What's your favourite Beatles album?

Deleted User wrote: »

Wolfgang to his mother. 'Pop' is a flippant dismissal of a sound that radically evolved within a few short years. They are regarded in many quarters as the greatest band of the last century, that's an insurance policy against being forgotten in a hurry.

Pretty much. People forget that guys like Mozart became and remain famous because they wrote music that was extremely popular when it was current and over time. They in essence wrote "pop music"*. If charts had been around guys like him would have hogged the number one position on the regular and he played sold out gigs throughout his life. If modern media was around it might have headlines like "Are you a Mozart or Beethoven fan" a la the Blur/Oasis, Stones/Beatles fan splits. There were also other composers around, some were one hit wonders, others were jobbing composers and musicians who made a living but that was about it. Just like today. Every era threw up a couple of greats and those are the ones we remember. No doubt there will be a few people who will have heard of someone like Frank Zappa in a few centuries time, but many more will have heard of The Beatles.



*because there emerged a high/low brow thing in later years, we also forget that someone like Shakespeare was mass market drama very much aimed at the cheap seats. Opera was extremely "pop music" in intent and background, as was the vast majority of art. Raphael when he finished a painting would often be cheered by crowds in the street as he brought the finished work to its buyer. Going way back there are accounts of Greek playwrights and poets being mobbed by adoring fans when they showed up to the Greek colonies in Italy and we remember them too.

FreshTendrils wrote: »

Written and recorded in the space of 48 months (Sep 1965 - Aug 1969):

When you look it like that; 48 months, it is a truly incredible level of output and creativity. It would be incredible on its own if their style had stayed the same, but that it changed and expanded in so many directions so rapidly in the latter half of that timeframe almost beggars belief. Never mind that the period was one of rapid change, both socially and musically. When they started it was the early days of rock and roll and more locally skiffle and records were laid down mostly directly onto wax disks and by the end of their run it was 16, even 24 track recording(they did most of their stuff on 4 track), world tours, synths coming in etc and they still stayed on top right to the end.

Look at album covers. The vast majority were a usually stilted photo of the artist, their cover art started to push that and by Pepper it blew it out of sight. You know those covers with lyrics written on them? They did that first. Lists of engineers etc? Ditto. Gatefold cover? Ditto. Even the sleeves inside the cover were decorated and it came with cut out "free gifts, cos drugs.