While the CD constantly loses market share, except for rising a little during the Christmas holidays, streaming and vinyl sales continue to grow relentlessly. A seemingly contradictory fact, which actually has an explanation.
There is a liquid music, easy to use and with a rather short life. You listen to it distractedly on mobile phones and tablets, sometimes you download on your PC, but after a few months has ended its cycle and there is no trace of it.
On the contrary, there is solid music, designed with a strong concept, which needs the highest sound quality and support that will last over time, perhaps to be passed down from father to son.
The second category naturally includes the Beatles' albums, both in their solo works (Egypt Station by Paul McCartney, currently first in the USA; the re-edition of Imagine by John Lennon, which will be released on October 5) and in their celebratory editions (such as the 50th anniversary of The Beatles, better known as White Album, available in 4 new versions from November 9), which continue to grind record numbers, 48 years after the dissolution of the band.
Theirs was a magical encounter between four very different personalities, who together have created a unique epic for quality and quantity of unforgettable songs.
A short career, that of Fab Four, which goes from 1962 to 1970, but incredibly intense, which has produced twelve albums, each of which has entered in its own right in the history of rock.
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney has always been the most attentive and active ambassador and disseminator of the Beatles' artistic heritage, think of the monumental Anthology project, the One compilation and the remastering of all the band's albums in 2009.
McCartney, eleventh on the "Rolling Stone" list of the world's top one hundred singers and third on that of the best bassists, is also a strong supporter of vegetarian diet, animal rights, music education in schools, Third World debt cancellation campaigns and campaigns against landmines and seal hunting.
Since the glorious 1960s, Paul, with his faithful Hofner violin bass, has woven melodic lines and progressions never heard before, imitated by the best jazz and fusion bassists.
Able to create vocal harmonies, a technique learned from his jazz father, McCartney has no equal as a ballad singer, drawing inspiration from the sounds absorbed during childhood in British dance halls, but also from Elvis Presley and Everly Brothers, well present in Michelle's creation.
John Lennon
On December 8, 1980, Mark Chapman, an unbalanced man who a few hours earlier had had a record signed by his own idol, shot John Lennon, who had just turned 40, in front of the Dakota Building in New York, at point-blank range.
A murder that has thrown millions of fans around the world into despair, who saw the former Beatles are not as a brilliant artist, but also as a charismatic leader who had spent himself in first person in favor of the pacifist movements.
A fanciful, cultured, influential and politically committed artist, Lennon, born on October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, today would be a distinguished gentleman of almost 78 years, giving us who knows how many other masterpieces.
After the traumatic break-up in 1970 of the Beatles, the most important pop-rock group of the twentieth century, John Lennon was probably the former Fab Four with the best solo career, both for quality and for the number of records sold.
Ringo Starr said of him, "I was a great admirer of John's. I always had the feeling that he had a big heart and wasn't as cynical as you thought. He had the biggest heart of all and was the fastest. He was inside and outside. While we were still going in, he was already out and going on.
Paul McCartney's friend/rival also said the same thing: "One of my best memories of John is when we got into a fight: I didn't agree with him on something and we ended up insulting each other. A couple of seconds passed and then he would lift his glasses a bit and say "it's just that I'm made that way...". For me that was the real John. In those rare moments I saw him without his facade, that armor that I loved so much, just like everyone else. It was a splendid armor; but it was really extraordinary when it lifted its visor and let you see that John Lennon who was afraid to reveal to the world.
The undying affection of the fans is confirmed by the success with which every editorial initiative concerning the Liverpool artist is welcomed, such as the elegant Lennon box that collects his 9 LPs or the interesting LennonNYC docufilm about his life after the Beatles, up to the different biographies dedicated to him.
To be continued in the next part https://zen.yandex.ru/media/id/5d6bef67ba281e00ae4d0327/the-beatles-why-are-they-the-most-important-group-in-the-history-of-poprock-part-2-5d91c299118d7f00b1c76a00