The Beatles why do they sound so different from early Rock

[Alexander]

Well, wasn't "Let it be" the Beatles last album?

MG

It was the last released album, but it was actually recorded before Abbey Road.

Right. "Let It Be" the first "posthumous" Beatles release. Following the completion of the White Album, which was largely made through overdubbing with few of the Beatles actually playing together in the same room, McCartney proposed that the group "get back" to their club-playing roots. The proposed project was to make an album "live" in the studio and follow it up with a tour of small venues, like the ones they played in their Liverpool and Hamburg days. The tour idea was scrapped, but the album was given the go-ahead with the plan of doing a big concert as a finale (their first since 1966). They also decided to film the recording and rehearsal sessions as well as the final concert. The recording sessions were, to put it mildly, a disaster. Paul tried to run the whole show. George was growing as a songwriter, but was resentful of the fact that he was still being relegated to two or three songs per album. John was in the early stages of his relationship with Yoko who was divorcing her husband and who was a constant presence in the studio, much to the irritation of the others. In addition, the decision was made to make the record in a film studio (Twickingham, if I recall correctly) rather than their customary home at Abbey Road. Each member of the Beatles quit at least once during the recording sessions, only to be coaxed back (usually by Paul, who was determined to keep the group together). It was a bad experience all around, and it got worse as the proposed concert date neared and nothing was being done to prepare for it. In the end, the concert idea was scrapped as well and the Beatles opted for the impomptu midday rooftop performance seen in the "Let It Be" film. Once the project was completed, the tapes (hours and hours of them) were shoved in a vault and the Beatles returned to Abbey Road to record the "Abbey Road" album, which was their swan song.

After Paul's departure from the group, which pretty much ended it for everybody, a series of protracted lawsuits ensued. In order to pay their mounting legal fees, it was decided to release the "Get Back" tapes (as the project was originally titled) and the companion film (no longer a document about a band at work but about a band in its death throes). John, George and Ringo hired Phil Spector to comb through the tapes, cherry-pick the best material, and make it suitable for release. Paul objected but was overruled (or ignored, however you look at it). Although his post-production has been much maligned over the years (the initial sting has been long since removed since the undubbed takes have been released in various forms), the fact was that Spector did the best he could given the (frankly) substandard material (substandard for the Beatles...more than adequite for anyone else) and the unpleasant circumstances surrounding its production. Spector opted to take a two-fold approach: Much of the album is treated like an "offical bootleg," with studio chatter, false starts and abrupt endings. A few of the songs ("Let it Be," "The Long and Winding Road," "I, Me, Mine," "Across the Universe") are given the full "Wall of Sound" treatment (much to the displeasure of McCartney and many Beatles fans). It's an odd approach, when you think about it (why not do one or the other rather than both?), but the fact is that Spector did exactly what he was hired to do: Make a listenable album out of the hours of tape documenting the fragmentation of the Beatles.

The album was released in 1970, making it the first Beatles album of the post-Beatles era. It would be followed by a couple of odds and ends collections and many compilations before the release of actual archival material in the 1990s with the "Anthology" series (which saw the unadorned version of "The Long and Winding Road" finally released). It's a strange album, treated as an official release even though it's really not an album released during the band's lifetime, neither fish nor fowl.

Edited November 6, 2008 by Alexander

[Alexander]

Can anyone name a finer, more mature, final musical statement, in any genre, than "Abbey Road"?

"The world of Hank Crawford".

MG

"Minnie The Moocher's Wedding Day", by Horace Henderson (members of the group include Henry "Red" Allen and Coleman Hawkins)

I thought so. Can we now move on from Beatle bashing?

I am not bashing the Beatles with my Horace Henderson remark. I owned all of their albums as they were coming out and played them a bazillion times. They were huge in my life when I was young. They were huge to everyone, as I remember. I still like their music and think that they were really good. When I listen to their albums now, I am struck by the attention to detail and high quality throughout.

I just think that Abbey Road is only one of thousands of recordings that is fine and mature.

Fair enough. But I said "final" musical statement. That is, a last album made by an individual or group of musicians.

I have just gotten really tired of the Beatles being called "shallow", directly or indirectly. The high quality of their music still comes through to my ears today, even after all these years of mostly jazz listening. And, fwiw, they sure as hell beat Elvis AND a poke in the eye with a sharp stick anyday

I love Macca , BUT I LOVE ELVIS waaaaaaaay more than the Beatles.

I love 'em both!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Well, wasn't "Let it be" the Beatles last album?

MG

It was the last released album, but it was actually recorded before Abbey Road.

I didn't know that. Shows how much notice I was taking then.

MG

[Hot Ptah]

Well, wasn't "Let it be" the Beatles last album?

MG

It was the last released album, but it was actually recorded before Abbey Road.

I didn't know that. Shows how much notice I was taking then.

MG

I "was taking notice" of the Beatles then and did not know it. 1969-70 was not like now. There was very little pop entertainment news in American mass media and few alternative media outlets for rock music news either. A detail like the recordings dates of an album compared to its release date was not something that the average American could find out about.

[Teasing the Korean]

Can anyone name a finer, more mature, final musical statement, in any genre, than "Abbey Road"?

Are you serious?

[BruceH]

There's a reason George Martin is sometimes referred to as the fifth Beatle.

Up over and out.

His lame-ass, flaccid stereo mixes are surely not part of that reason, unfortunately.

The Beatles need to be heard in MONO!

They tend to sound best in mono, that's for sure. I heard that one reason for that is that the music was engineered and initially mixed-down and mastered for mono, with the stereo mix being an afterthought. Apparently stereo was still considered a new (and perhaps passing) fad in some parts of the British recording industry at the time.

[BruceH]

There are some very insightful takes on the genius of The Beatles and of George Martin in this thread.

One thing that strikes me though is that we seem to be comparing the fully developed post-Revolver Beatles with early rock and that seems curious to me.

The moptops that blissed out the teenyboppers on The Ed Sullivan Show were very different than the hipsters who created "Norwegian Wood" etc.

Very true, although I should point out that "Norwegian Wood" is a pre-Revolver song, not post.

Fact is, that while the Beatles had very distinct early and late musical phases, they also had a very fecund middle period that on close examination can be further subdivided into two or even three parts. They crammed a lot into six and-a-half years of recording.

[Alexander]

As to the question that started the thread, the simple fact is that Rock and Roll is not the unbroken continuity VH1 and Rolling Stone would have us believe it is. The first generation of Rock and Roll was over and done with by 1960. By 1960, Elvis was in the army, Buddy Holly was dead, Little Richard had returned to the church, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis were both in disgrace, Eddie Cochran was dead...

Pop music had internalized the style of early rock and roll, but not its substance. The period between the death of Rock and Roll and the arrival of Beatlemania saw some bland music (Fabian) but it also saw some outstanding music (Phil Spector's productions, the rise of Motown, the arrival of the Beach Boys, the Folk boom). The Beatles were coming out of Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, but they were also paying attention to what was happening in Pop music. They were revivalists in a way, but they were also updating and advancing the music they were reviving. Some have noted that while Rock and Roll was dead by 1960, ROCK was born in the years that followed. Beatlemania had a lot to do with that.

[Guest Bill Barton]

I know Coltrane was influenced by Indian music. Did he use actual instrumentation? He actually predates all rockers using Indian influences. Miles Davis was influenced by Modal Music. Where I give George Harrison credit he used the classical style in instrumentation, rhythm and style.

Live at the Village Vanguard 1961. If you don't already own it, you really should go out now and buy the box set.

I like jazz music a lot of progressive rock is influenced by jazz music. The thing is I like to know was Jazz musicians experimenting things like backward tape, tape loops, feedback and Indian Music, before it got to rock music?

SUN RA

And let's not forget Joe Harriott and John Handy. Particularly Harriott, whose Indo Jazz Suite and Indo Jazz Fusions recordings date from 1966-1967.

Feedback? Lenny Breau!

Backward tape & tape loops? Rahsaan Roland Kirk!

Admittedly some of this could perhaps be considered concurrently with rather than "before it got to rock music." But Breau - for instance - was fashioning entire solos out of controlled feedback before Hendrix made this sort of thing the norm.

There are some very insightful takes on the genius of The Beatles and of George Martin in this thread.

One thing that strikes me though is that we seem to be comparing the fully developed post-Revolver Beatles with early rock and that seems curious to me.

The moptops that blissed out the teenyboppers on The Ed Sullivan Show were very different than the hipsters who created "Norwegian Wood" etc.

Very true, although I should point out that "Norwegian Wood" is a pre-Revolver song, not post.

Fact is, that while the Beatles had very distinct early and late musical phases, they also had a very fecund middle period that on close examination can be further subdivided into two or even three parts. They crammed a lot into six and-a-half years of recording.

Good point! Their development certainly doesn't fit into any kind of easily defined pigeonholes, chronologically or otherwise.

Edited November 7, 2008 by Bill Barton

[zen archer]

What about Johnny Guitar Watson wasn't he doing feedback back in the early 50s?

[Jazzmoose]

Many new Beatles songs sounded magical when they first came out; I can recall feeling really disappointed as the ex-Beatles songs rolled out in the early 70s, having none of that magic. I don't think I've ever owned a post-Abbey Road ex-Beatles record.

Wow. I understand what you're saying, but I wasn't able to cut the flow that abruptly. That said, I would recommend All Things Must Pass, though I understand most of the songs were written during the time the Beatles were still together.

[Teasing the Korean]

Rubber Soul and Revolver are their two best albums. One is pre-Revolver, and the other is, well, Revolver.

[A Lark Ascending]

Many new Beatles songs sounded magical when they first came out; I can recall feeling really disappointed as the ex-Beatles songs rolled out in the early 70s, having none of that magic. I don't think I've ever owned a post-Abbey Road ex-Beatles record.

Wow. I understand what you're saying, but I wasn't able to cut the flow that abruptly. That said, I would recommend All Things Must Pass, though I understand most of the songs were written during the time the Beatles were still together.

Well there wasn't really a flow to cut. The Beatles had been there in the background as I grew up. I can recall as a 7-8 year old around '64 finding Beatlemania all a bit of a joke - the plastic mop-top hairpieces etc. The music was there as a backdrop to growing up but I wasn't a big listener. What they'd done is cut right through to musically unaware people like me. I have no memory of the Stones records of the same era.

I became a music obsessive around '69 - I recall Abbey Road coming out and be played in full on Radio Luxembourg, I think. So the Beatles were breaking up as I got interested in music. They were really peripheral to what I was listening to in the early 70s. I liked the old hits I knew but saw them as yesterday's band. The Lennon, Harrison, McCartney records that came out seemed very plain compared with a group like Yes who had picked up on some of the things that caught my ear in the 60s - the melodicism, unusual key changes, overall colour of the music.

I don't think I heard Sgt Pepper in full until 1972 (I recall really liking 'Lucy in the Sky' until the chorus which seemed to throw away a dreamy build up with a nursery rhyme). I think it was around the time of the two double LP singles LPs (1973) that I started to listen back in earnest. So, in some way my Beatles years were the mid 70s!

I get the impression that both as a group and individually the Beatles almost took a deliberate decision to cut back from the flamboyance and experimentation of their mid to late 60s music. It all seems to base itself on a much more simplified approach. Which seems to be almost the history of popular music - lines of development that lead to increasing complexity and then suddenly...'well, we're really just pop groups'...and a rapid retreat to ground zero and rejection of what went before as pretentious.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

There's a reason George Martin is sometimes referred to as the fifth Beatle.

Up over and out.

His lame-ass, flaccid stereo mixes are surely not part of that reason, unfortunately.

The Beatles need to be heard in MONO!

They tend to sound best in mono, that's for sure. I heard that one reason for that is that the music was engineered and initially mixed-down and mastered for mono, with the stereo mix being an afterthought. Apparently stereo was still considered a new (and perhaps passing) fad in some parts of the British recording industry at the time.

Not a fad, but not relevant to pop music (British class prejudice again). Stereo was for classical music, jazz, "classy" singers like Sinatra, and the British equivalents of Enoch Light and Tony Mottola.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

What about Johnny Guitar Watson wasn't he doing feedback back in the early 50s?

And Guitar Slim. But both were doing it, I supose you could say, manually - you know, like really just playing the instrument.

MG

[JETman]

Rubber Soul and Revolver are their two best albums. One is pre-Revolver, and the other is, well, Revolver.

Yes, I was serious about Abbey Road being one of the best, if not the best swan song I've ever heard. As far as Rubber Soul and Revolver go, they are both great albums. But your statement about these being the Beatles' best is quite subjective, wouldn't you say?

[BruceH]

There's a reason George Martin is sometimes referred to as the fifth Beatle.

Up over and out.

His lame-ass, flaccid stereo mixes are surely not part of that reason, unfortunately.

The Beatles need to be heard in MONO!

They tend to sound best in mono, that's for sure. I heard that one reason for that is that the music was engineered and initially mixed-down and mastered for mono, with the stereo mix being an afterthought. Apparently stereo was still considered a new (and perhaps passing) fad in some parts of the British recording industry at the time.

Not a fad, but not relevant to pop music (British class prejudice again). Stereo was for classical music, jazz, "classy" singers like Sinatra, and the British equivalents of Enoch Light and Tony Mottola.

MG

Ah, I see.

[RDK]

They tend to sound best in mono, that's for sure. I heard that one reason for that is that the music was engineered and initially mixed-down and mastered for mono, with the stereo mix being an afterthought. Apparently stereo was still considered a new (and perhaps passing) fad in some parts of the British recording industry at the time.

Their first couple of albums, yes, I'd agree, but I usually prefer the stereo mixes. In any case, "stereo being an afterthought" - if it was at all - only goes through the White Album. I'm not sure if there even was a mono issue of Abbey Road or Let it Be - if there were, they were fold-downs of the stereo mix.

[BruceH]

As to the question that started the thread, the simple fact is that Rock and Roll is not the unbroken continuity VH1 and Rolling Stone would have us believe it is. The first generation of Rock and Roll was over and done with by 1960. By 1960, Elvis was in the army, Buddy Holly was dead, Little Richard had returned to the church, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis were both in disgrace, Eddie Cochran was dead...

Pop music had internalized the style of early rock and roll, but not its substance. The period between the death of Rock and Roll and the arrival of Beatlemania saw some bland music (Fabian) but it also saw some outstanding music (Phil Spector's productions, the rise of Motown, the arrival of the Beach Boys, the Folk boom). The Beatles were coming out of Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, but they were also paying attention to what was happening in Pop music. They were revivalists in a way, but they were also updating and advancing the music they were reviving. Some have noted that while Rock and Roll was dead by 1960, ROCK was born in the years that followed. Beatlemania had a lot to do with that.

Quite. The eclecticism of "ROCK" was best exemplified by the Beatles, in fact I'd say they led the way in many respects. (As many have pointed out, when the Beatles put out "Yesterday," a quiet ballad with a string quartet, it could be called "ROCK" while clearly not being "rock'n'roll" at all in the traditional sense.)

[BruceH]

They tend to sound best in mono, that's for sure. I heard that one reason for that is that the music was engineered and initially mixed-down and mastered for mono, with the stereo mix being an afterthought. Apparently stereo was still considered a new (and perhaps passing) fad in some parts of the British recording industry at the time.

Their first couple of albums, yes, I'd agree, but I usually prefer the stereo mixes. In any case, "stereo being an afterthought" - if it was at all - only goes through the White Album. I'm not sure if there even was a mono issue of Abbey Road or Let it Be - if there were, they were fold-downs of the stereo mix.

Yes, I must admit, I was thinking of the early albums (through perhaps Sgt. Pepper) when I said that.

[BruceH]

Well there wasn't really a flow to cut. The Beatles had been there in the background as I grew up. I can recall as a 7-8 year old around '64 finding Beatlemania all a bit of a joke - the plastic mop-top hairpieces etc. The music was there as a backdrop to growing up but I wasn't a big listener.

Pretty much the same here. Born in '61, their music was naturally a background to my childhood, but I remained fairly uninterested in music in the pre-adolescent years. It wasn't until about 1978, in high school, that I started investigating the Beatles, when they were history (though still rather recent history.)

[Alexander]

They tend to sound best in mono, that's for sure. I heard that one reason for that is that the music was engineered and initially mixed-down and mastered for mono, with the stereo mix being an afterthought. Apparently stereo was still considered a new (and perhaps passing) fad in some parts of the British recording industry at the time.

Their first couple of albums, yes, I'd agree, but I usually prefer the stereo mixes. In any case, "stereo being an afterthought" - if it was at all - only goes through the White Album. I'm not sure if there even was a mono issue of Abbey Road or Let it Be - if there were, they were fold-downs of the stereo mix.

There is no mono mix of either "Abbey Road" or "Let It Be." But I do think that "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver" sound particularly good in mono. Never liked the stereo "scope" on Beatles albums, where they put all of the vocals in one ear and most of the instruments in the other. Sounds really shitty on headphones, although it has been noted that the albums were not intended to be heard that way. The mono versions kick ASS on headphones, however.

[BruceH]

I miss the trusty "mono" button on my old receiver.

[Dave James]

Put me squarely in the Revolver column. The apex of "moptoppery".

Up over and out.

[Guest Bill Barton]

What about Johnny Guitar Watson wasn't he doing feedback back in the early 50s?

And Guitar Slim. But both were doing it, I supose you could say, manually - you know, like really just playing the instrument.

MG

As was Lenny Breau, but he was - as I mentioned in my original post - actually fashioning solos out of controlled feedback. It wasn't an "effect." The reason I mentioned him in response to the question whether jazz players were using feedback, tape loops, backwards tape, etc. before The Beatles or other "rock" was for that very reason. It was an architectonic use of feedback. Are there particular recordings of Watson or Slim that you would suggest to hear what they were doing? I have to admit that I'm not very familiar with their playing. Some of Breau's now very hard to find early RCAs utilize what I'm talking about as I recall, and I have a cassette tape somewhere that a guitarist friend gave me years ago - a private recording - that has an amazing drone-based, quasi-Indian thing that would blow your mind; the entire solo is feedback.