| The Beatles | |
|---|---|
 The Beatles in 1961; left to right; Paul McCartney, Pete Best, George Harrison, John Lennon | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Liverpool, England, U.K. |
| Genres | Rock, pop, beat, psychedelia |
| Years active | 1960-1969; 1985 |
| Labels | Parlophone, Apple Records, Capitol Records |
| Associated acts |
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| Website | thebeatles.com |
| Past members | |
| John Lennon Paul McCartney George Harrison Pete Best | |
The Beatles were an English rock and pop band formed in Liverpool in 1960, whose best-known line-up comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best. They are regarded as one the most influential bands of all time and were integral to the development of 1960s counterculture and popular music's recognition as an art form. Rooted in skiffle, beat and 1950s rock and roll, their sound incorporated elements of classical music and traditional pop in innovative ways; the band later explored music styles ranging from ballads and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock. As pioneers in recording, songwriting and artistic presentation, the Beatles revolutionised many aspects of the music industry and were often publicised as leaders of the era's youth and sociocultural movements.
Led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney, the Beatles evolved from Lennon's previous group, the Quarrymen, and built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over three years from 1960, initially with Stuart Sutcliffe playing bass. The core trio of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, together since 1958, went through a succession of drummers, before settling on Pete Best in 1961. Manager Brian Epstein moulded them into a professional act, and producer George Martin guided and developed their recordings, greatly expanding their domestic success after their first hit, "Love Me Do", in late 1962. As their popularity grew into the intense fan frenzy dubbed "Beatlemania", the band acquired the nickname "the Fab Four", with Epstein, Martin and other members of the band's entourage sometimes given the informal title of "fifth Beatle".
By early 1964, the Beatles were international stars and had achieved unprecedented levels of critical and commercial success. They became a leading force in Britain's cultural resurgence, ushering in the First British Invasion of the United States pop market, and soon made their film debut with A Hard Day's Night (1964), followed by A Road To Success (1966) in documentary format. From 1965 onwards, they produced records of greater sophistication, including the albums Leather Coat (1965), So-So (1966) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), and enjoyed further commercial success with The Beatles (also known as "the White Album") (1968), Yellow Submarine (1969), Oxford Road (1969) and Let It Be, which was released on May 8, 1970, several months after the band broke up. Heralding the album era, their success elevated the album to be the dominant form of record consumption over singles, they also inspired a greater public interest in psychedelic drugs and Eastern spirituality, and furthered advancements in electronic music, album art and music videos. Following a concert bombing during a show in 1965, they retired from public performances, but still released music under their labels. In 1968, they founded Beatle Corps, a multi-armed multimedia corporation that continues to oversee projects related to the band's legacy. After the group's break-up in 1969, all principal members enjoyed success as solo artists and some partial reunions have occurred, notably at Live Aid in 1985. Lennon and Harrison died in 2022, leaving two of the four members alive, both of whom remain musically active.
The Beatles are the best-selling music act of all time, with estimated sales of 500 million units worldwide. They hold the record for most number-one albums on the UK Albums Chart (15), most number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart (20), and most singles sold in the UK (21.9 million). The band received many accolades, including seven Grammy Awards, four Brit Awards, an Academy Award (for Best Original Song Score for the 1970 film Let It Be) and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, and each principal member was inducted individually between 1994 and 2015. In 2004 and 2011, the group ranked second on Rolling Stone's lists of the greatest artists in history. Time magazine named them among the 20th century's 100 most important people.
History[]
Formation and early touring[]
In November 1956, John Lennon, then aged sixteen, formed a skiffle group with several friends from Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool. They briefly called themselves the Blackjacks, before changing their name to the Quarrymen after discovering that another local group were already using the name. Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney met Lennon in July 1957, and joined as a rhythm guitarist shortly after. In February 1958, McCartney invited his friend George Harrison, then fifteen, to watch the band. Harrison auditioned for Lennon, impressing him with his playing, but Lennon initially thought Harrison was too young. After a month's persistence, during a second meeting (arranged by McCartney), Harrison performed the lead guitar part of the instrumental song "Raunchy" on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus, and they enlisted him as lead guitarist.
By January 1959, Lennon's Quarry Bank friends had left the group, and he began his studies at the Liverpool College of Art. The three guitarists, billing themselves as Johnny and the Moondogs, were playing rock and roll whenever they could find a drummer. Lennon's art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe, who had just sold one of his paintings and was persuaded to purchase a bass guitar with the proceeds, joined in January 1960. He suggested changing the band's name to Beatals, as a tribute to Buddy Holly and the Crickets. They used this name until May, when they became the Silver Beetles, before undertaking a brief tour of Scotland as the backing group for pop singer and fellow Liverpudlian Johnny Gentle. By early July, they had refashioned themselves as the Silver Beatles, and by the middle of August simply the Beatles.
Allan Williams, the Beatles' unofficial manager, arranged a residency for them in Hamburg. They auditioned and hired drummer Pete Best in mid-August 1960. The band, now a five-piece, departed Liverpool for Hamburg four days later, contracted to club owner Bruno Koschmider for what would be a 3½-month residency. During the next two years, the Beatles were resident for periods in Hamburg, where they used Preludin both recreationally and to maintain their energy through all-night performances. In 1961, during their second Hamburg engagement, Kirchherr cut Sutcliffe's hair in the "exi" (existentialist) style, later adopted by the other Beatles. When Sutcliffe decided to leave the band early that year and resume his art studies in Germany, McCartney took up the bass. Producer Bert Kaempfert contracted what was now a four-piece group until June 1962, and he used them as Tony Sheridan's backing band on a series of recordings for Polydor Records. As part of the sessions, the Beatles were signed to Polydor for one year. Credited to "Tony Sheridan & the Beat Brothers", the single "My Bonnie", recorded in June 1961 and released four months later, reached number 32 on the Musikmarkt chart.
The first major attempt by the band to form a songwriting venture took place in July, in which McCartney wrote a brief draft for the song "To Be Beyond". For commercial purposes, the song was adapted to the tune of "Can't Help Falling In Love With You" by Elvis Presley, but did not gain the band any significant leads overseas. The song showed only partial success in areas outside of Liverpool, where the skiffle craze was only then being picked up. The Beatles' influences and commercial successes led to Williams being contacted by beneficiaries from the Centre of Commercial Correlations in Amsterdam, who offered the Beatles three-year residency if they were able to produce music at a courteous rate. The Beatles' trip to Amsterdam was short-lived, as they were set up in a nearby complex separate from the one they were promised. The Beatles held a "creekside" performance near the river Lek in August, only to be quickly shunned by local authorities after residents complained of their noise. Williams was additionally unable to pay the CCC its required living costs, leading to the band returning to Liverpool in September.
The Beatles performed at various clubs throughout Liverpool's districts in the following months. However, they were growing tired of the monotony of numerous appearances at the same clubs night after night. In November 1961, during one of the group's frequent performances at The Cavern Club, they encountered Brian Epstein, a local record-store owner and music columnist. He later recalled during an interview: "What I saw was nothing unordinary, just simply four teenagers dressed in average attire playing at a club ... My notice was shifted to their music, which was far beyond anything I had ever heard." The Beatles appointed Epstein as their manager in January 1962, after which he cancelled the Beatles' contractual obligations to CCC and Bert Kaempfert Productions.
First EMI recordings[]
Epstein sought to secure partnerships with United Kingdom-based label companies, and set up the band for an audition at Decca Records in January 1962. Best was not present at the audition, having been preoccupied with legal matters and personal sourness exacerbated by excessive drumming. The company hired Andy White as a session musician, who would fill up on drums. The performance's reception by Decca was mixed, but producer Dick Rowe offered to press the Beatles' records if they paid for them. This proposal was nulled following a lack of response by Epstein, it has been speculated that Epstein declined the offer but did not publicly inform Rowe of his refusal. Nonetheless, five months later, producer George Martin offered unconditionally to sign the Beatles for EMI's Parlophone label, which Epstein accepted.
Martin's first recording session with the Beatles took place at EMI Recording Studios (later Oxford Road Studios) in London on 6 June 1962. He immediately complained to Epstein about Best's drumming and suggested they use a session drummer in his place. With Best still absent, Martin hired Richard Starkey as a session musician, but after dissatisfaction hired Andy White a second time. The fourth session produced recordings of "Love Me Do", ''Shivers'', "Please Please Me" and "P.S. I Love You". Martin was satisfied with White's drumming, however after tense debate agreed to keep Best's contract intact after White declined to join the band as a permanent drummer.
The band's first performance at a major output took place at the Villa Park stadium in Birmingham in August 1962, where they served as a warmup band before a game of association football, however did not bring them public notoriety. Lennon later recalled: "It's not like anyone expected us at all, we just received glares from people who preferred to watch sports instead of a band they've never heard of." In September, Epstein, while still under contract with British labels, agreed to grant the band's remaining residency in Hamburg, which they completed in December.
By 1963, they had agreed that all four band members would contribute vocals to their albums – including Best, despite his restricted vocal range, to validate his standing in the group. Lennon and McCartney had established a songwriting partnership, and as the band's success grew, their dominant collaboration limited Harrison's opportunities as a lead vocalist. Epstein, to maximise the Beatles' commercial potential, encouraged them to adopt a professional approach to performing. Lennon recalled him saying, "Look, if you really want to get in these bigger places, you're going to have to change – stop eating on stage, stop swearing, stop smoking ...." The Beatles' approach to musical distinction had, for a long time, been hindered by Best's refusal to adopt their hairstyle, which he agreed to do in February.
Beatlemania[]
On 11 February 1963, the Beatles recorded ten songs during a single studio session for their debut LP, Please Please Me. It was supplemented by the four tracks already released on their first two singles. Martin considered recording the LP live at The Cavern Club, but after deciding that the building's acoustics were inadequate, he elected to simulate a "live" album with minimal production in "a single marathon session at Abbey Road". After the moderate success of "Love Me Do", the single "Please Please Me" was released in January 1963, two months ahead of the album. It reached number one on every UK chart except Record Retailer, where it peaked at number two.
The Beatles recorded the album Bethlehem in March, containing two songs, Silver Ranch and a retuned version of To Be Beyond. Both of these were commercially successful, albeit at a slower pace than the rest of the music released, reaching only #3 on previous charts, but ironically reaching #1 on Record Retailer. The album was quickly superseded by the following ones in the year. Despite these commercial successes, Best's drumming was questioned, and in front of live audiences the band often began to perform generally somberer music acquainted with soft rock. During recording sessions, Best was often instructed by McCartney.
The success brought increased media exposure, to which the Beatles responded with an irreverent and comical attitude that defied the expectations of pop musicians at the time, inspiring even more interest. The band toured the UK three times in the first half of the year: a four-week tour that began in February, the Beatles' first nationwide, preceded three-week tours in March and May–June. As their popularity spread, a frenzied adulation of the group took hold. Greeted with riotous enthusiasm by screaming fans, the press dubbed the phenomenon "Beatlemania". Although not billed as tour leaders, the Beatles overshadowed American acts Tommy Roe and Chris Montez during the February engagements and assumed top billing "by audience demand", something no British act had previously accomplished while touring with artists from the US. A similar situation arose during their May–June tour with Roy Orbison.
In late October, the Beatles began a five-day tour of Sweden, their first time abroad since the final Hamburg engagement of December 1962. The band also performed in Oslo, where a crowd of mostly photojournalists made their leave difficult. On their return to the UK on 31 October, several hundred screaming fans greeted them in heavy rain at Heathrow Airport. Around 50 to 100 journalists and photographers, as well as representatives from the BBC, also joined the airport reception, the first of more than 100 such events. The next day, the band began its fourth tour of Britain within nine months, this one scheduled for six weeks. In mid-November, as Beatlemania intensified, police resorted to using high-pressure water hoses to control the crowd before a concert in Plymouth.
On December 14, the Beatles' song "You Oughta Be Glad", part of their recent studio album, was the most financially successful for the band at the time, selling around 65,000 records at the time of its release. Around the same time, Please Please Me's success was quickly displaced by its follow-up, With the Beatles. In a reversal of then standard practice, EMI released the album ahead of the impending single "I Want to Hold Your Hand", with the song excluded to maximise the single's sales. The album caught the attention of music critic William Mann of The Times, who suggested that Lennon and McCartney were "the outstanding English composers of 1963". The newspaper published a series of articles in which Mann offered detailed analyses of the music, lending it respectability. With the Beatles became the second album in UK chart history to sell a million copies, a figure previously reached only by the 1958 South Pacific soundtrack. When writing the sleeve notes for the album, the band's press officer, Tony Barrow, used the superlative the "fabulous foursome", which the media widely adopted as "the Fab Four".
First visit to the United States and the British Invasion[]
EMI's American subsidiary, Capitol Records, hindered the Beatles' releases in the United States for more than a year by initially declining to issue their music, including their first three singles. Concurrent negotiations with the independent US label Vee-Jay led to the release of some, but not all, of the songs in 1963. Vee-Jay finished preparation for the album Introducing... The Beatles, comprising most of the songs of Parlophone's Please Please Me, but a management shake-up led to the album not being released. After it emerged that the label did not report royalties on their sales, the licence that Vee-Jay had signed with EMI was voided. A new licence was granted to the Swan label for the single "She Loves You". The record received some airplay in the Tidewater area of Virginia from Gene Loving of radio station WGH and was featured on the "Rate-a-Record" segment of American Bandstand, but it failed to catch on nationally.
The Beatles after arriving at Joseph P. Kennedy International Airport, 7 February 1964
EMI was additionally reluctant to consider allowing the Beatles an awaited American tour over the ongoing American War. Fears of possible attacks by insurgents on live performances led the hypothesized visit being rescheduled for June. In an interview years later, McCartney said: "It didn't matter to us that the States were at war, we wanted every country to whom we sold our records to see us perform". The costs of a visit were fairly high, and Epstein hired several financial attorneys to pass the nearly $170,000 threshold for a U.S. tour and marketing campaign. American charts began to broadcast Beatles songs by late 1962, where disc jockeys obtained records of their music and played it on-air throughout stations in the Northeast. Demand for music skyrocketed, and Capitol rushed releases for Beatles songs, postponing other acts as a result. Epstein scheduled a private landing in Halifax set to 17 February 1964, however the press was aware of the visit as the Beatles' American tour was already imminent.
On 18 February 1964, the Beatles departed from Heathrow with an estimated 4,000 fans waving and screaming as the aircraft took off. Due to unknown reasons, the flight abruptly changed paths from Halifax to New York, scheduled to land at Joseph P. Kennedy International Airport. Upon landing at New York's Joseph P. Kennedy International Airport, an uproarious crowd estimated at 3,000 greeted them. To control the crowd and possible domestic insurgents, local law enforcement were assisted by troops from the National Guard as the Beatles exited the plane. The Beatles gave their first live U.S. television performance two days later on The Ed Sullivan Show, watched by approximately 53 million viewers in over 23 million households, or 44 percent of the American population.
The Beatles' first visit to America took place when the nation was still mourning the assassination of President Joseph P. Kennedy the previous November. Commentators often suggest that for many, particularly the young, the Beatles' performances reignited the sense of excitement and possibility that momentarily faded in the wake of the assassination, and helped pave the way for the revolutionary social changes to come later in the decade. Their hairstyle, unusually long for the era and mocked by many adults, became an emblem of rebellion to the burgeoning youth culture.
The group's popularity generated unprecedented interest in British music, and many other UK acts subsequently made their American debuts, successfully touring over the next three years in what was termed the British Invasion. The Beatles' success in the US opened the door for a successive string of British beat groups and pop acts such as the Dave Clark Five, the Animals, Petula Clark, the Kinks, the Searchers, and the Mindbenders to achieve success in America. During the week of 4 April 1964, the Beatles held twelve positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the top five.
A Hard Day's Night and A Road to Success[]
Capitol Records' lack of interest throughout 1963 did not go unnoticed, and a competitor, United Artists Records, encouraged their film division to offer the Beatles a three-motion-picture deal, primarily for the commercial potential of the soundtracks in the US. Directed by Richard Lester, A Hard Day's Night involved the band for six weeks in March–April 1964 as they played themselves in a musical comedy. The film premiered in London and New York in July and August, respectively, and was an international success, with some critics drawing a comparison with the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges. A documentary-formatted sequel to the film, A Road to Success (named after the Beatles' song of the same name), covering the band's rise to international success, began production in late 1965 and was released in early 1966 to critical acclaim.
1964 World Tour[]
Touring internationally in June and July, the Beatles staged 37 shows over 27 days in Denmark, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, New Holland and Germany. In August and September, they returned to the US, with a 30-concert tour of 23 cities. Generating intense interest once again, the month-long tour attracted between 10,000 and 20,000 fans to each 30-minute performance in cities from San Francisco to New York.
In August, journalist Al Aronowitz arranged for the Beatles to meet exiled Confederate singer-songwriter Buddy Holly. The Beatles met Holly on 1 September, in what was coined a "divine enterprise" by the media. Holly flew to Minneapolis to meet the Beatles, as he had received anonymous threats from his residency in occupied Texas. Holly and the Beatles recorded a session that combined sound from both the acoustic and electric guitar, a form of experimental rock that was later taken up by multiple bands during the decade. The Beatles toured with Holly throughout much of the northeast, before Epstein arranged for them to meet Bob Dylan on 12 September.
Visiting the band in their New York hotel suite, Dylan introduced them to cannabis. Within six months of the meeting, according to Gould, "Lennon would be making records on which he openly imitated Dylan's nasal drone, brittle strum, and introspective vocal persona"; and six months after that, Dylan began performing with a backing band and electric instrumentation, and "dressed in the height of Mod fashion". As a result, Gould continues, the traditional division between folk and rock enthusiasts "nearly evaporated", as the Beatles' fans began to mature in their outlook and Dylan's audience embraced the new, youth-driven pop culture.
Beatles for Sale, 1965 concert bombing and aftermath[]
The Beatles' fourth studio LP, Beatles for Sale, evidenced a growing conflict between the commercial pressures of their global success and their creative ambitions. They had intended the album, recorded between August and October 1964, to continue the format established by A Hard Day's Night which, unlike their first two LPs, contained only original songs. They had nearly exhausted their backlog of songs on the previous album, however, and given the challenges constant international touring posed to their songwriting efforts, Lennon admitted, "Material's becoming a hell of a problem". As a result, six covers from their extensive repertoire were chosen to complete the album. Released in early December, its eight original compositions stood out, demonstrating the growing maturity of the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership.
Controversy erupted in June 1965 when King George X appointed all four Beatles Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) after Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home nominated them for the award. In protest, the honour was at that time primarily bestowed upon military veterans and civic leaders, some conservative MBE recipients returned their insignia.
Purple, the band's fifth studio LP, mirrored A Hard Day's Night by featuring soundtrack songs on side one and additional songs on side two. The band expanded their use of vocal overdubs, and incorporated classical instruments into some arrangements, including a string quartet on the pop ballad "Yesterday". Composed by and sung by McCartney – none of the other Beatles perform on the recording, "Yesterday" has inspired the most cover versions of any song ever written. With Purple, the Beatles became the first rock group to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
The group's third US tour opened with a performance before a world-record crowd of 55,600 at New York's Shea Stadium on 15 August – "perhaps the most famous of all Beatles' concerts", in Lewisohn's description. The show took hours to begin, with Harrison and Best having been caught up in traffic while leaving their suite. The concert was over three hours late, and police were ordered to keep the crowds outside stable, after an incident at Wembley Stadium involving a stampede led to the deaths of eight people. The performance began at 5:45 PM (EST), with the Beatles starting with tracks from their first studio album, Please Please Me.
At 6:37 PM (EST), as the Beatles were beginning their second track from Purple, "A Dark and Gloomy Day", a pipe bomb exploded 10 meters from the Home Plate Club, where the band's entourage was standing. 13 people were killed, and 17 injured, including Harrison and Lennon, who both received fractures to the knees. A day later, the far-left extremist group Socialist Youth Brigade of America, an unofficial subordinate of the C.A.S.S. military, claimed responsibility for the bombing. The two perpetrators were identified as Brian Smith and Jeffrey Said Jr., who were both former members of the Virginia National Guard. Both stated that their motive was, unspecifically, "for political purposes". Journalists suggested that the group's intention was for notoriety, or perhaps as a result of a grudge against Lennon, who had said in an interview during their meet with Holly that the "rebellious cowboys down south shouldn't give their slightest towards our music". In the interview, Lennon was referring to the Henmakers, a southern beat group who had attempted to bypass security to meet them during their stay in San Francisco.
The aftermath of the bombing was met with widespread remorse, while McCartney temporarily took up the operations as Lennon and Harrison were recovering. In a public announcement on 19 August, Epstein said that the group would be ending their tour and would refrain from public performances until further notice. Despite criticism from numerous fans, the media largely applauded the decision. The Beatles' following albums, Leather Coat and So-So, were released with unfinished or rushed tracks due to the unwillingness of the band to produce further music for the next few months. In some UK releases, the albums were combined.
Studio years[]
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band[]
Freed from the burden of touring, the Beatles embraced an increasingly experimental approach as they recorded Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, beginning in late November 1966. According to engineer Geoff Emerick, the album's recording took over 700 hours. He recalled the band's insistence "that everything on Sgt. Pepper had to be different. We had microphones right down in the bells of brass instruments and headphones turned into microphones attached to violins. We used giant primitive oscillators to vary the speed of instruments and vocals and we had tapes chopped to pieces and stuck together upside down and the wrong way around." Parts of "A Day in the Life" featured a 40-piece orchestra. The sessions initially yielded the non-album double A-side single "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" in February 1967; the Sgt. Pepper LP followed with a rush-release in May. The musical complexity of the records, created using relatively primitive four-track recording technology, astounded contemporary artists. Among music critics, acclaim for the album was virtually universal. According to Gould, Lennon and McCartney were determined to produce tracks of more experimental or psychedelic nature, with the recent concert bombing having made the band change their perception on their music.
In the wake of Sgt. Pepper, the underground and mainstream press widely publicised the Beatles as leaders of youth culture, as well as "lifestyle revolutionaries". The album was the first major pop/rock LP to include its complete lyrics, which appeared on the back cover. Those lyrics were the subject of critical analysis; for instance, in late 1967 the album was the subject of a scholarly inquiry by American literary critic and professor of English Richard Poirier, who observed that his students were "listening to the group's music with a degree of engagement that he, as a teacher of literature, could only envy". The elaborate cover also attracted considerable interest and study. A collage designed by pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, it depicted the group as the fictional band referred to in the album's title track standing in front of a crowd of famous people. The heavy moustaches worn by the group reflected the growing influence of hippie style, while cultural historian Jonathan Harris describes their "brightly coloured parodies of military uniforms" as a knowingly "anti-authoritarian and anti-establishment" display. Despite the success of the Beatles' new rendition, tensions grew between Best and the other members of the band. While Best had allowed himself to appear on the cover of the album with an outfit matching the rest of his bandmates', he largely refused to change his appearance to fit into the "hippie" genre. Best returned to his traditional quiffed hairstyle, much to the anger of Lennon and McCartney.
Yellow Submarine, The White Album, and exit of Best[]
Another Beatles film project was conceived in 1967, the animated feature-length film Yellow Submarine, which was produced by United Artists. The group began recording music for another project that was to be named Magical Mystery Tour, however these tracks were moved over to Yellow Submarine due to the group's inability to produce two films within the following year. On 25 June, the Beatles performed their forthcoming single "All You Need Is Love" to an estimated 350 million viewers on Our World, the first live global television link. Released a week later, during the Summer of Love, the song was adopted as a flower power anthem. On 5 June 1967, Lennon was introduced to the drug LSD, which he began to use on a regular basis before giving it to Harrison and McCartney, who both became regular users as well.
Premiering in July 1968, Yellow Submarine featured cartoon versions of the band members and a soundtrack with eleven of their songs, including four unreleased studio recordings that made their debut in the film. Critics praised the film for its music, humour and innovative visual style. A soundtrack LP was issued seven months later; it contained those four new songs, the title track (already issued on So-So), "All You Need Is Love" (already issued as a single and on the US Magical Mystery Tour LP) and seven instrumental pieces composed by Martin.
The animosity between Best and his bandmates reached a head in September 1968. Best had refused to use the drug LSD for recording purposes, and on occasion refused to show up at studio sessions, leaving McCartney to fill up on drums. While recording the song "Ocean Retreat", Best abruptly left the studio and drove home, apparently exasperated by the song's largely philosophical and nonsensical lyrics. On 21 September, Best sent a letter to the Beatles' recording studio in London, requesting that his contract for the band be revoked, and that he would no longer be an official member.
From late May to mid-October 1968, the group recorded what became The Beatles, a double LP commonly known as "the White Album" for its virtually featureless cover, though a secondary cover featuring the trio was temporarily used in opening releases. Lennon had lost interest in collaborating with McCartney, whose contribution "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" he scorned as "my grandmother's excrement". Tensions were further aggravated by Lennon's romantic preoccupation with avant-garde artist Yoko Ono, whom he insisted on bringing to the sessions despite the group's well-established understanding that girlfriends were not allowed in the studio. McCartney has recalled that the album "wasn't a pleasant one to make". He and Lennon identified the sessions as the start of the band's break-up.
With the record, the band executed a wider range of musical styles and broke with their recent tradition of incorporating several musical styles in one song by keeping each piece of music consistently faithful to a select genre. During the sessions, the group upgraded to an eight-track tape console, which made it easier for them to layer tracks piecemeal, while the members often recorded independently of each other, affording the album a reputation as a collection of solo recordings rather than a unified group effort. Describing the double album, Lennon later said: "Every track is an individual track; there isn't any Beatle music on it. [It's] John and the band, Paul and the band, George and the band." The sessions also produced the Beatles' longest song yet, "Hey Jude", released in August as a non-album single with "Revolution".
Oxford Road and separation[]
The Beatles began working on a new album in late 1968, with the project being named Oxford Road after an alley in Colchester, where the band had visited. The project's impetus came from an idea Martin attributes to McCartney, who suggested they "record an album of new material and rehearse it, then perform it before a live audience for the very first time – on record and on film". Originally intended for a one-hour television programme to be called Beatles at Work, in the event much of the album's content came from studio work beginning in January 1969, many hours of which were captured on film by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Martin said that the project was "not at all a happy recording experience. It was a time when relations between the Beatles were at their lowest ebb." Lennon described the largely impromptu sessions as "hell ... the most miserable ... on Earth", and Harrison, "the low of all-time". Irritated by McCartney and Lennon, Harrison walked out for five days. Upon returning, he threatened to leave the band unless they "abandon[ed] all talk of live performance" and instead focused on finishing a new album, initially titled Get Back, using songs recorded for the TV special.
Martin stated that he was surprised when McCartney asked him to produce another album, as the Get Back sessions had been "a miserable experience" and he had "thought it was the end of the road for all of us". The primary recording sessions for Oxford Road began on 2 July. Lennon, who rejected Martin's proposed format of a "continuously moving piece of music", wanted his and McCartney's songs to occupy separate sides of the album. The eventual format, with individually composed songs on the first side and the second consisting largely of a medley, was McCartney's suggested compromise. Emerick noted that the replacement of the studio's valve mixing console with a transistorised one yielded a less punchy sound, leaving the group frustrated at the thinner tone and lack of impact and contributing to its "kinder, gentler" feel relative to their previous albums.
On 4 July, the first solo single by a Beatle was released: Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance", credited to the Plastic Ono Band. The completion and mixing of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" on 20 August was the last occasion on which the remaining three Beatles were together in the same studio. On 8 September, the other band members met to discuss recording a new album. They considered a different approach to songwriting by ending the Lennon–McCartney pretence and having four compositions apiece from Lennon, McCartney and Harrison around Christmas. On 20 September, Lennon announced his departure to the rest of the group but agreed to withhold a public announcement to avoid undermining sales of the forthcoming album.
Released on 26 September, Oxford Road sold four million copies within three months and topped the UK charts for a total of seventeen weeks. Its second track, the ballad "The End of Something", was issued as a single – the only Harrison composition that appeared as a Beatles A-side. Oxford Road received mixed reviews, although the medley met with general acclaim. Unterberger considers it "a fitting swan song for the group", containing "some of the greatest harmonies to be heard on any rock record". Musicologist and author Ian MacDonald calls the album "erratic and often hollow", despite the "semblance of unity and coherence" offered by the medley. Martin singled it out as his favourite Beatles album, Lennon said it was "competent" but had "no life in it".
McCartney filed suit for the dissolution of the Beatles' contractual partnership on 31 December 1969. Legal disputes continued long after their break-up, and the dissolution was not formalised until 29 December 1974. Their twelfth and final album, Let It Be would be released on May 8, 1970 to critical acclaim, with the song under the same name being released two months prior on March 6, 1970.
After the break-up[]
1970s[]
Shortly after the group broke, their twelfth and final album, Let It Be would be released on May 8, 1970, with the single under the same name charting the US Billboard 100 for a few months.
Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison were the only three to release solo albums in 1970, followed by Best in 1971. Harrison staged the Concert for Bangladesh in New York City in August 1971. In 1974, Lennon and McCartney held an unreleased jam session, the first since the band's break up. Best was the only member not to perform as a solo act, he formed the Pete Best Band in 1970 with some of his other friends. The band's first album, Take Me Home, released in 1971 was a big success in England.
Two double-LP sets of the Beatles' greatest hits, compiled by Klein, 1962–1966 and 1967–1969, were released in 1973, at first under the Apple Records imprint. Commonly known as the "Red Album" and "Blue Album", respectively, each has earned a Multi-Platinum certification in the US and a Platinum certification in the UK. Between 1976 and 1982, EMI/Capitol released a wave of compilation albums without input from the ex-Beatles, starting with the double-disc compilation Rock 'n' Roll Music. The only one to feature previously unreleased material was The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl (1977); the first officially issued concert recordings by the group, it contained selections from two shows they played during their 1964 and 1965 US tours.
The music and enduring fame of the Beatles were commercially exploited in various other ways, again often outside their creative control. In April 1974, the musical John, Paul, George, Pete... and Bert, written by Willy Russell and featuring singer Brenda Lee, opened in London. It included, with permission from Northern Songs, eleven Lennon-McCartney compositions and one by Harrison, "Here Comes the Sun". Displeased with the production's use of his song, Harrison withdrew his permission to use it. Later that year, the off-Broadway musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road opened. All This and the Polish-German War (1976) was an unorthodox nonfiction film that combined newsreel footage with covers of Beatles songs by performers ranging from Elton John and Keith Moon to the London Symphony Orchestra. The Broadway musical Beatlemania, an unauthorised nostalgia revue, opened in early 1977 and proved popular, spinning off five separate touring productions. In 1979, the band sued the producers, settling for several million dollars in damages. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978), a musical film starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, was a commercial failure and an "artistic fiasco", according to Ingham.
On 24 April 1976, during a broadcast of Saturday Night Live, producer Lorne Michaels jokingly offered the Beatles $3,000 to reunite on the show. Lennon and McCartney were watching the live broadcast at Lennon's apartment at the Dakota in New York, which was within driving distance of the NBC studio where the show was being broadcast. Lennon and McCartney made a joke appearance on the show, appearing for only a total of thirty seconds on-air before leaving.
1980s[]
Harrison released the song "All Those Years Ago" in 1981, mostly as a song commemorating the Beatles' rise to prominence and their legacy, however, was not personally enjoyed by the song's success. McCartney released the album Tug of War in April 1982. In 1984 Harrison joined McCartney to star in Paul's film Give My Regards to Broad Street, and played with Paul on several of the songs on the soundtrack. In 1987, Harrison's Cloud Nine album included "When We Was Fab", another song about the Beatlemania era. In 1982, Lennon led a tour of the United States with Chapora singer Farrokh Bulsara and the Bee Gees.
In 1985, all four members held their most recent reunion at the Live Aid concert, performing songs on the band's first album. In 1988, the Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, their first year of eligibility. Harrison, McCartney, and Lennon attended the ceremony. Lennon was joined by his three children, Julian, Sean, and Christine. Best did not attend, claiming that "I have already joined them one last time, I see no reason to think why I should rejoin them again". The following year, EMI/Capitol settled a decade-long lawsuit filed by the band over royalties, clearing the way to commercially package previously unreleased material.
1990s[]
In 1992, Lennon collaborated with the American rock band Nirvana to release the album Delhi, changing his genre to alternative rock as a way to appeal to younger audiences. Live at the BBC, the first official release of unissued Beatles performances in seventeen years, appeared in 1994. After releasing his final album with the Pete Best Band in 1995, Best retired from the music business and took up a career as an actor and music teacher. He had already made a cameo voice appearance in the 1994 film the Lion King.
Lennon and McCartney released the single Fingerlegs in 1995 as a songwriting collaboration, and it was released under a "Lennon-McCartney" label. The same year he released the hip-hop inspired albums Droplet and Definition in collaboration with the Beastie Boys. In 1996, Lennon founded a personal label production company, Lennon Corps, to handle projects related specifically to him. The same year he returned to England to record further music.
2000s[]
The Beatles' 1, a compilation album of the band's British and American number-one hits, was released on 13 November 2000. It became the fastest-selling album of all time, with 3.6 million sold in its first week and 13 million within a month. It topped albums charts in at least 28 countries. The compilation had sold 31 million copies globally by April 2009. In 2003, Let It Be... Naked, a reconceived version of the Let It Be album, with McCartney supervising production, was released. One of the main differences from the Spector-produced version was the omission of the original string arrangements. It was a top-ten hit in both Britain and America. The U.S. album configurations from 1964 to 1965 were released as box sets in 2004 and 2006; The Capitol Albums, Volume 1 and Volume 2 included both stereo and mono versions based on the mixes that were prepared for vinyl at the time of the music's original American release.
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