THE BEATLES '1'

This is an interesting compilation, especially for the possibility of accompanying, in chronological order, how The Beatles changed so radically, from a pop band just like thousands of others, to an original and clever band that is appreciated by almost everyone, from classical composers, like Aaron Copland, to heavy metal fans. From punk rockers to progressive die-hard fans, like me, who can listen in Beatles' work to the real origins of Progressive Rock.

The first song here is Love me do. it's a ridiculous song, where John repeats the same melody and lyrics 4 times, in order to make a song with more than two minutes. In the middle, he uses a harmonica riff copied from another artist whose name I forgot. From the second to the sixth song, the same structure of eerie songs, without any interesting detail, continues. In I Fell Fine, things begin to change. The melody is slightly more cleverly developed, and the bass is very interesting and noteworthy. But it's in Yesterday that everything changes. Paul sings a perfectly constructed melody, with a wisely arranged cello accompanying him. From now on, every song will have a distinctive progressive mark, sometimes slight, like the wonderfully played guitar of Something, sometimes very apparent, for example the amazing use of changing time signatures and unexpected harmonies on All you need is love, or the use of the string quartet on Eleanor Rigby, which has another astonishing melody. The disc ends with the completely clever and beautiful The Long and Winding Road, and someone who doesn't know The Beatles would never say the band that composed this almost classical song is the same of She Loves You. This compilation shows us how the late Beatles were important on developing the new genre which would be called Progressive. All the aspects that would define prog (except for the use of longer songs) can be found here. Let's see some: · Complex time signatures- In some of their songs there are very, very interesting uses of time changes. Here it can be noticed only in All you need is love. · Use of keyboards and different instruments- Very clear on Penny Lane, The lo0ng and winding road and, of course, Eleanor Rigby, which was a pioneer on the dialogue between rock and classical · Explorative and intelligent lyrics- I won't even comment this one. just take a look at Penny Lane's lyrics.