Ill Be Back. When Im Sixty Four. Any Time At All. Mother Nature's Son. Day Tripper. Near the end of , the Beatles' exploding local popularity caught the attention of local record store manager Brian Epstein, who was soon managing the band as well. He used his contacts to swiftly acquire a January 1, , audition at Decca Records that has been heavily bootlegged some tracks were officially released in After weeks of deliberation, Decca turned them down as did several other British labels.
Epstein's perseverance was finally rewarded with an audition for producer George Martin at Parlophone, an EMI subsidiary; Martin signed the Beatles in mid By this time, Epstein was assiduously grooming his charges for national success by influencing them to smarten up their appearance, dispensing with their leather jackets and trousers in favor of tailored suits and ties. One more major change was in the offing before the Beatles made their Parlophone debut.
In August , drummer Pete Best was kicked out of the group, a controversial decision that has been the cause of much speculation since. There is still no solid consensus as to whether it was because of his solitary, moody nature; the other Beatles' jealousy of his popularity with the fans; his musical shortcomings George Martin had already told Epstein that Best wasn't good enough to drum on recordings ; or his refusal to wear his hair in bangs.
I Love You," in September Both sides of the 45 were Lennon-McCartney originals, and the songwriting team would be credited with most of the group's material throughout the Beatles' career. The single, a promising but fairly rudimentary effort, hovered around the lower reaches of the British Top The Beatles phenomenon didn't truly kick in until "Please Please Me," which topped the British charts in early This was the prototype British Invasion single: an infectious melody, charging guitars, and positively exuberant harmonies.
What the Beatles had done was take the best elements of the rock and pop they loved and make them their own. What they added was an unmatched songwriting savvy inspired by Brill Building teams such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King , a brash guitar-oriented attack, wildly enthusiastic vocals, and the embodiment of the youthful flair of their generation, ready to dispense with postwar austerity and claim a culture of their own.
They were also unsurpassed in their eclecticism, willing to borrow from blues, popular standards, gospel, folk, or whatever seemed suitable for their musical vision. Producer George Martin was the perfect foil for the group, refining their ideas without tinkering with their cores; during the last half of their career, he was indispensable for his ability to translate their concepts into arrangements that required complex orchestration, innovative applications of recording technology, and an ever-widening array of instruments.
Just as crucially, the Beatles were never ones to stand still and milk formulas. All of their subsequent albums and singles would show remarkable artistic progression though never at the expense of a damn catchy tune. Even on their second LP, With the Beatles , it was evident that their talents as composers and instrumentalists were expanding furiously, as they devised ever more inventive melodies and harmonies, and boosted the fullness of their arrangements.
After some celebrated national TV appearances, Beatlemania broke out across the British Isles in late , and the group generating screams and hysteria at all of their public appearances, musical or otherwise. Capitol, which had first refusal of the Beatles' recordings in the United States, had declined to issue the group's first few singles, which ended up appearing on relatively small American independents.
The Beatles' television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in February of launched Beatlemania and the entire British Invasion on an even bigger scale than it had reached in Britain. No one had ever dominated the market for popular music so heavily; it's doubtful that anyone ever will again.
The Beatles themselves would continue to reach number one with most of their singles and albums until their breakup. Hard as it may be to believe today, the Beatles were often dismissed by cultural commentators of the time as nothing more than a fad that would vanish within months as the novelty wore off. The Beatles' success, too, had begun to open the U. Between riotous international tours in and , the Beatles continued to squeeze out more chart-topping albums and singles.
Until , the group's British albums were often truncated for release in the States; when their catalog was transferred to CD, the albums were released worldwide in their British configurations. In retrospect, critics have judged Beatles for Sale late and Help! To some degree, that's true. Touring and an insatiable market placed heavy demands upon their songwriting, and some of the originals and covers on these records, while brilliant by many group's standards, were filler in the context of the Beatles' best work.
But when at the top of their game, the group was continuing to push forward. Although the Beatles' second film, Help! By this time, though, the Beatles had nothing to prove in commercial terms; the remaining frontiers were artistic challenges that could only be met in the studio. They rose to the occasion at the end of with Rubber Soul, one of the classic folk-rock records. Lyrically, Lennon, McCartney, and even Harrison who was now writing some tunes on his own were evolving beyond boy-girl scenarios into complex, personal feelings.
They were also pushing the limits of studio rock by devising new guitar and bass textures, experimenting with distortion and multi-tracking, and using unconventional for rock instruments like the sitar.
As much of a progression as Rubber Soul was relative to their previous records, it was but a taster for the boundary-shattering outings of the next few years. Drugs psychedelic and otherwise were fueling their already fertile imaginations, but they felt creatively hindered by their touring obligations.
Revolver, released in the summer of , proved what the group could be capable of when allotted months of time in the studio. Hazy hard guitars and thicker vocal arrangements formed the bed of these increasingly imagistic, ambitious lyrics; the group's eclecticism now encompassed everything from singalong novelties "Yellow Submarine" and string quartet-backed character sketches "Eleanor Rigby" to Indian-influenced swirls of echo and backward tapes "Tomorrow Never Knows".
Some would complain that the Beatles had abandoned the earthy rock of their roots for clever mannerism. But Revolver, like virtually all of the group's singles and albums from "She Loves You" on, would be a worldwide chart-topper. For the past couple of years, live performance had become a rote exercise for the group, tired of competing with thousands of screaming fans that drowned out most of their voices and instruments. A summer worldwide tour was particularly grueling: the group's entourage was physically attacked in the Philippines after a perceived snub of the country's queen, and a casual remark by John Lennon about the Beatles being bigger than Jesus Christ was picked up in the States, resulting in the burning of Beatle records in the Bible belt and demands for a repentant apology.
Their final concert of that American tour in San Francisco on August 29, would be their last in front of a paying audience, as the group decided to stop playing live in order to concentrate on their studio recordings. This was a radical indeed, unprecedented step in , and the media was rife with speculation that the act was breaking up, especially after all four spent late engaged in separate personal and artistic pursuits. Frequently cited as the strongest double A-side ever, the Beatles were now pushing forward into unabashedly psychedelic territory in their use of orchestral arrangements and Mellotron, without abandoning their grasp of memorable melody and immediately accessible lyrical messages.
Pepper, released in June as the Summer of Love dawned, was the definitive psychedelic soundtrack. Or, at least, so it was perceived at the time: subsequent critics have painted the album as an uneven affair, given a conceptual unity via its brilliant multi-tracked overdubs, singalong melodies, and fairy tale-ish lyrics.
Others remain convinced, as millions did at the time, that it represented pop's greatest triumph, or indeed an evolution of pop into art with a capital A. In addition to mining all manner of roots influences, the musicians were also picking up vibes from Indian music, avant-garde electronics, classical, music hall, and more.
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