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My favorite genre of person here is George Harrison fan who’s very specifically a fan just of George as a person/concept. The George fans that that treat the Beatles as nothing more than a footnote in his story. The fans that give equal if not more importance to the Traveling Willburys as the Beatles. The fans that could not care less about Lennison or McHarrison because they’re too busy with Dylarrison (or George/Tom Petty or Jeff Lynne, etc). Have his entire discography, fav album of his is Dark Horse or anything besides All Things Must Pass fans. The real MVPs of us George girlies.
#the interesting thing about this is I genuinely don’t know if you can do this with the other Beatles except John#Ringo has defined himself not only as a Beatle but also the biggest fan of the Beatles (aka John Paul George)#and even though Paul had Wings and had the largest solo discography#he’s also made himself the face of the Beatles. THE Beatle. the Beatle ambassador who from everything we’ve seen#seems to have way more control over Get Back or the future biopics than J+Gs estates or Ringo himself#even in the One Hand Clapping movie the end is him doing songs that he played in the Quarrymen#they’ve entrenched themselves in being Beatles first and foremost.#John also clearly distanced himself from the Beatles like George#(and like George had one of the best solo album breakthroughs of all time)#and in many ways he achieved making himself a brand in his own right more than any of them#you only need to look towards the fact he can easily be represented with two circles and a line#or how it’s his songs mostly that people remember#all you need is love. I am the walrus. etc#but since he was a part of Lennon-McCartney and his early death#I don’t think he was every able to fully divorce himself from the Beatles#at least to wider audiences#it certainly doesn’t help that people would rather go to Paul to talk about John’s music#than Yoko when she was still running things or Sean now that he is#I don’t even really like Sean but I wish more people would ask about his dads music#instead of making him relive the years after his dad died#I think a lot about the tweet he made#after people were asking him about McLennon and shit#where he just said something like#“I don’t think you guys see me as a person#anyways.#George Harrison#Beatles
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THE BEATLES Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the Most Overrated Album of All Time
The Beatles Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album has been universally acclaimed by critics and fans alike as one of the best albums ever made, if not THE best album ever made. Rolling Stone magazine gave the record top honors on their list of best albums of all time. Clearly the album was a breakthrough at the time it was released, due to the Beatles' use of major advancements in recording technology. But was it really the best album of all time?
Front cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, "probably the most famous album cover in popular musical history"Ashplant Smyth 2001, p. 185. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The main knock on Sgt Pepper is that it is overproduced and underwritten, and contains several other flaws that do not exist on other Beatles records. Yes, I said it. There is something wrong with Sgt Pepper, and it is by far the most overrated album in the Beatles catalog, and possibly the most overrated album of all time. Here are the arguments:
1) Overproduced: The stereo effects are way too exaggerated, with vocals or other sounds panned all the way to the left or right, indicating a wild overuse of the Beatles newfound opportunity to mix a record in multitrack stereo. Albums since then, even Beatles albums subsequently produced, do not make use of such gimmicky stereo panning unless the effect is designed to be extreme. In the case of some of the tunes on Sgt Pepper, the extreme panning serves as a distraction instead of an enhancement.
2) Underwritten: Since Sgt Pepper has some of the Beatles best work, in the form of "With a Little Help From My Friends", "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds", and the magical wonder of "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite", it is often overlooked that these remarkable tunes sit right next to some of the Beatles' most mediocre songwriting. Compare the songs on Sgt Pepper to other Beatles records that came before (Revolver, Rubber Soul) or after (the White Album, Abbey Road), and you'll notice that there are several tracks that don't appear as polished as the Beatles' best work.
Take "She's Leaving Home", for example, which paints a melancholy portrait of a girl's troubled life, using a string section in the background to emphasize the drama. It is reasonably effective, but compare it to "Eleanor Rigby", the standout track from Revolver, which accomplished a very similar theme with far superior results, both melodically and lyrically, and in the memorable quality of the string arrangements. If a recording of that caliber had been on Sgt Pepper in place of "She's Leaving Home", it would have improved the album immeasurably.
Next, take a look at "Lovely Rita", "Getting Better", and "Good Morning, Good Morning", the last of which John Lennon himself even dismissed as forgettable filler years later when distancing himself from the idea that Sgt Pepper was a "concept album". These tunes are rarely cited by fans as favorites, are not considered hits or classic Beatles songs, and frankly are a bit silly and lacking in prestige compared to the Beatles best work. There is nothing wrong with having them on a Beatles album, but their presence detracts from the idea that Sgt Pepper is a musical masterpiece.
3) Paul ruined "A Day in the Life": This dreamy album finale, whose primary structure was composed by John Lennon, has an unfortunate middle section written apparently too quickly by Paul McCartney. An honest listener will cringe just slightly when Paul stumbles through the awkward phrasing of the line "went upstairs and had a smoke, then somebody spoke and I went into a dream", which has too many syllables for the melody and lacks the usual careful semantics of Paul's typical songwriting. It's clear that the idea was to present a contrasting "day in the life" to the hazy meanderings of John's verses, but it just doesn't hold up, and sits as a wart on the record - a decent idea poorly executed.
4) They left out the two best songs: As many fans know, the recording sessions that spawned Sgt Pepper were actually started with the recording of two of the Beatles' undeniably finest tracks, "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever", which were released months before Sgt Pepper as a double A-sided single. Sir George Martin has said since that one of his biggest regrets was not holding onto those songs to include them on Sgt Pepper, where they almost certainly would have displaced weaker material like "Lovely Rita" or "She's Leaving Home". If they had been included, both tunes would have also bolstered the "concept" album theme, which is supposed to include childhood memories, explored within a circus atmosphere, as performed by a fictitious band. As it stands, this theme is not served at all by the weaker tunes, and the album does not hold up in hindsight as any kind of a concept album, especially when compared to later rock masterpieces like The Who's Tommy, which maintains, expands, and nurtures its theme all the way through.
As a hardcore Beatles fanatic, I love Sgt Pepper, as I love every Beatles album, but I think it is an accurate statement to say that the album is overrated when it is hailed as the Beatles finest work. Another record like Revolver, Abbey Road, or even Rubber Soul holds up much better on a song-by-song basis, and deserves that honor.
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The new remastered albums came out this year (2010 !) , and have received rave reviews, so Beatles fans can now appreciate the music in an improved format vs anything that has been previously released. In fact, the Beatles recently released the stereo box set in the form of a Beatles USB apple, and the reviews of that product include the fact that it has an audio format called 24-bit FLAC which is superior to CDs, so fans and real audiophiles can revisit all the albums in a higher quality audio format, and have the whole Beatles collection on one USB drive.
By James Magary Article Source: EzineArticles
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