Thursday 8 September 2005

The Beatles


I have always considered Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band to be the most overrated of all Beatles albums. I guess I can't appreciate what kind of impact these albums had, because they were released in 1966 and 1967, and I was born in 1979. Revolver is constantly topping polls as being not only the greatest Beatles album of all time, but the greatest album of all time. And Sgt. Pepper's is always just falling behind.

I have always considered this double album, released in 1968, to be the Beatles' masterpiece. There's a certain degree of irony here, because The Beatles were hardly a collaborative unit by this stage. John was getting confused because he was growing hair in all sorts of unusual places. Paul was jealous that his facial hair never quite looked as good as John's. George was taking this whole Indian thing way too far. And Ringo, well you can't blame the guy for just being himself.

Yes somehow, with all the fighting and copious amounts of drug taking, these four lads from Liverpool released this work of utter genius. The plain white cover does no justice for the beauty that lies within this 90 minutes of music. Many bands find it hard to sustain perfection over an entire album. The Beatles managed to sustain it over a double album of 30 songs.

I could do a track-by-track review of these 30 songs, but not even that would give this album justice. Buy it, listen to it, and be blown away. This is complete aural brilliance.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Sing some harmonies here: