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Table of Contents
Resources : The Beatles
The Beatles Bible - A comprehensive guide and coverage of all things Beatles
The Internet Beatles Album - Another comprehensive guide and coverage of all things Beatles
About The Beatles - Yet another comprehensive guide and coverage of all things Beatles
Beatles History, The Complete Online Biography of The Beatles - An online biography and discography of the Beatles
Beatles Number 9 - A Beatles fan site with various information
Beatle Money - An Economic history of the Beatles
Beatles Ultimate Experience: The Beatles Interviews Database - Beatles and post-Beatles interviews
The White Album Project - A comprehensive look at the self-titled double album
Beatles Source - A site dedicated to Beatles acetates and tapes
The Beatles in charts and infographics A few quick and easy to understand visual representations of the Beatles and their activities
Bootleg Zone A site cataloging bootlegs, with a large section focused on the Beatles (no files hosted)
Turn Me On Dead Man - Discussion of the “Paul is dead” myth.
The Beatles Rarity - A Beatles blog
Kenwood Lennon - A Beatles locations blog
The Gilly A Beatles Tumblr
Jai Guru - A Beatles Tumblr
Beatles History - A Beatles Tumblr
Alright, George! - A Beatles Tumblr
Beatles Off The Record - A Beatles Tumblr
Watching Rainbows: Child of Nature's Beatles blog - Beatles photos
Beatles Photo Blog - Beatles photos
In The Life Of ... The Beatles - A Beatles blog
Meet the Beatles For Real - A Beatles photo blog
Beatles Blog A Beatles Collector's blog, with some very interesting and odd artifacts
Beatle Country - An interesting article on the Beatles and their relation to Country music
Would the Beatles have sounded the same if they'd never taken drugs?
"The Decca Audition" excerpt from the book, "The Unreleased Beatles" - An entry on the Beatles ill-fated audition for Decca records in 1962.
Audiovisual
The Beatles in Stereo - The Beatles complete stereo discography remastered.
The stereo remasters have also been released as a USB, which has higher quality than the CD releases. The stereo remasters are also easily found individually for sale. This remaster series is a major improvement over the previous CD releases, which were noted for their mediocre quality. There are criticisms to be had, however, due to limiting and some compression, as well as repairs made to issues in the recordings as they were originally released, which could be said to detract from the original purity of the recordings. Comparisons have been drawn to the restoration the Sistine Chapel. The strengths and criticisms of the stereo remasters are also inherent in the vinyl remasters recently released.
The Beatles in Mono - The Beatles complete Mono discography.
In the earlier part of the Beatles' career, stereophonic recordings were a relatively limited market made up of hifi enthusiasts, and mono recordings were what most of the public heard. For this reason, the mono releases were those that artists spent most of their time and effort on, and were the way they intended their recordings to be heard. In many cases, stereo recordings were mastered without the input of the musicians. It is for this reason that the Mono recordings of the Beatles are very important, as they were what the band spent most of it's effort on and the way the Beatles intended their recordings to be heard. The Mono recordings have been remastered with audiophiles in mind, giving them a higher quality than their stereo counterparts. However, audiophiles are a limited market, and as such the Beatles Mono box set has only been released in a limited run and there are no individual album releases from this remaster.
The Beatles : The Capitol Albums, Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 - The Beatles American discography (partial).
The albums and singles of the Beatles were frequently reorganized (or “butchered”) by Capitol records, with songs of the British counterpart deleted for release on other albums, singles added to albums, and albums completely created by Capitol. Whereas the British and international version of Beatles albums contained 14 songs and generally did not include singles (as the band felt it cheated customers), Capitol records insisted on roughly 10 songs and viewed albums as singles driven. Though earlier releases are quite different from the British albums, the Beatles' American discography became increasingly reflective (if modified) of the British discography. The climax of Capitol's altering came with the release of the album “Yesterday and Today”; a hodgepodge including songs taken from Rubber Soul, Help!, singles, and songs taken from Revolver (then unreleased in America). As a result, those songs were deleted off of Revolver's American release, resulting in George Harrison having more songs on the American Revolver than John Lennon. Such actions by Capitol upset the Beatles, and in their renegotiated contract for 1966, Capitol was required to release albums in America as they were intended to be released, starting with Sgt. Pepper's. In spite of this, Capitol was able to release albums specific to the American market, notably Magical Mystery Tour (1968) and Hey Jude (1970), along with a number of compilations.
The importance of the Capitol albums is based on the fact that, despite criticism that could be leveled at them, they were the way the American and North American audience heard and discovered and evolved with the Beatles. Beatlemania in America was based on and forwarded by the Capitol discography, and the way the American audience heard the Beatles continued to be based on the Capitol records years afterward. The British discography was not made the official canon until some decades afterward with the CD releases. In many cases, the Capitol albums are also not simply a different track list, having been mastered differently and tweaked in many cases with things such as reverb and false stereo.
The Beatles: The Capitol Albums is therefore important as it both a stereo and mono release of the Beatles albums as released by Capitol Records. There have so far been two box set releases, each containing 4 albums of the American discography. With the release of the recent stereo and mono remasters and Apple records' legal action against Capitol following Vol. 2, it does not appear that there will be any subsequent volumes. Unofficial CD bootlegs do exist of the remaining discography, and they remain available for second hand purchase on vinyl.
The Beatles on Ed Sullivan (1964) - The Beatles first major appearances on American television.
A Hard Day's Night (1964) - The Beatles first film. The writer spent 3 days with the band, and wrote a script based on that. The character versions of the Beatles from the film became how the public viewed each member in pop culture mythology.
The Beatles (TV Cartoon series) (1965-1969) - The Beatles cartoon. None of the Beatles cared for it at the time, though they later found a fondness for it. The Beatles cartoon discouraged them from participating heavily in the film “Yellow Submarine”, although they were sufficiently impressed with finalized film that they later filmed an epilogue. Ironically, the producer and director of “Yellow Sumbarine” were involved with this cartoon.
Help! (1965) - The Beatles second film. This one in color.
Our World (TV special) (1967) - The first live, international, satellite television production, seen by an estimated 400 million people. The Beatles sang their specially composed song “All You Need Is Love” to close the broadcast.
"Lost" Tonight Show Interview (1968) - A amateur audio recording of the Beatles' 1968 Tonight Show appearance. As most of the Tonight Show recordings of this era were erased by NBC, this is the only recording of the interview in existence, save for a two minute amateur video recording.
Yellow Submarine (1968) - The Beatles animated fantasy film, not actually voiced by the band members themselves. The earlier television Beatles cartoon discouraged them from participating heavily in the film, although they were sufficiently impressed with when shown the finalized film that they later filmed an epilogue. This film was an attempt to fulfill their movie contract with United Artists. It didn't work, which lead to the documentary of “Let It Be”.
Let It Be (1970) - The documentary on the making of the album “Get Back” (later named “Let It Be”), which turned out to be about the infighting and disintegration of the group as much about the making of an album. This film has yet to be released on any modern format, as it raises old issues and is potentially damaging to the Beatles brand. “Neither Paul nor Ringo would feel comfortable publicising a film showing The Beatles getting on each other's nerves … There's all sorts of extra footage showing more squabbles but it's unlikely it will ever see the light of day in Paul and Ringo's lifetime.”
The Rutles, All You Need Is Cash (1978) - A mockumentary TV film covering the Rutles, a satire of the Beatles whose history and music parallel that of the band. The film is based on the documentary “The Long and Winding Road” by Neil Aspinall, which was never officially released and was shelved, only to be later resurrected and used as the basis for “Anthology”.
The Beatles Anthology (1995) - The 1995 retrospective documentary on the history of the Beatles, originally aired on ABC.
Books
In His Own Write by John Lennon - The first book by a Beatle. A collection of short stories, poems and drawings in a surreal and nonsensical style.
A Spaniard in the Works by John Lennon - Lennon's followup to “In His Own Write”, written in a similar style.
The Beatles: All These Years, Vol. 1 'Tune In' by Mark Lewisohn - The first volume in Mark Lewisohn's decade long in the making, epic and comprehensively complete history of the Beatles. This volume and the complete series is shaping up to be the cornerstone of Beatles history.
John Lennon, The Life by Philip Norman - A comprehensive biography of John Lennon, though criticized by Yoko Ono as being “too mean” to John Lennon. Criticism has also been leveled at certain factual mistakes, such as repeating (briefly) the Lennon homosexuality fallacy.
You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup by Peter Doggett - A history of the Beatles during and after their break up.
Unreleased Beatles Music and Film by Richie Unterberger - A large and comprehensive volume on commercially unreleased Beatles material including studio takes and outtakes, concert performances, and home demo recordings over the course of their entire career. A necessity for study on the evolution of songs and what could have been.