Well t_i_n,  I suppose I should contribute to this thread since I was brought up with the Beatles, I was 9 in 1962, 'Love Me Do', and got into them from 1965 and 'Pepper' (1967) was my first album etc etc. I have every chart 45rpm they released in the UK except 'Love Me Do' though have an EP with it and every 12" album.

I loved all the singles except Yellow Submarine and Paperback Rider, but their B-sides were more interesting. You mention how certain records affect you for some unknown reason, I wonder about that too, inded my favourite early Beatles tracks are album tracks or B-sides, things like Do You Want To Know A Secret, Things We Said Today, This Boy, Eight Days A Week, All My Lovin', Hide Your Love Away, titles you may not know t_i_n. Why do I like them particularly? Dunno. Maybe someone will tell me it's the key(s) they're written in, or how the songs are structured - they are 'different', very different from the run-of-the-mill songs of the day.

Of course Sgt Pepper and the pychedelia of Revolver, Strawberry Fields and Magical Mystery Tour etc blew me away in 1967 and the sheer brilliance of tracks on the White Album in 1968. I've not read many biographies of the Beatles so I don't know the detail of George Martin's contributions; now that much has been written it's maybe time I found out 


John W

It's not just the way the Beatles' songs are written but also the way they were arranged and the way the recordings were produced which makes the music stand out from most other pop music of the 1960s (specifically of the late 60s, from Revolver onwards, as far as I'm concerned. What about the multiple unsynchronised tape-loops and reversed guitar solo of Tomorrow Never Knows?

I don't think it's necessarily the case that something like Yellow Submarine has to cast a shadow of silliness over the likes of Eleanor Rigby, any more than the rudimentary songwriting skills of R Starkey (not to mention his drumming) call into question the Lennon/McCartney partnership (and Harrison for that matter). Mind you, I find myself skipping tracks I don't much like if I'm listening to the Beatles more than I do with other pop artists. I listened to the whole of the White Album a week or two ago during a car journey and thought I'd have greatly preferred it as a single album without stuff like Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Bungalow Bill and Don't Pass Me By (and including Hey Jude).

It's clear that George Martin's influence was crucial, but just like Lennon and McCartney themselves he hasn't really produced anything on the same level of imaginativeness since the Beatles dissolved, not that I've heard anyway.

I don't think it's necessarily a matter of having had to be there, but one always is somewhere, so to speak, and memorable pop songs have a way of attaching themselves to our experiences in quite a powerful way. Any kind of music can do that, but in the case of pop music I think it's to do with brevity, consistency (most songs have a single "mood") and the way the listener is imprinted with the sound-texture itself (of a single recorded "version" of the song, that is), something very specific which is the same every time the song is heard, either inwardly or outwardly. You mention God Only Knows and the sound-colour of the song is immediately present in my memory.

George Martin's Beatles achievements have -perhaps unsurprisingly - overshadowed his subsequent work, much of which has been excellent. 

He produced Jeff Beck's two finest albums of jazz-fusion (Blow By Blow and Wired), as well as a terrific album by the great American songwriter Jimmy Webb (El Mirage).  He's a brilliant arranger, too (he was basically the Beatles arranger) and his involvement in a project was always far deeper than just pressing a few switches. 

His string arrangement of Candle In The Wind just sucks, though.

I've played that track regularly to undergraduate students over the course of about 10 years without identifying it. They consistently place it, admiringly, as having been produced within the last 15 years (i.e. within the era of 'dance' culture). Is that a measure of quality? Probably not. But it's certainly one of prescience, for better or worse, and largely thanks to G. Martin. What I find extraordinary, in any case, is students' inability to recognise it (or its stylistic provenance) at all... Very much with Richard on that one.

do you not find pepper over rated?
it's not half the album that revolver is, and the step between rubber soul and revolver is exceptionally large, compared to revolver to pepper.
absolutely free and are you experienced knock the socks off pepper, imho.

I rather like Mr Kite. It's quirky. Favourtie Beatles song? Help!, I suppose. I think it does help if you grew up with it. I feel nostalgic whenever I hear it and I don't bother with much other pop music, as pompous as that sounds, either from then or since.

But on the subject of 1960s music, I've got the sheet music (don't ask how) to Anyone Who Had a Heart, by Bacharach and David, as sung by Cilla Black. It's quite interesting. It starts in A minor and ends in A flat major. It alternates between 4/4, 5/4 and 7/8. Sophisticated stuff, huh? But the whole is less than the sum of its parts, I think. And I just can't get Cilla Black's voice out of my head. 

you are completely wrong on (at least) 38 levels.