I just had a shocking thought: I’ve not gushed about The Beatles at all on this website. This embarasses and shocks me:
Now, with that said, I don’t know what I can say about Those Guys that would be meaningful, after 40-50 years of press about them. Except for two things:
Sir George Martin, their producer, is a genius of the highest order. So too is Geoff Emerick, their engineer for REVOLVER and onward. Norman Smith, who recorded their earlier work, can’t really be ignored either. He only did RUBBER SOUL, HELP, A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, and so on. Not a bad few sessions to have been involved in.
Emerick, on the other hand, got to do his first work with Martin and the boys recording Tomorrow Never Knows, on a four-track tape machine. The modern mind boggles.
And then Martin pretty much did all the orchestration – for Eleanor Rigby, Penny Lane, and so on and so on and so on. Ridiculous shit.
The other thing that I want to mention about this pop music from my father’s generation is that, as someone who writes electronic music and listens to hordes of electronic music, all those cats could write songs around just about everyone who makes techno today. It’s embarassing, really, that two scouse lads with guitars can leave all of us, years later, still desperate for a great hook and two good harmony parts.
