It’s hard to imagine a world without the Beatles in it, but such was the case during the 4.5 billion years (Sorry, Book of Genesis) that preceded their coming.
Ever since, the legacy of John Lennon, Sir Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr has helped shape the landscape of music to what we know it as today, and for better or worse it will never be the same again.
The Fab Four sounded the trumpets of the British Invasion in 1963 with Please Please Me, one of 13 remastered studio albums being released on the palindrome friendly date of 9-9-09.
However, it wasn’t until the 1966 classic Revolver that the Beatles truly began to leave their mark.
Comprised of “Taxman”, “Eleanor Rigby”, and “For No One”, nearly every song on the album was a stroke of genius, but none shined more than the LSD fueled psychedelia of “Tomorrow Never Knows”, which was light years ahead of its time.
Lennon and McCartney followed-up with yet another masterpiece in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (their answer to the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds), whose socially conscious anthem “A Day in the Life” is among the greatest songs ever written.
Then came the immortal White Album, which if it had not been for its misguided double LP status could have easily ranked as their best effort.
After all, there are few songs better than “Blackbird”, “Helter Skelter”, or Harrison’s magnum opus “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”.
Lastly, we have Abbey Road, an album better known for its iconic cover art than extraordinary composition.
That’s not to say it doesn’t have its fair share of classic cuts with standouts such as “Come Together”, “Here Comes the Sun”, and the mesmerizing 1-2-3 punch of “Golden Slumbers”, “Carry That Weight”, and “The End” stealing the show.
No collection would be complete without these five albums. It’s as simple as that.
For those with incredibly low attention spans, there is also the video game incarnation of their massive catalog in The Beatles: Rock Band, which allows casual listeners the opportunity to be “bigger than Jesus” and/or offend the Royal Family of the Philippines using the latest in cell processing technology.
Either way there will be no avoiding them, the Beatles are back and here to stay.
A website dumb enough to sell the Beatles entire music catalog without their legal consent, insists they had every right to do so as a result of a new recording technique dubbed “psycho-acoustic simulation”.
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