The Beatles are, for more, the best pop group ever to have lived. I love their early stuff, their late stuff, and even those Ringo Starr songs that appear on every album. In short, I don’t think they’ll ever be beaten in terms of a back catalog of songs and albums that remain timeless.

However, Paul McCartney doesn’t actually think The Beatles were any good. At least when they started out. He’s clearly referring to the very early days, even before they departed for Hamburg where he thinks they truly learned their craft.

This week is a big one for The Beatles, with the re-release of all 12 of their studio albums plus Magical Mystery Tour, and the release of The Beatles: Rock Band. It’s fair to say that The Beatles are back in a big way, hopefully being discovered by a new generation as a result.

There is, however, one thing missing from this resurgence of The Beatles: a way of legally downloading their back catalog. The Beatles have so far refused all requests to put their albums online, rejecting selling them on Apple iTunes, and streaming them on services such as Spotify.

This past weekend saw the 40th anniversary of the day the classic cover of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album was shot. The occasion was commemorated by hundreds of fans who converged on the zebra crossing in order to recreate the famous pose and pay their respects to the greatest band the world has ever seen.

Rather unsurprisingly, the zebra crossing is located next to the Abbey Road studios in north London where The Beatles recorded the LP which would end up being their penultimate album. It’s a very ordinary street in a very ordinary part of London, but its place in …read more

40 years ago today, the four members of The Beatles, plus guest keyboardist Billy Preston, played a concert on the roof of the Apple building in Saville Row, London. Although it was cut short, it’s still regarded as a momentous moment in music history.
By this time in their career, The Beatles weren’t getting on, with tensions producing some of the band’s best music in the studio, but putting paid to the notion of performing in public. This therefore ended up being the last gig the four played in public together.
The gig on the roof is now an iconic moment, but …read more

After the disappointing tally of award wins at the recent 2008 MTV Video Music Awards in Liverpool, where only Leona Lewis, Paul McCartney, and Rick Astley won, it’s nice to be able to report how British artists fared better at the World Music Awards in Monaco over the weekend.

Coldplay were named as ‘Bestselling Act of 2008′ thanks to their new album, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, hit the top of the charts in countries around the world, including the UK, the US, Japan, France, and Germany. Chris Martin and chums were also named ‘Best Rock Act’ …read more

When he was in The Beatles, Paul ‘Macca’ McCartney was a gem. As part of the best song writing duo who have ever lived, he and John Lennon created some of the best songs ever released, ones that still stand up to scrutiny today.
So what has happened since then to turn him in to one of the least friendly and humourless celebrities around?
Let’s not beat around the bush here, Paul McCartney’s solo stuff is crap. No seriously, even the big hits aren’t a patch on what he wrote and released when he was The Beatles.
How he has still got …read more

There are rumours that a long lost song written by John Lennon for The Beatles could now be completed and released as a tribute to Neil Aspinall.
Aspinall was band’s manager, and long-time friend who was regarded as “the fifth Beatle” until his death on March 24th.

The track, titled Now and Then, was discovered along with Free Bird and Real Love, both of which have since been remastered and released. Both became top ten hits proving that there is a still a demand for anything written by Lennon, or associated with The Beatles.

Neil Aspinall, The Beatles manager and confidant died on Sunday night at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in Manhattan. He was there receiving treatment for lung cancer, and was only 66 when he passed away.
Aspinall was often referred to as “The Fifth Beatle”, a title which George Harrison himself gave to the man with probably the longest association with the band expect for Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Ringo Starr.
He was involved with the band from its earliest days, hanging flyers advertising their performances around Liverpool, England, as far back as 1961. He eventually became the head of Apple Corps., the …read more

You might think that after 45 years of making money from being in The Beatles, the surviving members, namely Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, would have enough wealth not to worry about the odd release of a few unlicensed tracks here and there.
But it seems not, as Apple Corps, the Beatles company rather than the people behind the iPod, Mac and iPhone, are suing a Miami company called Fuego Entertainment, over an album entitled Jammin’ With The Beatles and Friends, Star Club, Hamburg, 1962. Catchy eh!

The album is a recording from the early days of The Beatles, before they …read more

Ah The Beatles, they were great weren’t they? Probably the best band in the world ever, and the inspiration for a ton of music which has come and gone since.
So you’d think life would be pretty sweet for the former members of the group, well Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr at least, seeing as the other two are dead and all.

But it seems only one of the two is happy to be a former Beatle right now, and with all the gossip swilling around at the moment, it’s probably not the one you think it is.