In his commanding new book, the eminent NPR critic Tim Riley takes us on the remarkable journey that brought a Liverpool art student from a disastrous childhood to the highest realms of fame. Riley portrays Lennon's rise from Hamburg's red light district to Britain's Royal Variety Show; from the charmed naivetéf "Love Me Do" to the soaring ambivalence of "Don't Let Me Down"; from his shotgun marriage to Cynthia Powell in 1962 to his epic media romance with Yoko Ono. Written with the critical insight and stylistic mastery readers have come to expect from Riley, this richly textured narrative draws on numerous new and exclusive interviews with Lennon's friends, enemies, confidantes, and associates; lost memoirs written by relatives and friends; as well as previously undiscovered City of Liverpool records. Riley explores Lennon in all of his contradictions: the British art student who universalized an American style, the anarchic rock 'n' roller with the moral spine, the anti-jazz snob who posed naked with his avant-garde lover, and the misogynist who became a househusband. What emerges is the enormous, seductive, and confounding personality that made Lennon a cultural touchstone. In Lennon, Riley casts Lennon as a modernist hero in a sweeping epic, dramatizing rock history anew as Lennon himself might have experienced it.

Noted UK rock critic Humphries and music reporter Doggett deliver an album-by-album, track-by-track rundown of every Beatles song on record.

From their 1962 debut single Love Me Do to the most recent remastered albums, this is an album-by-album, track-by-track catalogue of every songs ever released by The Beatles Includes: A chronology of key events in the life of the greatest ever rock band Separate sections on compilation albums, the Anthology series and non-EMI recordings Eight pages of colour picturesThis is the books that Beatles fans have been looking for - packed with details, facts and pictures it's the definitive concise guide to the music of The Beatles.

Did the Beatles originate the Beatle haircut? boots? collarless jackets? No. Did they start the trend of self-contained rock groups (three guitarists and a drummer) composing their own hits? No. Did the British musical invasion end American performers' careers? Dominate American music charts? No and no. Surprised? Relying on music industry data (Top 40 and 100 lists, U.S. and U.K. hits by British groups, British groups' hits on the 1964 U.S. charts, 1980s television commercials employing oldies music, and other comparisons), The Beatle Myth rebuts the revisionist rock historians who greatly exaggerated the impact of the Beatles and other British groups upon the U.S. pop music scene beginning in 1964. Widely held (and cherished!) myths that have grown over the years are debunked in the process.

Did the Beatles originate the Beatle haircut? boots? collarless jackets? No. Did they start the trend of self-contained rock groups (three guitarists and a drummer) composing their own hits? No. Did the British musical invasion end American performers' careers? Dominate American music charts? No and no. Surprised? Relying on music industry data (Top 40 and 100 lists, U.S. and U.K. hits by British groups, British groups' hits on the 1964 U.S. charts, 1980s television commercials employing oldies music, and other comparisons), The Beatle Myth rebuts the revisionist rock historians who greatly exaggerated the impact of the Beatles and other British groups upon the U.S. pop music scene beginning in 1964. Widely held (and cherished!) myths that have grown over the years are debunked in the process.

In a stretch of just seven years, the Beatles recorded hundreds of songs which tower above those of their worthy peers as both the product of cultural leadership and an artistic reflection of their turbulent age, the1960s. Walter Everett and Tim Riley's What Goes On: The Beatles, Their Music, and Their Time blends historical narrative, musicology, and music analysis to tell the full story of the Beatles and how they redefined pop music. The book traces the Beatles' development chronologically, marking the band's involvement with world events such as the Vietnam War, strides in overcoming racial segregation, gender stereotyping, student demonstrations, and the generation gap. It delves deeply into their body of work, introducing the concepts of musical form, instrumentation, harmonic structure, melodic patterns, and rhythmic devices in a way that is accessible to musicians and non-musicians alike. Close readings of specific songs highlight the tensions between imagination and mechanics, songwriting and technology, and through the book's musical examples, listeners will learn how to develop strategies for creating their own rich interpretations of the potential meanings behind their favorite songs. Videos hosted on the book's companion website offer full definitions and performance demonstrations of all musical concepts discussed in the text, and interactive listening guides illustrate track details in real-time listening. The unique multimedia approach of What Goes On reveals just how great this music was in its own time, and why it remains important today as a body of singular achievement.

Hundreds of books have been written about The Beatles. Over the last half century, their story has been mythologized and de-mythologized and presented by biographers and journalists as history. Yet many of these works do not strictly qualify as history and the story of how the Beatles' mythology continues to be told has been largely ignored. This book examines the band's historiography, exploring the four major narratives that have developed over time: The semi-whitewashed "Fab Four" account, the acrimonious breakup-era Lennon Remembers version, the biased "Shout!" narrative in the wake of John Lennon's murder, and the current Mark Lewisohn orthodoxy. Drawing on the most influential primary and secondary sources, Beatles history is analyzed using historical methods.