Film Review: “Backbeat” — Iain Softley (1994)

Rating: 5 / 10 Long before Ringo Starr was a Fab Four fixture, or before Love Me Do became their first hit single… before John Lennon proclaimed that the band was more popular than Jesus, or before they were slumming around India with the Maharishi… before their Magical Mystery Tour debacle of a film and…

Album Review: “Hey Jude” — The Beatles (1970)

Yet another trip down The Beatles and their American LP mystery trip… and yes, this one takes a bit of context. So we’re now in the late 1960s. After the release of the seminal 1966 Beatles album Revolver, the band has decided to assert more control over their music, business ventures, touring (i.e. ceasing touring entirely),…

Album Review: “The Beatles” — The Beatles (1968)

The Beatles. aka “The White Album”. My God. Where do I even begin with this record? First off, an admission of sorts: I am a huge sucker when it comes to big, bombastic, self-indulgent classic albums. Whenever the artist or band has decided to take control of their music and explore their creative boundaries, despite the…

Album Review: “A Hard Day’s Night” — The Beatles (1964)

A Hard Day’s Night is a landmark album for the Fab Four. Ostensibly it was their first “soundtrack album”, featuring seven songs from their debut film of the same name (or eight, depending on how you look at it). More importantly, it was the first Beatles album that consisted entirely of original songs from the…

Album Review: “Help!” — The Beatles (1965)

Help! kicks off a period of unparalleled creativity, innovation, songwriting and musicianship in The Beatles’s history. The dark, folksy yearnings of the previous (and wholly underrated) Beatles For Sale lead to more experimentation with Dylanesque folk, country, and balladeering, while not sacrificing the pure pop craftsmanship that has earmarked much of The Beatles sound up to this point. 1965 was in…

Film Review: “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1978)

Rating: Are you kidding me? I don’t think you have really lived until you’ve watched the Bee Gees engage in a disco kung-fu battle against poorly choreographed nurses while Steve Martin, gyrating in the corner and performing a rather freakish Peter Lorre impression, dodges blows from a silver cane swung by Peter Frampton.  But let’s not get ahead…