- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Mainstream Publishing (9 May 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1840185678
- ISBN-13: 978-1840185676
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,534,407 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Find out the tricks the Beatles used in the studio, their songwriting formulas, the music they stole from others and the commercial compromises they made to get hit singles. This volume also aims to get behind the personalities of the fab four. Find out what songs should have been McCartney/Lennon rather than Lennon/McCartney, about their inter-band rivalries and how John Lennon and Paul McCartney sidelined George Harrison's songwriting.
From the Author
I decided to write Beatles For Sale, as none of the accounts of the Beatles music properly tallied with how I heard it or with how they recalled it.
John famously said that he would like to go back and re-record every Beatles song and referred to a handful as rubbish.
Equally no one had really tackled the issue of plagiarism in the Beatles music before and yet John, Paul and George have all openly admitted to it, indeed both John and George were sued for it.
I have only praise for Yesterday, Hey Jude, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Penny Lane, Something etc, but fans of Maxwells Silver Hammer and Rocky Racoon should beware.
Does this mean I do not love the Beatles music? Accepting someones faults is all part of loving them. A fanatic does not accept faults.
John famously said that he would like to go back and re-record every Beatles song and referred to a handful as rubbish.
Equally no one had really tackled the issue of plagiarism in the Beatles music before and yet John, Paul and George have all openly admitted to it, indeed both John and George were sued for it.
I have only praise for Yesterday, Hey Jude, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Penny Lane, Something etc, but fans of Maxwells Silver Hammer and Rocky Racoon should beware.
Does this mean I do not love the Beatles music? Accepting someones faults is all part of loving them. A fanatic does not accept faults.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Poorly researched and badly written,
By Mike McArthur (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: "Beatles" for Sale: The Musical Secrets of the Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band of All Time (Paperback)
David Rowley's book has more holes than a Swiss cheese. Rowley is quite obviously not a child of the 60s and his attempts to compare marketing techniques of early Beatle records with modern boy bands is simply ludicrous. Markets were very different then. Pop music was the preserve of the young - i.e. teens to, at most, early 20s. The Beatles - along with the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Who etc. - all aimed at the same market. The fact that Beatle music appealed to a much wider audience helped create the crossover market we have today. The two factors that set the Beatles apart from their contemporaries were the talent of John Lennon and Paul McCartney as songwriters and singers. It was, though, the latter that was more important initially. George Martin did not sign them because he thought they would be the 'greatest songwriters of the 20th century'. He was looking for the 'new' Cliff and the Shadows. In Lennon and McCartney he realised he had two rock and roll singers of exceptional quality and diversity. Listen to 'Money', 'Twist and Shout' and 'There's a Place'.Rowley's book sheds little new light on the Beatles work and fails to set their career in context. It is poorly researched, littered with grammatical errors and offers no insight for fans, new or old.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
They only did it cos of fame!,
By A Customer
This review is from: "Beatles" for Sale: The Musical Secrets of the Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band of All Time (Paperback)
A provocative, direct, and interesting review of The Beatles' cannon from a post punk perspective. I particularly like Mr Rowley's proustian idea that a haircut might have inspired John Lennon to write 'Strawberry Fields', and his idea that Yesterday works much better as a song about death, than it does if it is interpreted as a love song is spot on. And there's lots more like this, although some of it could have been better expressed.I don't agree with everything in the book (Mr Rowley and I obviously have different beatles music tastes - epitomised by his preference for Seargent Peppers over Revover, and his suggested single lp list of White Album tracks) , and unfortunately ultimately it is not as demystifying as the author convincingly implies in the introduction - a pity because I found it to be entirely concordant with Simon Napier-Bell's musings about the 1960s British pop scene in his 2002 semi-autobiographical 'Black Vinyl, White Powder'. However as a Beatles fan who grew up under the cultural shadow of the punk DIY ethos and academic tide of cultural studies it made for refreshing credible reading.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Mr Rowley, please don't write any more books about The Beatles.,
By A_alpha (Glasgow) - See all my reviews
This review is from: "Beatles" for Sale: The Musical Secrets of the Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band of All Time (Paperback)
This has to be the one of the worst attempts at informing the modern-day music lover of works of the greatest band ever. Rowley discusses the quality of the songs of The Beatles as if he were some genius who could have somehow made them better. What the reader has to remember when perusing this volume is that these are only the opinions of the author. There is very little fact involved in the writing of this book and anyone who grew up as a fan of the group will be well disappointed with this effort.
For instance, when talking about Think For Yourself, Rowley states "Paul unforgivably employs probably the most misplaced piece of instrumentation on a Beatles record, that of 'fuzz box' on bass". What does this guy use to listen with? Going by the comments on YouTube for this track then it would seem Mr Rowley has indeed got cloth ears. Just one example, but he gets it wrong so many times. Poor show.
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