The Accidental Perfection of the Beatles’ White Album

The Accidental Perfection of the Beatles’ White Album

To mark this month’s fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles’ ninth album, “The Beatles”—universally known as the White Album—several new expanded and enhanced editions are being released this week. These new versions were created under the supervision of Giles Martin, the son of the album’s original producer, George Martin. As was done last year with “Sgt. Pepper,” the […]

Beatles’ Acid Test: How LSD Opened the Door to ‘Revolver’

Beatles’ Acid Test: How LSD Opened the Door to ‘Revolver’

Psychedelic drug inspired their masterpiece – but also opened wounds that never healed The story of Revolver began in a night of hell and illumination. “We’ve had LSD,” John Lennon told George Harrison. It was spring 1965. Lennon and his wife, Cynthia, and Harrison and his wife, Pattie Boyd, were attending a dinner at the London home of dentist John Riley […]

The Untold Stories of Paul McCartney

The Untold Stories of Paul McCartney

He’s as famous and accomplished as a man can be. He could just stay home, relax, and count his money. But Paul McCartney is as driven as ever. Which is why he’s still making music and why he has loads of great stories you’ve never heard—about the sex life of the Beatles, how he talked […]

The Beatles: 1967–1970

The Beatles: 1967–1970

Even if you’re a newcomer to The Beatles’ legacy, it’s hard to imagine a time when Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Bandwasn’t part of the popular culture lexicon. But even after The Beatles gave up touring for good in August 1966 — frustrated by the constant screaming of the teenage girls who populated their stadium-sized shows, […]

The Power of Two

The Power of Two

In the fall of 1966, during a stretch of nine weeks away from the Beatles, John Lennon wrote a song. He was in rural Spain at the time, on the set of a movie called How I Won the War, but the lyrics cast back to an icon of his boyhood in Liverpool: the Strawberry […]

Why Revolver is the greatest Beatles album?

Why Revolver is the greatest Beatles album?

The Beatles’ Revolver was released on 5 August 1966. As the album turns 50,Greg Kot argues that it is the Fab Four’s crowning achievement. The best Beatles album? The rock historians often point to Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as the moment, in 1967, when rock magically grew up and became a legitimate art […]

How Radiohead Became The Beatles Of The 21st Century

How Radiohead Became The Beatles Of The 21st Century

In 1996, while most major British bands were blowing their royalties on cocaine, light aircraft, Patsy Kensit and Hampstead piles, Radiohead did something quite different. They spent a big chunk of what they’d earned on building an entirely new studio and filled it with a variety of exotic types of pricey, abstract and futuristic noise-making […]