The Beatles – yawn. That has generally been the stock HCE reaction to The Beatles for quite some time. It seems to us that the music industry, music culture generally, and in particular music journalism has used The Beatles as a measuring stick for all other music for far to long. Yes – The Beatles were very important at the time – they progressed popular music to a wide, commercial audience very quickly in new, unusual ways, and their influence in some way lives on in all popular music, from rock to rap. But we do get rather tired of The Beatles always being labelled the best band, always being at the top of any greatest song/album list, always being the only band that any critic above the age of 50 EVER talks about. Music has moved on from The Beatles, but the industry struggles to. Music is more diverse now that ever, more challenging, interesting, better, slicker, faster. There are artists making music as good as The Beatles every single day. Progress is a fantastic thing, and wearing constant, nostalgic rose-tinted glasses is just sad, whether you are 15 or 50. The Beatles laid the foundations for popular and rock music, but to think nothing has ever surpassed them is narrow-minded.
However, whilst it is tiresome to constantly hear about how important The Beatles are, and how *fantastic* Sergeant. Pepper is, it is important not to forget that The Beatles did from time to time create some truly groundbreaking, awe-inspiring sounds, which still sound innovative and challenging today. A lot of their “experimental” music was often a bit puerile, ill conceived, or just plain shit, but some tracks were dark, heavy and deep. Here are what we consider to the best Beatles tracks, both in terms of innovation and musical quality.
1. ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ – Abbey Road
This is my favourite Beatles song. It has such a dirty, bluesy edge, and pushes rock in heavier territory than it had ever previously been. With stripped down instrumentation and production, immense guitar parts and soulful vocals, building slowly and oppressively to a dense, over-powering conclusion, many elements of this track still work in a contemporary music setting.
<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/34Zf1Q5hW8o" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
2. ‘A Day in the Life’ – Sergeant Pepper
This is really the only half decent Pepper track – most of the others just sound like a mess. This track mixes ambient, classical, pop and rock together into a weird amalgamation that sort of works, and it has lots of sonic events and instances that are just marvellous. The development and transference from one part of the song to another in particular is excellent, and of course, the development of the song, its composition, and methods of recording were highly unusual and innovative at the time.
<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/P-Q9D4dcYng" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
3. ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’ - The Beatles (White Album)
The White Album, as a body of music, was much more experimental, varied and progressive than any of The Beatles previous releases. This was the group truly delving into musical experimenting, with avant-garde quips, usage of samples and musique concrete as much a musical constant as guitars and percussion. The album is not easy to listen to in parts, but it pushes the listener out of their comfort zone and into new territory. ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’ examples all these qualities perfectly, with its unannounced tempo changes, metaphorical lyrics, dark sentiments (“I need a fix ‘cause I’m going down”), and experimental effects.
<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/qE2Vdcv9Q_o" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
4. “Get Back” – Let it Be
To my mind McCartney’s best track. The lyrics are ok (good for McCartney), but what really makes this track good is the music. Billy Preston’s organ work adds an interesting alternative element to it, but really it is the simple, clean, rotating hard rock instrumentation. This is stripped down Beatles, but without all that earlier, schmaltzy stuff.
<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-6G7MkBMVxE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
5. ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ – The Beatles (White Album)
This is a quietly haunting song, cold and dark, and shows The Beatles making some musical developments towards heavy rock, a genre still completely in its infancy at the time. It is not perfect; whilst the lyrics are good, the melody in the chorus is a bit weak, and undermines the stark beauty of the music and sentiment in the verses. Its also a shame that George Harrison felt he had to bring in Eric Clapton to perform the lead guitar parts throughout the song, as Harrison’s versions on demo tapes are actually better than the recorded release.
<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vs7jxtPCqks" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
6. ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’ – Help!
Apparently this song was Lennon “doing Bob Dylan”. However, whilst the stripped musical elements of the track are a similar style to that of Dylan, this was one of the first Beatles track to show a deeper, more jaded outlook, both in the lyrics and the music. It was from this track onwards that Lennon started to relinquish some of his personal demons within his work, and it became all the better for it, developing his archetypal radical, biting edge.
<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jz7IjXu0DfQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
7. “Medley” – Abbey Road
The “Medley” on side B of Abbey Road is actually nine songs run into one another, and is conceptually very innovative. No other major artists had really honed the idea of “concept music” at the time, and this is a whole side of odd little part song, mangled together, each with a very different vibe. Some of the tracks are a bit weak, ‘Sun King’ and ‘Mean Mr. Mustard’ for example, but others are truly fantastic, and deserve to sit up there with their best tracks. ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ and ‘Golden Slumbers’ in particular are beautiful, with the Beatles exampling some of their best vocal performances, and it is difficult to surpass ‘The End’ in terms of guitar solos, with Lennon, Harrison and McCartney all appearing in a single, short song.
<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2pM3PVzDUCY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
