Beatles News
Ringo Starr’s energy shows no sign of waning, even though the celebrated musician recently turned 85. After more than six decades in the spotlight, the legendary drummer is not only still touring, he’s expanding his musical horizons in ways few could have expected, and continuing to produce more new music.
Just months after releasing Look Up, his first full-length in more than half a decade, Starr recently shared some good news via an announcement that confirms that more new work is on the way.
A Follow-Up to Look Up
In a video Starr shared recently on YouTube, the former Beatle revealed that he is already working on a new album, and the project sees him reuniting with the producer who helped him produce his latest genre-shifting effort.
“I’m in the studio here now doing another album with T Bone [Burnett]. Thank you, Lord. Woo. Yeah,” he said in the clip. He jokingly referred to the album’s working title as Look Up Two, but then added with a smile, “I don’t think it’ll be called that.”
Few Details Are Available
For the moment, details about Starr’s upcoming album are scarce, but that’s likely only because it’s still early days when it comes to putting the project together. The set, which doesn’t have a real title or release date yet, will be Starr’s twenty-second as a soloist.
Source: forbes.com/Hugh McIntyre
The Beatles shocked their fans by releasing one of their most controversial albums at the height of their fame, one that stood as their first major political statement
The Beatles became one of the most successful acts in music virtually overnight with their fresh sound and incredible songs.
While some were unprepared for the changes the Fab Four ushered into music and pop culture at the time, diehard fans continuously fell in love with them. Besides what they brought the world in the early 1960s, they didn't truly rattle listeners until they released one of their most controversial albums, one that stood as their first major political statement.
In 1966, The Beatles released the album Yesterday and Today, which had a cover so grotesque that their record label pulled it. It featured the band surrounded by pieces of raw meat and decapitated baby dolls. As a result, copies featuring the original image are very difficult to come by, but one copy recently went up for auction and sold for a whopping five-figure value.
Yesterday and Today's disgusting album image seemed to come out of left field for The Beatles. They'd never done anything like it, as their previous albums had simply featured them posing by themselves. So, it's no surprise that the controversial album cover made waves amongst their fans and the music industry.
Source: Hannah Furnell/themirror.com
Ringo Starr famously stated that neither he nor his fellow Beatles bandmates (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison) could read sheet music. He humorously recalled that their biggest fear about joining a musicians' union was being forced to read music, as they were all self-taught musicians. Despite this, they achieved significant musical success, with Ringo Starr contributing both as a drummer and vocalist, and even writing and co-writing several songs.
Self-taught musicians:
The Beatles were primarily a band that learned by ear and through experience, rather than formal music education.
Union concerns:
Starr's anecdote about the Nashville musicians' union highlights their initial apprehension about being required to read music.
Ringo's musical contributions:
Despite the lack of formal music reading skills, Ringo Starr was a vital part of the Beatles' sound, both as a drummer and vocalist.
Songwriting:
Starr also contributed as a songwriter, composing and singing "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden" and co-writing other songs.
"There are 4 drummers": The fact that Starr and the other Beatles couldn't read music didn't stop them from becoming one of the most successful bands in history, according to a blog post.
Source: ara
Beatlemania is alive and well on Reddit, where fans have come together in harmony to declare one of George Harrison's songs as their favorite.
A Reddit thread has become a chorus of praise for with many users lauding it as Harrison's most impactful work and a pinnacle in The Beatles' storied catalog.
"Surprisingly no one said 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' yet - masterpiece," commented one enthusiast. "Not only is 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' my favorite song sung by George, it's my favorite Beatles song," another wrote.
The acoustic rendition of the song struck a particular chord among fans. "This is my answer, specifically the acoustic version," penned one Redditor.
"The Love album acoustic version is his greatest masterpiece imo," echoed another, with several voices in the thread resonating with thoughts on how the unplugged variant allowed Harrison's vocal artistry to truly resonate.
One admirer reflected, "To me, the acoustic version shows what an incredible song it really is," while another confessed, "The album version is a classic, but IMO is way overproduced."
Another fan professed their adoration, saying, "Not only is 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' my favorite song sung by George, it's my favorite Beatles song."
Source: the-express.com/Connor McCrory
The Bavarian garden gnomes, which feature on the cover of George Harrison‘s solo album All Things Must Pass, are representations of The Beatles.
The “quiet one” of the Fab Four confirmed as much during a question-and-answer session hosted on Yahoo Chat. A fan had asked why garden gnomes were featured on the cover of All Things Must Pass, and Harrison confirmed they were representations of the four members of The Beatles. The band had split up just months before its release in November 1970. Harrison began recording the album just a month after The Beatles had officially come to an end. He did leave a nod to his former bandmates on the front cover, though, confirming the four garden gnomes are meant to represent his time in the band.
Writing online, Harrison shared: “Originally, when we took the photo, I had these old Bavarian gnomes which I thought I would put there. Like kinda… John, Paul, George and Ringo.” Fans have since called the album cover “cute” knowing the intention was to pay tribute to The Beatles.
One user, who took to the r/Beatles subreddit where Harrison’s quotes were shared, wrote: “That’s so cute. Never even considered that this was the intention.” Elsewhere in the interview, Harrison confirmed he was looking for heading into his tape library for a remaster of Living in the Material World.
Source: cultfollowing.co.uk/Ewan Gleadow
It's "nonsense" that John Lennon was the creative genius of The Beatles, while Paul McCartney was his slightly talented, but superficial sidekick, Ian Leslie says.
In John & Paul, he explores a "love story" that began at a church fair, when both were 16, and was cut short by Lennon's assassination at 40.
"They were both extraordinary, complicated, weird geniuses, and you couldn't really have one without the other,” he tells Sunday Morning. “They kind of created each other."
It took many bizarre coincidences for two amazing vocalists like McCartney and Lennon to grow up a mile-and-a-half from each other in the south of Liverpool, then come together and ignite a cultural explosion, Leslie says.
One important aspect of their connection, which they didn't talk about much, was a shared a sense of being "different", because their mothers had both died when they were teenagers.
In a "very simplistic" version of their relationship, Lennon was the one who felt things very intensely, Leslie says, but the truth behind their incredible music is that they were both ambitious and extraordinarily emotionally intense young men.
Source: rnz.co.nz
While both could be jealous and resentful, McCartney was just better at controlling and, to some extent, concealing those feelings, with a more stable personality that partly reflected his more stable family background.
The pair's incredibly intense, very creative, conflicted and tempestuous relationship is hard to put in a box, Leslie says, and more like brotherhood than friendship.
Beatles star Sir Paul McCartney can be heard comparing a Spinal Tap song to “literature” in the first trailer for Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.
The clip also features Sir Elton John performing Stonehenge with the fictional band at their reunion concert in the film, on a piano that rises from underneath the stage.
Speaking in the trailer, Sir Paul says: “Pink Torpedo, that’s literature, really.”
The film is a follow-up to This Is Spinal Tap (1984), and follows David St Hubbins (Michael McKean), Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) as they reunite after a 15-year hiatus.
In the trailer, introduced by Marty DiBergi (played by real life director Rob Reiner), the band’s members are seen to have launched their own cryptocurrency and worked in a shop during their time apart.
Their reunion is revealed to take place in New Orleans as a replacement for “an evening with Stormy Daniels” which was cancelled at the venue, while a scene showing them going through merchandise for the show sees the band looking at branded Tap Water.
Source: uk.news.yahoo.com/Casey Cooper-Fiske, PA Senior Entertainment Reporter
Lennon wrote “Across The Universe” years before The Beatles’ breakup, and while the song was a hit, Lennon thought something was missing. Lennon did overcome his perfectionism as the song was released, and it ended up being an underrated gem in the band’s discography. Despite his earlier struggles with the song, Lennon regarded “Across The Universe” as his best lyrics he ever wrote.
"Across the Universe" Was Inspired by an Argument Between John Lennon and Cynthia Powell
Lennon is an example of how magic can come from the most unusual places. “Across The Universe” stemmed from an argument with his first wife, Cynthia Powell, in 1967. She muttered the words “Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,” which had Lennon glued to his seat, writing the lyric in one sitting. He turned a domestic into one of The Beatles’ best hits.
The Beatles took a trip to India in 1967, and needed a song to release during that time. Lennon brought “Across The Universe” across to the studio, and was eager to work on the song. When he brought the song to the band in 1968, he explained how he was “psychologically destroyed.” The first recording session could not have been any more disjointed, as there was no vision for the song.
Source: Teguan Harris/collider.com
No musical artist exists in a vacuum. They’ve all been influenced at one point or another by someone else’s work, and those influences then get filtered into the music that they make. If they’re good enough, they might influence somebody else, further perpetuating the cycle. What’s fascinating about The Beatles and The Beach Boys is that you can point to the exact moments and songs that came from their mutual appreciation. Without them pushing each other, who knows how much amazing music we might have missed?
Parallel Brilliance
The early Beach Boys sound was very much an amalgamation of Brian Wilson’s most powerful influences. Intricate vocal harmonies a la the Four Freshmen, the peppery rock grooves of Chuck Berry, and the ornate productions of Phil Spector combined into a heady stew.
The Beatles shared the Chuck Berry influence, although they also owed a lot to Motown-style R&B as well as Buddy Holly. Their vocal harmonies were more influenced by The Everly Brothers.
The two bands quickly gained a healthy respect for each other. They also (sort of) shared an employee. Derek Taylor first worked as a publicist for The Beatles before moving to America and doing work for The Beach Boys. As a result, it wasn’t uncommon for Brian Wilson to get an early listen to the songwriting of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and vice versa.
One Song Leads to Another
1965 proved to be a catalytic year in terms of the bands influencing each other. On the 1965 Beach Boys’ album Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), Wilson included a song called “Girl Don’t Tell Me”, which he thought the Fab Four might record. That same year, The Beatles released Rubber Soul. Wilson marveled at how every song stood on its own and rose way above filler level.
He determined that The Beach Boys should try something similar. Pet Sounds was the result. Released in May 1966, the album found Wilson writing with new levels of musical sophistication. Meanwhile, the lyrics, mostly penned by Tony Asher, left behind the teenage stuff upon which The Beach Boys had previously focused.
In poker terms, Pet Sounds called the brilliance of Rubber Soul and raised it. The Beatles rose to the challenge with their 1966 album Revolver, which arrived two months after that Beach Boys’ masterpiece. Included on the record was “Here, There, And Everywhere”, a song where Paul McCartney admittedly tried to recapture the vibes of Pet Sounds classics like “God Only Knows”
Source: americansongwriter.com/Jim Beviglia
John Lennon was never one to mince his words, and he certainly didn't hold back when it came to his feelings about The Beatles' professional rivals, The Rolling Stones
Once The Beatles achieved mainstream success, the majority of the music industry started attempting to copy them in some form or another.
Being the main songwriters for the Fab Four, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were contacted by numerous bands seeking assistance in creating chart-topping hits throughout the years.
However, Lennon observed that their professional competitors, The Rolling Stones, were attempting to match their success more than any other group. Eventually, he confronted the band's lead singer, Mick Jagger, for copying their material. Lennon told Rolling Stone magazine: "I would like to just list what we did and what the Stones did two months after on every f------ album.", reports the Express.
Lennon went on to add: "Every f------ thing we did, Mick does exactly the same - he imitates us." The Imagine vocalist wasn't the only Beatles member to recognize the obvious parallels between the two groups.
George Harrison once remarked: "Mick Jagger was also there. He was always lurking around in the background, trying to find out what was happening. Mick never wanted to miss out on what the Fabs were doing."
It's understandable why Jagger wanted to monitor The Beatles closely, particularly after they had assisted The Rolling Stones in discovering a new type of success.
During the early 1960s, Jagger became familiar with the Fab Four and ultimately received a major song from them: I Wanna Be Your Man. "We knew [the Beatles] by then," Jagger recalled.
"And we were rehearsing and Andrew brought Paul and John down to the rehearsal. They said they had this tune, they were really hustlers then. I mean, the way they used to hustle tunes was great."
Lennon and McCartney approached the frontman saying: "Hey Mick, we've got this great song."
Source: irishstar.com/Callum Crumlish, Hollie Beale
