The best bands of all time – 1st place: The Beatles
By Elvis Costello
Every record that appeared was a shock. Unlike Wilde R&B Evangelists, such as the Rolling Stones, the Beatles simply sounded incomparable. They had drawn Buddy Holly, Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry, but they also wrote their own songs. Until then, that had hardly existed; It became the norm through them. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were exceptional songwriters; McCartney was and is a real virtuoso as a musician; George Harrison was never the type of guitarist who knocked a dazzling solos around the ears, but you can sing the melodies of almost all of his breaks. And they always fit perfectly into the respective arrangement. Ringo rigid drummed with a unique feeling that no one has yet been able to copy, even if many good drummer tried. And the most important thing: John and Paul were fantastic singers.
From Motown to Hendrix
First simple Lovesongs, then adult stories such as “Norwegian Wood” – on the acid sides of love – then larger topics that were not expected in pop texts. They were also pretty much the first pop band to deal with the acoustic dimension of their recordings. Excellent sound engineers in the “Abbey Road” studios like Geoff Emerick thought methods that we find today as normal when the implementation is about the implementation of musical ideas. Before that, there were no rock musicians who deliberately tipped an arrangement out of balance – for example through quiet singing to a loud playback like in “Strawberry Fields Forever”. You cannot overestimate the freedoms that opened the following from Motown to Hendrix.
My favorite albums are clearly “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver”. On both of them you can hear references to other music – R&B, Dylan, Psychedelia – but never superficial and never so that the panels sound time. You just had to take “revolvers” in your hand and knew that it was something special. If I had to choose a favorite song from these albums, it would be “and your bird can sing” … no, “girl” … no, “for no one” … and so on.
The songs on their separation album “Let it be” are partly unbalanced, partly great. I think ambition and human mistakes crawl into every band at some point, but the Beatles got a few incredible performances until the end.
The songs were no longer theirs. They belonged to everyone
I wrote some songs with Paul McCartney and played live with him twice. In 1999, shortly after Linda McCartney’s death, the “Concert for Linda” took place. Paul presented the next piece “All My Loving” for rehearsals. I said: “Should I sing the choir voice at the second round?” And he said: “Yes, just try it.” It was a very rocky version.
In the concert itself, things went very differently. As soon as he sang the first lines – “Close Your Eyes, and i’ll Kiss You” – the audience reacted so violently that the music was almost no longer heard. Perhaps at the moment I understood why the Beatles had to stop playing live at the time. The songs were no longer theirs. They belonged to everyone.