What Beatles critics don't get
Not everyone likes The Beatles. That said, trashing cultural icons is a modern phenomenon amplified by social media and done, largely, to attract attention. Yet whether you hate them or love them (yeah, yeah, yeah), their influence on pretty much everything pop music has offered since is, surely, undeniable.
Sixty years ago they left an indelible imprint on both music and film that continues to this day. In April 1964, John Lennon and Paul McCartney sat down in a hotel room and wrote a song to accompany the title of the band’s first (and best) feature film, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’. The song itself is typical of their early output. A sugary song about love, less than three minutes long yet its significance cannot be underestimated.
The film of the same name was a black and white, only slightly fictional account of 36 hours in the lives of the band in which they played themselves. But for the first time it showed chart topping pop stars not as spoilt millionaires singing songs written by other people contracted to their record company but as ordinary boys from ordinary backgrounds with extraordinary talent who talked, joked and acted just like those who bought their records.
It was the first movie of its kind, a documentary style comedy musical in which they sang songs they wrote themselves and stripped the veneer off their superstardom. This was back when they genuinely seemed to have fun before they became more insular, stopped performing live and drifted off into drugs, barmy Swamis and their own god-like status.
Directed by Richard Lester, A Hard Day’s Night was nominated for two Academy Awards and launched a series of copycat films by other members of the ‘British Invasion’, notably Cavern Club stablemates Gerry and the Pacemakers as well as The Dave Clark Five.
Source: Mark Solomons/spectator.co.uk
