The Beatles

The Beatles are an English rock--you know what, there's really no specific genre considering they covered everything. Pop, folk, psychedelic, experimental, even proto-punk/proto-metal, they've done everything. They became literally the biggest band in the world during the mid-1960s and revolutionized how music was created, recorded, marketed and treated as an art form.
== Early years ==
The genesis for the Beatles came along when John Lennon and Paul McCartney met up in 1957, when Lennon's skiffle band The Quarrymen was doing an outdoor gig. Paul demoed 'Twenty Flight Rock' by Eddie Cochran and they hit it off. 
Paul joined the Quarrymen, but it was starting to change. Paul and George Harrison met on a bus where George played the song 'Raunchy', low and behold, George became a Quarryman. Everybody else left. John, Paul and George began playing as a bunch of names; Johnny & The Moondogs (Graham Nash actually met the Beatles when they were called this) and the Silver Beatles. However, they changed their name to the Beatles and thus began the biggest band in the history of bands. 
They met up with a rocker named Tony Sheridan and they recorded an album with Sheridan on vocals, turning standards such as "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean" into rock and roll masterpieces. One of the band's members, Stuart Sutcliffe, their bassist, met an unfortunate end in 1962 when he died from an aneurysm. 
By the end of 1962 however, they became acquainted with George Martin, a producer at EMI Studios (also known now as Abbey Road Studios) and they cut 'Love Me Do' and 'P.S. I Love You', their first single. Both songs were written by John and Paul, who became a songwriting collab team and also the most iconic one. 
On February 11, 1963, in ten hours, they cut their debut album, Please Please Me. 
== Beatlemania ==
Girls all over the world started acting mentally deranged at the sight of the Beatles. All of their concerts consisted of walls of banshee screaming, barely intelligible music, and a fuck ton of security guards. 1963 and 1964 were extremely big years for them. They seemed quite content with the fame in the beginning, but it was starting to get overboard.
They were beginning to get sick of the attention, they were getting too much attention, and the press were on their asses 24/7, to the point if Ringo farted, it would make the headlines. It was at this point that Paul, George and Ringo were hooking up with some chicks. 
Paul got with Jane Asher, an actress who is quite literally one of the 1960s hottest girls ever, George got with model Pattie Boyd whomst've he met on the set of their first film A Hard Day's Night (1964), and Ringo got with Maureen Cox (later Starkey), fellow Liverpool blood.
They cut another album and had it out by the end of 1963, With The Beatles. That amplified the band's popularity 69x.
A Hard Day's Night, the album that is, was the first Beatles album to completely consist of original material. They would later regress with Beatles For Sale, which while having great tunes like 'No Reply' and 'I'm A Loser', kinda tanks with the covers they did.
Later in 1965, they would make their second feature film effort, Help!, this time, in color. This movie also necessitated a soundtrack/album. It features the most covered song ever, "Yesterday", which Paul thought up of in a dream.
== Shit gets real ==
By the end of 1965, they released Rubber Soul, which is considered when the band moved away from love songs and more into the experimental side of things. This would lead to a string of albums that completely ripped apart, stomped, chucked into a landfill and recycled how music itself was created.
Revolver, released in August 1966, features the song Tomorrow Never Knows. The title came from something Ringo said in an interview two years prior. The song completely destroyed the music world when it dropped, as Revolver's final track. It is by far possibly the best album closer of all time. Featuring a hypnotic drum beat, tape loops and Leslie speaker'd vocals, nobody had ever thought of even making something like this in 1966. 
Sgt. Pepper was to follow in 1967. Sick of the Beatlemania crap, the band decided to make an album revolving (no pun intended) around alter-egos. One thing led to another, and one of the most iconic albums ever created was born. It is the second album of theirs in a row to feature an unprecedented album closer. A Day In The Life is driven twice by a chaotic, deranged sounding crescendoing orchestra. After the second crescendo, a massive explosion of the E chord on the piano follows, ringing out for as long as it can. Imagine the fucking reaction to that chord in 1967.
Their manager for 4-5 years, Brian Epstein, died in August that year, which some people say contributed to the Beatles' downward spiral. The band still had some fun psychedelic juice left in Magical Mystery Tour, their third film outing; while the album (in the US, Britain got an EP) was received well, the movie....wasn't so warmly welcomed. 
== The White Album ==
By 1968, they had gone to India and back, and John bamboozled us with some cosmic shit via his tune Across The Universe (JAI GOOROOO DAAAYYVVVA OMMM). Tensions began to build between the band members however. One factor was creative differences, which after India, were becoming more prevalent as they all realized their individualistic talents. Another factor was having no manager to settle the disputes. Another factor was probably the financial stress with their new company, Apple Corps. Probably the biggest factor was the one and only Yoko Ono, a Japanese conceptual artist whomst've hooked up with John and became as attached to him as a siamese twin. Her mere presence was enough for the other Beatles to argue with John. However, Yoko could have given less of a fuck. 
Nevertheless out of all of this, they brought us The Beatles, or more known as the White Album, on November 22, 1968. It's cover was pretty much the antithesis of Pepper and Revolver, being just a blank white sleeve with "The BEATLES" embossed (or in gray). It also came with a unique number, the lowest number being owned by Ringo, whose copy was recently auctioned.
The album, like every single one of theirs, features a lot of the band's signature songs; the thing about the Beatles is that almost every single song the Beatles every recorded is as highly regarded as a signature song.
George started to show John and Paul that he wasn't taking any of their "this is our show, go to your room" shiznit, so he churned out some of his best work, including "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", which includes Eric Clapton as the lead guitarist (Cream played their last gig four days after the White Album dropped at the Royal Albert Hall). And while the demo is more deep and intimate, the studio version isn't as shit compared as others would have you believe.
Ringo's contributions included "Don't Pass Me By" which was actually written really early on, and singing the last track, "Good Night" (they say Ringo didn't do the song justice but who gives a shit, give the poor mfer a chance). John's biggest contribution? NUMBER NINE, NUMBER NINE, NUMBER NINE, NUMBER NINE. Revolution 9, motherfuckers. Singlehandedly the most polarizing song in the Beatles catalogue, a sound collage that blew some people's minds, disgusted others. Yoko's influence really shines on Revolution 9. When played backwards, the #9 man advises you, whomst he names 'dead man', to turn him on. According to conspiracy theorists, this is concrete proof that Paul McCartney died in a car crash in 1966 and was replaced with a double. Pfft. Also, Geoff Emerick, who was their engineer for Revolver and Pepper, had enough of their tension shiznit, so he left.
== The Get Back sessions and the downward spiral ==
The Beatles' downward spiral began in earnest exactly on January 2, 1969, when the band gathered at Twickenham Studios with a film crew to document the recording sessions for their upcoming album, Get Back. The whole idea was to film a TV special and go to some random ass location and film a live performance there. However, everybody was PTSDing about the Beatlemania years, so no to that.
The downward spiral was getting pretty intense. On January 6, Paul and George argued, which was filmed. On January 10, George and John allegedly got into a fist fight, but the story is always twisted, some sources say Yoko ate George's digestive biscuits (which actually happened during the White Album sessions), others say there was merely an argument that went wrong with no context, who the fuck knows what actually happened on January 10, 1969.
George left on the day of the apparent fist fight, saying, "I'm leaving the band now. See you 'round the clubs."
However, he returned a few days later. The sessions continued, and they got an American R&B pianist named Billy Preston to play with them so the band could shut the fuck up and concentrate on the music. These sessions were not AS bad, but were still pretty acrimonious. They brought back the idea of a live concert only for an ending to the movie being made.
January 30, 1969. The Beatles go to the top of the Apple headquarters, and with cameras rolling, launch into 'Get Back', 'One After 909', 'Dig A Pony' and other songs. It attracted a lot of people, and eventually the cops got their attention. Apple employees refused to let them in but relented when the cops threatened to do them in.
The band was hoping for a good ending. The amps were shut off by associate Mal Evans fearing they would get NAENAED by the coppers, but George basically said "fuck you" and turned them back on. They wanted to get arrested to end the film on a epic pop punk gamer note.
However, it was not the case, they were just told to keep down the volume and then the plug was eventually pulled. John still shat out a final quote: "I would just like to thank you and the group and ourselves and I hope we passed the audition!".
As laughy and happy as they were on the rooftop, their situation wasn't. They were at each other's throats constantly and this bled over to the sessions of another album, although they weren't as tragic as the Get Back sessions. Still, the band got riled up over Paul making them do Maxwell's Silver Hammer one too many times.
They eventually put that out instead of Get Back, this new album was called Abbey Road, and it came out on September 26, 1969. Six days beforehand, John Lennon privately announced he was done with the band.
== The breakup ==
By 1970, the three remaining boys returned to the Get Back album, but it was pretty much the band on life support. Paul was getting fed up with their new manager Allen Klein, and Phil Spector putting orchestral overdubs on the Get Back songs.
In April, Paul announced that he was done with that shiznit, and the Beatles ended in April 1970. A month later, Get Back was finally released; as Let It Be.
The four went onto prosperous solo careers; up until John was shot dead in 1980 by a lunatic outside his apartment. 21 years later, George died from cancer. Paul and Ringo still make music however; Paul put out a new album called 'Egypt Station', and Ringo is still.....well Ringo.
== Legacy of the band ==
The Beatles are arguably one of the most influential bands in the history of fucking bands. For the most mainstream band in the world, they innovated a lot. The recording techniques they used are still popular today, and half of their output still sounds like it's fresh today. They covered territory others hadn't covered yet. They were pretty much, the root of all rock post-1960.
Music would be VERY different, if the Beatles never existed.
== Recent releases ==
The Beatles have put out many compilations and anthologies and what not, but in 2017, they released a box set of Sgt. Pepper for it's 50th anniversary that includes outtakes and other goodies. The White Album got the same treatment, with it's release falling on November 9. November 9. November 9. November 9. November 9. November 9, 2018, but shortly before they put it out, Geoff Emerick died of a heart attack. A 50th anniversary remix of Abbey Road was released on September 26, 2019.Category:Bands
Category:1960s