Beatles Books for Sale
Could we ever know too much about the Beatles? New connections seem to emerge every time someone reorganizes the myriad pieces of their four intertwined jigsaw puzzles into a new book or movie. Jonathan Gould's many-years-in-the-making "Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America" is the best overall biography to emerge since "The Beatles" (2005), Bob Spitz's stab at painting the big group picture. In his own information-packed 600-plus pages, Gould relates the Beatles' myth in the context of twentieth-century history and culture. Why the Beatles should have existed precisely when they did is backed up by relatively long stretches devoted to the concept of charisma, the British government sex scandals of the sixties, recording technology, and so on. As a musician himself, Gould is particularly excellent at unpacking the technical qualities that make the Beatles sound so appealing, and he does so in an extremely accessible, readable, and detailed manner. For example: "The long fade of 'You Never Give Me Your Money' ends in a hush of tape-looped night sounds, peepers, and wind chimes that set the stage for the burbling guitar, muffled cymbals, and thumping rhythm of 'Sun King,' which rises like mist on a lake."
When it comes to track-by-accounts of the Beatles, however, Gould doesn't quite match the obsession of the third and final edition of Ian MacDonald's "Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties." In a long introduction, MacDonald writes, "The Sixties seem like a golden age to us because, relative to now, they were." And whether you agree with his assessment or not, you have to give it up for his detailed accounts of the nearly 200 Beatles studio tracks that follow in the order in which they were recorded. The refreshingly opinionated writer's assessments run from the highly laudatory ("With its parallel movement three-part chorus, interlocking drum part, and fiercely angular slide guitar solo...'Drive My Car' is among the group's most closely arranged records and remains one of the most effective starting tracks to any of their albums") to cattily dismissive (he characterizes "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" as a "lapse into tub-thumping banality"). Together, these Beatles books should provide as much data as you'll ever need—at least until the next one.