r/beatles

i've listened to it hundreds of times and i still can't believe it came from the 1960s. ringos drumming is insane (probably his best performance ever), jangly guitars are perfect, and the meter shifting makes it sound so sophisticated. it's the musical equivalent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. you could've thought it actually came out in 2001, but it actually came out during the 60s.

BOTR and the first two McCartney albums in particular. Out-of-tune instruments, thin almost telephone vocals with no low end, snares that sound like someone slapping a table (“Jet” in particular has almost non-existent drum mixing).

Oddly enough, this turned out to be a major advantage to Paul’s solo output, allowing a lot of it to sound kind of cool and gritty to modern ears. Imagine “Jet” with the ultra-polished, 3D production of John’s mid-70s output; somehow it would be way worse even if it sounded “better”.

Conversely, I think slick production really hurt John’s solo output. The goal of Ultimate Mixes seems to be scrub off the sheen of his mid-to-late 70s material, probably with this idea in mind. Imagining “Whatever Gets You Through The Nite” with the unvarnished production of BOTR and suddenly it seems way better.

Kind of an ironic outcome (and maybe doubly ironic considering J+P’s respective personalities). Curious if anyone else agrees?

https://preview.redd.it/mqcqnbrienkh1.png?width=876&format=png&auto=webp&s=c15eeb1d023f9c3097561dbeb54b2d0417d78e1d

https://preview.redd.it/snl42drienkh1.jpg?width=296&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4276f8fd8f1b4ed6408e8887f66851e739845328

So here's a thing I didn't know until recently.....the Beatles didn't actually "arrive" in America on Ed Sullivan, that's just the version everyone's told and remembers.

There was a CBS segment on the whole UK Beatlemania thing that was supposed to air in November 63, except JFK got shot that same morning, so obviously it got shelved. It sat there for almost three weeks until Cronkite decided people needed something lighter and finally ran it in December.

And then this 14 y/o girl in Maryland, Marsha Albert, saw it and just... called her local radio station and said play a Beatles song. She was sure a main character, hahaha. Some DJ actually scrounged up a copy of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" from someone flying in from England, and she got to introduce it live on air....that's the real first Beatles moment in the US, not Sullivan, he just gets all the credit because it was on TV.

I just remembered this existed so I thought I'd share it.

Fun article that aggregates a bunch of Beatles catalog rankings to try to determine what their worst song is

I'm not 'that' old myself but I enjoy the station and they do get the more popular Beatles requests. It was entertaining the first time but a number of times is kind of odd. I think the person is playing a joke on the elderly. Plus it's really a throwaway song.

There's always the talk about how George wanted to prove he was a better songwriterthen the other Beatles, or atleast on par. But then why put Something on Abbey Road? He saved so many songs for All Things must Pass, such as the title track, but why not Something? It's arguably the best love song ever created and often got praised so, such as by Frank Sinatra. Wouldn't it therefore not be better to have this on your breaktrough album?

A customer at work and i often take a few minutes each week and talk music. It came up that i’m a massive Beatles fan. He dismissed them. Said they were popular figures sure but weren’t very good at their instruments.

I couldn’t believe what he just said. I must have been looking at him like he was the dumbest creature on earth because he said, “well, they weren’t.”

I asked if he plays anything, digereedoo was his response.

I’ve been playing bass, guitar, drums, and singing my entire 27 years and this dude in his 50’s flabbergasted me with his absolute ignorance. I can understand not liking the Beatles (actually no i can’t, anyone with two ears connected to a heart should be able to sus out the obvious) but saying they aren’t technically skilled? Are you a fool or willfully ignorant?

George is one of the most tasteful guitarists ever to grace us with records. Paul is a multi instrumental enigma. John is pure creative fury. And Ringo, don’t even get me started, he’s a sniper and a machine with impeccable rhythmic instincts.

And on top of that, to play all of that AND sing the tightest, most aching harmony? Take a walk man, you’re out of your depth.

Dude, get a grip. Your ironic, contrarian take on the Beatles musicianship is frankly offensive.

Rant over.

Hello,

I’ve been a fan of the Beatles for as long as I can remember, but I have a question about the breakup that confuses me.

So it’s well established that John told the group that he was leaving in Sep. 1969, right before Abbey Road was released. We also are well aware that McCartney announced the breakup in April. 1970 prior to the release of McCartney. This upset John.

My question is, if John wasn’t gonna announce it, and he didn’t want Paul to do it, who was gonna announce it. I assume that they probably would’ve remained silent until after Let It Be, but were they just never gonna announce their breakup and just let the public figure it out. I know this sounds kind of dumb, but I’ve been wondering.

I see a lot of posts poking fun of the on-set photos from the new Beatles movies which, admittedly, are quite funny. However, I think people are forgetting how many steps it takes to get from filming on any given day to the final product you’ll see in theaters.

Editing, color grading, and final touch ups all need to be done before we’ll even know how the movie will look. I’m optimistic that a single frame out of context with no thought to lighting or framing taken on a couple hundred dollar camera from a mile away is going to look far worse than a several thousand dollar camera used on set.

Even if the criticism is directed at the makeup, I get that the photos aren’t the best, but we have no idea what context the shots are going to show up in the movie: they could just be recreating the Abbey Road cover for a vinyl prop someone will be holding at a distance, they could have been shooting long shots that day so convincing close ups weren’t needed, etc.

I think a healthy level of cynicism is ok but I don’t think leaks are at all indicative of the actual movie we’ll be getting. I think the trailer will be a much more accurate representation of the quality of the movie.