Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Apple/EMI, 1967), Magical Mystery Tour (Apple/EMI, 1967), The Beatles (Apple/EMI, 1968) and Abbey Road (Apple/EMI, 1969) were all filled with vividly memorable songs, and remarkable, forward-thinking production. Revolver (Apple/EMI, 1966) led to a string of seminal albums, all groundbreaking in individual ways. They'd already scored a major hit earlier in the year with the surprisingly sophisticated ballad, "Yesterday," from Help! (Apple/EMI, 1965), but with "Norwegian Wood," the beginnings of an interest in Indian music was made manifest by George Harrison's simple but effective sitar work, while "Michelle" represented another move towards richer songwriting.įrom that point forward, The Beatles' may still have been a pop band at heart, but experimentation was also at its core, a heady combination of the lightening speed growth by Lennon, McCartney and Harrison as writers and producer George Martin's sonic innovations. The Fab FourJohn Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starrbegan to transcend the simple (but undeniably appealing) pop structures of their early hits, incorporating elements from farther afield.
Early albums, and songs like "Love Me Do," "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand," were hardly the grist for something more.īut by the time The Beatles reached the turning point of Rubber Soul (Apple/EMI, 1965), a change was in the air. When The Beatles first emerged at the forefront of The British Invasion, few could have predicted the impact they'd have beyond the world of rock and pop.