at a glance...

Hometown: Liverpool, England
Year Formed: 1957

Members:
Paul McCartney -vocals, bass, piano
Ringo Starr -drums, percussion
John Lennon -vocals, rhythm guitar, piano
George Harrison -lead guitar, sitar, vocals

Notes:
The Beatles...well, you know the story. Liverpudlian roustabouts in love with American rock 'n' roll pick up guitars, move to Hamburg to learn to play, figure out how to write pop songs and save the world for teenagers. How did they do it? They invented history's greatest hairdo (for men and women). They wrote four-chord pop and symphonic mood music without claiming one's superiority over the other. They were political, sexual, comical and emotional. They were smart, classy and stoned. Without The Beatles...well, it just doesn't bear thinking about, does it?

The Beatles' significance is without rival. Swallowing rock music's rebellion and romanticism and regurgitating it as all-inclusive pop art encompassing their entire age, they rocketed through stage after stage of amazing creative pyrotechnics, decisively fusing high and low art.

By the time Sgt. Pepper rolled around, fatigue and crowd pressure left the band with no choice but to give up touring. Good old rock 'n' roll had always been first and foremost an on-stage, in-concert phenomenon, so it was no surprise that the new studio-based Beatles would continue their evolution since Rubber Soul even further, and end up being something other than rock. Sure enough, Sgt. Pepper was the most breathtaking and innovative piece of modern music the world had ever heard.

The collage on the cover warned the unexpecting listener that it contained a true melange of genres, while the Fab Four wax statues fossilized the formerly frivolous pop sensations, or the Ghost of Beatles Past. Skilled experimenters by now, the band combined classical and machine-made sounds to groundbreaking effect; if "She's Leaving Home" could have been a chamber piece done centuries before, "A Day In The Life" could only have been acheived with modern electronics. Although held together by its sense of imagination and invention, Sgt. Pepper was also a premonition of impending disaster - the record was primarily McCartney's baby, not withstanding the fact that Harrison's aural Indian feast "Within You Without You," and Lennon's soulful vocals on "A Day In The Life" were the album's high points.

If you like The Beatles, check out:
The Beatles Beatles For Sale
The Beatles Abbey Road
The Beatles Help!
The Beatles A Hard Day's Night
The Beatles Revolver
The Beatles Rubber Soul
The Beatles The Beatles
The Beta Band The Three EPs
King Biscuit Time No Style
The Rolling Stones Their Satanic Majesties Request
David Bowie Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders
The Stone Roses The Stone Roses
The Beastie Boys Paul's Boutique

-- Lars Rosenblum Sorgenfrei

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