Personal Note on The Beatles:
I first listened to the Beatles, not on radio, LP or cassette but through syndicated reruns of Beatles cartoons that were shown in the mornings of the early 1980s on WSNS Channel 44 (Chicago). I was 8 or 9 years-old and don’t remember what all those cartoons were about but I remembered the music.
From that point onward, I would hear some of their music on the radio, “Yesterday”, “Long and Winding Road” and a few others. There wasn’t a lot of airplay for their music back then. A 9-year-old kid listening to the Beatles wasn’t exactly the “cool” thing to be doing. It was the early 80s with post-punk music and artists like The Police, Blondie, Michael Jackson and others dominating the radio, I would listen to those popular artists but also sought out other music. I remember hearing Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison songs on the radio but they were, though very good, their solo work and also very modern. The thing that made a huge difference was that The Beatles music was from the 60s. Older music, at that time, was new to me. Except for some Motown hits I heard from that era, I wasn’t familiar with all the songs released back then. But the Beatles music was a doorway to the sounds of Rock n Roll, The 60s and eventually Classic Rock.
It wasn’t until November 19, 1995 that I would understand fully the scope of their importance and influence. It was on that day, ABC television network broadcast the first episode of Beatles Anthology documentary. Over the next 2 nights I was taken back in time and heard songs that were new to me. I was now a complete and total Beatles fan. I would soon purchase the companion music to the Beatles Anthology series on CD as well as their Beatles 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 to have key songs from their body of work.
I would eventually have all their albums in the years that followed on CD and Mp3 formats.
Over the years, The Beatles music has aged very well. The music is a time capsule of hopes and dreams, love and visions. Now there are Beatle fans young and old. Today, a 9 year-old kid is not considered weird or strange listening to them. And that makes me long for the days when their music were brand new to me again….
A few more thoughts:
It’s the Beatles and their music that caused me to create my own personal “Three Point Rule” for greatest artists: Popularity (How many sales? How many hits?), Innovation (Was there anything new created?) and Influence (How many other artists were influenced?). The Beatles fulfilled all these and more…..
The photo on the left from The Beatles 1 Album features them in different scenes and colors. I have always commented on those images as a way to explain their personalities and the music they created, some of the many factors that make music great: John (Imagination) – Paul (Love) – George (Spirituality) – Ringo (Humor)
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The Beatles were an English rock band that formed in Liverpool, in 1960. With John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the greatest and most influential act of the rock era. Rooted in skiffle and 1950s rock and roll, the Beatles later experimented with several genres, ranging from pop ballads to psychedelic and hard rock, often incorporating classical elements in innovative ways. In the early 1960s, their enormous popularity first emerged as "Beatlemania", but as their songwriting grew in sophistication they came to be perceived as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the era's sociocultural revolutions.
Starting in 1960, the Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period. Manager Brian Epstein moulded them into a professional act and producer George Martin enhanced their musical potential. They gained popularity in the United Kingdom after their first hit, "Love Me Do", in late 1962. They acquired the nickname the "Fab Four" as Beatlemania grew in Britain over the following year, and by early 1964 they had become international stars, leading the "British Invasion" of the United States pop market. From 1965 on, the Beatles produced what many critics consider their finest material, including the innovative and widely influential albums Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (White Album) (1968), and Abbey Road (1969). After their break-up in 1970, they each enjoyed successful musical careers. Lennon was shot and killed in December 1980, and Harrison died of lung cancer in November 2001.
According to the RIAA, the Beatles are the best-selling band in the United States, with 177 million certified units. They have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act. In 2008, the group topped Billboard magazine's list of the all time most successful "Hot 100" artists; as of 2014, they hold the record for most number-one hits on the Hot 100 chart with 20. They have received ten Grammy Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Score and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards. Collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people, they are the best-selling band in history, with estimate sales of over 600 million records worldwide. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Beatles as the greatest artist of all time.
Read More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles
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Beatles Anthology (1/8) - Part 1 featuring In My Life (Video Montage from “The Beatles Anthology)
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THE BEATLES CARTOON Ep1a A Hard Day's Night
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The Beatles - Ed Sullivan Show (February 9 1964)
See all music videos The Beatles
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The Beatles - '20 Greatest Hits' (US Version)
The Beatles '20 Greatest Hits' (US Version)
01. 00:00 "She Loves You"
02. 02:19 "Love Me Do"
03. 04:38 "I Want to Hold Your Hand"
04. 07:05 "Can't Buy Me Love"
05. 09:17 "A Hard Day's Night"
06. 11:50 "I Feel Fine"
07. 14:09 "Eight Days a Week"
08. 16:55 "Ticket to Ride"
09. 20:05 "Help!"
10. 22:24 "Yesterday"
11. 24:29 "We Can Work It Out"
12. 26:45 "Paperback Writer"
13. 29:03 "Penny Lane"
14. 32:05 "All You Need Is Love"
15. 35:55 "Hello, Goodbye"
16. 39:23 "Hey Jude" (Edited)
17. 44:32 "Get Back"
18. 47:45 "Come Together"
19. 52:02 "Let It Be"
20. 55:53 "The Long and Winding Road"
Twenty years after the Beatles released their first single in the UK (Love Me Do), Capitol and Parlophone commemorated the event with the compilation called 20 Greatest Hits. Three different track lists were produced: for the UK and U.S. markets, and a third for "Europe." The reasoning was that the selection of the twenty greatest Beatles hits varied from market to market, as not all singles were released in all countries. This would be the last LP in the discography of the Beatles to have different versions for the U.S. and the UK. The release dates were October 11, 1982 in the U.S. and October 18, 1982 in Britain.
This compilation sold reasonably well, but did not pass number 50 in the U.S. or number 10 in the UK. Beatles historians took this as an indication that this British rock-band phenomenon of the 1960's had finally been supplanted by newer trend setters in popular music. They had joined the nostalgic, "Oldies" category for good.
The U.S. and European versions of the LP include a trimmed-down version of Hey, Jude (to 5:05). The version in the UK and the releases on cassette in all markets kept the original, 7:11 track. The U.S. version also was distributed in Canada, in spite of the fact that Can't Buy Me Love only went to number 3 there, and two number one hits, All My Loving and This Boy, are not on the record.
Ten of the twenty greatest hits appear on all three versions of the record. In comparison with the UK track listing, the U.S./Canada version has 14 songs in common. Six from the UK release were omitted: The Ballad of John and Yoko, Day Tripper, Don't Let Me Down, Eleanor Rigby, From Me to You, and Yellow Submarine. In their place appears: Hello--Goodbye, I Feel Fine, Ticket to Ride, Penny Lane, Come Together and Get Back. The European track list has 15 tracks in common with the UK version, and omits the following six: Don't Let Me Down, Eight Days a Week, Let It Be, The Long and Winding Road and Yesterday. In their place the European LP inserted: Get Back, Hello--Goodbye, I Feel Fine, Lady Madonna, and Ticket to Ride.
