[Richard W. Haines]

rubbersoul,

Obviously from your screen name (their sixth US album), you are a fanatic. I guess it's a thin
line between fanatic and fan of which I am the latter. I guess a fanatic tends to be less
critical and/or more tolerant of all of their work including the post-Beatles music.


I have all of their vinyl albums from my adolesence and the CD compelation their tracks. I was
enough of a fan to have the Remco little big head dolls which my sister and I would move to the music while listening to the albums. There are of course differences in the vinyls and CDs. Some people prefer the smoother sound of analog than the extreme range of digital which is worthy of a discussion. I guess if I was going to continue their history I'd mention George Martin who is sometimes called the fifth Beatle. He was their early record producer who helped fill out and expand the sound of their tunes by adding other instruments because three guitars and a drum set tended to be a bit thin. At least based on the surviving performances on film or kinescope, the Beatles
weren't all that great live. The screaming fans didn't help and Lennon's voice was weak and
couldn't last an entire show. It was in the recording studio that they advanced the art of rock
music.
I was on a train traveling to New York one morning when I saw the headlines that Lennon
had been murdered by a crazed fan which made me sick to my stomach back in 1980. This
was before the term 'celebrity stalker' was in the mindset of the culture. When George died
I was also sad, less for the loss of his musical talent than in his Handmade Films which was
a very unique independent production company.
In terms of their post-Beatles work, I liked McCartney's albums with Linda and Wings,
"Ram" being my favorite. Ringo had some decent hit singles. I enjoyed George's feature films
but not his later music. I didn't like Lennon and Yoko or his post-Beatles work.
He seemed to write better music under the influence of narcotics than under
her influence. He also played the 'fool on the hill' when he acted as front/dupe
for radical extremists like Jerry Rubin ("The Strawberry Statement") and
the Black Panthers at concerts which is why the Feds were hastling him. He
was a peacenik but they certainly weren't. That was the time when some flower children hippies changed into violent, activist yippies (aka 'Radical Chic').


I agree with you that the Beatles Anthology is worth watching despite the poor visual quality of the clips. It could use a digital clean up to remove the scratches
on the interviews.