No matter how many times you "come back," you can always trust the Beatles
The Beatles, who had been disbanded for more than 50 years, once again attracted the attention of music fans.
Half a century later, the Beatles are still popular, still enjoying a cross-border and age-old embrace. Just look at the band's "return" in this century, almost every "return" has been accompanied by widespread attention and discussion, which is the No.1 in the minds of the masses.
Billboard announced the top 100 singles of all time, the Beatles were the all-time champions, and Madonna and Elton John were runners-up and runners-up, respectively.
Moving forward, the remake of the classic Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band won the title again after a gap of fifty years. Even Paul McCartney said in a statement: "Oh! Who would have thought that such an old Scott Pepper would be back at the top of the charts fifty years later? ”
《Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band》
Looking further ahead, in 2012, the uk's official chart company announced the list of the best-selling bands in the UK, and the Beatles topped the list. In 2000, the band's 27-song single-single album 1 not only won the sales title that year, but was also the best-selling album of the first decade of the century in Nielsen's statistics.
No matter how many times they "come back," the Beatles and their music will always be trusted.
From its inception to its dissolution, the Beatles existed for only a decade, but as a pioneer of cultural change, their influence has long surpassed that of the music itself. Their singing voices influenced a generation's artistic tastes, clothing hairstyles, lifestyles and attitudes towards life. But how did the Beatles create those classics?
In January 1969, the Beatles arrived at the Twickenham Studios. Because drummer Ringo was going to star in the movie "Long Live Fortuna" on January 24, they had only three weeks to compose and rehearse 14 songs before performing them to live audiences through a tv special.
Recording the rehearsal process through a camera was also a pioneering move at the time. From January 2 to 31, 1969, the band left behind 55 hours of unexposed footage and 150 hours of unpublished music archives. The Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson meticulously restored and sorted out the footage, which led to The Beatles: The Return of Mania.
The most enjoyable part of the documentary is undoubtedly the rich details that can witness the creative process of the Beatles, and witness how the great music that has influenced generations has taken shape little by little.
In 1969, the Beatles' rooftop concert
At first, everyone had no clue, and they worked together on songs such as "Don't let me down", adding material to it little by little, modifying the lyrics, and even pinching the stopwatch to calculate the length of the song. On the fourth day, Paul McCartney was casually playing bass in civilian clothes, and by chance a note ignited a spark of creativity. Through the constant search for rhythm and melody, the note gradually became "Jojo was a man...". Although the song has not yet become "Get Back", the world of the new album has suddenly been opened.
There are a lot of interesting details in the documentary. George Harrison had a love song written for months and stuck in the second line and couldn't write it. Lennon told him, "What's the first thing that pops out every time?" Just write this. Go and catch it like this until you find the exact word. Harrison said he had been thinking about it for six months. Lennon said, then you haven't tried 15 people to think with you. Next, they started discussing specific terms, such as changing "attract" to "grab." The song in question is "Something."
There is nothing particularly mysterious about the whole creative process, but it is not simple either. Their music is more derived from their personality, which is a close-knit group, they are not trimmed, they are like naughty children, but they are a group of people who love to be in the limelight and have fantastic ideas, and they like to fool around with each other.
The recording also recreates the process of their conversation through the sound of musical instruments, including lunch, drinking, TV shows, news, and the names of a string of musicians such as Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, and Aretha Franklin.
But in fact, the new album is also the eve of their dissolution, and there are unresolved contradictions under the surface of harmony, and they will inevitably separate after all. There are many opinions about the reasons, but after reading these historical fragments, you will not care about those unpleasant memories, but will only appreciate and like these four big boys more.
As director Peter Jackson confessed, "There are no villains, no heroes, just the story of a bunch of ordinary people." Four great friends, great musicians, they just want to finish these songs and albums, and you're going to witness it all on screen. ”
Fast forward to 1960, in a run-down underground club in Hamburg, Germany, where a young British band was covering songs featuring early rock and roll and R&B. This band, the Beatles, is about to change the world. Before that, they sang and performed intermittently for nearly two years, and also experienced a round of high-intensity performances in Hamburg, Germany, completing the transformation from rookie to mature artist.
In 1963, the Beatles' first album Please Please Me was officially released. It is said that it took them only 9 hours and 45 minutes to complete the recording of all the songs. The album changed the face of pop, and the album also held a record number one spot for 30 weeks on the UK Pop Albums Chart until it was overtaken by The Beatles' next album, With the Beatles.
When they first appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in the United States in 1964, the Beatles became a household name in the United States across the ocean, and completely led to the "British lnvasion" trend, and since then the British band has shined in the United States and around the world.
In 1964, the Beatles performed at a concert
How great the Beatles really are, and how they have influenced world culture, there have been countless analyses and answers. It can only be said that they do have extraordinary talents and do appear at the right time.
When the Beatles became popular, it coincided with the popularity of scientific and technological products such as radio and cable TV. In 1964, when I was young, the average American teenager listened to more than 3 hours a day on the radio. In those days, sharing music over the radio was a fashionable thing. By 1960, there were 780 television stations in the United States, nearly 30 million television sets, about 87% of households owned at least one television set, television gradually became the mainstream media for people's entertainment and information, and programs like the Ed Sullivan Show were naturally the source of people's daily entertainment.
The Beatles' music and imagery adapted to the needs of the emerging media, and the popularity of technology played a role in the Beatlemani.
But the Beatles, who were able to leave a strong mark on history, clearly didn't stop at this step. For the music industry alone, they made so many groundbreaking changes that continue to impact today.
As mentioned in Beatles: Return of The Mania, because the band didn't perform for two years, they had a lot of time polishing the technology in the studio, and with the assistance of producer George Martin, they together pioneered or popularized the following recording technologies: automatic dual-track technology (ADT), voice reversal technology, variable speed recording, looping tape, distortion effect, stereo effect, multi-track recording, phase shift, and pioneering the placement of microphones in different positions to produce different sounds... There may be some techniques that they didn't invent first, but their use of technology inspired a generation of musicians.
Not to mention the many other influences, such as the addition of "yeah yeah" to the singing voice from the Beatles; the concept album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released in 1967, which made people realize that the album was not just a collection of songs; such as the music video released in 1966 for the single "Paperback Writer/Rain" is considered to be the earliest prototype of the MV...
Music video of Paperback Writer/Rain
These pioneering moves that led to the change and progress of music have allowed the Beatles to stand firm in the wave of change in the industry.
The 2019 film Yesterday is a tribute to The Beatles. In the story, except for the protagonist, everyone has long forgotten the Beatles, and the protagonist sings the Beatles' songs and becomes a rock star. In the film, even the popular singer Ed Sheeran has to submit to the protagonist's ability to write songs. The funniest scene is when he asks the protagonist to rename Hey Jude to Hey Dude, and the director uses this to reflect the Beatles' irreplaceable achievements in music.
The Beatles' influence on Chinese musicians is not inferior to that of foreign musicians. In the previous era when domestic information was not very circulating, there were secret stories about the Beatles among music lovers, which also constituted the "prehistory" before the birth of Chinese rock.
Many famous Chinese musicians also regard the Beatles as idols and mentors. Cui Jian once commented: "The meaning of the Beatles is to mainstream a rebellious spirit, which is rock and roll." Xu Wei once said: "I first embarked on the road of music because of my love for the Beatles." Wang Feng even called the Beatles a very important part of his life, "When I feel isolated and helpless, I go to listen to their songs, to experience what they write, it will give me hope." 」 ”
In addition to spiritual inspiration, the Beatles bring more creative inspiration to musicians. Musician Guo Ding said that what fascinated him was the creative musical performances that can be seen everywhere in these songs, the organic production methods, and the fascinating stories of endless debate, which inevitably affected the musicians behind them. "In my personal creation, I have long been quietly influenced by these 'strange and familiar songs'."
Musician Guo Ding
Taiwanese musicians who were exposed to European and American music earlier were also inseparable from the influence of the Beatles. Yu Ding ito said that the Beatles "subtly influenced their own mood of music creation, as well as the way they arranged, recorded and played." When they first recorded the song "After Playing" in Soda Green's "Spring daylight", the members always thought of the Beatles' "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" song.
In addition to the popular big gold songs, they can also count out various small details in the Beatles' works. For example, in the last song on the Abbey Road album, "Her Majesty", the most special thing is that all the sounds gradually move from the far right to the far left, although it is only a short 23 seconds, but this attempt is really impressive. For example, the prelude to the song "Day Tripper", the melodic line played by the guitar and bass, seems to give the arrangers of the current assembly line work a drink, making the band think about "how to create a classic arranger melody".