The Beatles were an British rock band formed in Liverpool,in 1960,by John Lennon,Paul McCartney,George Harrison,and several other members. They are regarded as one of the best rock bands of all time,especially in the United States. Their history remains the same as our timeline until 1970.
In 1971,The Beatles released All Things Must Pass in a surprise. After falling into obscurity,The Beatles saw a revival in the late 1970s to the mid 1980s,with one of their albums,Summer of 67,becoming the first album released on CD to sell a million copies. The band returned to success with many Top 40 hits and multiplatinum albums.
John Lennon,Paul McCartney,George Harrison,and Ringo Starr formed the core mainline up since 1962,and has been cited as a prime example of a band lineup. The band gave it's last public performance on August 25,1997,in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania,and broke up in 1998 due to tensions between John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
The Beatles have had numerous top 10 singles on the United States billboard charts,and 16 albums charted in the top 40. In the UK,they had over 50 hit singles and 12 top 10 albums. The band has sold over 200 million records worldwide(as of the band's breakup in 1998). In 1991,they were inducted into the Rock'n Roll Hall of Fame. After nearly 20 years of inactivity,The Beatles reformed. However,comments made by the band has showed that very little progress,if any,has been made to record new material.
Divergent History[]
After rumors that The Beatles broke up,John Lennon returned to the band in a surprise. In 1971,All Things Must Pass,was released,mostly of a folk rock feel. It is often hailed as their last great record,though it wasn't as successful as the band's height in the 1960s. Despite the album's positive reviews and high expectations,peaked at number 104 on the Billboard chart. It was followed in 1972 by a double album,Band on the Run,which consisted of both studio tracks and live numbers. The record featured "Band on the Run",their last UK Top 20 hit for more than a decade. The album was moderately successful in the United States,peaking at number 65 on the Billboard. It marked the transition between the band's early 1970s rock material and the progressive rock they immersed in for the next six years.
Progressive period(1973-1978)[]
In 1973,The Beatles began diving into progressive rock with the albums Black and White(1973) and Name's Lennon John Lennon(1975),both of which received poor reviews,plus the output remaining uneven and their fading popularity declining even more. Name's Lennon John Lennon was the first album to be produced by Lennon and McCartney,and since then every album by the band was produced by the two members.
Lennon and McCartney began a project for another film,a musical called Tales of a Teenage Rocker. The project eventually morphed into an album of the same name,released in May 1977. In October 1977,the Beatles released their last progressive work,The Dark Side,and was a moderate success,peaking at number 44 on the Billboard charts.
Return to commercial success(1979-1987)[]
After a scandal emerged that Apple Records had spent money on a fund to support future president of the United States Lowell Weicker,The Beatles decided to leave Apple and went back to Parlophone in 1979. With the encouragement of Parlophone's management,the Beatles were reborn as a AOR band. Money is Time But Time Isn't Money,released in 1979,marked a return to success for the group as it peaked at number 16 on the Billboard chart. In May 1980,the Beatles' second album released by Parlophone,Rock'n Roll Universe,which contained the US Top 40 hit "Mr.Moon Man",which helped make the record another success for the band. The popularity of the band's records and live shows continued to grow.
The hard rock sound of Hard War II,released in 1981,helped make it the Beatles' first multiplatinum album in over 10 years and charted at number 10 on the Billboard in the US. In 1982,the band's first live album in over a decade,Back In Business,was produced and released,along with a video of the same name,bringing the group's concert legend power to a peak that would last until 1985.
The next Beatles album,Time For a Change,was released in June 1983 and reached number 13 in the US. The record got multiplatinum status and featured the UK hit single "Star Wars" as well as "The Extremist",a major Mainstream Rock hit for the group. To promote the album,the Beatles spent late 1983 and most of 1984 touring relentlessly,and played numerous sell-out concerts throughout the UK,the dominions,Europe,and the US. The tour culminated with a performance at the US Festival in Camden,New Jersey. In Spring 1985,the song "Get Enough" became their biggest American hit in nearly 2 decades,peaking at number 3. It also became the group's first Top 20 in the UK since 1972,peaking at number 14 in the charts. The accompanying album,Summer of 67,was their biggest commercial success,becoming the first album released on CD to sell a million copies,reaching number 2 in the US,but like all the group's albums since 1971,it failed to chart in the UK. Another single released from the record,"Summer of 67",became a US top 30 hit and minor UK chart entry.
The Beatles' second wave of popularity remained at a peak with Summer of 67,but that success began to fade,a trend that also affected British rock bands like The Rolling Stones and The Who. The second half of 1985 saw Paul McCartney work on a solo film project,When We Was Fab,about The Beatles in their glory days in the 1960s. McCartney's commitment to writing,directing,and scoring the new film caused tension with John Lennon,and old feuds soon came back to the band.
The band had begun work on Taste The Rainbow,their final Parlophone album,released in November 1986. Taste The Rainbow's lead track,"Play it Again",was released as a single in April 1987. It reached number 42 in the US,the band's last entry into the Billboard Hot 100.
Decline in popularity and disbandment(1988-1998)[]
In 1988,the group signed up with Apple Records again for the first time in a decade. Their first album for the label,Outside The Box,released later that year,was a moderate success,peaking at number 83 on the Billboard albums chart,with the title track being an attack on MTV video culture from which the band profited from earlier in the decade. The Beatles followed Outside The Box in 1989 with another live album,Over The World,which was a mediocre commercial and critical success. In 1990,the Beatles released Groovin' And Movin',a commercial failure,making only a momentary entry onto the album charts at number 129. Apple Records ultimately dropped them,leaving the Beatles without a label deal for the first time ever.
In 1991,the Beatles were inducted into the Rock'n Roll Hall of Fame. George Harrison and Ringo Starr were present for the award. The induction,however,did not revive the Beatles' stalled career. A compilation album from the Apple Records era from 1968 to 1978,and from 1988 to 1990,Outtakes of The Beatles,was released in 1992 to fulfill contractual obligations,and marked the official end of the group's relationship with Apple Records. The band then signed up with Capitol,who they had not worked with in nearly 30 years,and released the five-song EP Turn Turn Turn in 1992 which,despite having a with a new studio re-recording of the band's 1965 hit "Day Tripper",failed to chart.
The Beatles released their first Capitol album,Masters of Rock'n Roll,which managed only one week in the US Billboard chart at number 171;as had by then become usual for the band,it made no impression in the UK. Only one single,"Gods and Goddesses",narrowly failed to reach the British chart. "Creep",the album's final candidate for release as a single,was going to be released,but the record was not released in stores,and only several months later small numbers appeared on the collector market. The same year,the band released the album Got Enough?. This live acoustic album was partly recorded on the highly successful UK tour of 1994 and 1995 and partly in the Beatles studio. The record drew noticeable press but failed to chart in both the US and the UK.
The band's profile rose considerably in the mid-1990s,as a result of Britpop boom that would dominate the UK since then. Several of the most prominent bands of the decade cited the Beatles as a major influence. Despite such accolades,the group's commercial viability continued to decline. They gradually became less active,leading John Lennon and Paul McCartney to pursue their own interests. The Beatles gave their last public performance on August 25,1997 in Philadelphia,Pennsylvania. McCartney announced the band parted ways in March 1998.