Another question for the ages...

[S8 Booster]

Being a music reviewer must make me some kind of expert, no?
michael

in this case it will depend heavily of your age ie if you were there or not and how deep you can go into it.

anyhow if you really want to dig into beatles music i can give you a few advices. you will go in and stay there looking for the very end of the deep and you wont find it. there is always a next level to make the complete picture. typically they could do 7 takes of a song and they could be all different - recorded the same day.


but i can start with a simple one for examination: get back live rooftop 1969.

you need a proper but not expensive hi-fi system - no phones. take the intro. play one channel at the time, next play it at half speed and try to catch the immence complexity is this simple tune how distinct - indifferent and yet homogenous all the intruments work.

next, i believe it is the 3rd rooftop version of get back on the dvd - it is beyond doubt the best version they ever recorded of that song but it was never released on any record. this version is different from all other versions in every aspect and complexity. if you can get hold of this one you have a good start.

if you are able to catch all 5 instuments on this one you will get a glimse of the complexity and you may be ready for the next step.

however, if you really like the music style you mentioned this may be too far out for your liking and it is after all 35 years since the band quit so..... no way offending.

[S8 Booster]

eh.. voted for reed - after all he started in the 60s so did bowie - a big joke no one would ever hear of if lennon hadnt written him his first hit song.

[sunrise]

The best thing from the Hamburg tapes is John Lennon making fun of the Germans, that's classic.

I tend to go for the Harrison compositions rather than McCartney songs. Abbey Road is a good record.

I once played in a band where we did cover versions of Helter Skelter and Glass Onion with a lot of guitar flange.

michael

[tlatosmd]

The Beatles at all times intended to never do the same thing twice as Paul uses to put it. Most other established bands or music artists have a distinct style, whenever you hear a new song by them you can tell it's them. It's impossible to define a distinct, reproducable Beatles style, you can't tell it's them except by their voices and maybe particular brand instruments, especially guitars and bass (though these instruments rather represent periods of liking than arrangements), when listening to them.

And don't tell me about The Rutles! The reason they sound a lot like The Beatles is not because they found the mystical Beatles secret genius but because they imitated and mixed existing songs.

Another great thing about The Beatles mostly lost today is that they wrote their material themselves, other than those casted plastic bands that aren't much more than stunt posers that can't even play a single instrument.

People used to say that Sgt. Pepper was not only the very first concept album but also the first album to show music business wouldn't be anything without engineers and producers. This opinion ignored that by that time, The Beatles had become pretty much their own producers. They were 'the workers that took up the factory' as Paul puts it. They were so much on equal terms or even did more work than George Martin by that time that he was reduced to the position of a technical adviser while John, Paul, George, and Ringo were the ones who weren't limited to strings and drum kits down in the studio anymore but reliably, self-confidently, and brilliantly made extensive use of their new instruments that were tapes, dials, speakers, and other technological and electronical devices upstairs in the recording room.

Try doing what they did with but 4 tracks! And more importantly, try to have the idea for it before it wasn't around, before it was even remotely thought-of.

[S8 Booster]

The best thing from the Hamburg tapes is John Lennon making fun of the Germans, that's classic.

I tend to go for the Harrison compositions rather than McCartney songs. Abbey Road is a good record.

I once played in a band where we did cover versions of Helter Skelter and Glass Onion with a lot of guitar flange.

michael

now, that a good start but you should examine the hamburg tapes closer - they are informally loose and good great fun "fukin´howl and drive" as lennon used to say. thats raw energy.

i have an complete lp recording of those tapes. worn out.

abbey road is unique.
i remember in the summer of 69 if i recall correctly come together was released - totally different from previous beatles songs and anything else for that matter - indication a new era in their music. next - som later get back was released and it was kind of in the same direction as come together enforcing the impression of a new direction and then it was all gone.

at least they laid off at their peak unlike most other groups.

many preffer harrison over mcny but i think that is a matter of taste but i have heard a few of harrison songs from 68-9 naked and they were exceptinally good so - not quite so impressive in ordinary studio form. all things must pass is on the anthology in plain version. exrtremely good.

personally i could not choose between any of them. they were a homogenous group and each and every one had a unique allthough not even part in it when they banzaied through the 60s as a uniform monster. take one away and it would not be the same.

lennon once said: we were monsters. the stones and we were monsters. that is just about the truth. probably hard to understand how big they were and how much impact they had on what were to come later for someone not experiencing it but that is what it was.

29 number 1 hits in 7 years should tell a thing or 2. and in those days there was mostly musicians - very clever so - riding the hit lists.

if you wonder about the 29 hits it is a true story behind it.

[tlatosmd]

personally i could not choose between any of them. they were a homogenous group and each and every one had a unique allthough not even part in it when they banzaied through the 60s as a uniform monster. take one away and it would not be the same.

lennon once said: we were monsters. the stones and we were monsters. that is just about the truth. probably hard to understand how big they were and how much impact they had on what were to come later for someone not experiencing it but that is what it was.

I absolutely agree. Ever since the mid-60s, Mick Jagger used to call them 'the four-headed monster'. All four of them often said that they pretty much were one personality in four bodies. Even solo since the 70s, they have still been amongst the greatest musicians of the time, yet it was when they were four that they created the Genius, the marvelous wonder that'll hold up to the ages, for all times ever to come.

It's a very mystical, mysterious thing. People say Ringo didn't contribute much what others couldn't have done, and he says all he'd done to make this much larger-than-life thing happen was saying 'yes'. And still, allthough they were outstanding and extraordinary even then, they didn't have the true Genius yet with Pete or Stu.

[gurra83]

I guess that mattias is going to see them at globen?

yeah, if i can get hold of a press pass or something. the tickets sold out in 30 minutes.

/matt

I'd love to see them in Copenhagen in "parken" but the tickets are sold out as well (if you don't wanna go black market of course and put your life saving in a ticket).

I dont like globen all that much.

A friend of my is going and i hate him :evil:

[akka10]

the real answers is of course depeche mode.

/matt

Of course Depeche is probably the best band ever. I was a little bit disapointed with the new singel, but hey, ya can't make an album like "Ultra" or "Songs of faith and devotion" every day, now can you!

I went with bowie.

Sorry, but Depeche Mode were/are a bunch of pansy wankers ....
Not in this league ...

[akka10]

oh, and Bowie definately, all of it

[bakanosaru]

Here's a little suggestion for you super8booster if you're unhappy with the current state of musical affairs (and they're [he's] even from your neck of the woods).

Dungen


enjoy

[sunrise]

I'd love to see them in Copenhagen in "parken" but the tickets are sold out as well (if you don't wanna go black market of course and put your life saving in a ticket).

You can still get seat with limited view. Go to http://www.billetlugen.dk

My GF cued for an hour in front of the tickets office, while I tried on the internet which always is impossible.

michael

[etimh]

Please, Depeche Mode? The Beatles? I can't take it anymore.

Top Ten:

Velvet Underground
MC5
The Stooges
Kraftwerk
Crass
Throbbing Gristle
X
Sonic Youth
Butthole Surfers
Public Enemy

Among others.

Tim

[S8 Booster]

Here's a little suggestion for you super8booster if you're unhappy with the current state of musical affairs (and they're [he's] even from your neck of the woods).

Dungen


enjoy

actually not bad at all - downloaded one of their latest ones i think:
http://kemado.com/media/audio/panda.mp3
not sure if this is a typical song for them but this is what i found. heard the name before not the music.

the thing is, for me which has been around for so long and this is no sour critisism: if you go back to the last part of the 60s you will find almost exactly the same music part which was called progressive rock so it feels like i have heard it all before.

this is a general problem today though, things are re-invented and draped in new(er) wrappings and to younger people it may sound *NEW* but to old grumpy ones like me, ive heard it [all] before in a way.

a bit offset:
several times a year i recognize things stolen from artists/songs of the 60s and this do not work with me. latest one was niced from beatles´white - blackbird - phrase "take these broken wings and learn to fly" - anyone who recognize it?

if you like you may try to download a betales song - not progressive but very little known called "it´s all too much" a quite heavily instumentalised song by George Harrison - from the Yellow Submarine Album.

If you take a day off to play this in a slighly darkend room and play it on a hifi system - not phones you may discover some of the extraordinary capacity The Beatles had to make variations - nothing ever repeats, they will create expections, give you some, create expectations and give you none - until the final orgy which is so superb that you just want more.

it is a quite long deep piece which it takes a long time to get really into but once there it is completely seducing, bewildering, overwhelming - you name it.

never heard it played on radio. there are quite many "unknown" beatle songs on famous albums. "Anytime At All" another unknown one from the early days which i like a lot.

dont want to be a "music police" - i accept that "my" time is gone but the references remain.

i do listen to other music but i allways download music from the net song by song an compile my own albums so i can include quite a few "one hit wonders" as well keeping focus on teh music and not the artists.

some artists/music i have compiled recently: glen frey (never liked the eagles), jon bon jovi, alla pugacheva, jennifer rush´original "power of love" totally undresses celine dions version - its the original though, karl marx (ok - richard then), chris rea, tina turner, diana ross, chris deburgh, + + + + + +

my "consumer music" stash. good for driving.

[etimh]

FWIW S8Booster, I love the Beatles--all of your points are EXCELLENT ones. I understand and appreciate their importance historically and their continued relevance. They just don't make it into my top ten. Maybe my top twenty.

Depeche Mode on the other hand...geez! To each his/her own I guess.

Tim

[timdrage]

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band beat all other groups/musicians hands down!