Blogging the Beatles

I have decided, after a bit of thought, to review all of the Beatles' albums in between my normal reviews. The reasons I have decided to do this are threefold:

1. I know a lot about the Beatles, and I think writing about them is fun.
2. Hopefully, other people who like the Beatles will learn or take something from what I write.
3. Perhaps, the musically uneducated--those who talk about how the Beatles weren't so great and always attempt to "prove" their point by singing the chorus to "Yellow Submarine"--will read some of these blogs and realize what the Beatles did for music.

However, before I jump into reviewing, I thought I'd give a bit of a background on the group and some of the other players in their lives. The reason I'm doing this is because I'll attempt to explain different things about each album, like what influenced it and how it influenced music, and background information will be needed.

First, the band:

Paul McCartney
"The Cute Beatle"

Paul McCartney is perhaps the most gifted natural musician ever. By natural, I mean that he can't read music. This has not stopped him from being awesome at it, as he plays guitar, piano, bass, drums (he played all four of those during his Beatle tenure), ukulele, has a great singing voice, has composed a classical music album and--this last part is all instruments that are credited to him on his second to last release, according to Wikipedia--can also play synthesiser, harmonium, flugelhorn, autoharp, organ, spinet, melodica, vibes, glockenspiel, cello and recorder. That's right, folks. Not only is Paul McCartney cool enough to not be ridiculed for including a recorder on an album, but he is also proficient in probably about five instruments that you've never heard of. Also, it should be noted that just being proficient at the melodica alone is incredibly awesome, as you will see by reading the wikipedia entry on it.

Anyway, Paul was and is a great musician. He was also a good lyricist, as you see in my reviews. He tried to be the public face for the band, mostly just to soften to blows that came from John Lennon being a huge idiot all the time. He was probably the most dedicated to the band.

Musical Talent: best
Lyrical Talent: best

John Lennon
"The Political Beatle"

The first thing you should know about John is that, while Ringo was a nice guy, the other three Beatles had their unsavory sides. However, John made Paul and George look absolutely saintly by comparison. The man was a complete and utter tool, which can only partially be blamed on his mother's rotten husbands and subsequent death . John would go up to WWII veterans who had had amputated limbs and pretend to try to shake their hands, he was always ready with an insult for everyone, he absolutely tormented the Beatles' manager and he had a general apathy about kindness, goodwill and all that stuff (how ironic that he would pen "All You Need Is Love").

That might surprise some of you, as John is generally looked on as some kind of saint today, always talking about peace and love and happiness. Most people know his solo song Imagine, which, after it runs all organized religion, particularly Christianity, through the wringer, talks about how if only we all loved one another and worked together, how great it would be. Not only is the song unoriginal, boring, unrealistic and repetitive, it is also markedly different from the way John lived his life.

Anyway, the music. John usually just sang and played guitar and piano. He was good at singing and guitar playing, and he was passable at piano. He was also (contrary to what you might "Imagine") a good song writer, penning such greats as "Revolution."

John started the Beatles, and he was the nasty, insulting public face that squared off against Paul's, nice, slightly ingratiating public face.

Musical talent: third best, just under George
Lyrical talent: second

George Harrison
"The Weird Beatle"

George sang and played the guitar and sitar. While this may seem inferior to the work of John and Paul, George was absolutely crazy good at playing said guitar. Most of the riffs and lead guitar work in the band was performed and recorded by him. George also was talented at the ukulele, bass and other instruments.

George got into Hinduism during his time with the Beatles, and he wrote a bunch of songs about it, most of which aren't very good, although some of the other songs he penned are quite good. However, his looking into Hinduism also resulted in him learning how to play sitar and basically inventing world music, so that's cool. George was probably the most introverted Beatle, although he had a great sense of humor if you could get it out of him.

Musical talent: second, just above John
Lyrical talent: third

Ringo Starr
"Ringo Starr"

Nicknamed due to the excessive amount of rings that he always wore, Richard Starkey replaced the Beatles old drummer, Pete Best, right before the Beatles made it big. This is good because, while Ringo is not the greatest drummer of all time, Pete Best was probably one of the worst. While Ringo is mostly known for having a gigantic nose, he played drums and occasionally sang for the band.

He also wrote two songs of his own during his tenure with the Fab Four.

Musical talent: fourth
Lyrical talent: fourth

Ok, now that that's out of the way, the other players. I won't list everyone here, but I will list the people who had significant impact on multiple Beatles projects.

George Martin: He was the Beatles' producer. He often played piano for them if they needed it, and he seemed to always know when to reign in the boys and when to let their musicality roam into uncharted territory.

Brian Epstein: Brian was the Beatles' troubled, insecure, closeted homosexual manager. He got them record contracts, promotional deals and the like. He was a good businessman; however, he sometimes got the raw end of some of the deals he made (like it mattered, the Beatles still had enough money to practically hemorrhage it). While the Beatles often didn't realize it, Brian helped to keep them grounded.

Yoko Ono: John's second wife. Ok, this is important. Even though all of the stories say that Yoko was the one who broke up the Beatles, remember this: really, she was the one who broke up the Beatles. An artist whose "art" included having sex in a burlap bag, Yoko was incredibly possessive of John, and she demanded to be part of the Beatles' decision-making processes. To show you about how much musical ability she had, one of the albums that John and her released together had a complete album side that consisted only of them screaming each others' names. She enjoyed provoking the other members of the band, and she liked to get John in on the act too (not that he needed any encouragement). So yeah, remember this: Yoko Ono = Beatles killer.

Ok, there's the setup. Now, I will, whenever I feel like it, blog about one of the Beatles albums, selected semi-randomly. The first one on the docket ... their second film soundtrack, "Help!"