stuck around through the Sixties and learned a lesson in musical evolution along the way.
To offer an academic explanation for the Beatles’ universal popularity and sonic significance, Florida International University will present The Beatles in Miami –Presentation will approach the supremely influential band from a composer’s eye view, examining song structure, lyrics, and tone color while illustrating the discussion through choice clips.
Date/Time:Wed.,December 13,7pm
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