The cast of the TODAY show created an amazingly accurate homage to the Beatles’ iconic Abbey Road cover, considering they did it with two females (not counting Matt Lauer) and a black man.
TODAY Cast Recreate Abbey Road Album Cover
04 Oct 2012 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: abbey road, the beatles
Katy Perry: Cheating Her Way to the Record
13 Sep 2012 Leave a comment
in Articles, General Posts Tags: katy perry, lady gaga, Madonna, michael jackson, record sales statistics, the beatles
I was rereading the previous post (just to experience the nausea one more time) and the claim that “Katy Perry holds the same record as Michael Jackson for most number one singles from an album” caught my attention. I think it’s only fair to point out Katy’s tally of number ones is manipulated, shall we say, by some unconventional tactics.
After her Teenage Dream album had peaked and was nearing the end of its run Katy recorded new material, including eventual number one single “Part of Me” and, instead of releasing it as an EP or part of a new album, she released Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection, a sort-of “deluxe edition” of the album with the additional material included.
So what was the original version of Teenage Dream–the “incomplete collection”?
Lady Gaga used the same strategy when her The Fame album was later expanded into The Fame Monster, which included additional hits “Bad Romance”, “Telephone” and “Alejandro”.
Are these ladies competing on a level playing field with the Michael Jacksons and Beatles of the world when using previously unknown record release methods to jack up the sales statistics of their records? When Madonna’s new album is offered by a major online retailer for 99 cents during the first week of its release and it shoots to the top of the pops, is its resulting number one status legit? In fact, in Madonna’s case, when the record sets a record for sales drop in its second week on the heels of said 99 cent offer, can we even legitimately say she deserves to call it a number one album? When Madonna runs out of body parts to flash (just one left) and her career finally sputters to an end, she’ll have some great statistics to affirm her greatness. But only close examination will reveal which ones are wholly valid. MDNA is not a number one album in my eyes.
This is how, in some cases, modern-day artists’ claims of exceeding the sales feats of pop music immortals are made–by moving the goalposts, as it were.
![The Fame Monster [Deluxe Edition]](https://i0.wp.com/ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51awYtXl6VL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
Were the Beatles so inclined, or had it foremost in mind to compete with the incredible sales feats of Elvis Presley, they would have avoided releasing EPs and non-album singles entirely. Songs like “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, “I Feel Fine”, “We Can Work it Out”, “Paperback Writer” and “Hey Jude” (all number ones, by the way) would never have been single-only releases. They could have been tacked onto albums to inflate the numbers, and who knows how many number ones an album like Magical Mystery Tour could have had? But since it wasn’t done that way back then, it just seems unfair to compare apples (or Apple Records) to oranges.
Painting by All Four Beatles Heads to Auction
10 Sep 2012 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: images of a woman, the beatles
A painting created collaboratively by all four Beatles in 1966 is being offered as part of a music memorabilia sale by Philip Weiss Auctions, in Oceanside, N.Y., on Sept. 14. The auction house estimates that the painting, now called “Images of a Woman” will sell for between $80,000 and $120,000.
The group produced the work during a visit to Tokyo in 1966, as a way to relieve the tedium of being all but locked into their hotel rooms by their security-conscious Japanese hosts. They were concerned about death threats the group had received from devotees of sumo wrestling, who regarded their engagement at the Budokan arena to be a matter of sacrilege. After Paul McCartney and John Lennon slipped out for some unchaperoned touring, security was tightened.
To while away the hours, the group set a 30-inch by 40-inch piece of white paper on a large table, put a lamp in the middle (slightly off center) and each began painting a corner of the sheet using bright red, yellow, black, blue and green oil paints. When they finished the abstract work, which anticipates the psychedelia that would explode through the pop world a year later, they removed the lamp and signed their names around the edge of the white circle that the lamp left.
The Beatles gave the painting to Tetsusaburo Shimoyama, the president of their Japanese fan club. Mr. Weiss said that be believed that the current owner bought the painting from Mr. Shimoyama, possibly in the 1990s. It was offered for sale on eBay in 2002, but was withdrawn after it failed to meet the seller’s minimum.
(Reprinted from the New York Times Artbeat)
Songs You May Have Missed #111
29 May 2012 4 Comments
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: the beatles, yes it is
The Beatles: “Yes It Is” (1965)
“Yes It Is” never appeared on a regular Beatles LP. Issued as the B-side of their #1 “Ticket to Ride” single, the song itself peaked at #46. Only when the Past Masters collections gathered stray tracks which never before had appeared on LP in the U.S. did “Yes It Is” make it on to a long player.
It’s just one more Beatles song that would have been a career highlight for many lesser bands, but was destined for relative obscurity due to the remarkable output of the band both in terms of quality and quantity. Considering their A-sides of 1965 alone (“Eight Days a Week”, “Ticket to Ride”, “Help!”, “Yesterday”, and the double A-sided “We Can Work It Out”/”Day Tripper”) you can’t really make an argument that “Yes It Is” should have supplanted any of them. But it’s a great song nevertheless, featuring wonderful harmonies and one of Lennon’s most plaintive performances in the solo sections.
If you aren’t fifty-something or a Beatles completest, this one may have escaped your attention. But let it serve notice that, Past Masters 1 and 2 included, there really is no such thing as a non-essential Beatles album–with the exception, perhaps, of Yellow Submarine.
Video of the Week: Guitarist Randy Bachman Demystifies the Opening Chord of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’
29 Feb 2012 2 Comments
The following is reprinted from the website Open Culture:
You could call it the magical mystery chord. The opening clang of the Beatles’ 1964 hit, “A Hard Day’s Night,” is one of the most famous and distinctive sounds in rock and roll history, and yet for a long time no one could quite figure out what it was.
In this fascinating clip from the CBC radio show, Randy’s Vinyl Tap, the legendary Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive guitarist Randy Bachman unravels the mystery. The segment is from a special live performance, “Guitarology 101,” taped in front of an audience at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto back in January, 2010. As journalist Matthew McAndrew wrote, “the two-and-a-half hour event was as much an educational experience as it was a rock’n’roll concert.”
One highlight of the show was Bachman’s telling of his visit the previous year with Giles Martin, son of Beatles’ producer George Martin, at Abbey Road Studios. The younger Martin, who is now the official custodian of all the Beatles’ recordings, told Bachman he could listen to anything he wanted from the massive archive–anything at all.
Bachman chose to hear each track from the opening of “A Hard Day’s Night.” As it turns out, the sound is actually a combination of chords played simultaneously by George Harrison and John Lennon, along with a bass note by Paul McCartney. Bachman breaks it all down in an entertaining way in the audio clip above.
Every Moment Has A Song 