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The Beatles (band): Difference between revisions
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''[[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band|Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band]]'' is considered by many critics to be the greatest album in history and is credited with really changing the way people listened to pop music; it also has one of the most parodied and homaged album covers in the history of music. The simpler image on the cover of ''Abbey Road'' of [[Abbey Road Crossing|the band walking in near-lockstep across the street]] is a close competitor for most homaged cover, as is the half-shadowed band portrait that was used on the British album ''With the Beatles'' and its American [[Equivalent/Macekre|Macekre]] ''Meet the Beatles''.
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 Night|A Hard Days Night]]'' (1964), the [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] parody ''[[Help!]]'' (1965), and the critically-panned surrealist television film ''[[Magical Mystery Tour]]'' (1967); they were also the subject of the [[Documentary]] film ''[[Let It Be]]'' (1970). Their [[Celebrity Toons]] equivalents starred in two very different [[Band Toon|Band Toons]], each with a distinct set of character designs for the Fab Four. [[The Beatles (animation)|Their wacky 1965]] [[Animated Series]] was the first made-for-TV cartoon based on a real band (or any real people), and therefore both the [[Ur Example]] and [[Trope Maker]]. Meanwhile, the 1968 feature ''[[Yellow Submarine]]'' brought kid-friendly psychedelic imagery to the masses.
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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** George Harrison in particular was vocal about how, for him at least, the appeal of being a Beatle had worn off around 1966-1967, because of the above and because he was getting tired of Lennon and McCartney constantly treating him as the younger sibling of the group with regards to his own efforts at writing.
* [[Artistic Stimulation]]/[[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?]]: After their first visit to America (wherein they had an amusing run-in with [[Bob Dylan]]), the answer to the latter is "well, not ''all'' of it," more or less by their own admission.
** The boys have admitted that the majority of their movie ''[[Help!]]!'' was filmed in "a haze of marijuana," and that this was part of the reason that they didn't bother to take much creative control of the movie.
* [[As Long as It Sounds Foreign]]: "Sun King".
* [[Badass Boast]]: "When I was a Beatle, I thought we were the best fucking group in the goddamn world."--John Lennon, 1980
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** "Blue Jay Way" ends with variations of a certain phrase being repeated 18 times. The phrase? "Don't be long."
** "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" ends with several minutes of the same guitar riff repeated over and over and over and over until it comes to a dead stop mid-way thr
* [[B
** Sometimes they had two songs that were so strong they wouldn't even say one was the A and the other the B: "We Can Work It Out"/"Day Tripper", and, even more powerfully, "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane". This practice was invented by the Beatles, and is now usually referred to as a "Double-A Side".
* [[Call-and-Response Song]]: "It Won't Be Long", "With a Little Help From My Friends", "Getting Better", "Baby You're a Rich Man" and many others.
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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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* [[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]].
* [[Fading Into the Next Song]]: "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" → "With a Little Help from My Friends". Then the "Sgt. Pepper" reprise → "A Day in the Life". "Back In the U.S.S.R." → "Dear Prudence" on ''[[The White Album]]''.
** Also, the B Side Medley on ''Abbey Road'', aside from "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" → "Golden Slumbers". SCITTBW fades out completely before GS starts up.
* [[Fake-Out Fade-Out]]: "Hello Goodbye", "Helter Skelter", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Free As a Bird".
* [[Falling Bass]]: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".
* [[Fan Service]]: Pretty much the entire point of ''[[Help!]]!''
* [[Faux Symbolism]]: Deliberately invoked with "I Am The Walrus," written after John received a letter from a student who attended Lennon's [[The Good Old British Comp|old primary school]] about an English master there who was forcing his students to analyse the band's [[Word Salad Lyrics]]. Upon finishing the song, Lennon turned to his friend and said "let the fuckers work that one out!"
** John couldn't completely avoid all symbolism in "I Am The Walrus"; one item which (accidentally?) crept in was "semolina pilchard", a [[Take That]] at Detective Norman Pilcher of the Drug Squad, who had it in for pop/rock stars.
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** There's also "All this and World War II", which is a WWII documentary with covers of Beatles songs. It largely has a reputation for making no sense.
** A [[Broadway]] show called ''Beatlemania!'' was around in the 1980s. A home video release of it, however, was plagued with problems. Glenn Burtnik (who played [[Paul McCartney]] in the show) does many Beatles-themed tribute concerts nowadays.
* [[
* [[Last-Note Nightmare]]: Particularly "Long, Long, Long".
** "A Day in the Life"
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* [[Real Life Writes the Plot]]: The film ''[[Let It Be]]'' was originally conceived as a documentary of the Beatles' "rebirth" as a live performing band. Instead, by capturing the tension and infighting among the band members (including a famous [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoPWrooRSzY spat] between McCartney and Harrison), it became a chronicle of the band's break-up.
** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by the choice of name. When originally conceived as a chronicle of the band's rebirth, the project was entitled "Get Back". By the time the pieces had been picked up and enough footage cobbled together to release as an album and film, it had metamorphosed into "Let It Be", effectively serving as the band's epitaph.
** A more benign example is the movie ''[[Help!]]'' The band members have admitted they basically wanted to go skiing and hang out on the beach, so that's what got written into the script.
** Real Life Writes the Song: "Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite!", "A Day in the Life", "She's Leaving Home", "Blue Jay Way", "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window", many others. Lennon in particular did this constantly.
* [[Rearrange the Song]]: The two different versions of "Revolution" released in 1968--the original low-key version, actually released second as "Revolution 1" on [[The White Album]], and the hard-rocking version released as the B-side to "Hey Jude".
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