scholarly and definitive breakdown of the beatles' work, song by song. ( )

A masterful discussion of each Beatles production, giving praise and criticism from a purely musical viewpoint, but placing each piece in objective historical, pop musical, and cultural context. The description of the production and release of Sgt. Pepper is alone worth the price of the book. ( )

This book is bigger than the Beatles. Bigger in that it makes sense of their context : the 1960s, counter-culture, drugs, consumerism, politics, etc.

And that's just the first chapter. A coherent "setting into place" of the world the Beatles inhabited, and what they left behind in their wake.

This book is a fascinating look into the creation of the Beatles' oeuvre: song by song, album by album. It includes the material gathered up in the "Anthology" series in the mid 90s - and some that has never been released. It shows the group's rise, the brilliant middle period , and the slow decline before the final breakup.

There are, of course, gems in even the most uneven of their album tracks - but MacDonald does not stint in his criticism where he feels the material and/or its recording or production was sub-par.

Amongst the learned discussions of keys, takes, credits, and instrumentation is the story of four men growing up together in close proximity - and, like growing plants, each stretching towards the Sun for their moment in it. The two smaller shoots are, of course, coming into the light as the two taller ones are squabbling in the Sun - and this is apparent in the music they made.

A book with multiple audiences: musicologists, music fans, historians, sociologists, and those too young to remember the 1960s. Ultimately, it sent me back to the music - to hear it anew: with new ears.

What can I say. This is a brilliant book. The bulk of it is devoted to song by song discussions of The Beatle's output - it includes just about everything they ever recorded so you'll find songs that weren't even released. I really like this book for a number of reasons:
1) It's about The Beatle's
2) This guy knows his stuff and he makes it easy for musical duffers (like me!) to connect to the musicology.
3) It's meticulously researched and referenced.
4) MacDonald links the events that The Beatle's were experiencing and social changes generally, to the music.
5) It's technical - if you're interested in production and recording techniques you won't be dissapointed.
6) It's opinionated - MacDonald is not afraid to rubbish the odd song - no rose-tinted, fanboy specs here.
A friend recomended this about ten year's ago and it's taken this long to get round to reading it - I wish I'd got round to it sooner, but the benefit is I'm reading the second edition - which is revised in light of material released with the Beatle's Anthology at the end of the 90's. This is a perfect book for the coffee table or the smallest room as you can dip in, read about a song or two, then put it down. Also good as a reference book (for example for settling bets ...). ( )

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Beatles' music with song by song history, context and musical analysis. This pioneering work of love by the author is a superb contribution to the Beatles' legacy. ( )