Besides my unstable fears of being attacked by the number nine the date of “09/09/09” was significant for another reason. For the first time ever many of The Beatles albums were being re-released in Stereo format. This date was selected partially as a tribute to “Revolution 9” from The Beatles While Album.
Growing up everyone heard the conspiracy theory that suggested if you played this song in reverse that the lyrics said “Turn me on, dead man” which were supposed to be clues the band was leaving that Paul McCartney had died.
I was very young when The Beatles reached their zenith of popularity. The band’s first album appeared when I was just two and they had broken up by the time that I had really cared about their music. They were a band that although were influential were something your baby-sitter listened to.
As I have gotten older I have begun to realize what an impact The Beatles had on music and culture for that matter. I’ve seen videos of the near riots that occurred when the band would arrive at a venue. It seems inconceivable in today’s society that a band would reach that level of popularity.
Over the years I have had several discussions questioning whether a band could ever have an impact the way The Beatles did. I tend to think it is impossible given the immediacy of the Internet and how news travels. Much of The Beatles impact was a result of building hype leading up to their American debut.
With avenues such as the Internet and MTV, and now YouTube it would be impossible to drive the music industry into such a frenzy as we saw in the early sixties. Further, society has changed and become much more jaded than it was at that time. The Beatles were in the musical equivalent of the perfect storm. They were in the right place at the right time and had the right members to make it work.
I don’t mean to trivialize their impact or importance to the music world. They were an amazing talent and the vocals of John Lennon and Paul McCartney sound amazing especially on the newly re-mastered CDs.
As The Beatles catalog was being re-released I wondered which albums people were most looking forward to. I decided to conduct my own non-scientific survey and asked which two albums you would most like to own if you could only have two Beatles CDs in your collection.
I quickly realized that this band meant a lot to a lot of different people. After collecting data from several social media sites I found that answer to be different for each individual. I don’t think there was a clear favorite. I had expected Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or Revolver to be at the top of everyone’s list but while mentioned neither of these were a clear winner.
An underlying message that was presented was that if you were going to own only two Beatles albums you were in for a very difficult decision and ultimately whatever choice you made you would be happy with.
The re-mastered albums were very well done and the recordings sound better than they did when they were first released. My compliments to the engineers that worked on these; they did a great job. I suggest you go to your local music store and peruse the newly released albums. Pick up a couple and prepare to be transported back to a magical time in musical history.
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