- Paperback: 528 pages
- Publisher: Pan; New Ed edition (18 Jun 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0283073330
- ISBN-13: 978-0283073335
- ASIN: 033048768X
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 4 x 19.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
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- #13 in Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Music > Styles > Rock & Pop > Singers & Groups > Beatles
Shout!: The True Story of the "Beatles"
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Product Description
Review
'Nothing less than thrilling... the definitive biography' New York Times 'This stands as the first (and still the best) collision of Beatles history and literary depth... just about everything is rendered with beautiful prose and laser-like insight' Q
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Philip Norman's SHOUT! is the original definitive work on the Fab Four - brilliantly written, encapsulating an era, and reflecting close personal working relationships with each of the protagonists.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Phillip Norman explains why he should have been John Lennon's best friend instead of Paul McCartney.
13 April 2009
Format:Paperback
Beatles fans beware: "Shout!" is a 400 page fan letter to John Lennon in which Paul McCartney is cast as a moustache-twirling pantomime villain. Poor old George and Ringo scarcely get a look in.
Norman's argument is that the Fab Four consisted of one musical lightweight plus two lucky bit-part players, all of whom rode to success on the back of John Lennon's genius. Yoko aside, I can't think of many who would agree with this; for most people, the Beatles were a team (four corners of a square, as McCartney calls them) and provided the ultimate musical proof of that old adage about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. Perhaps Norman's view is partly a result of timing ("Shout!" was first published in the immediate aftermath of Lennon's death) but whatever the reason, his claim that Lennon was three-quarters of the band means that "Shout!" gets off on the wrong foot from the very start.
Unfortunately, it doesn't get any better when it comes to the music. The Beatles were a phenomenon in many ways - socially, culturally, commercially - but the thing that made them famous was their songs; they were revolutionary at the time and they still sell by the million today. But Norman makes no attempt at musical analysis (except, of course, to claim that Lennon's songs are all much better than McCartney's) and offers no explanation for why the Beatles' music has been so popular for so long. This leaves a huge gap at the heart of this book.
The frustrating thing is that Norman is clearly a good writer. He covers the early, pre-fame years in detail (we don't reach the release of "Love Me Do" until a third of the way though)) and he threads his way deftly through the Apple debacle. He's also strong on 1950s-60s period detail and produces a few entertaining set pieces: the band's first tv appearance, for example, or their arrival in the States in 1964. But all this good work is ruined by his pro-Lennon bias; he really does shoe-horn it onto virtually every page and clearly feels that he has to run the other three down in order to build Lennon up. George and Ringo are dismissed as a pair of talentless makeweights and their contributions are largely ignored but they get off lightly compared to McCartney, the sniping at whom is unrelenting. At times it almost seems as if Norman is jealous of McCartney's relationship with his hero and he goes so far out of his way to vilify him that you simply end up losing all faith in Norman's judgment and in "Shout!"'s version of events. Once this happens, any biography is in big trouble.
So "Shout!" isn't the definitive biography of the Fab Four, still less is it "the true story of the Beatles". It's an unbalanced, one-eyed view of the band that Norman has been peddling, in regular 'revised and updated' editions, for 30 years. Try Hunter Davies for the insider's view, Ian Macdonald for the music or Mark Lewisohn for the anorak's guide.
Norman's argument is that the Fab Four consisted of one musical lightweight plus two lucky bit-part players, all of whom rode to success on the back of John Lennon's genius. Yoko aside, I can't think of many who would agree with this; for most people, the Beatles were a team (four corners of a square, as McCartney calls them) and provided the ultimate musical proof of that old adage about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. Perhaps Norman's view is partly a result of timing ("Shout!" was first published in the immediate aftermath of Lennon's death) but whatever the reason, his claim that Lennon was three-quarters of the band means that "Shout!" gets off on the wrong foot from the very start.
Unfortunately, it doesn't get any better when it comes to the music. The Beatles were a phenomenon in many ways - socially, culturally, commercially - but the thing that made them famous was their songs; they were revolutionary at the time and they still sell by the million today. But Norman makes no attempt at musical analysis (except, of course, to claim that Lennon's songs are all much better than McCartney's) and offers no explanation for why the Beatles' music has been so popular for so long. This leaves a huge gap at the heart of this book.
The frustrating thing is that Norman is clearly a good writer. He covers the early, pre-fame years in detail (we don't reach the release of "Love Me Do" until a third of the way though)) and he threads his way deftly through the Apple debacle. He's also strong on 1950s-60s period detail and produces a few entertaining set pieces: the band's first tv appearance, for example, or their arrival in the States in 1964. But all this good work is ruined by his pro-Lennon bias; he really does shoe-horn it onto virtually every page and clearly feels that he has to run the other three down in order to build Lennon up. George and Ringo are dismissed as a pair of talentless makeweights and their contributions are largely ignored but they get off lightly compared to McCartney, the sniping at whom is unrelenting. At times it almost seems as if Norman is jealous of McCartney's relationship with his hero and he goes so far out of his way to vilify him that you simply end up losing all faith in Norman's judgment and in "Shout!"'s version of events. Once this happens, any biography is in big trouble.
So "Shout!" isn't the definitive biography of the Fab Four, still less is it "the true story of the Beatles". It's an unbalanced, one-eyed view of the band that Norman has been peddling, in regular 'revised and updated' editions, for 30 years. Try Hunter Davies for the insider's view, Ian Macdonald for the music or Mark Lewisohn for the anorak's guide.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
...don't bother reading Philip Norman, a worthy Sunday Times journalist self-appointed as a rock scribe. I opened his much-vaunted Lennon tome at a page where Phil Spector is described as a Motown producer! I read Shout when it was first published and at the time of relatively few Beatle books it more or less sufficed. Perhaps the best thing about is its title - smart marketing. The updated edition contains a particularly snide summing-down of George Harrison as artist and person, and in today's Sunday Times he goes further, describing him as a mantra-chanting, misanthropic sex-addict. Even if this were true, there's no way Norman could begin to comprehend George's contribution as a musician, because he hasn't a clue about music, nor, it would seem by the Spector/Motown nonsense, much real interest in it - like too many journalists what he's really into is the gossip. I love John Lennon, in spite of the numerous tales of appalling behaviour, but The Beatles were above all a great band - all four were outstanding in their different ways. For my money the best book by far is Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head, which provides almost as much insight into the Fabs as people as it illuminates the music - and much more.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the granddaddy of bad Beatles biogs. Published in the immediate aftermath of John Lennon's murder, it initiated the fundamentally wrong-headed view that John was the dominant talent in the band. Norman clearly has an agenda against McCartney and cannot resist taking a dig at him at every opportunity - Paul is given the doubt of every benefit. As for George and Ringo, both are summarily dismissed, the former as an 'average guitarist' who 'got lucky', the latter as a loveable idiot. In truth, though, both are given short space by Norman, who clearly feels that Lennon was the class act and that McCartney cramped his style.
So far, so bad. But Norman has 'updated' this piece of Sunday Times style journalism with a postcript, where we learn that John's post-Beatles career was a fairy-tale of loving marriage, househusbandry and baking bread: the view propagated by Yoko Ono, whom Norman cleary wants to keep on the right side of (this whole book might as well have been ghost-written by Norman on her behalf), while Paul, George and Ringo quickly slipped into well-heeled mediocrity. The postcript on McCartney, in particular, represents one of the most mean-spirited things ever written about anyone anywhere.
In conclusion: you'll probably enjoy this if you're a 'John was s saint' delusional fantasist, but if you want a balanced picture of the Beatles, you'll (still) have to turn to Hunter Davies' forty-two year old 'authorised' biography, which - for all its many flaws - does attempt an honest and fair look at its subject.
The one star is for Norman's commentary on the affairs of Apple, which manages to reduced this labrynthine and forbidding subject to manageable proportions - though in this he has recently been superseded by Peter Doggett's (much better) book on the subject.
So far, so bad. But Norman has 'updated' this piece of Sunday Times style journalism with a postcript, where we learn that John's post-Beatles career was a fairy-tale of loving marriage, househusbandry and baking bread: the view propagated by Yoko Ono, whom Norman cleary wants to keep on the right side of (this whole book might as well have been ghost-written by Norman on her behalf), while Paul, George and Ringo quickly slipped into well-heeled mediocrity. The postcript on McCartney, in particular, represents one of the most mean-spirited things ever written about anyone anywhere.
In conclusion: you'll probably enjoy this if you're a 'John was s saint' delusional fantasist, but if you want a balanced picture of the Beatles, you'll (still) have to turn to Hunter Davies' forty-two year old 'authorised' biography, which - for all its many flaws - does attempt an honest and fair look at its subject.
The one star is for Norman's commentary on the affairs of Apple, which manages to reduced this labrynthine and forbidding subject to manageable proportions - though in this he has recently been superseded by Peter Doggett's (much better) book on the subject.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Magical Book
I am going to say here that Shout is a must read for anyone interested in The Fab Four. I could not put the book down, it carries you on a journey through the lives of these... Read more
Published 2 days ago by G Marson
IT'S A LULU
I didn't expect SHOUT! to be the best book I've ever read about the THE BEATLES - but in many ways it is (and I've read quite a few over the years). Read more
Published 6 months ago by Kelvin J. Dickinson
A cynical account of the story of the Beatles
Cant' really tell why people think this is the best book on Beatles - or why it has once been a classic. Read more
Published 8 months ago by jacquesnorris
Biased, unmusical- but brilliant
Knowing about the Beatles is knowing about life. I bought this biography to learn more about everybody's favourite band. It didn't disappoint. Read more
Published 13 months ago by Lord Macaulay
Okay but could be better.
I would say this is an okay book. As many other readers, I think, have stated, I definitely found this a rather biased account of the Beatles. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Emma
Poetry
The man's a poet-in fact he's almost as good as his subjects.Keep turning out that špurple proseš Philip.You're wonderful.
Published 21 months ago by D. Anderson
Not about the music...
This is a fairly interesting and comprehensive book on the Beatles. Other than a single chapter on childhood and a chapter on each `ex-Beatles' the focus is firmly on the rise and... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Matt Blick
Excellent
Great book. Took me two weeks, but now have a great insight into the four individual parts that made up the greatest Rock n Roll band in the history of popular music.
Published on 26 May 2009 by Mark Richards
Poorly written and biased book on the Fabs
I bought this to read on holiday; I know the story well and have been a fan for many decades, but I thought it would be interesting to read another take on the tale of The Beatles. Read more
Published on 6 May 2008 by Mr. C. J. Iredale
Clear, Concise and Truthful - A Special Book
As a Beatles fan I bought this book and expected the usual 'stolen' information that many biographies contain these days. Read more
Published on 30 Aug 2007 by D. Titherington
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