good books on THE BEATLES

B

Buick6

too punk to drunk
I've never dived right into the whole BEATLES thing, maybe coz they were so fucken commercial and massive and didin't necessarily appeal to my counter-culture tendencies.. etc..etc..But I've always wondered why there have never been any really raw, insightful and even intellectual books written about the Beatles 'music', as there have been about Dylan or the Velvet Underground or HipHop or post-punk etc..etc..etc..How come Clinton Heylin has never gone there, or even Greil Marcus. i guess their obviously commerical 'pop' paradigm never had them aligned with the counter-culture as much as other acts of the time, but sonically some of their stuff is marvellous (and of course alot is horrible)...

If anyone can recommend any good lit. in regards to the Beatles music, I'm all text.. Cheers :cool:
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
Revolution In The Head - Ian MacDonald.

song by song analysis that is usually held up as an exemplar of what can be done in approaching something so familiar.

recent blog postings by both Woebot and blissblogger are good places to start on The Beatles
 
D

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
It's a beautiful book that, but in some ways, like with a lot of Bob Dylan books, I found myself a bit bewildered by some of the tracks he slags off. For instance, he claims that Baby You're A Rich Man and [/i]Hey Bulldog[/i] are going through the motions, whereas for me, these are two of the most kinetic Beatles tracks out there. Helterskelter gets a kicking too.

For McDonald, the light, mobile, tight RnB Beatles were the best, and according to this thesis, much of the tracks that were heavier are rather plodding. His continuum of Beatles music runs from "tight" to "psyche", and there's not much lateral movement to take in [especially] the humour in their tracks.

Phenonenal book, obviously, but I felt it a little too dogmatic.
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
I don't think the Beatles were "commercial" in a bad way...
They redefined what music could be considered commercial. And isn't that more exciting than a band like, say, the Velvet Underground who just influenced another generation of anti-commercial groups?
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
Good point, but I mean bands like the Jesus and Mary Chain or Sonic Youth.
Roxy Music and Bowie had a much more accesible sound than the Velvets, they took ideas and certain elements of the sound but they were never as consistently noisy or "difficult".
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
Rachel Verinder said:
I'm wondering whether the Beatles ever heard the Velvets, at the time they were current? Recorded evidence suggests not.
Click to expand...

I was just using the Velvets as an example of a typically "cool" group.
I don't mean to suggest they had a beef going or anything like that!
 
G

gumdrops

Well-known member
i like mcdonalds book - the detail and research makes you want to go back and listen to the music again, but i find it odd how for some songs he goes into deep musical analysis of, for others its like he can barely be bothered. its quite random. and like derek said, his slagging off of certain songs is quite odd too. it can be a bit too opinionated, which i wish it had less off, and had more purely musical analysis/theory.
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
Diggedy Derek said:
It's a beautiful book that, but in some ways, like with a lot of Bob Dylan books, I found myself a bit bewildered by some of the tracks he slags off. For instance, he claims that Baby You're A Rich Man and [/i]Hey Bulldog[/i] are going through the motions, whereas for me, these are two of the most kinetic Beatles tracks out there. Helterskelter gets a kicking too.
Click to expand...

That's incredible. Baby You're A Rich Man may just be the best Beatles song of all.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
That Mojo book '10 years that shook the world' is a pretty good collection, worth picking up if you see it going cheap. But you can't beat 'Revolution in the head'. So insightful, and the format was really innovative for a music book. I doubt it will ever be bettered...
 
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