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&lt;A name=1&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Beatles&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;
by &lt;b&gt;Richie Unterberger&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;
So much has been said and written about the Beatles — and their story is so&lt;br&gt;mythic in its sweep — that it's difficult to summarize their career without restating&lt;br&gt;clichés that have already been digested by tens of millions of rock fans. To start&lt;br&gt;with the obvious, they were the greatest and most influential act of the rock era,&lt;br&gt;and introduced more innovations into popular music than any other rock band of&lt;br&gt;the 20th century. Moreover, they were among the few artists of &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; discipline that&lt;br&gt;were simultaneously the best at what they did, &lt;i&gt;and&lt;/i&gt; the most popular at what they&lt;br&gt;did. Relentlessly imaginative and experimental, the Beatles grabbed a hold of the&lt;br&gt;international mass consciousness in 1964 and never let go for the next six years,&lt;br&gt;always staying ahead of the pack in terms of creativity, but never losing their&lt;br&gt;ability to communicate their increasingly sophisticated ideas to a mass audience.&lt;br&gt;Their supremacy as rock icons remains unchallenged to this day, decades after&lt;br&gt;their breakup in 1970.&lt;br&gt;
Even when couching praise in specific terms, it's hard to convey the scope of the&lt;br&gt;Beatles' achievements in a mere paragraph or two. They synthesized all that was&lt;br&gt;good about early rock &amp;amp; roll, and changed it into something original and even&lt;br&gt;more exciting. They established the prototype for the self-contained rock group&lt;br&gt;that wrote and performed their own material. As composers, their craft and&lt;br&gt;melodic inventiveness were second to none, and key to the evolution of rock&lt;br&gt;from its blues/R&amp;amp;B-based forms into a style that was far more eclectic, but&lt;br&gt;equally visceral. As singers, both John Lennon and Paul McCartney were among&lt;br&gt;the best and most expressive vocalists in rock; the group's harmonies were&lt;br&gt;intricate and exhilarating. As performers, they were (at least until touring had&lt;br&gt;ground them down) exciting and photogenic; when they retreated into the studio,&lt;br&gt;they were instrumental in pioneering advanced techniques and multi-layered&lt;br&gt;arrangements. They were also the first British rock group to achieve worldwide&lt;br&gt;prominence, launching a British Invasion that made rock truly an international&lt;br&gt;phenomenon.&lt;br&gt;
More than any other top group, the Beatles' success was very much a case of&lt;br&gt;the sum being greater than the parts. Their phenomenal cohesion was due in&lt;br&gt;large degree to most of the group having known each other and played together&lt;br&gt;in Liverpool for about five years before they began to have hit records. Guitarist&lt;br&gt;and teenage rebel John Lennon got hooked on rock &amp;amp; roll in the mid-'50s, and&lt;br&gt;formed a band, the Quarrymen, at his high school. Around mid-1957, the&lt;br&gt;Quarrymen were joined by another guitarist, Paul McCartney, nearly two years&lt;br&gt;Lennon's junior. A bit later they were joined by another guitarist, George&lt;br&gt;Harrison, a friend of McCartney's. The Quarrymen would change lineups&lt;br&gt;constantly in the late '50s, eventually reducing to the core trio of guitarists, who'd&lt;br&gt;proven themselves to be the best musicians and most personally compatible&lt;br&gt;individuals within the band.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;hr&gt;
&lt;A name=2&gt;&lt;/a&gt;The Quarrymen changed their name to the Silver Beatles in 1960, quickly&lt;br&gt;dropping the &amp;quot;Silver&amp;quot; to become just the Beatles. Lennon's art college friend&lt;br&gt;Stuart Sutcliffe joined on bass, but finding a permanent drummer was a vexing&lt;br&gt;problem until Pete Best joined in the summer of 1960. He successfully auditioned&lt;br&gt;for the combo just before they left for a several-month stint in Hamburg,&lt;br&gt;Germany.&lt;br&gt;
Hamburg was the Beatles' baptism by fire. Playing grueling sessions for hours on&lt;br&gt;end in one of the most notorious red-light districts in the world, the group was&lt;br&gt;forced to expand their repertoire, tighten up their chops, and invest their show&lt;br&gt;with enough manic energy to keep the rowdy crowds satisfied. When they&lt;br&gt;returned to Liverpool at the end of 1960, the band — formerly also-rans on the&lt;br&gt;exploding Liverpudlian &amp;quot;beat&amp;quot; scene — were suddenly the most exciting act on&lt;br&gt;the local circuit. They consolidated their following in 1961 with constant gigging in&lt;br&gt;the Merseyside area, most often at the legendary Cavern Club, the incubator of&lt;br&gt;the Merseybeat sound.&lt;br&gt;
They also returned for engagements in Hamburg during 1961, although Sutcliffe&lt;br&gt;dropped out of the band that year to concentrate on his art school studies there.&lt;br&gt;McCartney took over on bass, Harrison settled in as lead guitarist, and Lennon&lt;br&gt;had rhythm guitar; everyone sang. In mid-1961, the Beatles (minus Sutcliffe)&lt;br&gt;made their first recordings in Germany, as a backup group to a British rock&lt;br&gt;guitarist/singer based in Hamburg, Tony Sheridan. The Beatles hadn't fully&lt;br&gt;developed at this point, and these recordings — many of which (including a&lt;br&gt;couple of Sheridan-less tracks) were issued only after the band's rise to fame —&lt;br&gt;found their talents in a most embryonic state. The Hamburg stint was also&lt;br&gt;notable for gaining the Beatles sophisticated, artistic fans such as Sutcliffe's&lt;br&gt;girlfriend, Astrid Kirchherr, who influenced all of them (except Best) to restyle&lt;br&gt;their quiffs in the moptops that gave the musicians their most distinctive visual&lt;br&gt;trademark. (Sutcliffe, tragically, would die of a brain hemorrhage in April 1962).&lt;br&gt;
Near the end of 1961, the Beatles' exploding local popularity caught the attention&lt;br&gt;of local record store manager Brian Epstein, who was soon managing the band&lt;br&gt;as well. He used his contacts to swiftly acquire a January 1, 1962, audition at&lt;br&gt;Decca Records that has been heavily bootlegged (some tracks were officially&lt;br&gt;released in 1995). After weeks of deliberation, Decca turned them down, as did&lt;br&gt;several other British labels. Epstein's perseverance was finally rewarded with an&lt;br&gt;audition for producer George Martin at Parlophone, an EMI subsidiary; Martin&lt;br&gt;signed the Beatles in mid-1962. By this time, Epstein was assiduously grooming&lt;br&gt;his charges for national success by influencing them to smarten up their&lt;br&gt;appearance, dispensing with their leather jackets and trousers in favor of tailored&lt;br&gt;suits and ties.&lt;br&gt;
One more major change was in the offing before the Beatles made their&lt;br&gt;Parlophone debut. In August 1962, drummer Pete Best was kicked out of the&lt;br&gt;
&lt;hr&gt;
&lt;A name=3&gt;&lt;/a&gt;group, a controversial decision that has been the cause of much speculation&lt;br&gt;since. There is still no solid consensus as to whether it was because of his&lt;br&gt;solitary, moody nature; the other Beatles' jealousy of his popularity with the fans;&lt;br&gt;his musical shortcomings (George Martin had already told Epstein that Best&lt;br&gt;wasn't good enough to drum on recordings); or his refusal to wear his hair in&lt;br&gt;bangs. What seems most likely was that the Beatles simply found his personality&lt;br&gt;incompatible, preferring to enlist Ringo Starr (born Richard Starkey), drummer&lt;br&gt;with another popular Merseyside outfit, Rory Storm &amp;amp; the Hurricanes. Starr had&lt;br&gt;been in the Beatles for a few weeks when they recorded their first single, &amp;quot;Love&lt;br&gt;Me Do&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;P.S. I Love You,&amp;quot; in September 1962. Both sides of the 45 were&lt;br&gt;Lennon-McCartney originals, and the songwriting team would be credited with&lt;br&gt;most of the group's material throughout the Beatles' career.&lt;br&gt;
The single, a promising but fairly rudimentary effort, hovered around the lower&lt;br&gt;reaches of the British Top 20. The Beatles phenomenon didn't truly kick in until&lt;br&gt;&amp;quot;Please Please Me,&amp;quot; which topped the British charts in early 1963. This was &lt;i&gt;the&lt;br&gt;&lt;/i&gt;prototype British Invasion single: an infectious melody, charging guitars, and&lt;br&gt;positively exuberant harmonies. The same traits were evident on their third 45,&lt;br&gt;&amp;quot;From Me to You&amp;quot; (a British number one), and their debut LP, &lt;i&gt;Please Please Me&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;br&gt;Although it was mostly recorded in a single day, &lt;i&gt;Please Please Me&lt;/i&gt; topped the&lt;br&gt;British charts for an astonishing 30 weeks, establishing the group as the most&lt;br&gt;popular rock &amp;amp; roll act ever seen in the U.K.&lt;br&gt;
What the Beatles had done was to take the best elements of the rock and pop&lt;br&gt;they loved and make them their own. Since the Quarrymen days, they had been&lt;br&gt;steeped in the classic early rock of Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little&lt;br&gt;Richard, Carl Perkins, and the Everly Brothers; they'd also kept an ear open to&lt;br&gt;the early '60s sounds of Motown, Phil Spector, and the girl groups. What they&lt;br&gt;added was an unmatched songwriting savvy (inspired by Brill Building teams&lt;br&gt;such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King), a brash guitar-oriented attack, wildly&lt;br&gt;enthusiastic vocals, and the embodiment of the youthful flair of their generation,&lt;br&gt;ready to dispense with postwar austerity and claim a culture of their own. They&lt;br&gt;were also unsurpassed in their eclecticism, willing to borrow from blues, popular&lt;br&gt;standards, gospel, folk, or whatever seemed suitable for their musical vision.&lt;br&gt;Producer George Martin was the perfect foil for the group, refining their ideas&lt;br&gt;without tinkering with their cores; during the last half of their career, he was&lt;br&gt;indispensable for his ability to translate their concepts into arrangements that&lt;br&gt;required complex orchestration, innovative applications of recording technology,&lt;br&gt;and an ever-widening array of instruments.&lt;br&gt;
Just as crucially, the Beatles were never ones to stand still and milk formulas. All&lt;br&gt;of their subsequent albums and singles would show remarkable artistic&lt;br&gt;progression (though never at the expense of a damn catchy tune). Even on their&lt;br&gt;second LP, &lt;i&gt;With the Beatles&lt;/i&gt; (1963), it was evident that their talents as&lt;br&gt;composers and instrumentalists were expanding furiously, as they devised ever&lt;br&gt;more inventive melodies and harmonies, and boosted the fullness of their&lt;br&gt;
&lt;hr&gt;
&lt;A name=4&gt;&lt;/a&gt;arrangements. &amp;quot;She Loves You&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;I Want to Hold Your Hand&amp;quot; established the&lt;br&gt;group not just as a popular music act, but as a phenomenon never before seen in&lt;br&gt;the British entertainment business, as each single sold over a million copies in&lt;br&gt;the U.K. After some celebrated national TV appearances, Beatlemania broke out&lt;br&gt;across the British Isles in late 1963, the group generating screams and hysteria&lt;br&gt;at all of their public appearances, musical or otherwise.&lt;br&gt;
Capitol, which had first refusal of the Beatles' recordings in the United States,&lt;br&gt;had declined to issue the group's first few singles, which ended up appearing on&lt;br&gt;relatively small American independents. Capitol took up its option on &amp;quot;I Want to&lt;br&gt;Hold Your Hand,&amp;quot; which stormed to the top of the U.S. charts within weeks of its&lt;br&gt;release on December 26, 1963. The Beatles' television appearances on &lt;i&gt;The Ed&lt;br&gt;Sullivan Show&lt;/i&gt; in February of 1964 launched Beatlemania (and the entire British&lt;br&gt;Invasion) on an even bigger scale than it had reached in Britain. In the first week&lt;br&gt;of April 1964, the Beatles had the Top Five best-selling singles in the U.S.; they&lt;br&gt;also had the first two slots on the album charts, as well as other entries&lt;br&gt;throughout the Billboard Top 100. No one had ever dominated the market for&lt;br&gt;popular music so heavily; it's doubtful that anyone ever will again. The Beatles&lt;br&gt;themselves would continue to reach number one with most of their singles and&lt;br&gt;albums until their 1970 breakup.&lt;br&gt;
Hard as it may be to believe today, the Beatles were often dismissed by cultural&lt;br&gt;commentators of the time as nothing more than a fad that would vanish within&lt;br&gt;months as the novelty wore off. The group ensured this wouldn't happen by&lt;br&gt;making &lt;i&gt;A Hard Day's Night&lt;/i&gt; in early 1964, a cinéma vérité-style motion picture&lt;br&gt;comedy/musical that cemented their image as &amp;quot;the Fab Four&amp;quot;: happy-go-lucky,&lt;br&gt;individualistic, cheeky, funny lads with nonstop energy. The soundtrack was also&lt;br&gt;a triumph, consisting entirely of Lennon-McCartney tunes, including such&lt;br&gt;standards as the title tune, &amp;quot;And I Love Her,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;If I Fell,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Can't Buy Me Love,&amp;quot; and&lt;br&gt;&amp;quot;Things We Said Today.&amp;quot; George Harrison's resonant 12-string electric guitar&lt;br&gt;leads were hugely influential; the movie helped persuade the Byrds, then folk&lt;br&gt;singers, to plunge all-out into rock &amp;amp; roll, and the Beatles (along with Bob Dylan)&lt;br&gt;would be hugely influential on the folk-rock explosion of 1965. The Beatles'&lt;br&gt;success, too, had begun to open the U.S. market for fellow Brits like the Rolling&lt;br&gt;Stones, the Animals, and the Kinks, and inspired young American groups like the&lt;br&gt;Beau Brummels, Lovin' Spoonful, and others to mount a challenge of their own&lt;br&gt;with self-penned material that owed a great debt to Lennon-McCartney.&lt;br&gt;
Between riotous international tours in 1964 and 1965, the Beatles continued to&lt;br&gt;squeeze out more chart-topping albums and singles. (Until 1967, the group's&lt;br&gt;British albums were often truncated for release in the States; when their catalog&lt;br&gt;was transferred to CD, the albums were released worldwide in their British&lt;br&gt;configurations.) In retrospect, critics have judged &lt;i&gt;Beatles for Sale&lt;/i&gt; (late 1964) and&lt;br&gt;Help! (mid-1965) as the band's least impressive efforts. To some degree, that's&lt;br&gt;true. Touring and an insatiable market placed heavy demands upon their&lt;br&gt;
&lt;hr&gt;
&lt;A name=5&gt;&lt;/a&gt;songwriting, and some of the originals and covers on these records, while brilliant&lt;br&gt;by many group's standards, were filler in the context of the Beatles' best work.&lt;br&gt;
But when at the top of their game, the group was continuing to push forward. &amp;quot;I&lt;br&gt;Feel Fine&amp;quot; had feedback and brilliant guitar leads; &amp;quot;Ticket to Ride&amp;quot; showed the&lt;br&gt;band beginning to incorporate the ringing, metallic, circular guitar lines that would&lt;br&gt;be appropriated by bands like the Byrds; &amp;quot;Help!&amp;quot; was their first burst of&lt;br&gt;confessional lyricism; &amp;quot;Yesterday&amp;quot; employed a string quartet. John Lennon in&lt;br&gt;particular was beginning to exhibit a Dylanesque influence in his songwriting on&lt;br&gt;such folky, downbeat numbers as &amp;quot;I'm a Loser&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;You've Got to Hide Your&lt;br&gt;Love Away.&amp;quot; And tracks like &amp;quot;I Don't Want to Spoil the Party&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;I've Just Seen&lt;br&gt;a Face&amp;quot; had a strong country flavor.&lt;br&gt;
Although the Beatles' second film, &lt;i&gt;Help!&lt;/i&gt;, was a much sillier and less&lt;br&gt;sophisticated affair than their first feature, it too was a huge commercial success.&lt;br&gt;By this time, though, the Beatles had nothing to prove in commercial terms; the&lt;br&gt;remaining frontiers were artistic challenges that could only be met in the studio.&lt;br&gt;They rose to the occasion at the end of 1965 with &lt;i&gt;Rubber Soul&lt;/i&gt;, one of the classic&lt;br&gt;folk-rock records. Lyrically, Lennon, McCartney, and even Harrison (who was&lt;br&gt;now writing some tunes on his own) were evolving beyond boy-girl scenarios into&lt;br&gt;complex, personal feelings. They were also pushing the limits of studio rock by&lt;br&gt;devising new guitar and bass textures, experimenting with distortion and multi-&lt;br&gt;tracking, and using unconventional (for rock) instruments like the sitar.&lt;br&gt;
As much of a progression as &lt;i&gt;Rubber Soul&lt;/i&gt; was relative to their previous records,&lt;br&gt;it was but a taster for the boundary-shattering outings of the next few years. The&lt;br&gt;&amp;quot;Paperback Writer&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;Rain&amp;quot; single found the group abandoning romantic themes&lt;br&gt;entirely, boosting the bass to previously unknown levels, and fooling around with&lt;br&gt;psychedelic imagery and backwards tapes on the B-side. Drugs (psychedelic and&lt;br&gt;otherwise) were fueling their already fertile imaginations, but they felt creatively&lt;br&gt;hindered by their touring obligations. &lt;i&gt;Revolver&lt;/i&gt;, released in the summer of 1966,&lt;br&gt;proved what the group could be capable of when allotted months of time in the&lt;br&gt;studio. Hazy hard guitars and thicker vocal arrangements formed the bed of&lt;br&gt;these increasingly imagistic, ambitious lyrics; the group's eclecticism now&lt;br&gt;encompassed everything from singalong novelties (&amp;quot;Yellow Submarine&amp;quot;) and&lt;br&gt;string quartet-backed character sketches (&amp;quot;Eleanor Rigby&amp;quot;) to Indian-influenced&lt;br&gt;swirls of echo and backwards tapes (&amp;quot;Tomorrow Never Knows&amp;quot;). Some would&lt;br&gt;complain that the Beatles had abandoned the earthy rock of their roots for clever&lt;br&gt;mannerism. But &lt;i&gt;Revolver&lt;/i&gt;, like virtually all of the group's singles and albums from&lt;br&gt;&amp;quot;She Loves You&amp;quot; on, would be a worldwide chart-topper.&lt;br&gt;
For the past couple of years, live performance had become a rote exercise for&lt;br&gt;the group, tired of competing with thousands of screaming fans that drowned out&lt;br&gt;most of their voices and instruments. A 1966 summer worldwide tour was&lt;br&gt;particularly grueling: the group's entourage was physically attacked in the&lt;br&gt;Philippines after a perceived snub of the country's queen, and a casual remark&lt;br&gt;
&lt;hr&gt;
&lt;A name=6&gt;&lt;/a&gt;by John Lennon about the Beatles being bigger than Jesus Christ was picked up&lt;br&gt;in the States, resulting in the burning of Beatle records in the Bible belt and&lt;br&gt;demands for a repentant apology. Their final concert of that American tour (in&lt;br&gt;San Francisco on August 29, 1966) would be their last in front of a paying&lt;br&gt;audience, as the group decided to stop playing live in order to concentrate on&lt;br&gt;their studio recordings.&lt;br&gt;
This was a radical (indeed, unprecedented) step in 1966, and the media was rife&lt;br&gt;with speculation that the act was breaking up, especially after all four spent late&lt;br&gt;1966 engaged in separate personal and artistic pursuits. The appearance of the&lt;br&gt;&amp;quot;Penny Lane&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;Strawberry Fields Forever&amp;quot; single in February 1967 squelched&lt;br&gt;these concerns. Frequently cited as the strongest double A-side ever, the&lt;br&gt;Beatles were now pushing forward into unabashedly psychedelic territory in their&lt;br&gt;use of orchestral arrangements and Mellotron, without abandoning their grasp of&lt;br&gt;memorable melody and immediately accessible lyrical messages.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;i&gt;Sgt. Pepper&lt;/i&gt;, released in June 1967 as the Summer of Love dawned, was the&lt;br&gt;definitive psychedelic soundtrack. Or, at least, so it was perceived at the time:&lt;br&gt;subsequent critics have painted the album as an uneven affair, given a&lt;br&gt;conceptual unity via its brilliant multi-tracked overdubs, singalong melodies, and&lt;br&gt;fairy tale-ish lyrics. Others remain convinced, as millions did at the time, that it&lt;br&gt;represented pop's greatest triumph, or indeed an evolution of pop into art with a&lt;br&gt;capital A. In addition to mining all manner of roots influences, the musicians were&lt;br&gt;also picking up vibes from Indian music, avant-garde electronics, classical, music&lt;br&gt;hall, and more. When the Beatles premiered their hippie anthem &amp;quot;All You Need Is&lt;br&gt;Love&amp;quot; as part of a worldwide TV broadcast, they had been truly anointed as&lt;br&gt;spokespersons for their generation (a role they had not actively sought), and it&lt;br&gt;seemed they could do no wrong.&lt;br&gt;
Musically, that would usually continue to be the case, but the group's strength&lt;br&gt;began to unravel at a surprisingly quick pace. In August 1967, Brian Epstein —&lt;br&gt;prone to suicidal depression over the past year — died of a drug overdose,&lt;br&gt;leaving them without a manager. The group pressed on with their next film&lt;br&gt;project, &lt;i&gt;Magical Mystery Tour&lt;/i&gt;, directed by themselves; lacking focus or even&lt;br&gt;basic professionalism, the picture bombed when it was premiered on BBC&lt;br&gt;television in December 1967, giving the media the first real chance they'd ever&lt;br&gt;had to roast the Beatles over a flame. (Another film, the animated feature &lt;i&gt;Yellow&lt;br&gt;Submarine&lt;/i&gt;, would appear in 1968, although the Beatles had little involvement&lt;br&gt;with the project, either in terms of the movie or the soundtrack.) In early 1968, the&lt;br&gt;Beatles decamped to India for a course in transcendental meditation with the&lt;br&gt;Maharishi; this too became something of a media embarrassment, as each of the&lt;br&gt;four would eventually depart the course before its completion.&lt;br&gt;
The Beatles did use their unaccustomed peace in India to compose a wealth of&lt;br&gt;new material. Judged solely on musical merit, &lt;i&gt;The White Album&lt;/i&gt;, a double LP&lt;br&gt;released in late 1968, was a triumph. While largely abandoning their psychedelic&lt;br&gt;
&lt;hr&gt;
&lt;A name=7&gt;&lt;/a&gt;instruments to return to guitar-based rock, they maintained their whimsical&lt;br&gt;eclecticism, proving themselves masters of everything from blues-rock to&lt;br&gt;vaudeville. As individual songwriters, too, it contains some of their finest work (as&lt;br&gt;does the brilliant non-LP single from this era, &amp;quot;Hey Jude&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;Revolution&amp;quot;).&lt;br&gt;
The problem, at least in terms of the group's long-term health, was that these&lt;br&gt;were very much &lt;i&gt;individual&lt;/i&gt; songs, as opposed to collective ones. Lennon and&lt;br&gt;McCartney had long composed most of their tunes separately (you can almost&lt;br&gt;always tell the composer by the lead vocalist). But they had always fed off of&lt;br&gt;each other not only to supply missing bits and pieces that would bring a song to&lt;br&gt;completion, but to provide a competitive edge that would bring out the best in the&lt;br&gt;other. McCartney's romantic melodicism and Lennon's more acidic, gritty wit&lt;br&gt;were perfect complements for one another. By the &lt;i&gt;White Album&lt;/i&gt;, it was clear (if&lt;br&gt;only in retrospect) that each member was more concerned with his own&lt;br&gt;expression than that of the collective group: a natural impulse, but one that was&lt;br&gt;bound to lead to difficulties.&lt;br&gt;
In addition, George Harrison was becoming a more prolific and skilled composer&lt;br&gt;as well, imbuing his own melodies (which were nearly the equal of those of his&lt;br&gt;more celebrated colleagues) with a cosmic lightness. Harrison was beginning to&lt;br&gt;resent his junior status, and the group began to bicker more openly in the studio.&lt;br&gt;Ringo Starr, whose solid drumming and good nature could usually be counted&lt;br&gt;upon (as was evident in his infrequent lead vocals), actually quit for a couple of&lt;br&gt;weeks in the midst of the &lt;i&gt;White Album&lt;/i&gt; sessions (though the media was unaware&lt;br&gt;of this at the time). Personal interests were coming into play as well: Lennon's&lt;br&gt;devotion to romantic and artistic pursuits with his new girlfriend (and soon-to-be-&lt;br&gt;wife) Yoko Ono was diverting his attentions from the Beatles. Apple Records,&lt;br&gt;started by the group earlier in 1968 as a sort of utopian commercial enterprise,&lt;br&gt;was becoming a financial and organizational nightmare.&lt;br&gt;
These weren't the ideal conditions under which to record a new album in January&lt;br&gt;1969, especially when McCartney was pushing the group to return to live&lt;br&gt;performing, although none of the others seemed especially keen on the idea.&lt;br&gt;They did agree to try and record a &amp;quot;back-to-basics,&amp;quot; live-in-the-studio-type LP,&lt;br&gt;the sessions being filmed for a television special. That plan almost blew up when&lt;br&gt;Harrison, in the midst of tense arguments, left the group for a few days. Although&lt;br&gt;he returned, the idea of playing live concerts was put on the back burner;&lt;br&gt;Harrison enlisted American soul keyboardist Billy Preston as kind of a fifth&lt;br&gt;member on the sessions, both to beef up the arrangements and to alleviate the&lt;br&gt;uncomfortable atmosphere. Exacerbating the problem was that the Beatles didn't&lt;br&gt;have a great deal of first-class new songs to work with, although some were&lt;br&gt;excellent. In order to provide a suitable concert-like experience for the film, the&lt;br&gt;group did climb the roof of their Apple headquarters in London to deliver an&lt;br&gt;impromptu performance on January 30, 1969, before the police stopped it; this&lt;br&gt;was their last live concert of any sort.&lt;br&gt;
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&lt;A name=8&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Generally dissatisfied with these early-1969 sessions, the album and film — at&lt;br&gt;first titled Get Back, and later to emerge as &lt;i&gt;Let It Be&lt;/i&gt; — remained in the can as&lt;br&gt;the group tried to figure out how the projects should be mixed, packaged, and&lt;br&gt;distributed. A couple of the best tracks, &amp;quot;Get Back&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;Don't Let Me Down,&amp;quot; were&lt;br&gt;issued as a single in the spring of 1969. By this time, the Beatles' quarrels were&lt;br&gt;intensifying in a dispute over management: McCartney wanted their affairs to be&lt;br&gt;handled by his new father-in-law, Lee Eastman, while the other members of the&lt;br&gt;group favored a tough American businessman, Allen Klein.&lt;br&gt;
It was something of a miracle, then, that the final album recorded by the group,&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Abbey Road&lt;/i&gt;, was one of their most unified efforts (even if, by this time, the&lt;br&gt;musicians were recording many of their parts separately). It certainly boasted&lt;br&gt;some of their most intricate melodies, harmonies, and instrumental&lt;br&gt;arrangements; it also heralded the arrival of Harrison as a composer of equal&lt;br&gt;talent to Lennon and McCartney, as George wrote the album's two most popular&lt;br&gt;tunes, &amp;quot;Something&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Here Comes the Sun.&amp;quot; The Beatles were still&lt;br&gt;progressing, but it turned out to be the end of the road, as their business disputes&lt;br&gt;continued to magnify. Lennon, who had begun releasing solo singles and&lt;br&gt;performing with friends as the Plastic Ono Band, threatened to resign in late&lt;br&gt;1969, although he was dissuaded from making a public announcement.&lt;br&gt;
Most of the early-1969 tapes remained unreleased, partially because the footage&lt;br&gt;for the planned television broadcast of these sessions was now going to be&lt;br&gt;produced as a documentary movie. The accompanying soundtrack album, &lt;i&gt;Let It&lt;br&gt;Be&lt;/i&gt;, was delayed so that its release could coincide with that of the film. Lennon,&lt;br&gt;Harrison, and Allen Klein decided to have celebrated American producer Phil&lt;br&gt;Spector record some additional instrumentation and do some mixing. Thus the&lt;br&gt;confusion that persists among most rock listeners to this day: &lt;i&gt;Let It Be&lt;/i&gt;, although&lt;br&gt;the last Beatles album to be released, was not the last one to be recorded.&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Abbey Road&lt;/i&gt; should actually be considered as the Beatles' last album; most of&lt;br&gt;the material on &lt;i&gt;Let It Be&lt;/i&gt;, including the title track (which would be the last single&lt;br&gt;released while the group was still together), was recorded several months before&lt;br&gt;the &lt;i&gt;Abbey Road&lt;/i&gt; sessions began in earnest, and a good 15 months or so before&lt;br&gt;its May 1970 release.&lt;br&gt;
By that time, the Beatles were no more. In fact, there had been no recording&lt;br&gt;done by the group as a unit since August 1969, and each member of the band&lt;br&gt;had begun to pursue serious outside professional interests independently via the&lt;br&gt;Plastic Ono Band, Harrison's tour with Delaney &amp;amp; Bonnie, Starr's starring role in&lt;br&gt;the &lt;i&gt;Magic Christian&lt;/i&gt; film, or McCartney's first solo album. The outside world for&lt;br&gt;the most part remained almost wholly unaware of the seriousness of the group's&lt;br&gt;friction, making it a devastating shock for much of the world's youth when&lt;br&gt;McCartney announced that he was leaving the Beatles on April 10, 1970. (The&lt;br&gt;&amp;quot;announcement&amp;quot; was actually contained in a press release for his new album, in&lt;br&gt;which his declaration of his intention to work on his own effectively served as a&lt;br&gt;notice of his departure.)&lt;br&gt;
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&lt;A name=9&gt;&lt;/a&gt;The final blow, apparently, was the conflict between the release dates of &lt;i&gt;Let It Be&lt;br&gt;&lt;/i&gt;and McCartney's debut solo album. The rest of the group asked McCartney to&lt;br&gt;delay his release until after &lt;i&gt;Let It Be&lt;/i&gt;; McCartney refused, and for good measure,&lt;br&gt;was distressed by Spector's post-production work on &lt;i&gt;Let It Be&lt;/i&gt;, particularly the&lt;br&gt;string overdubs on &amp;quot;The Long and Winding Road,&amp;quot; which became a posthumous&lt;br&gt;Beatles single that spring. Although McCartney received much of the blame for&lt;br&gt;the split, it should be remembered that he had done more than any other&lt;br&gt;member to keep the group going since Epstein's death, and that each of the&lt;br&gt;other Beatles had threatened to leave well before McCartney's departure. With&lt;br&gt;hindsight, the breakup seemed inevitable in view of their serious business&lt;br&gt;disagreements and the growth of their individual interests.&lt;br&gt;
As bitter as the initial headlines were to swallow, the feuding would grow much&lt;br&gt;worse over the next few years. At the end of 1970, McCartney sued the rest of&lt;br&gt;the Beatles in order to dissolve their partnership; the battle dragged through the&lt;br&gt;courts for years, scotching any prospects of a group reunion. In any case, each&lt;br&gt;member of the band quickly established viable solo careers. In fact, at the outset&lt;br&gt;it could have been argued that the artistic effects of the split were in some ways&lt;br&gt;beneficial, freeing Lennon and Harrison to make their most uncompromising&lt;br&gt;artistic statements (&lt;i&gt;Plastic Ono Band&lt;/i&gt; and &lt;i&gt;All Things Must Pass&lt;/i&gt;). George's&lt;br&gt;individual talents in particular received acclaim that had always eluded him when&lt;br&gt;he was overshadowed by Lennon-McCartney. Paul had a much rougher time&lt;br&gt;with the critics, but continued to issue a stream of hit singles, hitting a&lt;br&gt;commercial and critical jackpot at the end of 1973 with the massively successful&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Band on the Run&lt;/i&gt;. Ringo did not have the songwriting acumen to compete on the&lt;br&gt;same level as the others, yet he too had quite a few big hit singles in the early&lt;br&gt;'70s, often benefiting from the assistance of his former bandmates.&lt;br&gt;
Yet within a short time, it became apparent both that the Beatles were not going&lt;br&gt;to settle their differences and reunite, and that their solo work could not compare&lt;br&gt;with what they were capable of creating together. The stereotype has it that the&lt;br&gt;split allowed each of them to indulge in their worst tendencies to their extremes:&lt;br&gt;Lennon in agit-prop, Harrison in holier-than-thou-mysticism, McCartney in cutesy&lt;br&gt;pop, Starr in easy listening rock. There's a good deal of truth in this, but it's also&lt;br&gt;important to bear in mind that what was most missing was a sense of group&lt;br&gt;interaction. The critical party line often champions Lennon as the angry, realist&lt;br&gt;rocker, and McCartney as the melodic balladeer, but this is a fallacy: each of&lt;br&gt;them were capable, in roughly equal measures, of ballsy all-out rock and sweet&lt;br&gt;romanticism. What is not in dispute is that they sparked each other to reach&lt;br&gt;heights that they could not attain on their own.&lt;br&gt;
Despite periodic rumors of reunions throughout the 1970s, no group projects&lt;br&gt;came close to materializing. It should be added that the Beatles themselves&lt;br&gt;continued to feud to some degree, and from all evidence weren't seriously&lt;br&gt;interested in working together as a unit. Any hopes of a reunion vanished when&lt;br&gt;
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&lt;A name=10&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Lennon was assassinated in New York City in December 1980. The Beatles&lt;br&gt;continued their solo careers throughout the 1980s, but their releases became&lt;br&gt;less frequent, and their commercial success gradually diminished, as listeners&lt;br&gt;without first-hand memories of the combo created their own idols.&lt;br&gt;
The popularity of the Beatles-as-unit, however, proved eternal. In part, this is&lt;br&gt;because the group's 1970 split effectively short-circuited the prospects of artistic&lt;br&gt;decline; the body of work that was preserved was uniformly strong. However, it's&lt;br&gt;also because, like any great works of art, the Beatles' records carried an ageless&lt;br&gt;magnificence that continues to captivate new generations of listeners. So it is&lt;br&gt;that Beatles records continue to be heard on radio in heavy rotation, continue to&lt;br&gt;sell in massive quantities, and continue to be covered and quoted by rock and&lt;br&gt;pop artists through the present day.&lt;br&gt;
Legal wrangles at Apple prevented the official issue of previously unreleased&lt;br&gt;Beatle material for over two decades (although much of it was frequently&lt;br&gt;bootlegged). The situation finally changed in the 1990s, after McCartney,&lt;br&gt;Harrison, Starr, and Lennon's widow Yoko Ono settled their principal business&lt;br&gt;disagreements. In 1994, this resulted in a double CD of BBC sessions from the&lt;br&gt;early and mid-'60s. The following year, a much more ambitious project was&lt;br&gt;undertaken: a multi-part film documentary, broadcast on network television in&lt;br&gt;1995, and then released (with double the length) for the home video market in&lt;br&gt;1996, with the active participation of the surviving Beatles.&lt;br&gt;
To coincide with the &lt;i&gt;Anthology&lt;/i&gt; documentary, three double CDs of previously&lt;br&gt;unreleased/rare material were issued in 1995 and 1996. Additionally, McCartney,&lt;br&gt;Harrison, and Starr (with some assistance from Jeff Lynne) embellished a couple&lt;br&gt;of John Lennon demos from the 1970s with overdubs to create two new tracks&lt;br&gt;(&amp;quot;Free as a Bird&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Real Love&amp;quot;) that were billed as actual Beatles recordings.&lt;br&gt;Whether this constitutes the actual long-awaited &amp;quot;reunion&amp;quot; is the subject of much&lt;br&gt;debate. Certainly these cuts were hardly classics on par with the music the group&lt;br&gt;made in the 1960s. Some fans, even diehards, were inclined to view the whole&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;Anthology&lt;/i&gt; project as a distinctly 1990s marketing exercise that maximized the&lt;br&gt;mileage of whatever could be squeezed from the Beatles' vaults. If nothing else,&lt;br&gt;though, the massive commercial success of outtakes that had, after all, been&lt;br&gt;recorded 25 to 30 years ago, spoke volumes about the unabated appeal and&lt;br&gt;fascination the Beatles continue to exert worldwide.&lt;br&gt;
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