Customer Reviews

Beatles For Sale How Everything They Touched Turned To Gold

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As someone who's read just about everything out there on the Beatles, I was pleasantly surprised by the latest offering from John Blaney (Lennon and McCartney: Together Alone, previously published in separate iterations). There have been a few books out there addressing the business, as opposed to the musical end of the Beatles' career. But none has offered the amount of detail and insight while remaining steadfastly readable as this one.

Blaney takes us on a thorough investigation of how the Beatles became the success that they were in terms of their business dealings, be it through their club dates, their merchandising, their music publishing and so forth. At first glance, such a potentially "dry" study may seem to be of limited interest, but Blaney is such a masterful researcher with a sharp eye for the kind of minutia that fans find irresistible that you'll find yourself drawn in, as I was, to learn the nuts and bolts of how it all happened. (Did you know that the Beatles pioneered the concept of the tour bus?)

Another strength of the book is how it dissects and clarifies long-held myths about their history. The Beatles literary canon is replete with hearsay, but Blaney has done a great job in going back to the original sources to brush aside the shrouding fog of nostalgia, contextualizing their achievements (which only serves to make them more remarkable).

I highly recommend this work for anyone who's been baffled about the ins and outs of their business affairs or Brian Epstein's efforts on their behalf. The good, the bad, and the ugly is laid out in crystal-clear detail - this eminently readable work will stand as one of the more worthy additions to anyone's Beatle bookshelf.

This new examination of the history of the Beatles considers just how the Beatles and their manager Brian Epstein pioneered not just their music, but the modern music business itself. From how they promoted and sold records to playing concerts, making films, and setting up their own recording companies, BEATLES FOR SALE provides a very different focus from the many books which have revealed their music and lives, making it a top pick not just for popular music collections, but for business libraries as well.

This was an unexpectedly wonderful book. I learned lots of new information I'd never known before. It's very well-written, too, and does not get bogged down in minutiae at all. (This is much better than the book NORTHERN SONGS that I see another reader prefers. That one was dull and read like it was written by an academic, even though I know it wasn't.) BEATLES FOR SALE is a fantastic book, with lots of Beatles quotes I'd never read before.

If you love reading about the Beatles then need this as well. Very different and lots of information. Well done!

Enjoy this book very much, any book on the beatles is worth reading. I give this book 5 stars!

If you are familiar at all with the Beatles business dealings you will have read everything you find here. No original research just a summary of already published material. "Northern Songs" by Brian Southall is a much better read.