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{{
[[File:the-beatles.jpg|frame|Clockwise from bottom left: [[Paul McCartney]], [[Ringo Starr]], [[John Lennon]] and [[George Harrison]].]]
{{quote|''And in the end
''The love you take
''Is equal to
''The love you make''
|"[[Grand Finale|The End]]"}}
''[[Sgt. Pepper's
The Beatles were the first band in history to make music video equivalents to their own songs, which every musician does now. They played themselves in three fictional films: the [[Mockumentary|pseudo-documentary]] ''[[A Hard Day's
The band broke up in 1970 under [[Creative Differences|circumstances painful to think about]]. Everyone went on to solo careers. The dissolution was finalized in 1974, but Apple Corps (the Beatles' management company) was left intact. For perhaps fifteen years, few people saw any purpose for that...
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But then a second wave of Beatlemania gradually hit -- too late for John Lennon, who sadly had been getting the [[Dead Artists Are Better]] effect since 1980 when he was murdered by a crazed fan, but everyone else got to see it. The events leading to this, in order: the initial release of the British Beatles catalog on CD in 1987; Paul McCartney finally embracing his Beatles heritage fully in 1989, in the process settling the last couple of lawsuits and freeing Apple Corps to ''act''; and most noticeably, ''The Beatles Anthology'' in 1995, with Beatles singles "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" (though the latter [[Covered Up]] a Lennon version). Since then, Beatles-related stuff has come out just often enough to keep second-generation fans on their toes and the fandom active and aggressive.
George Harrison died of cancer in 2001. Sir Paul McCartney (he was knighted in 1997 and handled it in a way that ensured ''no one'' would let him [[Never Live It Down|live it down]]) and Ringo Starr are still out there touring, doing a bunch of miscellaneous projects, and occasionally making records -- and they both still write
The legacy lives on. An installment of ''[[Rock Band]]'' was made featuring Beatles songs and ''only'' Beatles songs. Not quite coincidentally, the entire catalog has been remastered and was
After years of legal disputes having to do with the "Apple" label, [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|iTunes has added Beatles music in 2010!]]<ref>[http://www.cnet.com/news/the-beatles-come-to-itunes-at-last/#! CNET article]</ref>▼
On December 24 2015, their music became available on most streaming services.<ref>[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35166985 BBC News article]</ref>
▲After years of legal disputes having to do with the "Apple" label, [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|iTunes has added Beatles music in 2010!]]
Their complete discography (as available in the 9/9/09 remastered box sets) is:▼
[[File:The Beatles logo.svg|thumb|200px]]
▲{{discography|Their complete discography (as available in the 9/9/09 remastered box sets) is:}}
* ''Please Please Me'' (1963)
* ''With The Beatles'' (1963)
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* ''[[Across the Universe (film)|Across the Universe]]'', a Mamma-Mia style musical using parsed lyrics to cobble together a loose plot
* ''[[I Am Sam]]'', a [[Sean Penn]] movie whose mentally disabled protagonist loves the Beatles
* ''[[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (film)|Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]]'', a 1978 [[Jukebox Musical]]
▲=== The Beatles are the [[Trope Namers]] for: ===
* [[Abbey Road Crossing]] (The album cover from ''Abbey Road'')
* [[Bigger Than Jesus]] (Although [[John Lennon]] [[Beam Me Up, Scotty|didn't actually say that]])
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* [[Yoko Oh No]] (John's wife [[Yoko Ono]])
▲=== The Beatles provide examples of the following tropes: ===
▲* [[Added Alliterative Appeal]]: Mean Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam.
** Bungalow Bill and Rocky Raccoon. And Sexy Sadie.
** "''W''hisper ''w''ords of ''w''isdom, let it be..."
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* [[Careful with That Axe]]: The creepy screaming on "Revolution 9", Ringo's quite unsettling "I'VE GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS" at the end of "Helter Skelter", and John Lennon's full-throated scream (after a blistering opening guitar riff) on the single version of "Revolution".
* [[Cash Cow Franchise]]: During the sixties and since 1989. A re-release by the Beatles is as newsworthy as a new release by [[U2]].
** [[Crack is Cheaper]]: Lowest "introduction" package is at least $250 for the [[Limited Special Collectors' Ultimate Edition|2009 remasters box set]] (stereo<ref>Every album in stereo, whether it was originally mixed in stereo or not ([[They Changed It, Now It Sucks]], as some would say)</ref> or mono<ref>Every album originally in mono, a form which many consider purest to the group's intent. However, you don't get any albums that were originally in stereo</ref>--many aficionados will argue that you really need both) and DVDs of ''[[A Hard Day's Night]]'', ''[[Help!]]!'' and ''[[Yellow Submarine]]'' (which will demand quite some search as it hasn't been reissued since 1999). And you can damage your wallet even further (Books! The ''Anthology'' documentary! ''[[Magical Mystery Tour]]'' and other DVDs! ''The Beatles [[Rock Band]]''!).
** For the technically-minded Beatles fans and music recording geeks, there is the handy, epic tome ''Recording The Beatles" by Brian Kehew and Kevin Ryan, a thoroughly exhaustive 540-page book chronicling the techniques, recording equipment, and studio-owned musical instruments used by the Beatles during the making of their music. The hardcover deluxe-edition book, available via Curvebender publishing, will set you back a good $100.00.
* [[Celebrity Toons]]: As noted above.
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** John Lennon's "Child of Nature" was originally conceived and demoed by the band following their trip to India in 1968, but never released. Three years later both was rerecorded with entirely new lyrics and released as "Jealous Guy" on Lennon's ''Imagine'' album. Likewise, George Harrison's "Not Guilty" was originally recorded for the ''The Beatles'' ("[[The White Album]]") in 1968, but never released until Harrison revived it, gave it a much bluesier take, and released it on his self-titled solo album in 1979
** A number of Beatles songs had their genesis in their early days but did not get album releases until much later into their career. "I'll Follow the Sun" and "Michelle" (released on ''Beatles for Sale'' and ''Rubber Soul'' in 1964 and 1965, respectively) date back to at least 1960, where it shows up on home recordings made by Paul McCartney. "The One After 909" even went through a number of studio takes in 1963 before being scrapped. It was returned to for the ''Let It Be'' album in 1970.
* [[Excited Show Title!]]: The movie, song, and soundtrack album--"Help!".
** Also "Oh! Darling" off of ''Abbey Road''.
* [[Expy]]: By Design ''[[The Monkees (band)|The Monkees]]'', the "Pre-Fab" four created to basically make a tv show out of the movie "[[Help!]]!". Notably, John Lennon is on record as saying he enjoyed the series and said that the writing and performances reminded him of the [[Marx Brothers]].
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** "Paperback Writer" and "Rain" is probably the best example of this - both are in the key of G, both are full of special effects, neither uses that many chords, and neither is a love song. However, where "Paperback Writer" is a gritty, fast-paced, journalistic sorta-first person letter, "Rain" is a mystical, slow-paced third-person rant. It's even better if you compare both songs with "Taxman", Harrison's first song on the album that follows, which is again very similar and very different to both.
** "We Can Work It Out" is the best example of this, with Paul writing the optimistic, yet arrogant refrain - "Try to see it my way...We can work it out" - while John wrote the pessimistic "Life is very short, and there's no time..." middle eight (with the time signature change as George's sole contribution to the song).
* [[Four
* [[Four-Temperament Ensemble]]: Paul is choleric, John--despite his witty, loud-mouthed, smart-aleck facade--was really melancholic, George was phlegmatic, Ringo is sanguine.
** Interestingly, early on their personas were presented as Paul being sanguine, John being choleric, George being melancholic, and Ringo being phlegmatic.
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** Hell, everything about Julian Lennon. Both he and his father were born to parents too young and immature to raise a child; both were pretty much abandoned by their parents (though Julian did still live with his mother); and then, by the time they had mended their respective relationships, both times the parent gets killed by someone else. And Julian looks like his mother, Cynthia, and sounds a lot like his father.
** His younger half-brother Sean did better, at least from an artistic POV. Sean's 1998 indie rock effort ''Into the Sun'' was different enough from not only Julian's more pop efforts, but also the works of [[Oasis (band)|a certain other band who played the same genre as him]] who were endlessly indebted to his father, that it wound up being very well received.
*** Sean unfortunately has decided to imitate his parents in his own [https://web.archive.org/web/20100822082516/http://www.thetripwire.com/news/2009/09/10/sean-lennon-rips-off-john-lennon/ pretty creepy way]. (Link NSFW).
** There's also Dhani Harrison, who is half of the alternative rock duo, thenewno2. And by the way, his voice sounds nearly identical to that of his father. And he somehow looks just like George.
*** He looks so much like George that during the big tribute concert that Eric Clapton arranged a year after George's death, Paul quipped that with Dhani onstage alongside himself, Ringo, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, and a lot of George's other longtime friends, "It looks like George stayed young and all the rest of us got old."
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** Of course, even in their "mass-marketed pop band" days the Beatles wrote original material and played their own instruments, which doesn't really fit this trope.
* [[Insult Backfire]]: All four were skilled at giving smart assed answers to criticism, but Paul may have achieved the crowning moment at a 1965 press conference:
{{quote|'''Reporter:''' In a recent article, [[Time (magazine)|Time magazine]] put down pop music. And they referred to "Day Tripper" as being about a prostitute, and "Norwegian Wood" as being about a lesbian. I just wanted to know what your intent was when you wrote it, and what your feeling is about the Time magazine criticism of the music that is being written today.
'''Paul:''' Well, we were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that's all. }}
* [[Intercourse with You]]: "Please Please Me," "A Hard Day's Night," "Drive My Car", possibly "Revolution 9," "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?", and others.
** Wait, "Revolution [[Mind Screw|9]]"? How is that -- ''what''?
* [[In the Style Of]]: A few. A notable one is "Rocky Raccoon," more or less an explicit semi
** "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" is basically John doing [[Bob Dylan]].
** Don't forget "If I Needed Someone" being in the style of [[The Byrds]]. Or "Here, There and Everywhere" and "Because" being in the style of [[The Beach Boys]] (no, seriously -- listen to those harmonies). And "Back in the U.S.S.R." is not only in the style of Sixties-era [[Chuck Berry]], but it's specifically a parody of one of Berry's smaller-scale hits.
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** He was described as an ADD monster.
** Reports of what a complete tool he could be are especially glaring in light of the modern picture of him as being St. John of Peace.
* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]: Paul. See [[
** Despite being an infamous control freak after "Sgt. Pepper", he did his best to hold the crumbling band together after manager Brian Epstein passed away.
** John's neglected son Julian has admitted that he was much closer with Paul than his father.
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* [[Only Sane Man]]: "The Fool on the Hill". The [[Trope Namer]].
* [[Oop North]]: They're from Liverpool, after all.
* [[Opinion Myopia]]: Yoko Ono's fans (which apparently exist, for some strange reason) really like to insist that the Beatles were just this brief, unimportant little project that John was fiddling around with, killing time until he met Yoko. They can't seem to grasp just why everyone acts like the Beatles were such a big deal when there's John and ''Yoko's'' work together to consider.
* [[Parody]]/[[Affectionate Parody]]: The song "Back in the USSR" is both a parody of Chuck Berry's "Back in the USA" and a decent imitation of the Beach Boys' distinctive "Surfing Sound".
** It's also suggested that it's a oblique (if not entirely affectionate) reference to Prime Minister Harold Wilson's "[[wikipedia:I'm Backing Britain|I'm Backing Britain]]" productivity campaign.
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{{reflist}}
{{Grammy Award for Best New Artist}}
{{Grammy Award for Album of the Year}}
[[Category:The Seventies]]
[[Category:Musicians]]
[[Category:Baroque Pop]]
▲[[Category:The Sixties]]
[[Category:Trope Overdosed]]
[[Category:Trope Makers]]
▲[[Category:The Beatles]]
[[Category:Music]]
[[Category:Pages with working Wikipedia tabs]]
[[Category:Musicians of the 1960s]]
[[Category:Musicians of the 1970s]]
[[Category:Names to Know in Music]]
{{Featured Article}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beatles (band), The}}
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