Friday 1 st August

By late ’64 the Beatles had achieved super-stardom.  They could have recorded album after album of popular rock and roll songs by other artists and made millions.  But they strove for something better than that, simply to be the most creative and intelligent group in the world.  And they achieved it.  Their songwriting just got better and better; you can see the progression in albums from Hard Days Night to Revolver.  Studio techniques were evolving too, and they incorporated echo and phasing and multi-tracking and even other musicians into their music.  For many of us these were the truly creative years, each album a seismic improvement on the last.  At the helm was George Martin who pushed the boys to ever greater heights.  Music was suddenly exploding, pirate radio stations, Radio 1, California and new groups were popping up weekly.  The Beatles were like a sponge, they soaked it all up, and re-processed it, all the while retaining that special Beatles feel.

They stopped touring in ’66, and spent more and more time in the studio.  And taking drugs too.  The music was starting to become weirder and Sgt. Pepper was just on the horizon….

For me, their coolest record by far is Rubber Soul.  Full of brilliant songs and arrangements it still hangs together as a single snapshot of a time we somehow lost among all that hippy glitter.