Customer Reviews

100 Best Beatles Songs: A Passionate Fan's Guide

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book certainly gives the reader a comprehensive view of the authors' choices of the Beatles best music. Like every ratings list there are arguments to be made for placement and personal favorites that are missing. One thing that struck me in this book were the number and quality of songs by George Harrison. From Revolver to Let It Be many of the strongest songs are by George. The other point of interest in this book are the recording information, who played what instruments, how particular sounds were made and the inventiveness of George Martin and the boys. You can see the disintegration of the band by what was happening in the studio where many of the last recordings were by individual members as all were missing at one time or another. I would recommend this book to those interested in the history of the Beatles and the 60's.

100 Best Beatles Songs: A Passionate Fan's Guide selects the top 100 Beatles songs and ranks them in order from 1 to 100. What results is this guide: a definitive guide to the Beatles 100 best tunes based on merit, songwriting, musicianship and other standards. Any fan of the Beatles will find this packed with history, facts, research and quotes from band members.

Nice book to add to your collection if your a Beatles fan. They rate the songs and explain why they see (the writer) it at each position.

If you've ever wanted to get some background on Beatles songs and sought out Ian Macdonald's `Revolution in the Head' or Tim Riley's `Tell Me Why' for that purpose, you may have have come away more irritated than enlightened. While their technical knowledge of pop music definitely does illuminate, their opinionating and superior airs can often be insufferable. Did they start out their careers as professional embalmers? Let us be glad that neither served as a George Martin assistant and had a chance to influence what the Beatles actually did in the studio because I'm sure we'd all be the worse for it.

In sharp contrast, the backgrounders of Spignesi and Lewis in `100 Best Beatles Songs' illuminate without irritating. The co-authors allow themselves to get carried away by enthusiasm worthy of their joint `passionate fan' moniker. They're obviously musically knowledgable but they don't go over the top with it as do Macdonald and Riley. And there's even a bit of bantering disagreement between the two friends, whch certainly contrasts to the more dogmatic tone of Macdonald and Riley.

One only wishes that Spignesi and Lewis had doubled the book's length and covered the whole Beatles canon. Of course, then, by definition, they'd be examining all the Beatles songs that aren't their favourites and they might be as critical as Macdonald and Riley. Anyways, to fill out one's deep background knowledge of the rest of the Beatles' works, the Macdonald and Riley tomes ARE good to have kicking around as supplements.

One more thing on Spigesi and Lewis: Their book is a visual and organizational treat. For each track you get a relevant photo, a fitting quotation, an intro to the song, a `Why it made the top 100', a `What the song is all about', a `Did you know?' to put the song in a wider context, the basics on who did what in the recording studio, and then an exchange of views by the two authors on what each likes most about the track. And it all works beautifully. Kudos to the authors, their editor and their publisher on a job well worth doing done exceedingly well indeed.

This is a fun book. Even if you don't agree with their order of greatness, it's fun to listen to the song first, read what they had to say second, then listen again. This has given my wife and me hours of enjoyment. It's even better if you have the other studio recordings they mention, the outtakes that were not used on the albums. Very inspiring and educational for the musician/music lover.

The book is filled with gross inaccuracies, opinions loosely made up to look like facts, and of all things, typos! It feels like it was written in an afternoon by two people who were asked to churn out a hefty chunk of overpriced gift shop trash. While the ranking shows that they clearly enjoy the Beatles, the objective bilge between song titles feels rushed, forced. More common facts are cited correctly, but some are a giant stretch. Don't waste your time on this, not even a rainy day. Scroll through a Beatles wiki and you're likely to come away with more solid information that this. Better yet, listen to an album and form your own opinions.