All Beatles songs played at the same time

Every song by The Beatles played simultaneously. The start times are staggered so that every song ends at the same time.

As a commenter notes, "Gets very complicated in the end. So did the Beatles." (via waxy)

George Harrison: Living in the Material World

Premiering on HBO this week, a Martin Scorsese documentary on George Harrison, everyone's favorite Beatle who wasn't John or Paul.

Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese traces Harrison's live from his musical beginnings in Liverpool though his life as a musician, a seeker, a philanthropist and a filmmaker, weaving together interviews with Harrison and his closest friends, performances, home movies and photographs. Much of the material in the film has never been seen or heard before. The result is a rare glimpse into the mind and soul of one of the most talented artists of his generation and a profoundly intimate and affecting work of cinema.

Beatles mockumentary from the year 3126

A short documentary report from a thousand years into the future about The Beatles.

First-hand records are certainly scarce. There's a lot we don't know about The Beatles, but we do know that these four young men -- John Lennon, Paul MacKenzie, Greg Hutchinson, and Scottie Pippen -- were some of the finest musicians that ever existed. The Beatles rose to prominence when they travelled from their native Linverton to America to perform at Ed Sullivan's annual Woodstock festival.

Abbey sidewalk

Just before the famous Abbey Road photo was taken, The Beatles were photographed on the sidewalk waiting to cross the street.

(via matt)

Kubrick directs The Beatles in Lord of the Rings?

Possibly the worst idea in the world: a movie version of Lord of the Rings starring The Beatles (with Lennon as Gollum) and directed by Stanley Kubrick. According to Peter Jackson, this was a possibility but JRR said hells no.

According to Peter Jackson, who knows a little something about making Lord of the Rings movies, John Lennon was the Beatle most keen on LOTR back in the '60s -- and he wanted to play Gollum, while Paul McCartney would play Frodo, Ringo Starr would take on Sam and George Harrison would beard it up for Gandalf. And he approached a pre-2001 Stanley Kubrick to direct.

Lennon/McCartney, reconsidered

In his new series for Slate about creative partnerships, Joshua Shenk explores one of the most fruitful creative collaborations in history: that of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Part three, about the break-up the Beatles, comes to a conclusion that's different than some of the theories you may have heard previously.

Yet, looking for concrete divisions in their labor, though not irrelevant, can certainly seem myopic. It feels, from Davies' account, as though the two men were bound by a thousand invisible strings.

Davies looked on at the partners before Yoko, before The White Album -- "the tension album" Paul said. But tension had always been key to their work. The strings connecting them hardly dissolved, even in the times when the collaboration was adversarial, the kind of exchange that Andre Agassi described when he said that, if he hadn't faced Pete Sampras, he'd have a better record, "but I'd be less." Picking up on that incisive line, Michael Kimmelman wrote in his review of Agassi's book Open that "rivalry ... [is] the heart of sports, and, for athletes, no matter how bitter or fierce, something strangely akin to love: two vulnerable protagonists for a time lifted up not despite their differences but because of them."

And:

This is nasty stuff. But the opposite of intimacy isn't conflict. It's indifference. The relationship between Paul and John had always been a tug of war -- and that hardly stopped when they ceased to collaborate directly. Asked what he thought Paul would make of his first solo album, Lennon said, "I think it'll probably scare him into doing something decent, and then he'll scare me into doing something decent, like that."

I've said it before: love and hate are the same emotion. (via @tcarmody)

The worst movies never made

A list of ten movies that weren't made...and a good thing they weren't. Including a Lord of the Rings adaptation with The Beatles.

According to Roy Carr's The Beatles at the Movies, talks were once in the works for a Beatle-zation -- with John Lennon wanting to play Gollum, Paul McCartney Frodo, George Harrison Gandalf, and Ringo Starr Sam. Collaborating with director John Boorman, screenwriter Rospo Pallenberg thought the Beatles should play the four hobbits (and agreed with McCartney that he would be the ideal Frodo).

Beatles infographics

The most interesting of several infographics related to The Beatles is the first one depicting the declining rate of collaboration within the band gleaned from songwriting credit data.

(thx, bryan)

Color photo of The Beatles in 1957

Well, not so much The Beatles as The Quarrymen, a band formed by John Lennon and some schoolmates that was the precursor to The Beatles. (via @brainpicker)

Kanye is dead

Is Beatle Paul McCartney Dead? Is Rapper Kanye West Dead?

Remastered Beatles albums

Today's the day: those meticulously remastered Beatles albums are available today. The Beatles version of Rock Band is out as well.

Abbey Road cliche on repeat

Fun timelapse video of a day in the life of the Abbey Road crosswalk depicted on The Beatles album of the same name. (via buzzfeed)

The Beatles' last concert

Video of The Beatles' last public performance in three parts: one, two, three. They performed on top of the group's own building with an audience situated on rooftops and down on the street. (via the year in pictures)

Beatles songs ranked

A list like this could spark endless debate: a ranking of all the songs by The Beatles, from #185 (Revolution 9) to #1 (A Day In The Life).

To novice Beatles fans, I warn you not to believe the hype about "Revolution 9." I've listened to it many times over the years, waiting for the light in my head to switch on so I could unlock its mysteries. All I've ever gotten out of it is the vague feeling that immediately after listening to it, something is going to rise out from under my bed and butcher me in my sleep.

Each choice is extensively annotated and defended; start here if you want to work your way through them all.

The Beatles pretty much invented the CAT scan

The money brought in due to Beatlemania funded the research that led to the CAT scanning machine. (via gawker lite)

Video of Peter Sellers reciting The Beatles

Video of Peter Sellers reciting The Beatles A Hard Day's Night in the style of Laurence Olivier doing Shakespeare's Richard III. Got all that? (via cyn-c)

This Bird Has Flown is a tribute

This Bird Has Flown is a tribute album of The Beatles' Rubber Soul on the 40th anniversary of its release. Includes covers by Ted Leo, The Fiery Furnaces, and Sufjan Stevens.