There’s eating crow, and then there’s the Swedish music critic who once claimed The Beatles were a band of “no musical importance whatsoever” in 1963. A pop reviewer for Karlstad newspaper, Nya Wemlands Tidning, attended an early Fab Four concert in a secondary school hall in 1963. This show predated the band’s historic television debut in the States by several months. The young quartet was still cutting their teeth around Europe, hardly at the level of fame they would come to enjoy in the next several years. And as they learned the day after their Karlstad show, part of cutting one’s teeth in the entertainment industry is getting a lousy review.

And the Nya Wemlands Tidning review was lousy. According to Mark Lewisohn’s Complete Beatles Chronicle, the reviewer “thought the Beatles terrible, their music corny, and their playing out of rhythm, adding that the group should have been grateful the fans’ screams helped drown out their awful performance, and then he concluded by stating that The Beatles were of no musical importance whatsoever and that their local support group, The Phantoms, decidedly outshone them.”

Of course, Beatlemanic Swedes would have disagreed with the music critic. Just days before, The Beatles attempted to sightsee in Stockholm but had to call it off after fans began swarming them. If their popularity with the general public wasn’t convincing enough evidence of their importance, the sales of the record they were working on in tandem with their tour certainly would be.

Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com

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Ahead of the highly-anticipated release of their forthcoming Anthology 4, The Beatles have shared a new version of their song “I’ve Just Seen A Face.

Released in 1965 and written by Paul McCartney, the track originally appeared on the group’s album Help—although in North America, it was first released on their record Rubber Soul. The ode to love at first sight has since been covered by the likes of Brandi Carlile, The Dillards, George Martin, Holly Cole and McCartney’s band Wings. In fact, it was among the first Beatles songs Wings played live, and appears on their 1976 live album Wings Over America.

This version of “I’ve Just Seen A Face” is just some of the new material set to appear on Anthology 4 upon its release on November 21st. Curated and remastered by Giles Martin, Anthology 4 will feature 13 unreleased demos, rare sessions from 1963-1969, and new mixes from their original producer Jeff Lynne. Earlier this year, they shared a new mix of “Free As A Bird,” alongside a restored music video. On October 14th, a 25th-anniversary edition of The Beatles Anthology was also released by Apple Corps Ltd. and Chronicle Books—it contains more than 1,300 photos, documents, artwork, and other memorabilia from the band’s archives.

Source: Sam Armstrong/udiscovermusic.com

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More than five decades after The Beatles broke up, Paul McCartney is finally sharing how it really felt to walk away from the band that changed music and his life forever.

The Beatles — made up of McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — broke up in 1970 due to a combination of factors, including growing creative differences, the death of their manager Brian Epstein and a major dispute over their new manager, Allen Klein. McCartney publicly announced his departure in April 1970, and Lennon had privately told the others he was leaving in September 1969. The band was officially and legally separated by December 1974.

The famous English rock band began with McCartney and Lennon in 1956, then Harrison joined in 1957 and Stu Sutcliffe and Pete Best later on. In 1960, they adopted their name, The Beatles. A year later, Sutcliffe left the group, and by 1962, the band signed a recording contract and replaced Best with Starr. In their decade of taking over the music industry, they released 12 studio albums and multiple tours. By 1964, they were international stars who reached unprecedented levels of success.

On Nov. 4, McCartney will release his new memoir, Wings: The Story of a Band, which will tell the story of the legendary rock group from their humble beginnings to their final days from his point of view.

On Thursday, Vulture shared a part of the memoir, specifically the section where rumors were swirling around that McCartney had passed away, and the singer's reaction to the fake news.

In 1969, a conspiracy theory went around claiming that "Paul was dead" and he was replaced by a lookalike when the singer reportedly died in a car accident in 1966. The theory gained traction in September of that year when college students published articles with "clues" supposedly found in Beatles records, but the claims were debunked by TheNew York Times.

Source: Liz Lindain/yahoo.com

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Even if Paul McCartney had permanently hung up his instruments after the dissolution of the Beatles, he’d still be regarded as one of the best songwriters in rock history. Watch him in the invaluable eight-hour documentary Get Back, and you’ll see a meticulous 26-year-old leader who’s constantly writing, revising, rearranging, and pushing his bandmates (no slouches themselves) to elevate a song from merely perfect to immortal. So what else is there to do after reinventing pop music forever before even turning 30?

Apparently, you run away to a desolate Scottish sheep farm and plot a second chapter for the ages. As McCartney writes below in the foreword to his upcoming book, Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, a funny narrative was forming around himself and his new wife, Linda: They’d traded Swinging ’60s London for sleepy ’70s Scotland, yet the rest of the world thought Paul was simply dead. In reality, he was working on his new life. His next decade would bring on an ambitious new band, endless trips around the world, and ten albums that would grow to be, among later generations, as beloved as his previous band’s records. It would also involve headline-grabbing controversies, a stay at the Tokyo Narcotics Detention Center, and, inevitably, another musical breakup. But, of course, McCartney’s story wouldn’t end there. It’s still being written today by the man himself.

“Well, the rain exploded with a mighty crash as we fell into the sun.”

The strangest rumor started floating around just as the Beatles were breaking up —­ that I was dead.

We had heard the rumor long before, but suddenly, in that autumn of 1969, stirred up by a DJ in America, it took on a force all its own, so that millions of fans around the world believed I was actually gone.

At one point, I turned to my new wife and asked, “Linda, how can I possibly be dead?” She smiled as she held our new baby, Mary, as aware of the power of gossip and the absurdity of these ridiculous newspaper headlines as I was. But she did point out that we had beaten a hasty retreat from London to this remote farm up in Scotland, precisely to get away from the kind of malevolent talk that was bringing the Beatles down.

Source: vulture.com

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Though they typically kept it light, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones had a rivalry in their heyday that echoes in their respective fandoms to this day. There wasn’t any major fueding, and they ultimately respected each other. However, there were a few occasions when their beef was taken seriously. There was one night when Paul McCartney purposefully attempted to upstage The Stones at their own party.

The Stones were gearing up to release Beggars Banquet in the late ’60s when they hosted a party at a club owned by their friend, Tony Sanchez. The album played in its entirety for the a-list invitees. It was proving to be a rousing success until McCartney walked in.

McCartney reportedly went up to Sanchez, who was in charge of the music, and nonchalantly handed over one of the greatest songs ever written, “Hey Jude.” 

“As Paul walked in, everybody was leaping around to Beggars Banquet, which was far and away the best album of The Stones’ career,” Sanchez once said. “Paul discreetly handed me a record and said, ‘See what you think of it, Tony. It’s our new one.’”

“I stuck the record on the sound system and the slow thundering build-up of ‘Hey Jude’ shook the club,” he continued. “I turned the record over, and we all heard John Lennon’s nasal voice pumping out ‘Revolution.’”

Though they didn’t have the context we do of how successful “Hey Jude” would become, everyone in attendance felt its power in the moment.

“So there we all were, having a wonderful time, and in strolls Paul McCartney—a little smile on his lips, hands behind his back,” ’60s icon Marianne Faithfull added elsewhere. “‘What have you got, Paul?’ we cried out. ‘Oh, nothing, really,’ says he. [He then] put on Hey Jude. It was the first time anyone had heard it and we were all blown away.”

Source: Alex Hopper/americansongwriter.com

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Fans will have to wait until April 2028 to see The Beatles’ biopics hit the big screen, starring Paul Mescal, Harris Dickinson, Joseph Quinn, and Barry Keoghan as Paul, John, George, and Ringo (there are four films set to premiere in total). In the meantime, revisit the journey of one of the world’s most iconic rock bands through the newly reissued 25th Anniversary Edition of The Beatles Anthology.

Dropped on Oct. 14, 2025 (it was first debuted more than two decades ago), this 368-page coffee table book, according to the product description, “tells the complete story of The Beatles, from growing up in Liverpool to their rise to global phenomenon and ultimate breakup. Created originally with the complete support of Paul, George, Ringo, and Yoko Ono Lennon, with the words of John painstakingly compiled from sources worldwide, this 25th anniversary reissue offers the only story of The Beatles by The Beatles.”

The anthology features smooth, full-color pages, thousands of photographs, and interesting tidbits about the original boy band. It’s the ideal gift for yourself or any Beatles fan — and is a must-have addition to your music collection. This premium release lets you experience the group’s narrative firsthand, from their early days as unknown musicians to international superstars.

Source: Alexis Mikulski Ruiz/rollingstone.com

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