Category: The Beatles

It is not quite often that a band performs in such a way that the face of music is changed altogether as never before. The Beatles could achieve this with many of their creations rocking the music world and making them one of the greatest bands of all time. One of their famous works is the album “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band”.

Background Sgt Pepper’s was conceived as an album with a dramatic whole rather than a collection of individual songs. The album recited the story as the songs went on and the album displayed the excellence of electronic music of the day. The album was mainly a studio work and hence could not be reproduced on stage. This prestigious album for Beatles won the attention of all the music lovers of the world to their novel experiments in music, especially from the younger audience. Members of the Beatle team were tired of touring and had decided to become an entirely studio-based band. Recording for Sgt. “Pepper began in late 1966 and early 1967 with two songs recorded then which were ultimately dropped from the album. The album was recorded in the famous Abbey Road studios during a 129 day period. The recording cost £ 25000 (BBC News).” The band could record all the songs using mono, stereo, and four-track recorders. The recording was done using the technique known as “bouncing down” which gave Sgt. Pepper the effect of recording in a multi-track studio.

Creators The album was produced by the Beatles. There were four members of the group – Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr – all of them hailing from Liverpool in the United Kingdom. Each of the members of the rock band had previous experience in working on different rock groups before they joined to form the Beatles. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band was released in June 1967 as the eighth studio album performed by the Beatles. This album is considered as one which has influenced the people most of all times.

The success of the Album has been a roaring success retaining the top position in the UK Album chart continuously for 27 weeks. The album was also placed as the number one in American Billboard 200 for 15 weeks (Ingles). The album has the honor of winning four Grammy awards in the year 1968. The album topped the Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time in the year 2003 (Rolling Stone).

The concept behind the Album McCartney thought it would be a novel idea to create fictitious characters for all the four band members. It was considered that a recording of the album by the fictitious band which represented the ‘alter-ego group would give the band the freedom to experiment with new concepts and themes. Accordingly, the members of the Beatles changed their costumes and grew mustaches, beards and longer hairs as the theme costume for the Sgt Pepper album. However, the album has abandoned the concept after recording the first two songs as John Lennon felt that the lyrics he created had nothing to do with the concept. It is to be noted that all the other songs in the Album were unrelated and do not express an overreaching theme. However, the album was acclaimed as an early breakthrough in the realm of ‘concept album’ because of the structure that was cohesive and the sequencing that was careful with a perfect articulation of transitioning between songs on the album. One of the songs in the album “A Day in the Life” was banned from broadcasting by BBC, as the song is presumed to encourage a permissive attitude to drug-taking (Associated Press)

Structure The Sgt Pepper album is different from “Abbey Road” another concept album recorded by the Beatles earlier. There is no side-lengthy medley or recurring musical themes in Sgt Pepper (Sunami). The album maintains the structure of a Long Playing (LP) record of that time. The imitation of a classic theatrical presentation that includes an introduction, a first act finale, a second act introduction, a curtain call, and a coda which are all the essential parts of theatrical art makes Sgt Pepper an unusual piece of music. The cover art also exhibits a rare artistic presentation in which the college of hundred famous faces is assembled together as members of the eponymous “Lonely Hearts Club”. In addition, many of the characters in the songs are created as iconic conception and realization which also enhances the uniqueness of the album (Icons).

Break up of Beatles The pressures of the public lives and the interference of the outside interests of the members of Beatles led to the break up of the group in 1971. McCartney produced solo albums and he formed his own band named ‘Wings’. George Harrison played many benefit concerts in different countries of the world to serve the poor and needy. Ringo Starr acted in some films and commercials and TV Shows. John Lennon continued as a musician and the albums produced by him with his wife did not evoke any appreciable response. John Lennon was assassinated in the year 1980 in New York. Despite the breakup of the band, a number of music lovers listen to the works of the Beatles even today which makes them the greatest band in the world of all time.

References

AssociatedPress. Beatles Song Nasty – BBC. 1967. Web.

BBCNews. The Wonderful World of Sgt Pepper. 2007. Web.

Icons. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. 2009. Web.

Ingles, Paul. Sgt. Pepper an Album That Shaped an Era. 2007. Web.

RollingStone. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hears Club Band. 2003. Web.

Sunami, Chris. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Band. 2008. Web.

The Beatles is an English rock group whose contribution to world music cannot be overestimated. They were famous all over the world and each of their albums was a success from the point of view of popularity, commercial level and artistic significance. One of the brightest albums of this group is Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It is the eighth album of the group recorded at the Abbey Road Studios in London during the period of nearly four months. This album is of great value for the music fans and professional musicians; for the first, it represents the diversity and harmony of different music styles connected with rock, and for the latter, it highlights the opportunity of becoming a successful musician by way of experimenting with different styles and techniques; “The use of sound collage – crowd noises, the band tuning up – functions both as a narrative source and as a psychological way of creating a mood of shared festivity” (Whiteley, 1992).

The key production personnel include all the four members of the rock group The Beatles, but they’re also were some additional musicians involved in the production of the album, because the album is a mixture of various styles and techniques, such as rock and roll, jazz, and the traditional music of Indians. Thus, a great number of new additional instruments were used. Thereby hired musicians were responsible for playing some new instruments. They are Geoff Emerick (responsible for mixing and recording tracks, and introduction of different sound effects); George Martin (the producer of the group; was playing harpsichord and many other extraordinary instruments such as glockenspiel and harmonium); Neil Aspinall (played harmonica and a special instrument named tamboura in order to achieve truly Indian sounds); and other different hired musicians who played uncommon instruments in order to make the songs sound in some international tone.

The album of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is of great artistic significance. This album was called the best album of all time according to the list of the 500 greatest albums by Rolling Stone magazine (Wenner, 2003).

“Incredibly, the RSO Sgt. Pepper soundtrack debuted on the Billboard Top Pop Album chart at Number 7 in August. The following week the album rose to Number 5, where it remained for six straight weeks. The album initially received an enormous amount of pre-sale airplay, which trailed off as radio programmers became cautious” (Denisoff, 1991).

It had success due to its brightness and diversity of styles mixed with the basic rock style of the group.

During the recording of the album, many new techniques were used, but the most distinctive one included the method of bouncing down. Thus there were four basic tracks and other ones were recorded on their basis and connected into one multi-track. The general mood of the album was a very optimistic one: “Certainly the opening track encapsulates the mood of optimism that seemed to characterize 1967. There is a strong sense of togetherness and communality” (Whiteley, 1992). Thus, the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band also helps to understand the mood of the album’s contemporaries and the time, when the album was recorded and released. Thereby the eighth studio album of the Beatles represents a great historical value.

The commercial success was achieved due to actions of the group’s producer, George Martin, who gave certain tracks to the radio station before the album was ready for release, so the fans became aware of some tracks earlier: “Pirate station Radio London became the first station to play Penny Lane on the air” (Miles, 2001).

Works Cited

Denisoff, R. Serge, and William D. Romanowski. (1991). Risky Business: Rock in Film. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.

Miles, Barry, and Keith Badman. (2001). The Beatles Diary: The Beatles Years / Barry Miles. London: Omnibus Press.

Wenner, S. Jann. (2003). The RS 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Web.

Whiteley, Sheila. (1992). The Space Between the Notes: Rock and the Counter-Culture. London: Routledge.

The Beatles were no less than an epochal musical happening, with their enormous fan base and the sway that they held over every area of global culture. Initially, the group has relied on their vocals and unbelievably exuberant imagination to rock their live performances. Back in the earliest 1960s, the group was performing mostly in Liverpool clubs, and it appears that guitar-and-drums were making a steady regression.

Later on, other producers could just as well overdub the vocals and even speed up “Please Please Me.” But, when George Martin appeared, the man made a difference. As the group emerged into the late 1960s, George Martin became an unalienable part of the legend (Hertsgaard n.pag.). George Martin was someone who was actually able to accept texts like “Tomorrow Never Knows” without the slightest nonplus.

George Martin was a person of immeasurable knowledge and vast experience in electronic music making and tape-looping. He was the one creating ideal arrangements to the “Walrus” and a range of The Beatles’ Indian-inspired songs. Other arrangers could be employed just as well but none of them appeared as Beatle-minded as George Martin was at the time. The following paper is, thus, aimed at exploring George Martin’s remarkable contributions to The Beatles as they are known and renowned, to-date.

First and foremost, one of the keys to George Martin’s Beatle-mindedness lies in his past. The similar background and a childhood imbued with music constructed his remarkable talent and personality. As a result, by the time The Beatles auditioned for him, he was more or less tuned in to the same wave-length as the Fab Four, which is only too well demonstrated by the famous episode. After the recording discussion, Martin asked the Four to share their feedback and whether there was something they did not like. At that, George Harrison gave the famous reply, “well, we don’t like your tie, for a start” (Kenny 130-140).

The sense of humor that the group and the producer shared was a critical factor that smoothed out this complex partnership. George Martin seemed to realize the group’s stunning potential, which is why, to his credit, he found himself able to deliberately turn a blind eye to their massive egos. An unknown group is fully under its producer’s control, and it is true that The Beatles have gained some popularity by the time the partnership started but Martin was in the right to dictate his visions nonetheless.

What he did instead was, in fact, partially devesting himself of his influence in favor of the artists’ wishes. Their first single was to be a composition George Martin had purchased from some writer but the group persuaded him to record their own track (Kenny n.pag.). Thus, the primary contribution of George Martin as “the fifth Beatle” was the understanding that he showed at the very beginning, guesstimating the group’s potential and the vastness of the horizons they were quite likely to achieve together.

As it was mentioned, in contrast to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, George Martin did not have a supermassive ego. He wanted a recording that would beat the rest. At the same time, what George Martin wanted, himself being a person of unique musical disposition, did not necessarily have to reflect his own visions. Another episode of The Beatles’ history demonstrates George Martin’s exceptional skills in coping with the whims of his protégés.

His suggestion to use a string quartet in “Yesterday” was at first vigorously opposed to by Paul McCartney. Martin, in his turn, did not take it as an offence; nor did he start to defend his view. What he suggested was that McCartney just listened to the track with the strings added, and if he still thought the strings were a bad idea, he could return to how he saw the track initially. McCartney came to like the quartet, the result of which was the “Yesterday” as it is known today (Womack 112).

Later, when the group wanted to take a step further in their career as recording artists, which was unprecedented at the time, George Martin consented that they might do so, if only they present to him something better than they already had (Womack 53). To understand what has happened one should bear in mind that the producer was a figure of unrestricted power over their artists back then, and it was usually the producer who prescribed the artist what to sing and how. The way George Martin found the ways to compromise and was able to give up some of his authority for the sake of art was an act of splendor on his behalf and another one of his contributions to the group’s success.

The like-mindedness and empathy were an important component of their partnership but George Martin’s contribution is by no means reduced to it. Nor can be his value confined to his work as a producer. As a person of considerable musical capabilities and outstanding arranger’s talent, George Martin was the key asset in making The Beatles’ sound as compelling as the listeners have come to acknowledge it. His work as an arranger is worth every praise since, combined with his Beatle-mindedness, his knowledge and skill turned the group’s talented but unrefined creations into masterpieces. With George Martin’s help, their psychedelic visions were transformed into tangibility.

The language that Martin taught the Fab Four, as well as his guidance and general attitude, was the ground for the deepest respect that no one else in the world could cause in them, or so it seems from the photos of the group and Martin engaged into some discussions. The respect can be partially explained by the fact that none of the Fab Four was actually able to read music (Hertsgaard 376). At that, the techniques George Martin deployed must have seemed a miracle.

The way this person was able to translate John Lennon’s language of pure psychedelics using conventional technical means is remarkable. “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” for instance, features what Lennon himself might have called the sound of orange, which is created by the motives of Edwardian freak shows that make up for authenticity and create a multidimensional atmosphere (Womack 176). At that, George Martin’s work as an arranger is unique because the majority of the techniques were used by himself and The Beatles for the first time. “Yesterday” with its strings and “Please Please Me” than has been sped up from what was meant to be a lyric ballad were already mentioned.

Most of the tracks featuring the psychedelic album “Sergeant Pepper” would not come in the form the listeners know them, were it not for George Martin’s work. The sharp lyrics and musicianship were largely Paul McCartney’s merit; from George Martin’s side, there were arrangements that made the album deviate from avant-garde into pop and even progressive music (Kenny n.pag.). The album “Revolver” with its track “Eleanor Rigby” as well as some others features classical instruments such as strings.

Interestingly, the Fab Four did not participate in the comp, instead focusing on the vocals, and “Eleanor” was accompanied by a string octet. “Strawberry Fields Forever”, the single, was arranged and edited using a variable speed pitch control. “I Am The Walrus” was featured with an array of classical string instruments; some of the tracks, such as “In My Life” were featured by George Martin himself. He also played a variety of keyboard parts such as piano, organs, and harpsichord (Buskin n.pag.).

From that it can be assumed that the man was involved with the group not only in financial terms. He clearly had a deep personal interest in the music and it is not for nothing that he was dubbed “the fifth Beatle”: George Marin believed in art and used his chance to take part and refine what might have appeared crude and underdone.

Overall, George Martin’s impact and contribution to The Beatle’s artistry is hard to overestimate. He showed the understanding the group needed as their popularity was picking up stream and was empathetic ever after. The sense of humor the Fab Four and Martin shared was the necessary component for the long and by all means prolific partnership. As to his arrangement skills and knowledge, they have polished the uncultivated genius and become an indispensable part of The Beatles’ legacy.

Works Cited

Buskin, Richard. Complete Idiot’s Guide to The Beatles, New York, NY: Alpha Books, 1998. Print.

Hertsgaard, Mark. A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of The Beatles, New York, NY: Delacorte, 1995. Print.

Kenny, Francis. The making of John Lennon: the untold story of the rise and fall of The Beatles, Edinburgh, Scotland: Luath Press, 2014. Print.

Womack, Kenneth. Long and Winding Roads: The Evolving Artistry of The Beatles, New York, NY: Continuum, 2007. Print.

Introduction

Undoubtedly, The Beatles are considered to be one of the greatest, most popular and revolutionary bands in the history of music. They were depicting the new era of music, changing the approach and attitude to a pop-singer. Their influence on music is perceived differently by critics and fans – from destroying rock and roll completely to shaping the future of this musical genre. However, their contribution to rock and roll is undeniable, and probably the most powerful compared to the impact of other bands.

The end to American’s domination in rock

To begin with, the effect of The Beatles’ music on rock and roll in the world was drastic. In 1962 the American “Hot Ten” contained only two English plates, in 1964 there were already 32 of them – English rock has spread over the globe (Pascall 10). This had become possible due to numerous changes The Beatles had made to performing and writing songs, although the most significant fact is that they have brought England the world’s dominance in rock music.

Changes to the approach to music

The Beatles differed from other bands notably, presenting a new image of a music band. For instance, members of the band instead of choosing a vocalist often shared the vocal parts with each other, creating an ensemble image (Pascall 15). Combined with lyrics written by themselves, reflecting the inner world and views of life of the musicians, their songs created a fully new feeling of each song’s individuality for the listener.

Another important change was that The Beatles have made a role of a lyrics author prestigious. They have changed the way things were before, when the producers decided on every detail of the bands’ new songs (Pascall 29). Thus, talented young authors appeared on the scene, writing songs for their bands, expanding the poetic demands to an average pop-song filling. This way The Beatles have practically shown other young musicians that they can do more than it is conventional.

Changing pop music

Rock and roll has become more serious in the eyes of music critics. Its pop component was not anymore so important and attractive. People had learnt how to listen to more complicated music with deeper lyrics and more sophisticated presentation of songs. Consequently, the whole English music scene was altered, as well as the world’s rock and roll scene, because the popularity of The Beatles spread far wider than the Britain’s territory.

Setting trends: experimenting

The Beatles have set musical trends that are still popular and find their followers. Their tendency to stretch the boundaries of pop music allowed them to create a unique music genre. They have proved that experimenting with music can bring adorable results. For instance, the grim song “Eleanor Rigby” by Paul McCartney, which differed drastically from the spirit of the band’s songs the audience was used to, beat the British charts (Edmonds, Digital Media Academy). The song also contains some musical experiments, such as using a cello, violas and violins as an accompaniment. As a result, The Beatles have shown the public that there are practically no limitations to the context and spirit of pop songs.

The experiments were not only about the lyrics and the choice of instruments. They were also connected with changing the sound in different ways. For example, John Lennon’s vocal was doubled in the song “Tomorrow Never Knows” and ran through a spinning speaker to obtain an “odd, wobbly sound” (Edmonds, Digital Media Academy). The uniqueness of the song was also because 16 six-second-long tape loops of various sounds were interspersed through the song. As a result, the song sounded like nothing the band had recorded before.

Beatlemania

In addition to musical changes to the rock and roll scene, The Beatles have also altered the way the musician is perceived. They have triggered the appearance of a completely new phenomenon, which is now called Beatlemania. This unique phenomenon could be explained by the fact that the Beatles had some unusual qualities that their younger fans found appealing. For instance, from the outset, they acted and behaved just as they saw themselves—as a tightly-knit group (McMillian, The Daily Beast). Previously, in both England and America, most successful pop and rock acts highlighted individuals: either those who performed solo, like Elvis Presley, or who fronted a backing band. However, when the fans were introduced to the Beatles, they saw an indivisible group in which each member nevertheless had distinctive attributes.

Cinema

The influence of The Beatles was not limited by the scene. They have made changes to the whole cultural context of the sixties. For instance, they broadened the impact of rock and roll to cinematographic use and altered the approach to music films. The movies The Beatles made have predetermined the appearance of future blockbusters (Chilton, Discover Music). Therefore, the band can be referred to as a founder of a new cinematography line.

Conclusion

Obviously, the influence of The Beatles on pop and rock music is wider than explained above, but these aspects are considered to be the brightest. Although the attitude of the public towards The Beatles was not only positive, their impact is undeniable. In consequence of their existence the world has seen the full power of rock and roll, the diversity of the performers, lyrics authors and singers. The Beatles have surely contributed to the improvement of pop and rock genres, and general musical development of the world.

Works Cited

Chilton, Martin. How The Beatles’ Movies Influenced The Future Of Cinema. Discover Music, 2021.

Edmonds, Kemp. How The Beatles Changed Music. Digital Media Academy, 2016.

McMillian, John. What Made The Beatles so Big? Diagnosing Beatlemania. The Daily Beast, 2017.

Pascall, Jeremy. The Illustrated History of Rock Music. Hamlyn, 1978.