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Rating:
I recommend this text both to those who hate the Beatles and to those who think they know everything about the Beatles.
The author is Ian MacDonald: composer, editor of a music magazine, and, most importantly, a person in love with music.
The author's thoughts are clear from the first pages - "The Beatles' achievements were splendid" - but throughout the text, he never lacks the coldness, realism, and balance that characterize serious critics: you will not read either delirious celebrations or the disparagements of those trying to belittle the Beatles as mediocre...
You will instead be amazed by the analysis made of each song, where all the instruments are also listed. This book is considered, for this wealth of information, a reference manual, and not just a very enjoyable and enlightening read.
Obviously, I do not agree with everything MacDonald says, such as his overly enthusiastic celebration of “Can’t Buy Me Love” and his excessive praise of “Penny Lane” (judged by him on par with “Strawberry Fields”).
In the reviews of the tracks, the author does not shy away from talking about the changes within the group and does so sometimes in a biting way, as when, after 1968, he says: “The days were gone when they would sweat their guts out perfecting their instrumental parts.” Among the thousand reasons for the breakup, there was also a sense of fulfillment, and a realist like MacDonald lets it be understood.
Above all, the page where he describes the differences between Lennon and McCartney’s composition styles is memorable. Paraphrasing: “Lennon's music, even if sometimes obsessive and harsh (that is, few chords and some variation), rarely betrays itself, and never, voluntarily, falls into bad taste. Meanwhile, McCartney, who could instinctively write technically perfect melodies, often let his compositions degenerate into pointless exercises in style.” It's hard not to admire such mental clarity and balance.
But the book has other riches like the introduction, in which MacDonald makes an analysis, without exaggerating, beautiful, of the 60s, and how we, willing or not, are all children of those years. I recommend the book even just to read the introduction; you will come out more aware.
It talks about the explosion of sex as immediate pleasure to be consumed, and the beginning of the myth of "immediate gratification," which has now reached unsettling levels.
It also discusses the spread of the “remote control culture,” which, as the author says, “has destroyed the concept of constancy because it allows us to change every time something bores us.”
There's even room for some irony about the communists of the '60s, who have now become bourgeois bank directors.
In short, behind this author, there was more than just a music critic. I have used the past tense “was” and I did so for a reason. This man so gifted by nature, unfortunately, was afflicted by depressive crises. A month ago, I learned that he took his own life on August 20, 2003.
His real name was Ian MacCormick.
This review is a small tribute to a great man and a great book.
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