Fab Four Forever!

John, Paul, George, Ringo. Four young men from Liverpool who changed music forever. Yesterday, the long awaited remastered catalogue of The Beatles became public domain. I've been waiting about 5 years for these myself, and I must take a time out from 20 minute epics to say a few words on The Beatles, and their relationship to Progressive Rock.

Where The Beatles begin to do something novel starts on Rubber Soul, with the Fish Eye Camera and Eastern Influences. Yet, Revolver is where they became the true Grandfathers of Prog. Just listen to "Tomorrow Never Knows" and we get blasted with all sorts of sonic experimentation and weird effects, and where do we find that again? In Prog, of course. The Beatles were the first to take in all that new studio trickery, and the first to make experimentation sell like mad. We go from teen crooners producing commercial, least common denominator pop to fun and strange new sounds and directions over a period of just 3 years, and in large part because the fab four wanted to. Sgt. Pepper, of course, takes the trend even farther, with the whimsy and all over the place "Mr. Kite", the segues between songs, the colorful and detailed album art, it truly could be a prog album if it weren't for "She's Leaving Home" and "When I'm 64." So many prog bands have namechecked the Beatles, and particularly this album, as a major influence. With Magical Mystery Tour, we've got more of the same new groove trying to raise the bar for rock music and make it even more artistic, beautiful, and challengeing. Sadly, internal struggles cause the White Album and Let It Be to have a large absence of that spirit, and I feel Abbey Road, while amongst the Beatles' strongest, is not nearly as progressive as contemporary works.

The remastering brings out the intricacies that were hard to detect on CD, which gives more reason to examine the contributions The Beatles Made. I hope you all get to hear them soon, for I have not and can't comment.