Rubber Soul was groundbreaking, Revolver is possibly The Beatles at their best, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is perhaps their most important, and The White Album is their most diverse. But Abbey Road is most likely my favorite, and probably the one I listen to the most. There is just something about Abbey Road that makes me come back to it again and again. Perhaps, because it was the last album the group worked on together, it captures them…
In my opinion, Rubber Soul represents the exact moment in time when the Beatles were transitioning from their early day sound (like “A Hard Day’s Night”) to their studio masterpieces. However, this doesn’t mean Rubber Soul should be overlooked. In fact, if the band never made a record after Rubber Soul, they’d still be going to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Kind of like Michael Jordan coming out of retirement the first time to win his 2nd three-peat.…
Growing up, I wasn’t always the biggest Beatles fan. In fact, for the longest time, I actually had a distaste for them. When my family would go to a Christmas tree farm to cut down our own tree, there was a time when they were picking me up from a friend’s house after a sleep-over, and they’d normally be showing up early after I had stayed up late playing video games. On the radio on the way to the tree…
The Beatles were on top of their game in 1966. They had just released Rubber Soul in December of 1965, and were riding high with accolades. Rubber Soul had effectively changed how pop albums would be created moving forward, with The Beatles making an effort to make an entire artistic album from start to finish, rather than one or two singles with some filler thrown in. The band’s business manager, Brian Epstein, wanted to capitalize on the Rubber Soul high…
It’s 1967, and the Beatles are burned out. They’ve been touring extensively around the world, complete with accompanying interviews and other press engagements. They’d become dissatisfied with the composition of their concert audience, who they felt only came for the spectacle of seeing the Beatles and to scream, rather than being there to actually listen to the music. They were also dealing with a severe public backlash due to Lennon’s “Bigger than Jesus” comment. They had begun to record a…
Let’s just get one thing straight from the beginning, the Beatles are the greatest, most influential, and important band to ever live. There are far better researched and written accounts of their influence on music, culture, fashion, etc. than I could ever even hope to do, so I’m not going to even attempt it. What I would like to do is a basic breakdown of the 5 albums I have chosen for this series, and give a glimpse of my…
Is there anybody out there? One of the best concerts I have ever been to was seeing Roger Waters perform The Wall live in it’s entirety. It was fashioned after the old Pink Floyd shows, with the building of the wall between the band and the audience during the first half, before ultimately blasting it apart during the end of “The Trial.” At the end of the show, Waters addressed the audience, saying that when he wrote the album he…
Animals is Pink Floyd’s darkest and most bitter album, narrowing the entire human race into three classes, conniving, insincere and aggressive businessmen (“Dogs”), the hypocritical, greedy and callous upper class and government (“Pigs”) and meek, obedient and dim peasants (“Sheep”). Jeez, which one do you think you are? The album is loosely based on George Orwell’s Animal Farm, released in 1945. However, Animal Farm is a critique of communism and Stalinism, while Animals is a strong critique of capitalism. Pigs…
Wish You Were Here may not be as well known as the massive, globally successful Dark Side of the Moon, but it may be Floyd at their absolute peak. After breaking from their normal song structure on Dark Side, Floyd returned a bit to the style of their previous works, designing longer and experimental songs. It took awhile for the album to come together as the band was completely drained from the success of Dark Side and the touring that…
It starts with silence, like someone forgot to press the right button. But then here it comes slowly, a heartbeat. And it’s just a heartbeat for a short time, growing louder, a constant thumping coming through the speakers. Soon there’s a swooshing, then a chatter like noise, then some light, almost indistinguishable talking complemented by what sounds like the laughter from an insane asylum. Finally, there’s a woman’s voice that sounds like she’s screaming like a newborn. It builds and…