Saw this on my current favourite meeja blog, and thought of the Beatles-loving Massive. I figured some of you may enjoy the crunching of the numbers:

http://www.beehivecity.com/music/another-hard-days-night-for-all-hands-a...

I stumbled on this on Youtube. It's amazing how something so wrong can be so right

Filmed shortly after George walked out on the other three after either (depending on which story you believe)
a) the famous argument with Macca on how he should or should not play guitar, or
b) a less-publicized fist fight with Lennon behind closed doors.

Yoko goes over to sit in George's chair - check out her grin at about 20 seconds in - its almost as if she's thinking "one down, two to go"...

I’m curious about the Massive’s favourite artists - in particular any artists that I have yet to discover . I have a top 5 and I’m going to throw in another fifteen (see first comment for full list)
Also - if you had to pick just one artist as your absolute favourite, who would it be?

The Jam
The Clash (today, the answer is The Clash)
The Beatles
David Bowie
The Smiths

If you were to list your most played albums, would this differ greatly from what you would declare as your all time favourites. This is my "Top Played" list and of course it is skewed towards albums of the last century as I have had much more time to play them!
There are certain albums that I would not have thought of listing as my favourites! OVER TO THE MASSIVE.....

PINK FLOYD Dark Side Of The Moon 1973
PINK FLOYD The Wall 1979
Jeff BECK There And Back 1980
The BEATLES Beatles "White Album" 1968
SUPERTRAMP Even In The Quietest M. 1977
PINK FLOYD Animals 1977
Steve HARLEY Love's A Prima Donna 1976
David GILMOUR David Gilmour 1978
PINK FLOYD Wish You Were Here 1975
SUPERTRAMP Crisis ? What Crisis ? 1975
Steve HARLEY Timeless Flight 1976
John MARTYN Grace And Danger 1980
GOLDFRAPP Felt Mountain 2000
ROLLING STONES Goat's Head Soup 1973
Judie TZUKE Welcome To The Cruise 1979
Joni MITCHELL Wild Things Run Fast 1982
STEELY DAN Two Against Nature 2000
John MARTYN On The Cobbles 2004
PINK FLOYD Atom Heart Mother 1970
Robert FRIPP Exposure 1979

Before you start wailing, rattling yer sabres and gnashing yer teeth, hear me out...

Gothic: Gloomy or horrifying (OED)

Bob Dylan: Goth; Syd Barrett: Goth; Velvet Underground: Goth... See what I’m getting at?

Forget fashion-sense -I’m not talking about ashen faced, raven-haired, black leather clad snake-bite- swilling, Sisters Of Mercy clones, but that essence of darkness that pervades some of the best music ever made. Think Cry Baby Cry by the Fabs or Lady Eleanor by Lindisfarne, or Famous Blue Raincoat by dear old Lenny Cohen; catch my drift? Minor chords and horizontal melodies that send a glissando down the old spinal xylophone. I’m prepared to call a melody steeped in melancholy & moodiness: Goth.

Got it?

Don’t blame me, blame McCartney. Aside from the fact that Siouxsie & the Banshees covered Helter Skelter on their first LP, his best work has a tinge of the macabre: take Eleanor Rigby. A two-chord triumph of atmosphere and chilling cadences, written over a descending E Dorian chord-sequence (also employed by Brel on My Death and Bowie on After All), I’m prepared to call that Goth. Lennon’s dalliances with The Darkside are well documented. Likewise, the most successful bands of the last 40 years, in spite of the clothes they wear or the genre they inhabit, are essentially, Goth.

Take The Smiths. If Moz & Johnny Marr (my hero) had opted for leather duds (yes, I know they’re veggies, but stay with me on this) and crimped their quiffs, they would’ve been classed as Goth – the music fits the criterion. Marr’s guitar sound wasn’t that far-removed from Bob Smith’s on the Cure’s Seventeen Seconds LP. U2‘s (love ‘em or hate ‘em, they conquered the world) primary influence (check Boy & October) was my beloved Joy Division, a band so dark, light couldn't escape their surface. So we come to New Order, a band who went on to inject a hefty dose of doom & gloom into dance music - which leads us nicely to hip-hop: Portishead, Massive Attack, both as Gothic as get-out. Pixies, Nirvana, Radiohead: Goth, Goth, Goth.

REM’s Fables of the Reconstruction; PIL’s Metal Box...Dark Side of the Moon, Rumours, Tilt...

I could go on and on, but I’m sure to be burned as a witch...

I know, 'not the Beatles again'.

My question is simple but I'm not sure how the answer can be qualified.

Were the Beatles' reissues from last year successful?
Much fuss was made of them but every time I went into my local HMV the pile of copies there didn't seem to be shifting too quickly, and I know I didn't buy one.

Did they sell out of the Mono box?
Was it a limited edition?

Have Apple made any comments as to the programme's success?

That's all.

Over the years I've read and re-read Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head to the point where I know certain bits of it off by heart. I want to find out a bit more about how the songs were put together and recorded. Can anyone recommend any other good Beatle books along those lines? I've seen the The Beatles As Musicians books recommended elsewhere, but my grasp of musical theory is zero and I gather you have to be fairly well up on that stuff to get the most of them (plus they're very expensive on Amazon). Any other suggestions?

In 1980 my parents bought me both volumes of The HJH's 'Rock and Music' compilation on cassette. These were released on the budget 'Music For Pleasure' label as a sort of poor mans Red & Blue album but what an interesting way to discover the 'Yellow Submarine' hitmakers.
No hits, just obscure album tracks and b-sides..but all good stuff.

I think this pretty much shaped my appreciation of music to this day..good job they didn't get me "The Beatles Ballads"

Check volume 2, side 2...a brain frazzling selection for any 7 year old!

Friday night Spotify find -
http://open.spotify.com/album/7iehh77UNP03AllcLAB69M

Found this on youtube

What ave you found on spotify recently?

Caught some of the current R2 Here, There and Everywhere doc and was struck by the ubiquity of the phrase, 'changing the course of history'.

I'm not doubting the influence of The Beatles, but surely everyone influences someone, even in a small way.

I put it to the Massive that all game-changing music acts could conceivably have been replaced by someone else in the event they hadn't come along.

Ok, I have a niggling question that's been met by blank stares by even the most hardened Beatles fans over the years. Maybe this is the forum where someone can finally give me an answer?

1965: Having released Yesterday, Paul performed this solo a couple of times, and at least once on a televised show. Now everywhere I've read confirms that he sang along to his own guitar and to a pre-recorded backing tape of the famous string quartet section.

My question is (now let this sink in) how on earth did Paul synchronise himself to the backing track? Think about it: he's not playing along to it because the strings don't even come in until after a verse or so: so the strings have to play along to HIM as it were. Is George Martin standing in the wings with his finger poised over the play button, ready to press it at the EXACT moment? You see what I mean? If this was today you would have the track all cued up with a click track and earphones for Paul... but it's 1965! What's his secret?

Someone please put me out of my misery. I can't be the only one (lonely one)...

Very interesting doc on Radio 2, Whispering bob presents.

Still on Iplayer...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p1mv7/b00p1mlh/The_Songs_The_Bea...

Can any Word reader recall any seminal bands that have spawned equally essential or even greater solo artists? No? Thought so. A few examples of the "Great Solo Folly": the Stones - the world didn't exactly hold it's breath for those solo Keef or Mick efforts did it?; The Who (don't even start); ditto Dexy's (Kevin Rowland); Pink Floyd (name five solo Floyd albums?); Television (solo Verlaine/Lloyd anyone?); Specials (Colourfield - does that count?) ; that Thom Yorke album anyone? Beatle solo albums - no, not better than the Beatles ; Julian Casablancas (jeez, they're all at it!) Even Paul Weller will always be better known for "All Mod Cons" rather than whatever his last one was called. It's a weird phenomenon. Comments please...

All this reminiscing around the career of the mighty ELO got me musing about something. Is Jeff Lynne basically the single luckiest/most fulfilled bloke in the entire history of rock music?

Let's look at the evidence... Here's Jeff, a member of an obscure Brummy beat combo who's grown up being heavily influenced by a range of artists, each of which have blended to form a part of his musical DNA. There's 50s rock n rollers like Roy Orbison, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, there's the Beatles, there's Bob Dylan, there's the Byrds etc.

Anyway, he gets asked to join another already successful and respected popular beat combo who have already had numerous hits just as the creative force behind the band is going through a change of musical direction (which kinda matches with some of his leanings). He immediately becomes a joint creative force and forms a new band with the beat combo leader who wants to push the boundaries of what pop is currently doing. After one album the more well known creative force leaves, leaving Jeff Lynne to take the band in his direction and global super-stardom.

In the early 80s, Lynne gets bored of ELO and disbands the group going on to become a hotly sought after record producer. As such he works with a number of his idols from his formative years (e.g. George Harrison, Del Shannon, Roy Orbison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr) and works with several other respected artists, creating universally acclaimed albums (e.g. Tom Petty) plus a few less acclaimed. He gets asked to work with his greatest influence to create two new tracks from some unused studio demos which are then released as the icing on the cake of that band's retrospective set.

Meanwhile, he also forms a band with several of the aforementioned personal seminal influences releasing two more hit records.

After a relatively quiet decade he then once again becomes a sought after producer for up-coming indie types like Regina Spektor... The story continues...

As a personal history of living the dream... that's not half bad. Yup, probably the single luckiest bloke in rock music (bad hair and beard or not!).