The Beatles Expert Article Final
The Beatles: How a
Band Revolutionized Music and The Music Industry Forever
https://liveforlivemusic.com/news/beatles-abbey-road/
The
Beatles are the greatest band of all time. Does this sound like a controversial
statement? Let me prove it to you. Despite the fact that The Beatles created a
universally appealing and uplifting sound they are also credited with changing
the way in which music is recorded and published today. John, Paul, George and
Ringo were able to revolutionize the music industry and many of the ways in
which you listen to music, can be linked back to innovations that The Beatles
pioneered. The Beatles have remained relevant to this day with re-releases of
their remastered music as well as performances like the Cirque du Soleil “Love”
show in Las Vegas. The Beatles continue to be the greatest band of all time and
here are the top reasons why! But first some quick stats
Some Quick Stats
1.6 Billion
– Number of
Beatles singles sold in the US
600 million
– Records sold worldwide
1,278
– Number of weeks
The Beatles spent on Billboard charts
132
– Weeks The
Beatles spent at No. 1 in the US
20
– Number of No. 1
singles on the Billboard Hot 100 List
1. Quantity and Quality
We’ve all
heard the phrase “quality over quantity” right? Well this simply did not apply
to The Beatles and over their ten years in the spotlight they accomplished a
lot. While most artists typically take about two and a half years to complete
an album, The Beatles were recording two records a year. That’s a lot of recording. They were continually producing
hit after hit and often competed against their owns songs within the Billboard
charts. Although there are many factors that played into this success a key
part of it was the writing partnerships between John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
As mentioned in the sub title of an article in The Atlantic “the famous partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney
demonstrates the brilliance of creative pairs.” They each brought their individual
strengths to the relationship which made their partnership such a success and
as Hunter Davies put it “both had a literary bent, read widely, appreciated
good writing, knew exactly what they did like” which only added to their
success. While their songs and sound have transcended generations, the band was
really only famous and active for about seven years. Considering this
relatively brief time as an active band what they were able to accomplish is
even more impressive.
2. Sound
engineering
Sound
engineering is an integral part of music production and if it is done well the
audience is completely unaware of it. Sound engineers are tasked with managing
the technical side of recording music to make sure that music producers and
musicians are happy with how their music sounds as a recording. One of the most
notable and widely used recording techniques pioneered by The Beatles is called
superimposition – which is essentially
recording over an original take in order to enhance the sound quality. Today
superimposition can easily be done with the help of editing software, but in
the days of The Beatles it was manually done by recording a take and then
playing back that take while attempting to perfectly match your own recording. Another
major recording tool that The Beatles pioneered was the use of found and
sampled sounds to enhance the quality of the music. As one Los Angeles Times
article said The Beatles “helped ferry found and sampled sound into
contemporary popular music, where those innovations have resided every since.” For
example, the use of water sounds and horns in “The Yellow Submarine” helped
create a more robust sound and story for the song.
3. Music
Videos
Before The
Beatles the concept of an orchestrated music video did not exist. The idea of
music video as stand-alone films was pioneered by The Beatles mostly as a way
to ease up their hectic schedules. By sending TV shows tapes of their
orchestrated and produced performances they didn’t actually have the need to
travel to be in studio just to play a few songs. In an effort to save time and
energy they created a key piece of music making today. Today music videos are a
crucial promotional tool for artists but in the days of The Beatles music
videos were a totally new concept.
4. Universal
Likeability
Everyone
likes The Beatles. Have you ever met someone you legitimately hates The
Beatles? With simple lyrics and catchy tunes The Beatles were able to relate to
everyone. Their early lyrics often addressed the common denominator of the audience
with “you” “me” “she” and “love.” Words like these were often relatable to all those
who listened and thus made them popular and relatable. Since their early songs
were relatively vague in subject, audience members were able to relate the
songs to their own lives. Their music has been able to transcend generations because
their upbeat simple lyrics mean something to everyone. For example the lyrics
in “From Me To You” are general enough that anyone can take their experiences
and plug them into the song so they have more relevance.
For all
these reasons and many more The Beatles are by far the greatest of all time.
Works Cited
Davies,
Hunter. "Perfect storm." New Statesman, 22 Aug. 2014, p.
26+. Literature Resource
Center, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A382083661/LitRC?u=usocal_main&sid=LitRC&xid=efa1104f.
Accessed 6 Feb. 2018.
News, CBS.
“The Beatles, by the numbers.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 2 Feb.
2014, www.cbsnews.com/news/the-beatles-by-the-numbers/.
Roberts,
Randall. “How George Martin's studio tricks and innovations changed pop
music.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 9 Mar. 2016,
www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-how-george-martin-studio-tricks-beatles-changed-pop-music-20160309-story.html.
Shenk,
Joshua Wolf. “The Power of Two.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media
Company, 21 Aug. 2015, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/07/the-power-of-two/372289/.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc1-W4KsHvE
- “From Me To You” video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2uTFF_3MaA
- “Yellow Submarine” video
Hey Genevieve! First of all, I love The Beatles so I'm glad you chose to write about them! I agree with your "Things to work on" section with adding more concrete examples - I was thinking also including some pictures/music videos? I liked the first and second-level headlines and how you categorized the different reasons why they're the best band. There were some grammatical errors:
ReplyDelete1.) "The Beatles created a universally appealing and uplifting sound, they are also credited with changing the way in which music is recorded and published today" (comma placement)
2.) "Many of the ways in which you listen to music and experience new musicians" (omit comma)
The rest are just comma placements but otherwise great article!!
Hey Genevieve. Love the topic. Definitely a great way to blend your love of music and the Beatles with a discussion of how they impacted the music industry! I know you've only just started, but I would maybe go a little more into your "universal likability" topic. Do you have any examples of this? What exactly do you mean by this? Maybe you can do some research and find something on the wide range of demographics that have purchased their albums and songs.
ReplyDeleteHey Genevieve, the Beatles are a great band and your article helps explain why. Your headline is very inviting and explains what the whole article is about. The stats are a nice touch and from the beginning convince me of the Beatles success.
ReplyDeleteHi Genevieve! The Beatles is a spectacular band and I was so happy to read about all the revolutionary changes they brought to the music industry. I liked how you began the article with some quick statistics. I think it’d be helpful for the readers to gain a broader perspective on how these statistics compare to other popular bands by adding in statistics from bands such as the Rolling Stones, U2 etc. I think your subheadings are all clear and concise and easy to follow.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to discussing more about your topic in class tomorrow!