Solo Beatles: Good stuff from this millenium?
These CDs don't NEVER EVER sell. NANCY CARR • In the "Blue Sway" thread, Commenter J.R. remarked that he hasn't sought out Paul McCartney's work since 1999's Run Devil Run. Then I came across this blog post by Todd Pack, which reprints the "Do Not Never Ever Buy" list reproduced above. (It's from the Laurie's Planet of Sound music store in [...]
Essential Beatles Reference Books
The stacks. I'm thinking about which Beatles books are essential because I moved last week and was confronted by the sheer volume of tomes I possess about the band (not to mention the ridiculous number of books about other subjects . . . .) So here's my list of the ten Beatles reference books I pull off the shelf most [...]
Buckley on hating the Beatles
NANCY CARR * William F. Buckley really hated the Beatles’ music. I’d known this in a general way, but hadn’t read his diatribes against them before encountering them in The Beatles Book, a 1968 anthology of critical writing about the band edited by Edward E. Davis. (Finding books like this makes me feel justified in spending what is probably way too much time [...]
McCartney’s Songs of Empathy
Paul McCartney, possibly empathizing NANCY CARR • Over the years, and especially as a solo artist, Paul McCartney has written many songs expressing empathy toward others. Being the analytical list-making obsessive I am, I've created a catalog of them. Note that I'm not arguing that writing such songs shows McCartney to be a better or more empathetic human being than [...]
Underrating Sgt. Pepper’s
NANCY CARR • “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is now routinely underrated. I recently read Robert Rodriguez’ new book, Revolver: How the Beatles Reimagined Rock n’ Roll, and the introduction threw this underrating into sharp relief. I highly recommend Rodriguez’ book in all other ways—it's a fascinating look at Revolver’s creation, artistry, and context—but the introduction made me grind my teeth. The [...]
The Beatles and Mad Men
The original Mad Men. Look at that hat, for example; that's MAD. Did Matthew Weiner follow the structure of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in the recently-completed fifth season of “Mad Men”? Yi! News site contributor Emily Viviani thinks so, and has developed this thesis over three posts, the first of which you can read here. Thanks go to [...]
The White Album, reviewed by Starostin
Black and white from White NANCY CARR • I can't resist highlighting another recent George Starostin review, this one of The Beatles. Every time I read his reviews, especially his reviews of the Beatles' work, I'm floored again by the fact that he's writing and publishing for free writing about music that's better than 90 percent of today's paid music [...]
The unexpected from Ono and McCartney
NANCY CARR • I think Michael’s comments on the previous post about Paul McCartney’s seeking to entertain an audience, while Yoko Ono seeks to instruct one, are right on the mark and help clarify why people frequently can’t stand one or the other of them. What I find interesting about their respective tendencies is that both do their best work (in my [...]
McCartney as the Dickens of Rock
Macca and Boz.NANCY CARR • If you've ever wondered why Paul McCartney writes story songs and loves performing, or why his sentimentality sometimes runs away with him, I hope you'll enjoy these ruminations on his links to a Victorian forebear. Looking at Paul McCartney’s personal and artistic similarities to Charles Dickens helps explain a lot of things. It illuminates why McCartney is [...]
Ram’s Resurgence
[After the millionth insightful comment by our indefatigable Nancy, we asked her if there was anything Beatley burning a hole in her well-furnished brains. This is what she wrote; give her a warm Hey Dullblog welcome.--MG] NANCY CARR • When it was released in 1971, Ram was hated—really hated, to the point of practically being crushed and melted—by many rock critics. Rolling [...]