subject: The Beatles Mystique Explained [print this page] There was in the news recently an item about remastered Beatles music using the most modern techniques. For Beatles music fans Beatlesmaniacs, as they might call themselves such news will be a very welcome development, for it means they can hear again their favorite musicians. But while such remastering may have rendered the recording of the music in a new format, experts and audiophiles agree that vinyl records and playback systems still reproduce the music better than any digital recording. Excellent playback is what recording music all about, most especially for such music as those of the Beatles.
A group of four that started in Liverpool, England, the Beatles began in early 1960's to grow into one of musicland's greatest phenomena if not the greatest for all time. Beginning with songs of simple melodies but in tune with the rock and roll genre at the time, the Beatles went into almost experimental music made with various instruments and gadgets, including a box of thumb tacks shaken close in front of the microphone. Sitar music in that haunting philosophic song "Within You, Without You" was a quintessential example of their departure from mainline music making.
The Beatles captured a whole generation. Years after the group's break-up youngsters were still cottoning to the music, and even 30-year olds felt the thrill though only remembering, during the Beatlefest 1974 in Brooklyn, New York. But what made them tick? What caused tennyboppers and bobbysoxers to scream with all their might on seeing them? What made them capture the American audience prior to landing in the US? In the words of an American teenager when the group went on their first US tour and appeared in the Ed Sullivan Show, "They were different".
Their music was different. American pop or R&R singers at the time were dishing out music with an almost single mood and color, by their melodies and by their rhythm. They were homogenous, so to speak, and stereotyped. But not the Beatles, who incorporated instrumental sounds unheard of in pop music at the time, such as the oboe, the flute, and sitar, even full orchestra overdubbings. Instrumental utilization is exemplified by the piano (Martha, My Dear), brass (Sgt.Pepper's), trumpet (Penny Lane), the flute (Fool On The Hill), the sitar cited above and plenty of others.
They had poetry and philosophy rolled together. Whereas other singers talk of unrequited love in a million versions, the Beatles talked about love differently in "Because", "I'm Only Sleeping", "Two of Us", and "I Will" as examples. Even faith, later, in the classic "Let It Be" and "Within You, Without You". Social commentaries "Eleanor Rigby", "She's Leaving Home", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Nowhere Man" showed the different aspects of life and how they affect each one of us.
They were counterculture, almost anyway, shown in "Taxman", "Mother Nature's Son", "Revolution" and "A Day in the Life", and of course their mopheads. But actually it is because they came when the world was ready for them, bringing the kind of music that was different.
Remastered Beatles songs? Great! If only for nostalgia.
