Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Evolution of the Beatles and the Creation of Art in Pop.
The Historical Peculiarity of the Beatles
The Perception of the Beatles
The Beatles versus Bob Dylan
Chapter 2 NME: A Convenient Initialism.
New Development
Maintaining the Roots
Exposing of inadequacy
Chapter 3: The Transformation of Melody Maker and the Alternative Publications.
The Alternative Publications
The Transformation of Melody Maker
Survival of the Fittest
Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendix
Introduction
This investigation is a study of the Beatles’ evolution. Though at first this may sound like a zoological investigation, this study does not deal with the evolutionary biology of insects. However the zoological framing should not be discarded so readily. The Beatles did evolve and change their nature from primitive and simple pop origins to sophisticated and complicated compositions. The difference is that these Beatles did not adapt to their environment, rather their evolution changed their environment. This is where this investigation lies: how the Beatles’ evolution changed the culture around them. Specifically how the Beatles’ change in musical biology impacted music journalism in the 1960’s insofar as it induced a transformation.
The Beatles’ music underwent a rapid and radical change between 1965 and 1967. The L.Ps Rubber Soul (1965) Revolver (1966) Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), the E.P Magical Mystery Tour (1967) and the singles Paperback Writer/Rain (1966) and Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever (1967) form the focus of this investigation. These records mark the evolution and accumulative sophistication of the Beatles from simple pop to ground breaking innovation, experimentation, diverse instrumentation and psychadelia; the evolution that prompted the Queen in 1967 to remark ‘The Beatles are getting awfully strange these days’.[1]
There are three main arguments for the basis of this investigation. The first is that the Beatles were the converging point of the pinnacle of popularity, the pinnacle of ubiquity in the music press and the pinnacle of pop music innovation and sophistication. This unique position meant that their musical evolution, more than any other act, transformed music journalism.
The second is the aesthetic argument. The Beatles’ evolution, through the expansion of the aesthetic of pop music, had three transformative effects. It transformed the existing perception of popular music into the recognition that it was worthy of serious and developed consideration. Secondly this incurred the transferability of jazz and classical criticism. Thirdly it created the unprecedented perception that popular music could be art. This fundamentally transformed music journalism.
The third argument is that popular music journalism did exist before the Beatles’ evolution. It was however still in its infancy, ‘little more than pseudo publicity’[2] and until the mid-sixties was ‘little more than news and gossip’.[3] It shall be termed limited music journalism. It reflected the relative simplicity of the pop music. The defining features were: 1) minimal or zero critical engagement with the musical text or instrumentation 2) The main criteria for critical judgement was chart success and therefore record sales. 3) A simple descriptive approach with a limited range of vocabulary to analysing music. 4) A preponderance of gossip style articles on appearance, private lives and personalities of artists. 5) General aversion to musical analysis.
The Beatles transformed this into what shall be termed developed or serious music journalism. The music was more complex which necessitated a different critical response and engagement. Its defining features were: 1) a more sophisticated and comprehensive engagement with the context, instrumentation, recording techniques, meanings and lyrics. 2) An elevated language with passionate and more diverse vocabulary, new linguistic techniques such as metaphors and intertextual references. 3) Criteria separate from sales potential for judgement. 4) The transferral of critical engagement that had hitherto been the preserve of jazz and classical criticism. 5) General commitment to musical analysis and appreciation of importance and significance of popular music.
This investigation focuses on the UK music press where the ubiquity of Beatles coverage was at its height and thus any impact would be most palpable. However American papers Crawdaddy! and Rolling Stone are considered due to the significance of their inception in this period. Melody Maker (hereafter MM) and New Musical Express (hereafter NME) are the two main sources for this investigation. As the most widely circulated music papers in the UK they form the obvious litmus paper for assessing any change in music journalism. Furthermore their roots being in different keys, as a jazz based trade paper and charts focused paper respectively, provide the basis for how the Beatles’ music affected them differently and provides an interesting note of comparison. However the papers cannot fully reveal the personal attitudes of the music journalists themselves.
This investigation includes first hand testimony from journalists in the 1960s. To fully analyse the impact of the Beatles’ evolution, perception is essential. This adds flesh to the bones of the textual analysis. Personal interviews with Norman Jopling (writer for Record Mirror), Keith Altham and Alan Smith (key writers at the NME) provide the perception. Michael Lydon provides the American perspective as a prominent writer for Newsweek.
The investigation approaches the historical phenomenon of the Beatles, from the perspective of a Beatles enthusiast. It approaches the change in music journalism through the lens of the Beatles’ music. This illuminates their influence which has previously not been given sufficient attention in existing historiography. Gestur Gudmundsson, Ulf Lindberg, Morten Michelsen and Hans Weisthaunet in ‘Brit Crit: Turning Points in British Rock Criticism, 1960-1990’ and Roy Shuker in Understanding Popular Music Culture provide a broad narrative of the transformation of the UK press. They identify but do not fully develop the primary causes of its transformation. They both highlight the importance of the art ideology in popular music as the primary musical influence on the transformation of music journalism.[4] Therefore through the argument that the Beatles were fundamental in creating art, and its perception as such, in popular music, this adds a greater emphasis on the primary musical cause and preceding impetus for the existing acknowledgements of the transformation.
The Beatles had a transformative impact on music journalism from 1965 to 1968. This investigation is a magical mystery tour of that impact to the point where it will no longer be a mystery.
Chapter 1: The Evolution of the Beatles and the Creation of Art in Pop.
The Beatles underwent a rapid and radical musical evolution. It introduced radical new sounds and aesthetic expansion to popular music. It consolidated the album as the prime currency of popular music which changed the focus of critical engagement. Their evolution reached aesthetic heights which instigated the perception of art in popular music which fundamentally transformed its critical treatment. Their aesthetic expansion incurred the transferability of classical criticism. This combined with their unique popularity and ubiquity in the press had a transformative effect on music journalism.
The Historical Peculiarity of the Beatles
The detail of Beatles’ evolution is essential in order to emphasise how starkly contrasted their earlier and latter work was. It is important to understand how far the Beatles evolved, to understand how and why this would have an effect on music journalism. It is simply to show how remarkable their creative leaps were in terms of their rapidity (Dec 1965 – June 1967) and radical nature.
[The Beatles] continually investigated new methods and concepts...employing modal, pentatonic and Indian scales, incorporating studio effects [and] exotic instruments [with] unique versatility. Forever seeking new stimuli, they experimented with everything from tape loops and drugs [and procedures] borrowed from the intellectual avant-garde.[5]
‘We’d had our cute period now it was time to expand’.[6] The Beatles rewrote the limits of conventional pop and focused their creative energies on aesthetic expansion. The Beatles’ early creative output from Please Please Me (1963) to Help! (1965) was generally simple pop music. It involved simple instrumentation, short song length, simple lyrical content about simple subject matter and a primacy of singles as their creative focus. ‘Few of the Beatles first hundred records last much longer than two minutes’ pop music was ‘intrinsically instantaneous’.[7] Rubber Soul (1965) marks the start of the innovation that would change their sound completely. The first ever use of a sitar in a pop song was on Norwegian Wood, and a maturation of more serious and personal lyrics marked a shift from their earlier simple lyrics and instrumentation.[8] The Beatles became more sophisticated.
‘One thing’s for sure – the next L.P is going to be very different’.[9] Revolver (1966) marks the greatest shift from the earlier style. The studio was an instrument in itself. Through the use of tape loops, backwards guitars, sound effects, echo through electronic delay, the Beatles created an ‘innovative psychedelic ambience’[10] and ‘distanced themselves impossibly from what they could perform on stage’.[11] The reverse taping on I’m Only Sleeping, distortion on Taxman, exclusively Indian musicians on Love You Too and liberal use of sound effects was quite a shock to popular music and was a psychedelic precedent. The single Rain is cited as the Beatles’ first psychedelic record’ and the ‘first instance of reversed recording to the public’.[12] Tomorrow Never Knows, as an attempt to recreate the effects of an LSD experience,[13] was radical. Laughing and seagull sound effects, loops of sitars, mellatrons, the orchestral chord of B flat major and loops criss-crossing in random patterns were all encased in George Martin’s production, which ‘in terms of textural innovation is to pop music what Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique was to 19th century orchestral music’.[14] The drone of sitar-tambura harmonies was literally unheard of in pop music. ‘Until Tomorrow Never Knows, drones had been absent from western music since the passing of the religious organum style of the 12th century.’[15] Compared with the single I Feel Fine released less than two years before, a typical Beatles pop song with vocals, bass guitar, drums, lead guitar and rhythm guitar instrumentation,[16] this shows how radically and rapidly the Beatles had leaped creatively.
‘I...am sick of doing sounds that people have heard before’.[17]Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (hereafter Sgt. Pepper’s) released in the summer of 1967 is cited as the ‘zenith of the Beatles recording career’,[18] their ‘Magnus Opus’.[19] This represents the pinnacle of creative achievement and a stylistic leap from their simple pop origins. It was conceived as an artefact, a concept album with a threading (though loosely adhered to) narrative of an alter ego band which ‘represents the precise moment at which modern pop music becomes self-aware and begins to reflect’.[20] The album had a £25,000 budget and a total six months recording time compared with £400 and 24 hours recording time for the first album Please Please Me (1963).[21] It was conceived as a whole not a mere collection of songs and certainly no covers. The album boasted the height of studio innovation and effects, Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite utilised a tape of Victorian steam organs cut up and edited into ‘a kaleidoscope wash. [George Martin] created a brilliantly whimsical impression of period burlesque’.[22] It contained a wide variety of instrumentation. Indian instruments on Within You Without You (sitars, tamburas, dilrubas, svarmandal, tabla) as well as eight violins and three cellos marks it as ‘stylistically, the most distant departure from the staple Beatles sound’.[23] There is unconventional instrumentation on every single track on the album[24] and a 41 piece orchestra on the closing track A Day In The Life. The ‘versatility and stylistic diversity of the material is ... astonishing.’[25]
The Beatles’ evolution was pioneering in consolidating the advent of rock as a more serious form of popular music and albums as the prime currency. By 1967 album sales had overtaken singles sales.[26] This demanded a transformation in critical approach. To treat the album as a conceptual whole, rather than a collection of songs demanded a more comprehensive engagement with meaning, themes and appreciation of the album as an ensemble piece of creativity. This marked a significant transformation in music journalism.
This remarkable innovation and achievement was coupled with their unrivalled popularity. The Beatles had an unmatched string of number one singles in quick succession: From Me To You (1963) She Loves You (1963), I Want To Hold Your Hand (1963), Can’t Buy Me Love (1964). She Loves You remains the biggest selling single in British history.[27] By April 1964 the Beatles held the top five positions in the Billboard chart in the USA. A feat never accomplished before or since. I Want To Hold Your Hand sold over one million copies within two weeks in the USA, when the typical peak sales for a hit single was 200,000.[28] Their phenomenal popularity and unrivalled domination of the charts continued past the initial teenage hysteria and delirium of ‘Beatlemania’.[29] In the UK every single L.P from Please Please Me (1963) to Let It Be (1970) including the albums that mark the Beatles’ evolution: Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt Pepper’s was number one representing an unprecedented total of eleven chart topping albums. Sgt Pepper’s was number one for 27 weeks in the UK and 19 weeks in the US.[30] Therefore their radical and rapid evolution and aesthetic achievement was central not peripheral to popular music. The Velvet Underground were innovative. Jefferson Airplane were psychedelic. Bob Dylan was lyrically inventive. However the Beatles could claim all three of these accolades and, uniquely, were unabatedly the pinnacle of popularity.
Therefore the Beatles represent the unique marriage between unrivalled popularity and groundbreaking innovation. Their unprecedented accretions of popularity during Beatlemania created the ‘insatiable thirst for Beatles news’.[31] Demand for Beatles coverage was huge and the Beatles were the most ubiquitous in the music press. For instance it is no exaggeration to say that at least one article on the Beatles appeared in every issue of NME in 1966. Therefore their unrivalled ubiquity in the press put them in the unique position over other artists in wielding the most influence over the press. Their change in music would necessarily get the most coverage. The demand for Beatles coverage did not abate, thus as their music changed the demand was transferred to a new style of journalism that could credibly engage with the music.
The Perception of the Beatles
To study the effect of the Beatles’ evolution on music journalism necessitates an investigation on the effect on the music journalists themselves. The Beatles fundamentally transformed the attitudes of the music journalists into believing pop music was something more than a teenage phenomenon and in need of serious attention. ‘Once it became clear that the Beatles were...capable of making subtle, complex and quite radical music, a new attitude took root among music and cultural critics.’[32] The Beatles transformed the music journalists, Alan Smith of NME recalls:
The Beatles made it more serious...their metamorphosis over a very short space of time was profound, and we found ourselves...having to think about it a bit more seriously...we began to realise that this was a more serious trade’.[33]
Alan Smith concludes there was a journalistic reaction to the Beatles’ music. Perceptions of the Beatles’ music had been challenged by their evolution. This is why the Beatles’ evolution transformed music journalism.
[The Beatles] grew from the mid-60s on, there became a respect for pop music as a real creative force. And therefore, we the journalists, certainly in the music press began to react to that and change our style... because their album output was becoming so fascinating and so very different from their earlier work. This was now something you could just stand up and talk about popular music as if it were a very serious matter. And that’s why our writing did absolutely change over that period of time’.[34]
Sgt Pepper’s was fundamental in changing the attitudes of the music press. It was ‘an artefact, honed by recording technique, conceived, composed, recorded and received in ways different from [their] hits’.[35]As a concept album it most overtly demanded a new style of journalism. It was a turning point for many journalists who began to feel popular music should be taken seriously. ‘I think Sgt pepper was the turning point. Everybody knew this was a masterwork worthy of serious consideration’.[36] Keith Altham echoes this: ‘Sgt pepper was the first serious pop album to be treated as a concept’.[37]
Sgt. Pepper’s [was] instantly recognized...as a work of art...it elevated the music and that elevation of the music changed the way people wrote about music...the way people wanted to write about music’[38].
Alan Smith feels its impact was profound: ‘This was absolutely a celebration of creativity. It was regarded so stunningly set apart from anything anyone else had done...one wanted to respect that and write about it with respect’. [39] Jann Wenner founder of Rolling Stone labelled it the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard’.[40] Therefore the Beatles’ evolution culminating in Sgt. Pepper’s overwhelmingly revolutionized the attitudes of the music press. As an album it demanded comprehensive consideration. As rock it was considered more enduring and significant than simple pop. As a pinnacle of creativity it was recognized as worthy of unprecedented appreciation.
The evolution of the Beatles’ music had created art in popular music. This could be dismissed as a subjective argument, and therefore not a sound objective argument as to why this transformed music journalism. However it is irrelevant whether one disagrees with this proposition or not. What does matter is that it was overwhelmingly perceived as art by the journalists, which meant they treated it as art, therefore changing the nature of their writing. This is an objective argument. Pop music had not so overwhelmingly been considered as art or worthy of serious appreciation. Therefore this marked a precedent in the way journalists wrote about pop music.
Michael Lydon, when interviewed, expressed that the Beatles were creating ‘true art of the highest calibre’.[41] Jon Landau pioneer of Rolling Stone defined the ‘criterion of art in rock is the capacity of the musician to create a personal, almost private universe and express it fully’.[42] This capacity is fully exercised by the Beatles. With a unique position of autonomous control over their recording with unlimited studio time and no final budget, the Beatles created the conceptual narrative of an alter ego in the form of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band. Therefore this shows that the Beatles creative output reached into the realms of art for Landau. This perception of art induced pioneering and unprecedented engagement with popular music. Jack Kroll of Newsweek exclaimed ‘it is useless to lament the simple old days of [The Beatles’], loss of innocence is increasingly their theme and the theme of a more serious new art’, he drew an intertextual comparison of Sgt. Pepper’s to T.S Eliot’s Waste Land.[43] The perception of the Beatles as art was prolific among journalists, John Cawelti commented ‘One can see the differences between pop groups which simply perform without creating that personal statement which marks the auteur, and highly creative groups like the Beatles who make their performance a complex work of art’.[44] Therefore this shows that the Beatles fundamentally altered the perceptions. Popular music could now be considered art. The Beatles ‘were the first to turn [pop] into an acknowledged art form beyond mere popular top 40 music, they certainly inspired the first serious writing about music’.[45]
This perception of art was a key achievement of the Beatles’ evolution that clearly affected its treatment. Simon Frith concurs with this. In The Sociology Of Rock Frith asserts ‘the Beatles were important in establishing the idea that rock... could be art’.[46] One could go further to say that Frith himself, as a pioneer of developed and serious writing on popular music, is a symptom of this perception. He himself became a rock journalist in 1967.[47] This was the precise time of the Beatles release of Sgt Peppers. Whilst I don’t wish to imply a simple cause and effect, it seems Frith was too ensnared in the new belief that pop music could be art.
I rejected the notion that because pop was commercial it couldn’t be art, because I began writing about music at precisely the moment when a new way of doing pop, rock was taking social, musical and cultural shape.[48]
Thus Frith emphasizes the importance of the Beatles in creating art. The Beatles by near consensus were perceived to have created art. It was this perception that changed music journalism. Firth’s own serious treatment of popular music is symptomatic of the perception that popular music could be art. Therefore Frith himself is a symptom of the effect of the Beatles’ evolution.
Therefore the Beatles were fundamental in creating art in popular music. Shuker in Understanding Popular Music Culture identifies the greatest musical influence on the transformation of music journalism was the ‘rise of rock culture with serious artistic intentions’ which entailed a ‘commitment to treating popular culture as worthy of serious analysis’.[49] Gudmundsson, Lindberg, Michelsen and Weisthaunet in ‘Brit Crit’ signify that ‘1964-1969 marks the genesis of rock criticism’. The impetus for this genesis is explicitly acknowledged. ‘[The] heavy input of art ideology began to invest sixties rock with ambitions...the phenomenon demanded more serious attention.’[50] Therefore they concur that the perception of art in popular music was the key musical impetus for the transformation for music journalism. This investigation in showing that the Beatles pioneered art in rock, which for these two texts transformed music journalism, is in concurrence with the existing accounts and has provided a finer focus.
The Beatles incorporated influences from John Cage, Stockhausen and Boulez and genres from jazz, classical, avant-garde and music hall.[51] This was coupled with their inclusion of orchestras and jazz musicians and an increasing complexity, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever created unprecedented sound images, moods and textures that had formerly been the province of classical music’.[52] The Beatles’ music by reaching a point of sufficient sophistication facilitated the transferability of classical criticism which could now be credibly applied to pop.
This is shown through the classical interpretations of the Beatles’ music. ‘In his early review Wilfred Mellers found echoes of Stockhausen’s Momente in [Sgt Peppers]’[53] and felt that the band’s ‘three [musical] periods have a genuine analogy with Beethoven’s’.[54] In 1968, The Observer qualified the Beatles as ‘the greatest songwriters since Schubert’.[55] The same year, in the New York Review of Books, Ned Rorem ‘compared the music of the Beatles with that of Mozart, Stravinsky, Ravel and other art composers’.[56] This is evidence of the Beatles’ infiltration of high culture. It induced a postmodernist blurring of the distinction between high and low culture which facilitated the transferability of terms previously the preserve of classical analysis. The key text on Sgt Pepper’s this investigation uses is Allen Moore’s Cambridge Music handbook. This is part of a series which ‘focuses on canonical works in the art tradition’[57] and is the only popular music entry. This very fact is testament to the aesthetic peak of the Beatles’ evolution incurring the transferability of classical analysis.
The Beatles versus Bob Dylan
The Beatles were fundamentally important in pushing the boundaries of (and thereby incurring the perceptions of art in) pop. However they were not alone. Dylan’s assault on the lyrical orthodoxy was certainly important. ‘Lyrical content of popular music itself forced critics to confront social issues and go beyond aesthetics’.[58] This provoked lyrical analysis, confronting social issues and engagement with meaning. However lyrics were not the primary focus in reception of popular music. Dylan’s lyricism forced critical responses to engage with the music beyond the mere aesthetic. However it was the Beatles’ expansion of the aesthetic into a complicated multi-faceted composition that enhanced critical responses to engage more intricately with the musicology, production, instrumentation and composition of the musical artefact. This is the key definition of the new or serious journalism. The aesthetic could not be ignored by consumers or music journalism. The expansion of the aesthetic was the greatest assault on pop orthodoxy which incurred a new style of journalism investigating the sound. It was the expansion of the aesthetic that drew the forensic musicological analysis transferred from jazz and classical criticism. As Dylan’s aesthetic was comparatively limited this could not, and did not apply, to his music.
Dylan was undoubtedly influential on the Beatles’ career. Their meeting at the Hotel Demonico on the 28th august 1964, where Dylan supposedly introduced them to marijuana is famed. This and Dylan’s music had large effect on their creative output. ‘Dylan...was pushing the poetic boundaries...it would make you think ‘’oh cool we can got there now’’.[59] Dylan’s literacy and primacy of lyrics were to inspire a lyrical maturation on Rubber Soul. Norwegian Wood is the first song where ‘following Dylan’s lead’[60] the lyrics are ‘more important than the music’.[61] However he cannot be said to be the primacy influence on the most groundbreaking albums which had the greatest effect on music journalism: Revolver and Sgt. Peppers. LSD, not marijuana or Dylan, was the inspiration for the most groundbreaking songs on Revolver. Lennon admitted taking 1000 LSD tabs between 1966 and 1968.[62] Tommorow Never Knows was an attempt to capture the effects in song.[63] Indeed the lyric ‘Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream’ seems in direct contrast Dylan’s ethos of intricate lyricism, written to be listened to attentively. It is almost needless to say that the classical influences and diverse instrumentation which inspired the greatest transformation in music journalism cannot be attributed to Dylan’s influence.
Furthermore, such is the definition of pop music that the aesthetic is the primary focus. The pop market was focused on danceable and listenable pop tunes. Therefore it was the very expansion of this focus (the aesthetic) that arrested the attention of the pop world and demanded a change in response. Dylan’s lyrical innovation was peripheral by comparison and not the fundamental challenge to the very definition of pop music. The aesthetic of the music was the predominant currency of critical responses. This is evidenced by the stronger impact of musically ground breaking Revolver and diverse Sgt Peppers rather than the lyrically mature Rubber Soul. This is also shown through jazz critics lambasting against Bob Dylan but lauding the Beatles (see chapter 3). Dylan did undergo an aesthetic transformation himself from folk to controversially ‘going electric’, incorporating electric amplification and full band. However this was conforming to the aesthetic of the time. Thus Dylan’s transformation did little to challenge the aesthetic notions of popular music.
Furthermore a simple but important difference between them was popularity and ubiquity in the press. Due to demand, articles and reviews of the Beatles naturally received more column inches in the pages of MM and NME. In 1966, the review of Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde was merely a track listing in NME[64] whereas the Revolver review was spread across two pages. Similarly MM’s review of Blonde on Blonde had a third of the word count of just one of the two separate reviews of Revolver.[65] Despite pioneering lyrical innovation and protest songs in the early 60s Dylan was absent from the pages of MM until the 23rd May 1964. Therefore Bob Dylan was not as influential on the music press. ‘It was Bob Dylan and the Beatles more than any other sixties artists who got journalists writing seriously about pop music’. The simple fact is that the unrivalled demand for Beatles coverage necessitated that their transformation was hugely documented. Since their transformation necessitated a new style of critical engagement, it therefore follows that the Beatles more than Bob Dylan transformed music journalism through sheer quantity alone.
Therefore it is clear that the Beatles have two clear advantages over Dylan which cement the fact that they, more than he, transformed music journalism. The first is popularity and ubiquity in the press necessitated a greater quantity of serious writing .The second is that the aesthetic was the key transforming factor as this was what dominated critical engagement. These two advantages are summarized by noting that Bob Dylan did not match the Beatles’ accolade of ‘an unprecedented triumvirate of chart-topping, ground breaking albums’.[66]
The Beatles’ evolution was rapid and radical and achieved a consolidation of the primacy of rock and albums in popular music. The Beatles’ evolution culminating in Sgt Pepper’s coupled with the unique position of unrivalled popularity and ubiquity in the press induced a fundamental transformation in music journalism. It was a turning point in the attitudes of the music press. Their aesthetic achievement was perceived as art which is historiographically cited as the transformative factor in music journalism in the 1960s. The musical dexterity and genre transcendence of the evolution incurred the transferability of classical criticism to popular culture on an unprecedented scale. Furthermore due to these factors of aesthetic expansion it was the Beatles more than Dylan that led the greatest and central assault on the core of orthodox pop music. Due to the factor of unrivalled popularity, their innovation was central not peripheral to the mainstream. The Beatles’ evolution marks the historical peculiarity of the seemingly oxymoronic mainstream experimentalism.
The Beatles were the most ubiquitous band in the press. Therefore the Beatles’ evolution was the most covered. To focus this investigation further, it must assess how this unrivalled coverage developed. Did the Beatles’ evolution transform the music press?
Chapter 2 NME: A Convenient Initialism.
The most revealing method to assess the impact of the Beatles’ evolution is to assess the paper that boasted ‘The World’s Largest Circulation Of Any Music Paper’ on the front cover of every issue.[67] The Beatles’ evolution induced significant change within the paper; however not to the extent that it could be termed a transformation. Three discernible trends characterise NME’s development to which its initialism provides a useful identification tool. ‘N’ denotes what shall be termed ‘New development’. Within this trend, there is substantial evidence of serious or developed music journalism as defined in the introduction. ‘M’ stands for ‘Maintaining the roots’. Within this trend, there was a relative consistency in style that was an adherence to a gossip, ‘showbiz’, limited pop journalism. This was due to its inability to depart sufficiently from its roots as a charts based publication. ‘E’ denotes the ‘Exposing of inadequacy’. Articles and reviews were exposed as inadequate and incapable in dealing with the more sophisticated music. Journalists appeared bewildered and unable to engage with the Beatles’ evolution credibly. It results in part from the maintaining of the roots. Applying limited pop journalism to sophisticated music necessitated shortcomings in credible engagement.
These trends therefore appear contradictory. Thus it can be concluded that NME underwent a capricious development in this years. It was precisely this capricious development that induced a lack of coherence within the paper, which contributed to its de-synchronisation with popular music and ultimately diminishing sales (this is dealt with fully in Chapter 3). The Beatles did not transform NME fully, despite significant development, it did not undergo a full change from limited to developed music journalism. Nonetheless the Beatles transformed the need and demand for developed music journalism, which the NME could not sufficiently provide.
New Development
The Beatles’ studio innovation forced engagement with the context and production of the music which was a key new development within NME. ‘I joined [NME] in ’63 and it was just a fan paper. The journalistic scope was limited. You were just confined to being enthusiastic...but... as the music got more serious, so we were allowed more freedom to write about the context in which it was made’.[68] The whole page interview on page three with the Beatles’ producer George Martin completely focused on the music and the forthcoming L.P Revolver. This was hitherto un-heard of in the pages of NME.[69] Revolver forced articles to engage with the recording techniques. ‘One of the most unusual Beatles [recording] sessions ever’, commenting on production ‘speaking through a guitar amp’ and the sound effects of bubbles and sandbags and the octet of strings in Eleanor Rigby.[70] Interviews with producers marked an unprecedented change, and engagement with production and context was an unprecedented development in NME directly influenced by the Beatles’ evolution.
Reviews changed significantly in length and critical engagement. There was an increased critical engagement on musical meritocracy not sales potential. Changing length reflects the greater amount of musical content and diversity to be engaged with. Early reviews were a simple, limited, hit-focused, descriptive engagement. ‘There was little humour or opportunity for three syllable words or erudite analysis of music, which defied criticism by its simplicity anyway’.[71] Simple pop songs could be responded to in a simple way.
BEATLES FINGER SNAPPER!
Here it is at last! ...I’m sure every NME reader already has a copy on order, so you don’t need me to recommend you to buy it. But just to go through the motions, let me tell you that it’s a bouncy finger-snapper with a pounding beat and catchy melody.[72]
The phrase ‘just to go through the motions’ implies a tripartite conclusion. First it implies the redundancy of the review because the quality of the track is presumed prior to critical engagement and the ‘review’ is analytically vacuous, simply focussing on the rhythm of the song with empty adjectives. Secondly it suggests reluctance at having to ‘go through the motions’, to even engage critically by reviewing it. Thirdly ‘the motions’ implies it is a repeated formula, alluding to the generic formula of the review of NME in this period which is amply evidenced. This was typical of the early 1960s pop journalism.
A Hard Day’s Night (1964) is reviewed in a 200 word subsection of the L.P reviews feature on page 10. It focuses on chart potential, ‘the title track is a sure-fire hit’ and uses the NME generic, descriptive formula: ‘a fast moving hand-clapper’. This simple review is reciprocal of the relatively simple Beatles’ music of the time. The article in the issue the week after, ‘BEATLES NIGHT LP SALES HEAD FOR WORLD RECORD’ has a larger word count than the review of the album itself.[73] This is indicative of the sales potential, not analysis, of music being the focus.
In direct contrast, the review of Magical Mystery Tour (1967) is a full page review. This, despite there being less than half the number of tracks on Magical Mystery Tour than on A Hard Day’s Night, represents a fuller engagement with the more sophisticated music and does not mention ‘hits’ once.
The Beatles are at it again, stretching pop music to its limits on beautiful sound canvasses [they]take us by the hand and lead us happily tripping through the clouds past Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and the Fool On The Hill...and into the world of Alice in Wonderland, where the walrus softly croons... you can almost visualize John [Lennon] crouching on a deserted shore singing...beautiful haunting strings from away on the horizon and a whole bagful of eerie Beatles sounds.[74]
The extended metaphor and visual imagery represent developed linguistic techniques. The drug reference ‘Tripping’ exhibits contextual cultural awareness and the influences on the Beatles’ music. The intertextual references to other Beatles songs ‘past Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ represents a more erudite style of journalism engaging with the history of the artist in using their previous work as an amusing aspect and context of an extended metaphor. Therefore there is clear evidence of a transformation from limited to developed music journalism as result of Beatles’ evolution. The divergent nature of these reviews cannot be solely attributed to their different authorship. If one controls that variable, change in critical engagement is still abundantly evident.
As [the Beatles] grew from the mid 60s on, there became a respect for pop music as a real creative force...we the journalists... began to react to that and change our style. We became more challenging...whereas before we just went along with it.[75]
Along with Smith’s testimony, he evidently did become ‘more challenging’, critically evaluating the text not based on sales potential or just going ‘along with it’. This change is evidenced when comparing Smith’s early profile of the Beatles in 1963: ‘things are really beginning to move for the Beatles...it looks like a bright future’,[76] to his 1200-1400 word review of The Beatles [White Album]. It recognizes the new responsibility of the reviewer appreciating the sophisticated music: ‘It’s an unusual and responsible feeling listening to the product of an entire years work’. It offers strong opinions based on musical analysis ‘the bad and the ugly is crystallized...Revolution 9 is a pretentious piece of old codswallop’, more in-depth analysis: Julia ‘counter harmonies and a slight eeriness and images of seashell eyes’. It acknowledges the creative ability ‘this is being hyper-critical to hyper talent’ and correlatively concludes there is ‘so much inventiveness’.[77] Intelligent writing indicates an engagement with a more sophisticated music, finding the meaning of the song: ‘humorous cynicism’, engagement with instrumentation and influence: ‘biting brass and a touch of Freud’ and experience of the song: ‘frenetically sexual’. The latter description implies a more mature readership, a departure from the innocence of the teenager focused description of earlier reviews. Similarly the use of the construct ‘Lennonisms’ implies the reviewer has a greater understanding of, and the reader is sufficiently interested in the music to know, the different songwriters and their mannerisms. This is therefore crucial evidence of developed journalism and new development within the NME.
Derek Johnson’s reviewing style was said to typify the NME approach, it was even ‘patented’ by him, ‘it consisted of a straight description of whatever new disc was being discussed aimed at being understood by the broadest possible audience’.[78] He was the most prolific reviewer at the paper. His reviews underwent new development. Therefore this reveals a fundamental shift in one of the essential trademarks of NME. Johnson represented the older generation of music journalists at the NME being 38 when Revolver was released in 1966.[79] ‘[Laughs] Derek Johnson was bloody awful!... He was an old man before his time, very straight lace, wore a tie in the office... he didn’t have any musical comprehension...’’toe-tapping shuffle beat’’ was one of his favourites’.[80] Johnson’s reviews repeated the same vague and simple adjectives ad nauseam. This evidence shows that the language used by Derek Johnson in the singles review section of the NME underwent new development in terms of diversification between the years 1964 and 1967.[81]
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Evolution of the Beatles and the Creation of Art in Pop.
The Historical Peculiarity of the Beatles
The Perception of the Beatles
The Beatles versus Bob Dylan
Chapter 2 NME: A Convenient Initialism.
New Development
Maintaining the Roots
Exposing of inadequacy
Chapter 3: The Transformation of Melody Maker and the Alternative Publications.
The Alternative Publications
The Transformation of Melody Maker
Survival of the Fittest
Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendix
Introduction
This investigation is a study of the Beatles’ evolution. Though at first this may sound like a zoological investigation, this study does not deal with the evolutionary biology of insects. However the zoological framing should not be discarded so readily. The Beatles did evolve and change their nature from primitive and simple pop origins to sophisticated and complicated compositions. The difference is that these Beatles did not adapt to their environment, rather their evolution changed their environment. This is where this investigation lies: how the Beatles’ evolution changed the culture around them. Specifically how the Beatles’ change in musical biology impacted music journalism in the 1960’s insofar as it induced a transformation.
The Beatles’ music underwent a rapid and radical change between 1965 and 1967. The L.Ps Rubber Soul (1965) Revolver (1966) Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), the E.P Magical Mystery Tour (1967) and the singles Paperback Writer/Rain (1966) and Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever (1967) form the focus of this investigation. These records mark the evolution and accumulative sophistication of the Beatles from simple pop to ground breaking innovation, experimentation, diverse instrumentation and psychadelia; the evolution that prompted the Queen in 1967 to remark ‘The Beatles are getting awfully strange these days’.[1]
There are three main arguments for the basis of this investigation. The first is that the Beatles were the converging point of the pinnacle of popularity, the pinnacle of ubiquity in the music press and the pinnacle of pop music innovation and sophistication. This unique position meant that their musical evolution, more than any other act, transformed music journalism.
The second is the aesthetic argument. The Beatles’ evolution, through the expansion of the aesthetic of pop music, had three transformative effects. It transformed the existing perception of popular music into the recognition that it was worthy of serious and developed consideration. Secondly this incurred the transferability of jazz and classical criticism. Thirdly it created the unprecedented perception that popular music could be art. This fundamentally transformed music journalism.
The third argument is that popular music journalism did exist before the Beatles’ evolution. It was however still in its infancy, ‘little more than pseudo publicity’[2] and until the mid-sixties was ‘little more than news and gossip’.[3] It shall be termed limited music journalism. It reflected the relative simplicity of the pop music. The defining features were: 1) minimal or zero critical engagement with the musical text or instrumentation 2) The main criteria for critical judgement was chart success and therefore record sales. 3) A simple descriptive approach with a limited range of vocabulary to analysing music. 4) A preponderance of gossip style articles on appearance, private lives and personalities of artists. 5) General aversion to musical analysis.
The Beatles transformed this into what shall be termed developed or serious music journalism. The music was more complex which necessitated a different critical response and engagement. Its defining features were: 1) a more sophisticated and comprehensive engagement with the context, instrumentation, recording techniques, meanings and lyrics. 2) An elevated language with passionate and more diverse vocabulary, new linguistic techniques such as metaphors and intertextual references. 3) Criteria separate from sales potential for judgement. 4) The transferral of critical engagement that had hitherto been the preserve of jazz and classical criticism. 5) General commitment to musical analysis and appreciation of importance and significance of popular music.
This investigation focuses on the UK music press where the ubiquity of Beatles coverage was at its height and thus any impact would be most palpable. However American papers Crawdaddy! and Rolling Stone are considered due to the significance of their inception in this period. Melody Maker (hereafter MM) and New Musical Express (hereafter NME) are the two main sources for this investigation. As the most widely circulated music papers in the UK they form the obvious litmus paper for assessing any change in music journalism. Furthermore their roots being in different keys, as a jazz based trade paper and charts focused paper respectively, provide the basis for how the Beatles’ music affected them differently and provides an interesting note of comparison. However the papers cannot fully reveal the personal attitudes of the music journalists themselves.
This investigation includes first hand testimony from journalists in the 1960s. To fully analyse the impact of the Beatles’ evolution, perception is essential. This adds flesh to the bones of the textual analysis. Personal interviews with Norman Jopling (writer for Record Mirror), Keith Altham and Alan Smith (key writers at the NME) provide the perception. Michael Lydon provides the American perspective as a prominent writer for Newsweek.
The investigation approaches the historical phenomenon of the Beatles, from the perspective of a Beatles enthusiast. It approaches the change in music journalism through the lens of the Beatles’ music. This illuminates their influence which has previously not been given sufficient attention in existing historiography. Gestur Gudmundsson, Ulf Lindberg, Morten Michelsen and Hans Weisthaunet in ‘Brit Crit: Turning Points in British Rock Criticism, 1960-1990’ and Roy Shuker in Understanding Popular Music Culture provide a broad narrative of the transformation of the UK press. They identify but do not fully develop the primary causes of its transformation. They both highlight the importance of the art ideology in popular music as the primary musical influence on the transformation of music journalism.[4] Therefore through the argument that the Beatles were fundamental in creating art, and its perception as such, in popular music, this adds a greater emphasis on the primary musical cause and preceding impetus for the existing acknowledgements of the transformation.
The Beatles had a transformative impact on music journalism from 1965 to 1968. This investigation is a magical mystery tour of that impact to the point where it will no longer be a mystery.
Chapter 1: The Evolution of the Beatles and the Creation of Art in Pop.
The Beatles underwent a rapid and radical musical evolution. It introduced radical new sounds and aesthetic expansion to popular music. It consolidated the album as the prime currency of popular music which changed the focus of critical engagement. Their evolution reached aesthetic heights which instigated the perception of art in popular music which fundamentally transformed its critical treatment. Their aesthetic expansion incurred the transferability of classical criticism. This combined with their unique popularity and ubiquity in the press had a transformative effect on music journalism.
The Historical Peculiarity of the Beatles
The detail of Beatles’ evolution is essential in order to emphasise how starkly contrasted their earlier and latter work was. It is important to understand how far the Beatles evolved, to understand how and why this would have an effect on music journalism. It is simply to show how remarkable their creative leaps were in terms of their rapidity (Dec 1965 – June 1967) and radical nature.
[The Beatles] continually investigated new methods and concepts...employing modal, pentatonic and Indian scales, incorporating studio effects [and] exotic instruments [with] unique versatility. Forever seeking new stimuli, they experimented with everything from tape loops and drugs [and procedures] borrowed from the intellectual avant-garde.[5]
‘We’d had our cute period now it was time to expand’.[6] The Beatles rewrote the limits of conventional pop and focused their creative energies on aesthetic expansion. The Beatles’ early creative output from Please Please Me (1963) to Help! (1965) was generally simple pop music. It involved simple instrumentation, short song length, simple lyrical content about simple subject matter and a primacy of singles as their creative focus. ‘Few of the Beatles first hundred records last much longer than two minutes’ pop music was ‘intrinsically instantaneous’.[7] Rubber Soul (1965) marks the start of the innovation that would change their sound completely. The first ever use of a sitar in a pop song was on Norwegian Wood, and a maturation of more serious and personal lyrics marked a shift from their earlier simple lyrics and instrumentation.[8] The Beatles became more sophisticated.
‘One thing’s for sure – the next L.P is going to be very different’.[9] Revolver (1966) marks the greatest shift from the earlier style. The studio was an instrument in itself. Through the use of tape loops, backwards guitars, sound effects, echo through electronic delay, the Beatles created an ‘innovative psychedelic ambience’[10] and ‘distanced themselves impossibly from what they could perform on stage’.[11] The reverse taping on I’m Only Sleeping, distortion on Taxman, exclusively Indian musicians on Love You Too and liberal use of sound effects was quite a shock to popular music and was a psychedelic precedent. The single Rain is cited as the Beatles’ first psychedelic record’ and the ‘first instance of reversed recording to the public’.[12] Tomorrow Never Knows, as an attempt to recreate the effects of an LSD experience,[13] was radical. Laughing and seagull sound effects, loops of sitars, mellatrons, the orchestral chord of B flat major and loops criss-crossing in random patterns were all encased in George Martin’s production, which ‘in terms of textural innovation is to pop music what Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique was to 19th century orchestral music’.[14] The drone of sitar-tambura harmonies was literally unheard of in pop music. ‘Until Tomorrow Never Knows, drones had been absent from western music since the passing of the religious organum style of the 12th century.’[15] Compared with the single I Feel Fine released less than two years before, a typical Beatles pop song with vocals, bass guitar, drums, lead guitar and rhythm guitar instrumentation,[16] this shows how radically and rapidly the Beatles had leaped creatively.
‘I...am sick of doing sounds that people have heard before’.[17]Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (hereafter Sgt. Pepper’s) released in the summer of 1967 is cited as the ‘zenith of the Beatles recording career’,[18] their ‘Magnus Opus’.[19] This represents the pinnacle of creative achievement and a stylistic leap from their simple pop origins. It was conceived as an artefact, a concept album with a threading (though loosely adhered to) narrative of an alter ego band which ‘represents the precise moment at which modern pop music becomes self-aware and begins to reflect’.[20] The album had a £25,000 budget and a total six months recording time compared with £400 and 24 hours recording time for the first album Please Please Me (1963).[21] It was conceived as a whole not a mere collection of songs and certainly no covers. The album boasted the height of studio innovation and effects, Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite utilised a tape of Victorian steam organs cut up and edited into ‘a kaleidoscope wash. [George Martin] created a brilliantly whimsical impression of period burlesque’.[22] It contained a wide variety of instrumentation. Indian instruments on Within You Without You (sitars, tamburas, dilrubas, svarmandal, tabla) as well as eight violins and three cellos marks it as ‘stylistically, the most distant departure from the staple Beatles sound’.[23] There is unconventional instrumentation on every single track on the album[24] and a 41 piece orchestra on the closing track A Day In The Life. The ‘versatility and stylistic diversity of the material is ... astonishing.’[25]
The Beatles’ evolution was pioneering in consolidating the advent of rock as a more serious form of popular music and albums as the prime currency. By 1967 album sales had overtaken singles sales.[26] This demanded a transformation in critical approach. To treat the album as a conceptual whole, rather than a collection of songs demanded a more comprehensive engagement with meaning, themes and appreciation of the album as an ensemble piece of creativity. This marked a significant transformation in music journalism.
This remarkable innovation and achievement was coupled with their unrivalled popularity. The Beatles had an unmatched string of number one singles in quick succession: From Me To You (1963) She Loves You (1963), I Want To Hold Your Hand (1963), Can’t Buy Me Love (1964). She Loves You remains the biggest selling single in British history.[27] By April 1964 the Beatles held the top five positions in the Billboard chart in the USA. A feat never accomplished before or since. I Want To Hold Your Hand sold over one million copies within two weeks in the USA, when the typical peak sales for a hit single was 200,000.[28] Their phenomenal popularity and unrivalled domination of the charts continued past the initial teenage hysteria and delirium of ‘Beatlemania’.[29] In the UK every single L.P from Please Please Me (1963) to Let It Be (1970) including the albums that mark the Beatles’ evolution: Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt Pepper’s was number one representing an unprecedented total of eleven chart topping albums. Sgt Pepper’s was number one for 27 weeks in the UK and 19 weeks in the US.[30] Therefore their radical and rapid evolution and aesthetic achievement was central not peripheral to popular music. The Velvet Underground were innovative. Jefferson Airplane were psychedelic. Bob Dylan was lyrically inventive. However the Beatles could claim all three of these accolades and, uniquely, were unabatedly the pinnacle of popularity.
Therefore the Beatles represent the unique marriage between unrivalled popularity and groundbreaking innovation. Their unprecedented accretions of popularity during Beatlemania created the ‘insatiable thirst for Beatles news’.[31] Demand for Beatles coverage was huge and the Beatles were the most ubiquitous in the music press. For instance it is no exaggeration to say that at least one article on the Beatles appeared in every issue of NME in 1966. Therefore their unrivalled ubiquity in the press put them in the unique position over other artists in wielding the most influence over the press. Their change in music would necessarily get the most coverage. The demand for Beatles coverage did not abate, thus as their music changed the demand was transferred to a new style of journalism that could credibly engage with the music.
The Perception of the Beatles
To study the effect of the Beatles’ evolution on music journalism necessitates an investigation on the effect on the music journalists themselves. The Beatles fundamentally transformed the attitudes of the music journalists into believing pop music was something more than a teenage phenomenon and in need of serious attention. ‘Once it became clear that the Beatles were...capable of making subtle, complex and quite radical music, a new attitude took root among music and cultural critics.’[32] The Beatles transformed the music journalists, Alan Smith of NME recalls:
The Beatles made it more serious...their metamorphosis over a very short space of time was profound, and we found ourselves...having to think about it a bit more seriously...we began to realise that this was a more serious trade’.[33]
Alan Smith concludes there was a journalistic reaction to the Beatles’ music. Perceptions of the Beatles’ music had been challenged by their evolution. This is why the Beatles’ evolution transformed music journalism.
[The Beatles] grew from the mid-60s on, there became a respect for pop music as a real creative force. And therefore, we the journalists, certainly in the music press began to react to that and change our style... because their album output was becoming so fascinating and so very different from their earlier work. This was now something you could just stand up and talk about popular music as if it were a very serious matter. And that’s why our writing did absolutely change over that period of time’.[34]
Sgt Pepper’s was fundamental in changing the attitudes of the music press. It was ‘an artefact, honed by recording technique, conceived, composed, recorded and received in ways different from [their] hits’.[35]As a concept album it most overtly demanded a new style of journalism. It was a turning point for many journalists who began to feel popular music should be taken seriously. ‘I think Sgt pepper was the turning point. Everybody knew this was a masterwork worthy of serious consideration’.[36] Keith Altham echoes this: ‘Sgt pepper was the first serious pop album to be treated as a concept’.[37]
Sgt. Pepper’s [was] instantly recognized...as a work of art...it elevated the music and that elevation of the music changed the way people wrote about music...the way people wanted to write about music’[38].
Alan Smith feels its impact was profound: ‘This was absolutely a celebration of creativity. It was regarded so stunningly set apart from anything anyone else had done...one wanted to respect that and write about it with respect’. [39] Jann Wenner founder of Rolling Stone labelled it the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard’.[40] Therefore the Beatles’ evolution culminating in Sgt. Pepper’s overwhelmingly revolutionized the attitudes of the music press. As an album it demanded comprehensive consideration. As rock it was considered more enduring and significant than simple pop. As a pinnacle of creativity it was recognized as worthy of unprecedented appreciation.
The evolution of the Beatles’ music had created art in popular music. This could be dismissed as a subjective argument, and therefore not a sound objective argument as to why this transformed music journalism. However it is irrelevant whether one disagrees with this proposition or not. What does matter is that it was overwhelmingly perceived as art by the journalists, which meant they treated it as art, therefore changing the nature of their writing. This is an objective argument. Pop music had not so overwhelmingly been considered as art or worthy of serious appreciation. Therefore this marked a precedent in the way journalists wrote about pop music.
Michael Lydon, when interviewed, expressed that the Beatles were creating ‘true art of the highest calibre’.[41] Jon Landau pioneer of Rolling Stone defined the ‘criterion of art in rock is the capacity of the musician to create a personal, almost private universe and express it fully’.[42] This capacity is fully exercised by the Beatles. With a unique position of autonomous control over their recording with unlimited studio time and no final budget, the Beatles created the conceptual narrative of an alter ego in the form of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band. Therefore this shows that the Beatles creative output reached into the realms of art for Landau. This perception of art induced pioneering and unprecedented engagement with popular music. Jack Kroll of Newsweek exclaimed ‘it is useless to lament the simple old days of [The Beatles’], loss of innocence is increasingly their theme and the theme of a more serious new art’, he drew an intertextual comparison of Sgt. Pepper’s to T.S Eliot’s Waste Land.[43] The perception of the Beatles as art was prolific among journalists, John Cawelti commented ‘One can see the differences between pop groups which simply perform without creating that personal statement which marks the auteur, and highly creative groups like the Beatles who make their performance a complex work of art’.[44] Therefore this shows that the Beatles fundamentally altered the perceptions. Popular music could now be considered art. The Beatles ‘were the first to turn [pop] into an acknowledged art form beyond mere popular top 40 music, they certainly inspired the first serious writing about music’.[45]
This perception of art was a key achievement of the Beatles’ evolution that clearly affected its treatment. Simon Frith concurs with this. In The Sociology Of Rock Frith asserts ‘the Beatles were important in establishing the idea that rock... could be art’.[46] One could go further to say that Frith himself, as a pioneer of developed and serious writing on popular music, is a symptom of this perception. He himself became a rock journalist in 1967.[47] This was the precise time of the Beatles release of Sgt Peppers. Whilst I don’t wish to imply a simple cause and effect, it seems Frith was too ensnared in the new belief that pop music could be art.
I rejected the notion that because pop was commercial it couldn’t be art, because I began writing about music at precisely the moment when a new way of doing pop, rock was taking social, musical and cultural shape.[48]
Thus Frith emphasizes the importance of the Beatles in creating art. The Beatles by near consensus were perceived to have created art. It was this perception that changed music journalism. Firth’s own serious treatment of popular music is symptomatic of the perception that popular music could be art. Therefore Frith himself is a symptom of the effect of the Beatles’ evolution.
Therefore the Beatles were fundamental in creating art in popular music. Shuker in Understanding Popular Music Culture identifies the greatest musical influence on the transformation of music journalism was the ‘rise of rock culture with serious artistic intentions’ which entailed a ‘commitment to treating popular culture as worthy of serious analysis’.[49] Gudmundsson, Lindberg, Michelsen and Weisthaunet in ‘Brit Crit’ signify that ‘1964-1969 marks the genesis of rock criticism’. The impetus for this genesis is explicitly acknowledged. ‘[The] heavy input of art ideology began to invest sixties rock with ambitions...the phenomenon demanded more serious attention.’[50] Therefore they concur that the perception of art in popular music was the key musical impetus for the transformation for music journalism. This investigation in showing that the Beatles pioneered art in rock, which for these two texts transformed music journalism, is in concurrence with the existing accounts and has provided a finer focus.
The Beatles incorporated influences from John Cage, Stockhausen and Boulez and genres from jazz, classical, avant-garde and music hall.[51] This was coupled with their inclusion of orchestras and jazz musicians and an increasing complexity, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever created unprecedented sound images, moods and textures that had formerly been the province of classical music’.[52] The Beatles’ music by reaching a point of sufficient sophistication facilitated the transferability of classical criticism which could now be credibly applied to pop.
This is shown through the classical interpretations of the Beatles’ music. ‘In his early review Wilfred Mellers found echoes of Stockhausen’s Momente in [Sgt Peppers]’[53] and felt that the band’s ‘three [musical] periods have a genuine analogy with Beethoven’s’.[54] In 1968, The Observer qualified the Beatles as ‘the greatest songwriters since Schubert’.[55] The same year, in the New York Review of Books, Ned Rorem ‘compared the music of the Beatles with that of Mozart, Stravinsky, Ravel and other art composers’.[56] This is evidence of the Beatles’ infiltration of high culture. It induced a postmodernist blurring of the distinction between high and low culture which facilitated the transferability of terms previously the preserve of classical analysis. The key text on Sgt Pepper’s this investigation uses is Allen Moore’s Cambridge Music handbook. This is part of a series which ‘focuses on canonical works in the art tradition’[57] and is the only popular music entry. This very fact is testament to the aesthetic peak of the Beatles’ evolution incurring the transferability of classical analysis.
The Beatles versus Bob Dylan
The Beatles were fundamentally important in pushing the boundaries of (and thereby incurring the perceptions of art in) pop. However they were not alone. Dylan’s assault on the lyrical orthodoxy was certainly important. ‘Lyrical content of popular music itself forced critics to confront social issues and go beyond aesthetics’.[58] This provoked lyrical analysis, confronting social issues and engagement with meaning. However lyrics were not the primary focus in reception of popular music. Dylan’s lyricism forced critical responses to engage with the music beyond the mere aesthetic. However it was the Beatles’ expansion of the aesthetic into a complicated multi-faceted composition that enhanced critical responses to engage more intricately with the musicology, production, instrumentation and composition of the musical artefact. This is the key definition of the new or serious journalism. The aesthetic could not be ignored by consumers or music journalism. The expansion of the aesthetic was the greatest assault on pop orthodoxy which incurred a new style of journalism investigating the sound. It was the expansion of the aesthetic that drew the forensic musicological analysis transferred from jazz and classical criticism. As Dylan’s aesthetic was comparatively limited this could not, and did not apply, to his music.
Dylan was undoubtedly influential on the Beatles’ career. Their meeting at the Hotel Demonico on the 28th august 1964, where Dylan supposedly introduced them to marijuana is famed. This and Dylan’s music had large effect on their creative output. ‘Dylan...was pushing the poetic boundaries...it would make you think ‘’oh cool we can got there now’’.[59] Dylan’s literacy and primacy of lyrics were to inspire a lyrical maturation on Rubber Soul. Norwegian Wood is the first song where ‘following Dylan’s lead’[60] the lyrics are ‘more important than the music’.[61] However he cannot be said to be the primacy influence on the most groundbreaking albums which had the greatest effect on music journalism: Revolver and Sgt. Peppers. LSD, not marijuana or Dylan, was the inspiration for the most groundbreaking songs on Revolver. Lennon admitted taking 1000 LSD tabs between 1966 and 1968.[62] Tommorow Never Knows was an attempt to capture the effects in song.[63] Indeed the lyric ‘Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream’ seems in direct contrast Dylan’s ethos of intricate lyricism, written to be listened to attentively. It is almost needless to say that the classical influences and diverse instrumentation which inspired the greatest transformation in music journalism cannot be attributed to Dylan’s influence.
Furthermore, such is the definition of pop music that the aesthetic is the primary focus. The pop market was focused on danceable and listenable pop tunes. Therefore it was the very expansion of this focus (the aesthetic) that arrested the attention of the pop world and demanded a change in response. Dylan’s lyrical innovation was peripheral by comparison and not the fundamental challenge to the very definition of pop music. The aesthetic of the music was the predominant currency of critical responses. This is evidenced by the stronger impact of musically ground breaking Revolver and diverse Sgt Peppers rather than the lyrically mature Rubber Soul. This is also shown through jazz critics lambasting against Bob Dylan but lauding the Beatles (see chapter 3). Dylan did undergo an aesthetic transformation himself from folk to controversially ‘going electric’, incorporating electric amplification and full band. However this was conforming to the aesthetic of the time. Thus Dylan’s transformation did little to challenge the aesthetic notions of popular music.
Furthermore a simple but important difference between them was popularity and ubiquity in the press. Due to demand, articles and reviews of the Beatles naturally received more column inches in the pages of MM and NME. In 1966, the review of Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde was merely a track listing in NME[64] whereas the Revolver review was spread across two pages. Similarly MM’s review of Blonde on Blonde had a third of the word count of just one of the two separate reviews of Revolver.[65] Despite pioneering lyrical innovation and protest songs in the early 60s Dylan was absent from the pages of MM until the 23rd May 1964. Therefore Bob Dylan was not as influential on the music press. ‘It was Bob Dylan and the Beatles more than any other sixties artists who got journalists writing seriously about pop music’. The simple fact is that the unrivalled demand for Beatles coverage necessitated that their transformation was hugely documented. Since their transformation necessitated a new style of critical engagement, it therefore follows that the Beatles more than Bob Dylan transformed music journalism through sheer quantity alone.
Therefore it is clear that the Beatles have two clear advantages over Dylan which cement the fact that they, more than he, transformed music journalism. The first is popularity and ubiquity in the press necessitated a greater quantity of serious writing .The second is that the aesthetic was the key transforming factor as this was what dominated critical engagement. These two advantages are summarized by noting that Bob Dylan did not match the Beatles’ accolade of ‘an unprecedented triumvirate of chart-topping, ground breaking albums’.[66]
The Beatles’ evolution was rapid and radical and achieved a consolidation of the primacy of rock and albums in popular music. The Beatles’ evolution culminating in Sgt Pepper’s coupled with the unique position of unrivalled popularity and ubiquity in the press induced a fundamental transformation in music journalism. It was a turning point in the attitudes of the music press. Their aesthetic achievement was perceived as art which is historiographically cited as the transformative factor in music journalism in the 1960s. The musical dexterity and genre transcendence of the evolution incurred the transferability of classical criticism to popular culture on an unprecedented scale. Furthermore due to these factors of aesthetic expansion it was the Beatles more than Dylan that led the greatest and central assault on the core of orthodox pop music. Due to the factor of unrivalled popularity, their innovation was central not peripheral to the mainstream. The Beatles’ evolution marks the historical peculiarity of the seemingly oxymoronic mainstream experimentalism.
The Beatles were the most ubiquitous band in the press. Therefore the Beatles’ evolution was the most covered. To focus this investigation further, it must assess how this unrivalled coverage developed. Did the Beatles’ evolution transform the music press?
Chapter 2 NME: A Convenient Initialism.
The most revealing method to assess the impact of the Beatles’ evolution is to assess the paper that boasted ‘The World’s Largest Circulation Of Any Music Paper’ on the front cover of every issue.[67] The Beatles’ evolution induced significant change within the paper; however not to the extent that it could be termed a transformation. Three discernible trends characterise NME’s development to which its initialism provides a useful identification tool. ‘N’ denotes what shall be termed ‘New development’. Within this trend, there is substantial evidence of serious or developed music journalism as defined in the introduction. ‘M’ stands for ‘Maintaining the roots’. Within this trend, there was a relative consistency in style that was an adherence to a gossip, ‘showbiz’, limited pop journalism. This was due to its inability to depart sufficiently from its roots as a charts based publication. ‘E’ denotes the ‘Exposing of inadequacy’. Articles and reviews were exposed as inadequate and incapable in dealing with the more sophisticated music. Journalists appeared bewildered and unable to engage with the Beatles’ evolution credibly. It results in part from the maintaining of the roots. Applying limited pop journalism to sophisticated music necessitated shortcomings in credible engagement.
These trends therefore appear contradictory. Thus it can be concluded that NME underwent a capricious development in this years. It was precisely this capricious development that induced a lack of coherence within the paper, which contributed to its de-synchronisation with popular music and ultimately diminishing sales (this is dealt with fully in Chapter 3). The Beatles did not transform NME fully, despite significant development, it did not undergo a full change from limited to developed music journalism. Nonetheless the Beatles transformed the need and demand for developed music journalism, which the NME could not sufficiently provide.
New Development
The Beatles’ studio innovation forced engagement with the context and production of the music which was a key new development within NME. ‘I joined [NME] in ’63 and it was just a fan paper. The journalistic scope was limited. You were just confined to being enthusiastic...but... as the music got more serious, so we were allowed more freedom to write about the context in which it was made’.[68] The whole page interview on page three with the Beatles’ producer George Martin completely focused on the music and the forthcoming L.P Revolver. This was hitherto un-heard of in the pages of NME.[69] Revolver forced articles to engage with the recording techniques. ‘One of the most unusual Beatles [recording] sessions ever’, commenting on production ‘speaking through a guitar amp’ and the sound effects of bubbles and sandbags and the octet of strings in Eleanor Rigby.[70] Interviews with producers marked an unprecedented change, and engagement with production and context was an unprecedented development in NME directly influenced by the Beatles’ evolution.
Reviews changed significantly in length and critical engagement. There was an increased critical engagement on musical meritocracy not sales potential. Changing length reflects the greater amount of musical content and diversity to be engaged with. Early reviews were a simple, limited, hit-focused, descriptive engagement. ‘There was little humour or opportunity for three syllable words or erudite analysis of music, which defied criticism by its simplicity anyway’.[71] Simple pop songs could be responded to in a simple way.
BEATLES FINGER SNAPPER!
Here it is at last! ...I’m sure every NME reader already has a copy on order, so you don’t need me to recommend you to buy it. But just to go through the motions, let me tell you that it’s a bouncy finger-snapper with a pounding beat and catchy melody.[72]
The phrase ‘just to go through the motions’ implies a tripartite conclusion. First it implies the redundancy of the review because the quality of the track is presumed prior to critical engagement and the ‘review’ is analytically vacuous, simply focussing on the rhythm of the song with empty adjectives. Secondly it suggests reluctance at having to ‘go through the motions’, to even engage critically by reviewing it. Thirdly ‘the motions’ implies it is a repeated formula, alluding to the generic formula of the review of NME in this period which is amply evidenced. This was typical of the early 1960s pop journalism.
A Hard Day’s Night (1964) is reviewed in a 200 word subsection of the L.P reviews feature on page 10. It focuses on chart potential, ‘the title track is a sure-fire hit’ and uses the NME generic, descriptive formula: ‘a fast moving hand-clapper’. This simple review is reciprocal of the relatively simple Beatles’ music of the time. The article in the issue the week after, ‘BEATLES NIGHT LP SALES HEAD FOR WORLD RECORD’ has a larger word count than the review of the album itself.[73] This is indicative of the sales potential, not analysis, of music being the focus.
In direct contrast, the review of Magical Mystery Tour (1967) is a full page review. This, despite there being less than half the number of tracks on Magical Mystery Tour than on A Hard Day’s Night, represents a fuller engagement with the more sophisticated music and does not mention ‘hits’ once.
The Beatles are at it again, stretching pop music to its limits on beautiful sound canvasses [they]take us by the hand and lead us happily tripping through the clouds past Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and the Fool On The Hill...and into the world of Alice in Wonderland, where the walrus softly croons... you can almost visualize John [Lennon] crouching on a deserted shore singing...beautiful haunting strings from away on the horizon and a whole bagful of eerie Beatles sounds.[74]
The extended metaphor and visual imagery represent developed linguistic techniques. The drug reference ‘Tripping’ exhibits contextual cultural awareness and the influences on the Beatles’ music. The intertextual references to other Beatles songs ‘past Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ represents a more erudite style of journalism engaging with the history of the artist in using their previous work as an amusing aspect and context of an extended metaphor. Therefore there is clear evidence of a transformation from limited to developed music journalism as result of Beatles’ evolution. The divergent nature of these reviews cannot be solely attributed to their different authorship. If one controls that variable, change in critical engagement is still abundantly evident.
As [the Beatles] grew from the mid 60s on, there became a respect for pop music as a real creative force...we the journalists... began to react to that and change our style. We became more challenging...whereas before we just went along with it.[75]
Along with Smith’s testimony, he evidently did become ‘more challenging’, critically evaluating the text not based on sales potential or just going ‘along with it’. This change is evidenced when comparing Smith’s early profile of the Beatles in 1963: ‘things are really beginning to move for the Beatles...it looks like a bright future’,[76] to his 1200-1400 word review of The Beatles [White Album]. It recognizes the new responsibility of the reviewer appreciating the sophisticated music: ‘It’s an unusual and responsible feeling listening to the product of an entire years work’. It offers strong opinions based on musical analysis ‘the bad and the ugly is crystallized...Revolution 9 is a pretentious piece of old codswallop’, more in-depth analysis: Julia ‘counter harmonies and a slight eeriness and images of seashell eyes’. It acknowledges the creative ability ‘this is being hyper-critical to hyper talent’ and correlatively concludes there is ‘so much inventiveness’.[77] Intelligent writing indicates an engagement with a more sophisticated music, finding the meaning of the song: ‘humorous cynicism’, engagement with instrumentation and influence: ‘biting brass and a touch of Freud’ and experience of the song: ‘frenetically sexual’. The latter description implies a more mature readership, a departure from the innocence of the teenager focused description of earlier reviews. Similarly the use of the construct ‘Lennonisms’ implies the reviewer has a greater understanding of, and the reader is sufficiently interested in the music to know, the different songwriters and their mannerisms. This is therefore crucial evidence of developed journalism and new development within the NME.
Derek Johnson’s reviewing style was said to typify the NME approach, it was even ‘patented’ by him, ‘it consisted of a straight description of whatever new disc was being discussed aimed at being understood by the broadest possible audience’.[78] He was the most prolific reviewer at the paper. His reviews underwent new development. Therefore this reveals a fundamental shift in one of the essential trademarks of NME. Johnson represented the older generation of music journalists at the NME being 38 when Revolver was released in 1966.[79] ‘[Laughs] Derek Johnson was bloody awful!... He was an old man before his time, very straight lace, wore a tie in the office... he didn’t have any musical comprehension...’’toe-tapping shuffle beat’’ was one of his favourites’.[80] Johnson’s reviews repeated the same vague and simple adjectives ad nauseam. This evidence shows that the language used by Derek Johnson in the singles review section of the NME underwent new development in terms of diversification between the years 1964 and 1967.[81]
Table 1: 1964 | 27-Nov | 04-Dec | 11-Dec | 18-Dec | 25-Dec | Total | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Finger clicking/hand clapping | 7 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 17 | |
Twister/shaker/swinger | 3 | 5 | 8 | 3 | 4 | 23 | |
Plaintive | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 8 | |
Foot/toe tapping | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | |
Jog trotting | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | |||
Bouncy | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 9 | ||
Hummable/whistleable | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | |||
Catchy | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 7 | ||
Ear-catching | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | ||
Mid-tempo | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 21 | |
Hit/smash | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | |||
Gimmick | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 6 | |
Rockaballad | 5 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 24 | |
Total - 141 |
Table 2: 1965 | 26-Nov | 03-Dec | 10-Dec | 17-Dec | 24-Dec | Total | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Finger clicking/hand clapping | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 13 | |
Twister/shaker/swinger | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | |||
Plaintive | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | |||
Foot/toe tapping | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | ||
Jog trotting | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | |||
Bouncy | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 8 | ||
Hummable/whistleable | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 7 | ||
Catchy | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | ||
Ear-catching | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |||
Mid-tempo | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 16 | |
Hit/smash | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 8 | ||
Gimmick | 2 | 1 | 3 | ||||
Rockaballad | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 10 | |
Total - 91 |
Table 3: 1967 | 25-Nov | 02-Dec | 09-Dec | 16-Dec | 23-Dec | 30-Dec | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Finger clicking/hand clapping | 2 | 1 | 3 | ||||
Twister/shaker/swinger | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |||
Plaintive | 1 | 1 | |||||
Foot/toe tapping | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||
Jog trotting | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||
Bouncy | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | |
Hummable/whistleable | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |||
Catchy | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 7 | ||
Ear-catching | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||
Mid-tempo | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 10 | |
Hit/smash | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6 | ||
Gimmick | 1 | 1 | |||||
Rockaballad | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 6 | ||
Total - 51 |
It is clear that these reviews, one of the essential trademarks of NME had been altered. The most commonly used adjectives in 1964 reduced significantly as the music changed in style. Simple pop music could feasibly be described as ‘catchy’ or ‘toe-tapping’ due to its focus on danceable rhythms and catchy choruses. The interchangeability of these adjectives testifies to the simplicity of the music. There was no need or demand for developed journalism. Diversification of vocabulary necessarily followed the musical evolution. Notable adjectives and nouns that were present in the 1967 reviews but absent in 1964 include ‘drone’, ‘way out’, ‘exotic’, ‘progressive’, ‘authentic’ and ‘psychedelic’. This is testament to diverse vocabulary resultant from more diverse music. The music unquestionably changed the critical responses.
Though Johnson’s style remained descriptive this precisely necessitated a change in language. The most common adjectives in 1964 are less applicable to more sophisticated music. As Norman Jopling of Record Mirror points out:
If you describe a fairly simple thing, it would be a simple piece of writing, but you weren’t describing a simple thing. Even if you were describing it as simply as you could for a pop audience, it would still be a more complex piece of writing because it was a more complex thing you were describing.[82]
Therefore this accounts for the dramatic drop in these adjectives from 141 total in 1964 to 51 in 1965. Remarkably, this result still conclusively stands despite the accidental inclusion of a sixth sample in the 1967 table.
Many early reviews were almost identical and filled with the tabled adjectives. The Beatles’ I Feel Fine: ‘happy go-lucky mid-tempo swinger’ with a ‘really catchy melody [...] arresting and ear catching’, A Hard Day’s Night: ‘finger snapper with a pounding beat and catchy melody’[83] and Eight Days A Week’: ‘A bouncy hand-clapper [with] a happy-go-lucky feel’.[84] Therefore this interchangeability of the adjectives is reflective of the relative simplicity of the Beatles early work. Thus the Beatles change in music changed the reviews to become more diverse in vocabulary.
Derek Johnson’s review of the more diverse Strawberry Fields Forever is testament to this:
MOST WAY OUT BEATLES EVER: Certainly the most unusual and way out single the Beatles have yet produced both in lyrical content and scoring [...] The complex backing consists of flutes, cellos, harpsichord and weird effects – plus constantly changing tempos, including a startling glissando that sounds as if the disc is slowing down [...] bustling crescendo with crisp brass [...] completely fascinating, more spellbinding with every play [with a] deep echo.[85]
The startling juxtaposition between the Strawberry Fields review containing zero of the tabled adjectives and the reviews of earlier singles shows diversification of vocabulary was necessitated by the Beatles’ evolution. Within three years the reviews had become more complex, the reviewer could no longer apply ‘a catchy finger snapper’ to more intricate compositions. Here there is evidence of comment on instrumentation, and studio affects, technical musical language ‘glissando, crescendo’ and even a sense of awe: ‘fascinating’, ‘spellbinding’. This review represents an unprecedented reciprocal response to the accumulative sophistication the music. Also as Johnson’s reviews changed, the change cannot be attributed to different writers.
Therefore there were unprecedented engagement with context, production and artefact, interviews with producers, an elevated reviewing style and a diversification of one of the essential trademarks of NME. This marks its new development as a response to the Beatles’ evolution.
Maintaining the Roots
Despite these significant new developments, NME remained anchored to its roots as a charts based, teen orientated fan magazine. The adherence to gossip style journalism focusing on the private lives of the musicians, despite the changing nature of popular music at this time, negates the thesis that NME underwent a full transformation.
[The readers were] a young teenage audience who Kinn [owner] and Gray [editor] believed were interested in nothing more than...what the Monkees like to eat for breakfast. [86]
Therefore despite new development on the part of young writers such as Keith Altham, Alan Smith and Nick Logan, the editorship maintained the status quo. This was due to the roots of NME. Its unique selling point in its inception in 1952, was that it published the first ever UK singles chart.[87] It was a chart based paper focused on the teenage consumer who accounted for 40% of the record buyers at that time.[88] It focused on news and gossip about the bands in the charts. Chart potential was the sole criteria for judging a single. NME remained tethered to its roots under the editorship of an older generation. Andy gray was ‘out of touch’ with new trends and maintained a simple formula:
The NME charts were the first and best in the country and anyone who featured in them was worth writing about...This was a method that frustrated the younger staffers.[89]
The NME points table featured in the first issue of each year throughout the 1960s. This points table ranked artists according to chart positions in the previous year. It gave 30 points to the artist/band who held the number one spot in each week, 29 points to the artist who was no.2 etc. reaching a total at the end of the year. The band with the largest total of points was named the top band of that year. This feature remained a steadfast component each year from 1964-69. Therefore this shows the equating musical merit with sales, and chart oriented style within the NME remained despite the evolution of the Beatles’ music demanding a different criterion of meritocracy.
Sales potential as criteria for criticism was maintained and was even applied the Beatles Sgt Pepper’s: ‘it should sell like hotcakes!’[90] Furthermore the review of Revolver failed to offer an opinion, offering instead: ‘[it] certainly has new sounds...should cause plenty of argument among fans as to whether it is as good or better than previous efforts’[91]. However a following issue offered a more forthright opinion, ‘REVOLVER FIRING ON ALL CYLINDERS!’ as it was revealed it had topped the NME chart.[92] Therefore this shows, NME maintained the status quo in assessing music merit through sales potential alone.
The pre-occupation with the Beatles private lives was a theme that did not abate despite their change in music styles. Chris Hutchins’ 1966 interview with John Lennon inquired: ‘What kind of TV programmes do you watch?’ the only mention of music was the very final question.[93] Similarly his interview with Ringo Starr covered equally riveting topics. Indeed the names of his dogs ‘Donovan and Daisy’ had as many column inches as the discussion of the forthcoming L.P.[94]
This aversion to musical discussion was not particular to that one interviewer or atypical. It fitted snugly next to the limited reviews and large articles on Paul McCartney’s new appearance: ’My Broken Tooth’.[95] Furthermore a series of articles dedicated to the Beatles dreams (actual sleeping dreams, not aspirations) ran weekly over 4 issues from July 15 1966 to august 5th. The focus on Ringo’s dream being chased by a lion[96] on page 3 highlights the priorities of NME. George Harrison’s dream profile had a larger word count than the review of Revolver.[97] This is indicative of NME’s prioritization of personalities over music and evidence of fan based journalism
Though there was significant new development, NME remained anchored to its roots as a chart based, news and gossip focused, teen oriented magazine. NME did become less hit focused but never fully discarded the overcoat of sales potential as criteria for judgement. Therefore the external factor of the accumulative sophistication and innovation of the Beatles’ music did create a need for a new approach; however it did not transform the NME due to the internal factors maintaining the status quo. ‘Under the stewardship of a middle aged businessman, the NME was unlikely ever to evolve beyond its showbusiness roots’.[98]This created a chasm between the simplicity of the critical engagement and the sophistication of the music. This exposed it as inadequate. This is the greatest impact of the Beatles’ music on NME.
Exposing of inadequacy
This trend is inextricably linked to the trend of maintaining the status quo. Due to its adherence to its roots, and strict editorship NME was exposed as unable to engage appropriately with the Beatles’ music as it progressed in sophistication.
NME was exposed as inadequate in these ways: it was unable to comprehend the new sounds and sophisticated music of the Beatles. Reviewers expressed bewilderment when faced with the radical innovation of the Beatles’ music, and made copious errors and misunderstandings. They in fact bemoaned the new styles and expressed alarm at their departure from simple pop. This trend of being exposed as inadequate is the result of the de-synchronisation of the NME style and the Beatles’ musical style. NME’s simple approach was perfectly synchronised with the simple pop music of the Beatles in the early years. However the maintenance of the simple approach contrasted with the sophistication of the Beatles latter music. Therefore the Beatles’ music did not in fact transform NME immediately but rather exposed it as inadequate.
The review of Revolver by Allen Evans highlights the inadequacy of the capability of the NME in dealing with one of the most radically progressive albums of the 60s. It in fact represents a near perfect microcosm of the trends within the NME I have indentified.
First, there is evidence of new development by describing And Your Bird Can Sing as ‘philosophical’ and the Indian influenced Love You Too as a ‘kama sutra type lyric’.[99] This shows a development of the descriptive style, using unprecedented terms to describe unprecedented music. Secondly there is evidence of maintaining the style of NME. The simple descriptive approach recurs: ‘a good horn sound’ in For No One. Yellow Submarine, which has a simple verse-chorus structure with a catchy chorus received the largest word count and is thereby comfortably reviewed. ‘You’ll soon be singing about a ‘Yellow Submarine’... A simple song with a repeating line in the chorus’.[100] The title of the review is ‘The Beatles Create A New Nursery Rhyme’ this epitomizes the NME’s focus on the simple Yellow Submarine with a reluctance to focus on the more radical instrumentation and production on the album.
The most identifiable trend is the exposing of inadequacy. Describing Love You Too as ‘oriental sounding’ mistakes the origin of the sitar in the song. A greater error is mistaking the meaning of Dr. Robert (which was Lennon’s reference to a drug dealer) as ‘Lennon’s tribute to the medical profession who does well for everyone.’[101] This literal interpretation of the lyric exposes the NME’s inadequacy to acknowledge the subtleties and dual meanings in the Beatles’ now advanced music. Its continuation to engage with the sophisticated music in a simple way exposes a lack of credibility and accuracy.
The radical new sounds are not dealt with by the reviewer, and the review has an air of discomfort. This is shown through the lack of overall opinion implying the reviewer did not know how to interpret it. ‘It certainly has new sounds and ideas...[it] should cause plenty of argument among fans as to whether it is as good or better than previous efforts’[102]. This shows how the reviewer was unable to sufficiently engage with the album, and an explicit admission of being unable to give a decisive critical opinion of the album.
Tomorrow Never Knows seems to have exasperated the reviewer and exposed the NME’s inability to engage with it.
John’s vocal telling you to turn off your mind, relax and float down stream. But how can you relax with the electronic outer space noises often sounding like seagulls? Even John’s voice is weirdly fractured and given a faraway sound. Only Ringo’s rock steady drumming is natural.[103]
By misunderstanding the intentions of the song, which was a soundtrack to drug experience, Evans questions the possibility of relaxing. With literal interpretations and therefore misinterpretations of the music, the reviewer fails to adequately comprehend the subtleties in the increasing sophistication of the Beatles’ music. This is emphasised further by the distaste for the electronic sounds, finding comfort in Ringo’s drumming which represents a relative continuity with earlier Beatles simplicity compared to the radical changes of the other instruments. This is indicative of the de-synchronisation of simple NME with complex Beatles.
Evan’s review of Sgt. Peppers continues this trend. He focuses and expresses preference for the simpler pop tunes of the album. ‘I also liked Paul’s amusing ‘When I’m 64’ and ‘Getting Better’ ...and Ringo’s homely ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ very much’. This indicates an estrangement with the more complicated compositions, and ‘I liked it very much’ is a limited critical engagement at best. In an almost identical phrase to the one used to judge Revolver, Evans admits: ‘whether the album is their best yet, I wouldn’t like to say’. The Beatles’ music repeatedly exposed the inability of the critics within NME to be just that. In the Strawberry Fields Forever review Johnson exclaimed ‘quite honestly I don’t know what to make of it.’[104] This bewilderment vis-à-vis the innovative Beatles’ music exposes the critic at being unable to review it adequately, making this overt concession. It is the literal admission of being unable to do one’s job. This is the extent of how radical and new the Beatles’ music was, and this is the extent of how inept NME was in responding.
The literal interpretations of lyrics thereby missing their psychedelic connotations recurs. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is a song awash with psychedelic imagery: ‘newspaper taxis’, ‘marmalade skies’ and girls ‘with kaleidoscope eyes’. However Evans appears oblivious to this as he writes it is a ‘song about a girl and a pier, with its electric lights’.[105] It may be true that Allen Evans was not oblivious to the drug references but chose to omit them due to a perceived responsibility to his teenage audience. Nonetheless, oblivious or not, the review fails to engage competently with the music, and therefore is particularly exposed as unable to provide a comprehensive or credible review. This shows that through errors, omissions, and a stubborn descriptive style with limited comprehension NME was exposed as inadequate in responding to the growing complexity of the Beatles’ music.
Many articles even bemoaned the creative leaps of the Beatles. ‘Having achieved worldwide fame by singing pleasant, hummable numbers, don’t they feel they may be too far ahead of the record buyers?’[106] This indictment of the Beatles’ new psychedelic direction, not only rings hollow in face of the evidence that Revolver and Sgt. Peppers immediately topped the charts, but can be read as a veiled admission that the Beatles may be too far ahead of NME. This is explicitly expressed in Andy Gray’s article ‘Have the Beatles Gone Too Far?’ which appeared on the opening page in the issue directly following the review of Sgt. Pepper. ‘Have younger fans...decided that the Beatles have left them behind musically and visually? ...The Beatles built up their reputation on happy music with a simple catchy beat...the lyrics were simple and easy to remember’. Expressing dislike for their ‘more complicated lyrics and more intricate music forms’ and their ‘taking longer to produce records’, Gray describes their lack of plans to perform live as ‘alarming’.[107] This is clear evidence of a reluctance to evolve with the music, and nostalgia for simpler Beatles’ music. This shows how the rooted NME did not evolve with the music and thus was increasingly exposed as inadequate and thus desynchronised with the complex music.
The three identifiable currents within NME at this time: new development, maintenance of roots, and exposing of inadequacy, indicate a capricious trajectory of the paper. The internal forces of obstinate editors and adherence to its roots maintained the status quo and its inability to engage credibly exposed its inadequacy in dealing with more sophisticated pop music. There existed a tug of war within the NME with Keith Altham and Alan Smith pulling towards new development on one side and Andy Gray and Allen Evans pulling in the opposite direction with a maintaining of the status quo. However on the latter side, the older generation’s rope was tied strongly to the rock of NME’s roots. This accounts for NME’s inability to evolve sufficiently with the music. As Norman Jopling recalls:
[The Beatles] certainly changed the way people wanted to write about the music, but of course it was like any other process.[108]
The changing music ‘didn’t change the nature of the music papers coverage; they continued to assume...that their basic market was...teenagers with a limited, immediate interest in the latest pop’.[109] It is precisely this gap between the sophistication of the most popular band and the lack of sophistication in the most popular music paper that fuelled the demand for more serious journalism which new underground publications and rival publication Melody Maker filled.
Chapter 3: The Transformation of Melody Maker and the Alternative Publications.
The Beatles’ evolution is shown to have transformed music journalism, from limited to developed, by the rise of new species of publications and the transformation of MM. This chapter focuses on the theme of synchronised journalism. Synchronised journalism reflects, and is in tune with, the music it engages. Limited pop journalism such as NME’s descriptive and gossip style was synchronised with simple pop but this approach became desynchronised as the Beatles evolved. As a result of the Beatles’ evolution MM, the underground press and new specialist publications exhibited more sophisticated, developed and therefore synchronised journalism.
The Alternative Publications
NME had not evolved sufficiently to meet the growing demand for synchronised journalism. Therefore other publications arose and filled in the gap. The Beatles’ evolution was key in transforming demand and creating a ‘new rock audience’ which turned ‘to their own self generated papers for the articulation of their musical ideology’.[110] The two most circulated publications of the underground press, Oz and International Times, were established precisely at the time when The Beatles’ evolution had transformed perception of pop in 1966 and 1967 respectively. International Times editor Barry Miles spoke of the unique ability of the underground press to engage with the newly evolved Beatles, something NME could not offer.
Paul McCartney is on the scene and is available to be interviewed and will probably say more intimate and direct things to us than he would to any other newspaper because we have the same concept of freedom[111]
This shows the new style, ideology and synchronised approach. Barry Miles’ review of The Beatles [White Album] exhibits this developed journalism: ‘very complex music, using the old backwards tapes to great effect...John cage would be proud’. This comfortable engagement with recording techniques even calling them ‘old’, and referring to John Cage (the avant-garde experimental composer) shows an awareness starkly contrasted to the desynchronised NME.[112] Miles’ 6000 word article and interview entitled the ‘Conversation With Paul McCartney’ was conducted ‘after a [marijuana] joint’ because ‘it was not for a normal newspaper or magazine’.[113] This is evidence of a new style of journalism as a contrasted and alternative approach to a ‘normal newspaper or magazine’ .Refusing to treat the Beatles as simple teenage pop idols but rather as representatives of the counter culture and ‘freedom’, is indicative of the developed approach of the underground press. Norman Jopling testifies to the more synchronised and developed journalism of the underground press: ‘those people were writing about things in a lot more depth than say we were in the pop papers’.[114] The Beatles’ evolution created the idea that popular music had become more significant. This was the ideology that the underground press thrived on. ‘The music that was most despised by the underground press was precisely the commercial...teenage pop’.[115] Therefore the underground press was symptomatic of the perception that new music was more significant and ideologically important than early pop.
This perception was catered for by ‘new specialist music magazines’.[116] The Beatles’ most creative leaps in 1966-1967 precisely coincided with creation of new publications aiming at the new market of serious popular music treatment.[117] Crawdaddy! (established 1966) is cited as the birth of rock criticism[118] and its founder Paul Williams ‘was a real pioneer in pop music writing’.[119] Its first issue ran with an attack on existing music papers.
YOU ARE looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism. Crawdaddy! ... the specialty of this magazine is intelligent writing about pop music. Billboard, Cash Box etc., serve very well as trade news magazines; but their idea of a review is: "a hard-driving rhythm number that should spiral rapidly up the charts just as (previous hit by the same group) slides." And the teen magazines are devoted to rock and roll, but their idea of discussion is a string of superlatives below a fold-out photograph.[120]
This synchronised ‘intelligent writing about pop music’ and devotion to criticism marks the perception of popular music as worthy of serious consideration. It is an explicit reaction to this perception and an explicit reaction to inadequacy of existing papers.
Rolling Stone established in 1967 and echoing the sentiments of Crawdaddy!, ran its first issue with this editorial comment describing the papers incentive for publication: ‘because the trade papers have become so inaccurate and irrelevant and the fan magazines are an anachronism fashioned in the mould of myth and nonsense.’[121] The first issue of Rolling Stone featured a John Lennon cover story. This confirmed the Beatles’ evolution had transformed music journalism into treating their music seriously. Therefore both Crawdaddy! and Rolling Stone can be said to be an explicit reaction to the perception of popular music being worthy of serious consideration and an explicit reaction to the lack of serious engagement in existing publications.
The Transformation of Melody Maker
The Beatles’ evolution transformed MM more completely than NME. The greatest difference between the two papers was precisely their greatest similarity: the influence of their roots. MM’s roots as a jazz paper meant it had a groundswell of experience of developed music journalism. Once the Beatles’ music had evolved sufficiently and was perceived as such, this incurred the transferability of developed music journalism from jazz to pop music in a similar vain to the transferability of classical criticism evidenced in Chapter 1. The Beatles’ evolution reaching an aesthetic peak transformed MM. It became awash with developed and serious pop journalism that had hitherto been the preserve of jazz.
Frith acknowledges the importance of the Beatles in challenging the assumptions that their music could be valued simply by their sales.[122] However he remarks ‘how little the Beatles phenomenon affected the ideas of the music press’.[123] This is certainly true of NME but Frith mistakenly argues that this applied to MM. He asserts that ‘MM’s music coverage was still the excitement and news generated by action in the singles charts’ which changed to longer album reviews which were signed and in-depth interviews and thus developed pop journalism.[124] The turning point for Frith was 1969.[125] However there is clear evidence of this exact change with reference to the Beatles long before 1969. Therefore he acknowledges the transformation however misplaces the origin and impetus. The Beatles’ evolution incurred developed pop journalism drawing upon experience in jazz criticism. This runs contrary to Frith’s assertion that until 1969 ‘singles got more review space than albums’ and ‘serious analysis was confined to folk and jazz’.[126] Fortunately so does the evidence.
Johnstone in Melody Maker: History of 20th Century Popular Music argues the importance of the music of Jimi Hendrix in changing MM. ‘[It] heralded a new era of music journalism in MM...Outright awe had not been seen in the paper before...from this point on many pieces would be marked by passionate criticisms and verbal riches’.[127] However this too is evidenced before MM covered Hendrix.
MM’s roots as a jazz paper entailed it had a groundswell of experience in critically engaging with music. This is evidenced in the weekly ‘New Jazz Records’ section. ‘Cherry is the outstanding soloist displaying the melancholy beauty and dainty turn of phrase reminiscent of his best work’.[128] John Coltrane’s ‘hysterical, discordant passages [means] the overall mood is one of reverence...wild frantic [and] impassioned’.[129]
MM initially lambasted against pop due its application of jazz criteria to simple pop music which was limited in instrumentation and intricate construction. ‘Jazz got serious coverage...[pop music] was considered a joke’.[130] Rock ‘n’ roll was detested as ‘the antithesis of all that jazz has been striving for’[131] Elvis Presley’s music as ‘a new low’ and the Beatles themselves as ‘brash and irreverent’.[132] MM even ‘urged the BBC to be weary of the ‘’cheap and nasty lyrics’’ of rock ‘n’ roll and called it ‘’one of the most terrifying things ever to happen to popular music’’.[133] As applying jazz criticism to early pop music necessitated negative reviews, a separate criterion for assessing pop was needed in order to tap the exponential demand for pop coverage in the wake of Beatlemania. ‘Every issue featured a Beatles report’.[134] ‘Whereas formerly the paper’s focus had been on musical talent it was now on personality, sex appeal and sales potential’.[135] It included a top 40 charts table in every issue and conformed to the early 1960’s sales-based approach to the Beatles: ‘Day Tripper has the more immediate beat appeal and will probably be the Beatles’ ticket to ride to the top’[136]. ‘Are the Beatles slipping?’ asked an article upon the news of the Beatles A Hard Day’s Night not matching their usual sales figures.[137]
Due to its roots as a jazz paper, MM retained a certain reluctance and begrudged engagement with the new beat (pop) phenomenon in the first half of the 1960s. It reserved only a total 500 word section for new pop albums, following its weekly full page ‘New Jazz Records’ section which gave 200 words to each record. It often bemoaned the new pop in features, ‘Ballads are back so let’s put an end to this beat and R&B rubbish’[138] , ‘The Guitar Boom Goes On And On’[139] and ‘Beat. Here’s the secret’ which concluded ‘excitement is the secret of their success’ thus dismissing any musical or creative quality of pop. [140]
This was transformed by the Beatles’ evolution. Its accumulative sophistication changed the attitudes of the writers into perceiving the music as worthy of serious consideration and celebration, and the transferability of jazz criticism could flourish. Jazz critics who hated pop music reversed their opinion. ‘Serious analysis’ (Frith) and ‘verbal riches’ (Johnstone) occurred far before 1969 and the coverage of Jimi Hendrix.
A detachable three page colour supplement exclusively on the Beatles’ music was issued on December 4th 1965 (the day after Rubber Soul’s release). Mike Hennessey, the author, brought an unprecedented detailed analysis and critical engagement of pop music to the pages of MM. This was an explicit confirmation of discarding the gossip style journalism in favour of developed pop journalism.
Millions of words have been written about their hair, their clothes, [their personal lives]. Very few have been written about their music. Here mike Hennessey puts matters right.[141]
Hennessey dignified their creative ability: a group rated as ‘second only to the Beatles ...it’s like saying brass is second only to gold’. He deployed musicology: ‘allied to their natural ear for harmony is an entirely original concept of song construction’, their ‘predilection for the key of E’, ‘rich middle eights’ and a ‘beautiful marriage of words and melody’. He included the all important recognition of the Beatles creativity as something beyond the conventional ability of pop: ‘the Beatles have broken new ground’, their talent and ability is ‘relatively rare in the musical context in which the Beatles operate [pop]’.[142] This recognition was important as it was upon this recognition that the transferability could occur. This exhibits the detailed and serious analysis that Firth assured readers was confined to jazz and the passionate criticism that, for Johnstone, occurred in 1967.
Furthermore Chris Welch’s article in the wake of Rubber Soul’s release, ‘The New Wave Of Beat’ acknowledged the growing sophistication of pop music: ‘Pop beat has taken a tortuous course...most groups tended to sound like an electrified infants percussion band, but now beat music standards have risen’.[143] Thus both Hennessey and Welch make this important recognition that incurred transferability. It marked the precedent of developed engagement with the Beatles. They were considered worthy of serious analysis, the dam between jazz criticism and pop criticism was breached.
The release of Revolver sparked an unprecedented series of articles exhibiting a new focus on the Beatles’ music. Diversification of instrumentation induced fuller engagement and excitement from the traditionally jazz based paper: ‘BEATLES PLUS JAZZMEN ON NEW ALBUM’. The same issue featured an interview with Ravi Shankar (George Harrison’s sitar mentor) discussing the convergence of Indian music with pop in the Beatles recordings.[144] Lengthy articles focused on the Beatles’ song-writing and recording techniques on Revolver[145] and acknowledged George Harrison ‘emerging as a song writing force within the Beatles coterie’.[146] This represents an astute observation as Harrison had written an unprecedented four songs for Revolver. This awareness and attention to detail vis-à-vis songwriters, techniques, influences and production is evidence of the transferral of sophisticated engagement and thus developed pop journalism as a response to the Beatles’ evolution.
The Beatles’ evolution sparked a further precedent in the series of in-depth interviews with the band focusing exclusively on music, instrumentation, influences and context and had a competent understanding of their evolution. ‘They were the first to use the now inevitable sitar; they have used tape feedback and even run tapes backwards’.[147] This strikingly contrasts with NME’s limited pop and fan journalism of the same year. This included the misspelling ‘citarist’[148] and the almost simultaneous Beatles Dreams interview series (July 15th – August 5th, see Chapter 2).
These articles and interviews represent that music coverage at MM was not exclusively ‘still the excitement and news generated by action in the charts’ as Frith argues. This was excitement and news on the Beatles’ music and recordings, not their chart success; the products of their influences, their inclusion of Indian and jazz musicians, not their sales figures: ‘The whole of the pop world looks forward expectantly to the fruits of the Beatles’ recording activity’.[149]
Two whole separate reviews of Revolver [150]marks a further precedent, and is indicative of the Beatles’ musical evolution inducing a fuller engagement. It crucially recognizes the Beatles’ aesthetic as more sophisticated and genre-transcendent. ‘The Beatles are about to send the British and possibly the world pop scene off on a tangent. [Revolver is] perhaps the musical catalyst that could lift the Beatles out of pop music into a league of their own’.[151] This was the important recognition that facilitated transferability. The second lengthier review entitled ‘BEATLES BREAK BOUNDS OF POP’ contradicts Frith’s assertion that lengthy reviews occurred after 1969. The Beatles’ evolution had transformed MM into changing the length and detail of pop reviews.
Both reviews contained competent engagement with instrumentation: ‘Wide range of musical influences...French horn, trumpet, sitar, violin, clavichord, viola and piano’, ‘George’s involvement in Indian sounds, rhythm and counterpoint are highly evident’. [152] The second review expanded this: ‘George’s stunning use of the sitar and Paul’s penchant for the classics’.[153] Love You Too was celebrated with verbal riches: ‘Fascinating mixture of minor melody with Indian accompaniment’. Instrumental techniques were recognized in She Said She Said: ‘eastern influence creeps into the opening chord...odd bits of choral bending in the backing’. Dissimilar from NME’s erroneous literal interpretation, it recognised implicit meaning in Dr. Robert: ‘mysterious lyrics...a message no doubt loaded with significance’.[154] This represents sophisticated engagement with lyrics, instrumentation, techniques, recording, influences, and meaning and represents developed pop journalism. All three recurring themes are evidenced in these reviews. The Beatles’ evolution inculcated the perception that they had transcended the ‘bounds’ of pop. This precisely facilitated transferability. Second, contrary to existing accounts, serious analysis was not confined to jazz and outright awe was expressed prior to the coverage of Jimi Hendrix: ‘BEATLES BREAK BOUNDS OF POP’, ‘[There are] more ideas buzzing around in the Beatles’ heads than in most of the pop world put together’.[155] Thirdly, MM had the ability to competently engage with the newly sophisticated music through its experience as a jazz paper thus providing more credible engagement than NME. Therefore the Beatles’ evolution transformed MM more fully and caused it to celebrate pop on musical terms. This was a new precedent.
Chris Welch of MM described his style as ‘treating rock as seriously as jazz’[156]. For Welch ‘standards of skill and creative musicianship were as important in rock as in jazz’.[157] This shows the transferability of MM’s jazz experience to pop music. This created the developed pop journalism which characterised the transformation of MM. Welch’s approach is evident in his review of Sgt. Pepper’s. The Beatles transformed journalism in facilitating the credible treatment of pop as seriously as jazz. Welch deciphers meanings and treat the album as a concept: ‘[Lovely Rita] is obviously about one of those iron-lipped jack booted femmes-fatales ...whose very iciness contains a sensual allure’, ‘the faintly self-mocking undercurrent that runs throughout [the album] might indicate this is the Beatles’ last album’. The Beatles’ musical dexterity forced recognition and enhanced appreciation, ‘song after song prove the Beatles- creatively speaking- are bursting into a hundred different directions at once [but] the music retains the Beatle stamp of humour, sorrow, sympathy and cynicism’. Their evolution produced unprecedented celebration of the Beatles’ music in MM: ‘the Beatles new album is a remarkable and worthwhile contribution to music.’[158]
Frith contends that the Beatles were ‘important in establishing the idea that rock... could be art’, but this was ‘far less important for the music papers attitudes than the development of a new music market...progressive rock’.[159] However this runs contrary to the contention that MM provided fertile ground for several ‘writers to elevate rock to the realm of art’[160]. This latter contention is shown to be true. The idea that the Beatles had created art was explicitly acknowledged by Nick Jones at MM: ‘Good Singles fall into two main categories...commercial pop records and the creative avant-garde progressive singles. The Beatles belong to the latter category, creating sounds which are pushing the boundaries of pop music...toward being established as new art form’.[161] Therefore this shows that the Beatles established the idea that rock was art. Nick Jones’ acknowledgement of this therefore shows it did change the attitudes of the music papers, and his passionate criticism and celebration of the Beatles’ music shows this new attitude. This was a precedent in MM before 1969. Therefore the Beatles’ music had transformed MM into developed pop journalism.
Clear evidence that the Beatles’ evolution transformed MM is the reversal of jazz critics’ opinions to popular music. This proves that the Beatles’ evolution reached an aesthetic peak, at which point, serious criticism that was previously the preserve of jazz could be credibly transferred. MM jazz critic Steve Race loathed pop music ‘for sheer repulsiveness coupled with the monotony of incoherence [Elvis Presley’s] ‘’Hound Dog’’ hit a new low in my experience’.[162] Yet barely a decade later when reviewing the Beatles’ Girl (from Rubber Soul) he remarked ‘it’s like a folk song from an undiscovered land. It’s so new – the alternation from major to minor is fantastic’.[163] In both cases jazz criteria and standards are applied to the song. Hound Dog falls short and is thus vilified. The Beatles’ music met these standards and was consequently celebrated. It seems pop music was no longer ‘the antithesis of all jazz has been striving for’ as Race had opined in 1956.
Similarly, prominent jazz critic Bob Dawbarn typically lambasted against popular music. He deplored the Rolling Stones: ‘it is still farcical to hear the accents, sentiments of an American negro coming out of a white face London lad’.[164] He berated Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone: ‘[it seemed] like the longest six minutes since the invention of time...horrific backing...monotonous melody ....expressionless intoning’. [165] However his positive review of the Beatles represents a key transformation. ‘Six tracks which no other pop group in the world could begin to touch for originality combined with the popular touch’[166] This shows his appreciation of the Beatles’ music as superior in quality to other pop groups therefore explaining his unprecedented positive review of a pop record. His engagement with instrumentation and effects, ‘prominent piano’ and ‘requisite eastern overtones’, indicate the utilisation of sophisticated engagement with instrumentation now applicable to pop music.[167] This conclusively supports the argument that the Beatles’ music transformed MM. Previous disdain for pop music from jazz critics due to its relative lack of sophistication was transformed as it became evident that the Beatles, as Dawbarn put it, had quality ‘which no other pop group could touch’.[168]
This also highlights the importance of the aesthetic. In vilifying Dylan’s ‘monotonous melody’ whilst lauding the Beatles’ instrumentation, this shows how it was the aesthetic that was the focus of the jazz critics. Thus whilst Dylan led the greatest challenge to pop’s lyrical orthodoxy, it was the Beatles’ assault on pop’s aesthetic orthodoxy involving correlations with jazz instrumentation and construction that incurred the transferability of jazz criticism. Aesthetics such as instrumentation and composition rather than lyrics are typically prioritized in jazz. The significance of MM’s roots is acknowledged in Brit Crit: ‘It was MM’s more serious attitude, determined by jazz criticism that paved the way for more autonomous rock criticism’.[169] Therefore this serious treatment of pop, as resultant from the Beatles’ evolution, formed the precedent for new developed rock criticism.
Therefore the Beatles’ evolution created unprecedented changes within MM that preceded both Johnstone’s and Frith’s placement of change is 1967 and 1969 respectively. Though it is true that further changes did occur at these times, it was the Beatles’ initial transformation of MM that provided fertile group for these expanded developments. The Beatles’ evolution inculcated the perception that their music had broken the bounds of pop. This incurred the serious treatment of pop music with unprecedented forensic analysis of meaning, instrumentation and production along with in-depth interviews. The Beatles, by branching the dichotomy between previously semantically distinct spheres of pop music and sophisticated creative ability, had reversed the opinions of obstinate jazz critics. This point represents the time when MM celebrated pop music as never before. MM underwent a fuller transformation than NME due to its experience and history of developed journalism. It could provide the more sophisticated engagement via transferability which NME, anchored to its roots, could not sufficiently provide. MM’s versatility in providing developed pop journalism therefore ensured a complete transformation.
Survival of the Fittest
The most popular and in demand band had evolved significantly. Demand for synchronised Beatles coverage was a constant throughout the sixties. However the change was the components of synchronised journalism. Their evolution demanded the credible engagement of developed journalism in order to be synchronised. ‘The songs got more sophisticated...weird, and really out there and interesting...you couldn’t really talk about this music...in the same showbiz terms’.[170] Therefore to return to the zoological framing in the introduction, there existed a survival of the fittest environment between the two most circulated publications. The Beatles’ evolution demanded the adaptability of the music press. The papers needed to adapt to survive. NME’s capricious evolution and MM’s full adaption are reflected in their sales.
NME sales reached their all time peak of 306,881 in 1964,[171] with an average of 289,000 per week.[172] ‘These unprecedented circulation heights in early 1964 were just another aspect of the phenomenal appeal of the Beatles’.[173] It is acknowledged that ‘NME sales, tethered to the insatiable thirst for Beatles’ news, rose and rose’.[174] This marks the period of optimal synchronisation with the Beatles’ music, simple journalism for the relatively simple pop music and gossip based fan journalism. ‘This shallow showbizzy approach to describing pop music was typical of the mid-decade press’[175] Record Mirror was similarly providing simple Beatles fan news.[176] ‘As the sounds...evolved at quantum speed, NME was out of touch, and ill equipped to deal with the pace...music was developing’,[177] and ‘the papers singles-based, teenage pop formula remained intact’.[178] Therefore NME became desynchronised. Conversely, MM was certainly not ‘ill equipped’ and could evolve sufficiently with the music, providing developed and therefore synchronised journalism.
NME suffered a slump in sales in the late 1960s due to a ‘market assault from the now progressive Melody Maker’.[179] MM’s sales continued to accumulatively increase from 1965 onwards, precisely the point when it started seriously engaging with the Beatles. MM’s circulation jumped from 81000 per week in 1966 to 93,953 in 1967.[180] This was their largest accumulation of sales throughout the 1960s. It coincided with their unprecedented in-depth coverage of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s, the two most popular pop albums of their respective years. Therefore these accretions in sales can be attributed to its ability to evolve with, and provide the synchronised coverage of, the most popular band. This is further supported by the shrinking disparity between sales figures of NME and MM. At NME’s peak in 1964, MM had circulation figures of 90,000, which was 210, 000 less than NME. By 1966 the difference had almost halved with 130, 000, and by 1969 was 101,000. ‘The journalism had to keep pace with the new directions’.[181] NME could not provide the synchronised journalism. It was now MM that provided the synchronised engagement with the most popular band.
‘We used to laugh at the NME who had really weak stories whereas we had powerful stuff’.[182] As MM surpassed NME in 1971, NME had to erase its boast from the front page of every issue, and upon this news, this editorial comment in MM exhibited its own boast:
The scene we report, reflect and interpret is now accepted as a great deal more serious and creative then previously catered for by a bubblegum philosophy of popular music. It’s a subject that requires careful sympathetic analysis. And the Melody Maker is the thinking fan’s paper.[183]
This shows that careful and sympathetic analysis of serious and creative music was the impetus for MM’s popularity and accretion in sales. The Beatles’ transformation of MM incepted this sympathetic analysis of music. Therefore a lasting impact of the Beatles’ transformation of MM into the ‘thinking fan’s paper’ saw its accretion in sales and eventual surpassing of NME.
NME eventually transformed in 1971-72. Alan Smith, a key writer for NME during the 1960s and eventual replacement of Andy Gray as editor, spoke specifically that ‘It was the Beatles profound influence...that made us change’.[184]
The big problem for us on the NME in particular was that we had an editor...who was an older man...[who was ]seeing it all as very showbusiness... it was only as things [music] started to change so evidently that we started to rebel...we’d suffered in the 60’s...something had to be done...I was appointed editor and radically overturned the entire approach to music journalism.[185]
The Beatles’ music necessitated a change that was not fulfilled due to strict editorship. This is the precise reason why it was eventually transformed. The Beatles, by creating the belief and the need for developed journalism, sowed the seeds within NME that led to its eventual transformation.
How awful the NME had become... sales were falling very rapidly and...had become incredibly skinny because nobody wanted to advertise in it. Then I took over as editor in 71, and it immediately, virtually overnight changed from being sort of teenybopperish or frivolous...I wanted colour. I wanted vitality. I wanted commitment to music.
Smith’s arguably modest account nonetheless precisely identifies the style of NME as being linked to their diminishing sales, thereby recognizing the need to transform it. Its transformation was the eventual fulfilment of synchronised journalism which had hitherto been stifled. The older generation was ousted, ‘when I took over...the first thing I did was to get rid of people like Derek Johnson and the old school and Andy Gray’ and new writers such as Nick Kent, and Charles Shar Murray were recruited from the synchronised underground press. By 1974 NME was back to 200 000 sales.[186]
Therefore the Beatles’ evolution changed musical journalism from limited to developed. This was shown in the rise of new species of publications that announced themselves to be proprietors of developed music journalism and reactionary to limited journalism. The Beatles’ evolution transformed MM more fully due to its experience as a jazz paper which facilitated the transferability of a history of developed music journalism. The Beatles’ evolution transformed MM’s entire approach to popular music long before existing accounts of this transformation. NME’s capricious development, was not fully transformed, this was reflected in the sales of MM and NME. NME’s de-synchronisation and acknowledgement thereof, was the impetus for its eventual transformation.
Conclusion
Rod Argent of 1960s band the Zombies, when interviewed by the author, recalled his experience of the historical phenomenon of the Beatles: ‘You would have to have been alive at that time to realise what an extraordinary thing the Beatles were.’ Their evolution had a transformative impact on those around them. ‘Throughout their whole career they were constantly trying to push boundaries and that was what was in the air. Anything seemed possible.’[187] The Beatles had invested popular music with the highest aspirations and belief in the importance of music. This transformed music journalism.
It has been shown that the Beatles’ evolution was rapid and radical. The Beatles were the converging point of the pinnacle of popularity, the pinnacle of ubiquity in the press and the pinnacle of innovation. This unique position meant that, more than any other act, the Beatles were the primary musical influence on the transformation.
The Beatles’ expansion of the aesthetic transformed the perception of popular music as worthy of serious attention. This saw a fundamental transformation of the attitudes of the journalists themselves, the rise of new species of publications, the transferability of jazz and classical criticism, and the belief that pop music could be art. This was a transformative impact.
The Beatles’ evolution transformed music journalism from limited to developed pop journalism. This challenged the very trademarks of the world’s most circulated music paper. NME’s simple reviewing style diversified and became more sophisticated. However, tethered to its roots, the Beatles’ evolution did in fact do much to expose NME as inadequate. Therefore it did not transform NME fully from limited to developed journalism. The Beatles did however transform MM. The Beatles’ evolution incurred the transferability of the serious treatment of jazz to pop. This saw MM’s entire approach of limited and often disdainful treatment of pop transformed into developed, serious and celebratory treatment.
The Beatles’ evolution had shaken the foundations and credibility of limited pop journalism. They created the idea that pop music could be engaged with in a sophisticated way. This transformed the demand for developed music journalism. This was reflected in the divergent sales trajectories of MM and NME and the subsequent and eventual transformation of NME.
This therefore reversed the traditional Darwinian framing: The Beatles’ evolution from 1965-68 adapted their environment. The Beatles had transformed the environment of music journalism that surrounded them with unparalleled coverage. Serious treatment and appreciation of popular music as an art form, the music journalism that exists today, was born.
The Beatles’ transformation of music journalism was profound to the point that music journalism today still reflects on the time when the Beatles altered the perceptions of popular music. Rolling Stone ran ‘The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time’ on the 25th July 2012. This was collated from a poll of music journalists and artists. There are no prizes for guessing which album was concluded to be the pinnacle achievement of popular music. This number one album is described as ‘the most important rock ‘n’ roll album ever made, an unsurpassed adventure in concept sound, songwriting, cover art and studio technology by the greatest rock ‘n’ roll group of all time’.[188] All three of the Beatles’ evolutionary L.P’s were in the top 5, along with the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited. Therefore this shows the profound and lasting impact from when popular music was challenged the most. The Beatles so strongly transformed the perceptions of their music as worthy of serious consideration that this still colours the majority of music journalism today.
There is still an insatiable demand for coverage of 1960s music, its perception as worthy of detailed reportage lives on. The latest issue of Q magazine (May 2013) featured a Beatles cover story it has an average circulation of 61000 copies.[189]Uncut magazine’s latest cover story featured the Who[190] and their latest instalment of their regular series ‘The Ultimate Music Guide’ exclusively features the Beatles. Uncut has an average circulation of 62 000 copies.[191] Mojo’s latest issue features a Dylan cover story and has a current circulation of 83,000.[192] These figures are huge in comparison to NME which at the time of writing features (modern band) Vampire Weekend and has an all time low circulation figure of 23,000.[193] This shows that today, massive demand and massive coverage of the Beatles’ leading the assault on the orthodoxy of popular music still exists as it had done in the 1960s and that coverage for 1960s music outsells coverage of modern music by a massive difference. Some young music journalists, though a rarity, even express nostalgia for when music was the central focus for attention.[194] Such was the transformative impact of the Beatles on music journalism.
Bibliography
Primary Texts
Melody Maker (1962-70: International Publishing Corporation: London)
New Musical Express (1962-70: International Publishing Corporation: London)
Rolling Stone (25/07/2012) ‘The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time’
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Jopling, Norman ‘How The Beatles Spend An Evening’ (15/05/1965) Record Mirror Rock’s Backpages Archives http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/how-the-beatles-spend-an-evening [accessed 05/03/2013]
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Williams, Paul ‘Get Off Of My Cloud!’ (07/02/1966) Crawdaddy! (First Issue) Rock’s Backpages Archives http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/icrawdaddyi-get-off-of-my-cloud [accessed 05/03/2013]
Interviews and Correspondence with Author
Keith Altham 18/02/2013 [Keith provided written answers in a word document to questions submitted via email]
Rod Argent 21/09/2012
Colin Blunstone 21/09/2012
Barney Hosykns Editor of Rock’s Backpages Online Archive provided unpublished article via email ’50 years of Rock Journalism’ 23/01/2013
Norman Jopling 07/02/2013
Michael Lydon 04/03/2013 [Michael provided written answers in a word document to questions submitted via email]
Phillip Norman 28/01/2013
Alan Smith 08/03/2013
Secondary Sources
T.G Ashplant and Gerry Smyth Explorations in Cultural History (London: Pluto Press, 2001)
Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook and Ben Saunders (eds) Rock Over The Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2002)
Egan, Sean (ed.) The Mammoth Book of The Beatles (London: Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2009)Frith, Simon The Sociology of Rock (London: Constable, 1978)
Frith, Simon Taking Popular Music Seriously (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing, 2007)
Heylin, Clinton The Act You’ve Known For All These Years: A Year In The Life Of Sgt. Pepper and Friends (Edinburgh: Canongate Books Ltd, 2007)
Hoskyns, Barney Rock Journalism At 50 (unpublished)Johnstone, Nick Melody Maker: History of 20th Century Popular Music (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1999)Jones, Steve (ed.) Pop Music and The Press (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002)Long, Pat The History of the NME: High Times and Low Lives at the World’s Most Famous Music Magazine (London: Portico Books, 2012)Macdonald, Ian Revolution In The Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties (London: Vintage Books, 2008)
Moore, Allan F. The Beatles: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band [Cambridge Music Handbooks] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)
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Rodriguez, Robert Revolver: How The Beatles Reimagined Rock‘n’Roll (Milwaukee: Blackbeat Books, 2012)
Sandbrook, Dominic White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties (London: Abacus, 2007)Shuker, Roy Understanding Popular Music Culture (New York: Routledge, 2008)
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Websites
Mojo circulation figures The Audit Bureau of Circulationshttp://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/18440465.pdf [accessed 12/04/2013]
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Uncut circulation figures The Audit Bureau of Circulations http://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/18455030.pdf [accessed 4/04/2013]
Appendix
Transcription of Personal Phone Interview With Alan Smith 08/03/2013
Interviewer: could you tell us a little bit about what waste state of music journalism was like at the start of the sixties compared to the end?
Alan Smith: In the late 50’s, it was mainly, it seemed to be what i like to call music by older people for younger people... I do know in my last days as a reporter on that local newspaper, that the editor said ‘now about this thing, this phenomenon they are calling teen ager. He said it as two words, we need something for teen agers, and I had to do something that was a called a teen age page. But musically it was you know older people and very white bread pale sort of music that was very very lightweight interpretation of what was going on in the American charts. There was no creativity, just about everybody sang songs that someone else had written for them. And errm, that was the big difference, it was like a machine, that did affect our writers. Without realising it at the time we sort of became part of the publicity machine, there was a great inclination, I’m speaking now as a journalist for many years, there was a great inclination to write what you felt the fans and the bands or the groups wanted to hear. One wrote nice things and wrote in a cheerful sort of way about what was happening. There was very little, not in pop music as it was, very little serious criticism.
I: but as the pop music became more serious, was there a need to write about it in a more serious way
AS: it sort of evolved without one realising, that’s true. the Beatles who made it more serious, if one studies the evolution of the Beatles from the ‘twist and shout’ session on ‘please please me’ and the album, if one takes their earliest work and follows it through no more than about 2 or 3 or 4 years when they started to do quite weighty stuff, their metamorphosis over a very short space of time was profound, and we found ourselves kind of without realising it having to think about it a bit more seriously. Some of my early writing i am deeply embarrassed about, we were all the same, we would just write this jolly stuff about it’s all happening for some band or other that got to number 1 in the charts. It was the Beatles profound influence on other bands as well as ourselves, society was changing, just over that short period of time, that made us change, we hardly realised it, but just as today when you don’t want to be one outside of the crowd, we began to realise that this was a more serious trade. The big problem for us on the NME in particular was that we had an editor at that time who predated me whose name was Allen Evans. Who was an older man who was very into golf and seeing it all as show business. And he used to make excruciating changes to our copies, so if you read stuff by my and others then, there’s lots of exclamation marks, and golfing jokes, terrible stuff. Inserted in without our seeing it until it appeared in the magazine. It was only as things started to change so evidently that we started to rebel and by the time i became editor of NME in the early seventies , the rebellion had really...we’d suffered in the sixties. And by the turn of the seventies the rebellion was such that there was little bit of a management realization that something had to be done. To cut a long story short, I was appointed editor and I radically overturned the entire approach to music journalism.
I: it’s said there was like a shallow showbiz approach to describing pop music in the early sixties in the NME?
AS: yeah that was true, I mean it got better, by reading articles in the NME specifically, you will see that by about the time of 64,65 and 66 onwards, the attitudes of the writers are changing. There are fewer exclamation marks, and the interviews became – the way i got around some of the atrocious sub-editing that gave the wrong flavour was to get rather interested in question and answer interviews, in which I would ask the question then print the answer directly as it was given by the artist...then I could get more of the actual flavour in. That flavour was taken up in later years when a magazine called q was launched which became very popular – the q standing for ‘question’. And err you know, it just evolved. That’s the way it was.
I: ok so when do you think the turning point was, if you think there was one in the sixties, when did people start writing a bit more seriously?
AS: well i would. Melody maker or MM, which was the competitor of the NME which i wrote for so many years then went on to edit, was, began to be more profound about music earlier than the NME. Because it had always seen itself as the weekly magazine, or newspaper as it was then, for musicians. It liked to feel that it was the musician’s bible. And err you’d see in the back pages the ads for drum kits and guitars and sheet music and jobs for people within the music industry so it became more serious earlier than the NME. The problem with MM was that it got so proud of being a serious organ of record, if you like I’m saying this in quote, that it got a bit pretentious and profound. And that’s when my moment came, because in the early seventies I had something to do with agitating how terrible how awful NME had become, because its sales were falling very badly and the size of the magazine had become incredibly skinny because nobody wanted to advertise in it. Then I took over as editor in 71, and it immediately, virtually overnight changed from being a sort of teenybopperish or frivolous to wanting my writers to really tell it as it was. I wanted colour. I wanted vitality. I wanted commitment to music. I wanted complete integrity. I just felt that we could write about anybody that was happening in music of any kind, and we could put our own spin it. So there was something frivolous and teeny that we didn’t really like, but at least we could write about it honestly just as today one of the Sunday magazines might, with a bit of grit. Whereas prior my reign it would have been written in a way that read as if it had been issued by a fan club.
I: so would you say that the style of NME, was relatively consistent in the sixties and it was not until you became editor it changed? Or do you think there was a change in the sixties?
AS: there was a change but it was a sort of, it was just the evolution of society, the society that we saw, that was happening. If you follow that period, not just what was happening in the charts, but attitudes to drugs, sexuality and art and what was happening politics. You know you have Harold Wilson wanting to court favour by wanting to be identified with the Beatles. And the famous show that they did at the royal variety where Lennon made a reference to the jewellery in the best seats. ‘Rattle your jewellery’ or whatever it was. Was a sort of quite a breath of fresh air, it sound pretty trivial now, but at that time attitudes, there was still a kind of hangover from the officer class of the second world war , or even before. We didn’t know it, but this was the way society was then, very profound things were happening, almost day by day without you realising it. I mean as far as the gay situation it, you know, you must think that must have had the most amazing change, I was happily married, but what was happening is that that kind of particular thing in gay society where there’s a creative aspect and there’s an approach to art and there’s a kind of looseness. You know was being opened up enormously, altogether you had the whole king’s road scene. The freedom the loosening up of society’s viewpoint, which the Beatles, by being so radical for their time, were spearheading. Everybody wanted to be like the Beatles and everybody wanted to meet the Beatles. This was going on with kings and queens, and the pope and presidents; everyone wanted to meet the Beatles because they represented a connection new young emerging society.
I: well you wrote prolifically about the Beatles in the pages of NME, did the style of writing change as their music changed? Did it progress as the Beatles were experimenting.?
AS: yes it did, and I make the point again the style changed because there began to be more of a respect for music as a creative force, because previously, in the earliest days, no one had particularly written their own songs. The Beatles, in America, buddy holly was one of the first to write his own songs and sing them . Talking in the pop field, the Beatles became the first more or less to write their own songs, and as they grew from the mid sixties on, there became a respect for pop music as a real creative force. And therefore, we the journalists, certainly in the music press, began to react to that , and change our style. We became as well more challenging; we started to be more confrontational or probing questions. Whereas before we just went a long with it. I did notice that the national press, were very very slow to understand what was happening. They were still looking for the cheap story which is now more the case in things like heat magazine and so on. They were always looking for that kind of angle, but in the music press the writing most definitely changed with the increasing respect for the Beatles, because their album output was becoming so fascinating, and so very different from the earlier work. This was now, something you could just stand up and talk about popular music as if it were a very serious matter. And that’s why our writing did absolutely change over that period of time.
I: I see, well I’ve been reading old copies of the NME; I’ve been reading the singles review section usually written by Derek Johnson
AS: [laughs] Derek Johnson was bloody awful!
I: I was reading the things, and they sounded very limited and vague
AS: he was a man old before his time, very straight lace, wore a tie in this office, in days when we were beginning to loosen up, and he was very stayed in his manner there’s a lot I could say, but I won’t. But when I became editor he had to go, and he did. Because the style was, I think you did have a question about ‘jogging beat’
I: yeah jog trotting – what does that mean? Because I’ve been racking my brains
AS: he didn’t have any musical comprehension in the sense that he could write about the timing of tracks so he would, you know a jogging beat he was merely talking about mid paced or a 4/4 beat or something like that. He would talk about the song trying to give it some colour, by jogging he meant jogging along a mid paced track. Err ‘toe-tapping shuffle beat’ was one of his favourites. [laughs] there is a classic case which I think is in somebody’s book about that era, which gives you some understanding about how Derek, were talking about Derek Johnson aren’t we, and others who were lacking in awareness of what they were really writing about. Duane Eddy who was a magnificent guitar rock guitarist of the time, an instrumental, the review of Duane Eddy was ‘he’s in fine voice’ [laughs]. It was almost don’t even listen, they used to get loads of freebies, freebie singles and CDs or whatever or albums, whatever they were at the time, there would be at least one guy in the music business who had a stall on Portobello road on Saturdays and I recognized a lot of the free releases that they were selling, but I mean those days are gone
I: I see, did the reviews change as the music got more interesting, the way you responded to the music, not necessarily interviews but the way you reviewed?
AS: oh absolutely. Absolutely. When I took over the editorship...the first thing I did was to get rid of people like Derek Johnson and the old school and Andy Gray, g-r-a-y, who was the editor before me. They had no musical awareness, they were too old to understand the street, what was happening on the street, they went out. And then I got, with the help of people that were working for me nick Logan and others, Nick Logan went on to do the Face and other seminal magazines in the 80s, but Nick Logan was my deputy . What we did was we went out and we got really very interesting people from the alternative press as it was called, you know about things like Oz? And a lot of these guys were writing about music with such passion, with such knowledge and fire, and these guys, no one was writing like that for the mainstream music press. One such guy was Charles Shar Murray do you know that name?
I: no
AS: ah well, you should research him, Google him. That’s Charles , s-h-a –r, and his last name is Murray as in Andy Murray. He was a magnificent writer, he could really pick you up and carry you along with his musical awareness. And another guy, Nick Kent
I: yeah I’m a big fan
AS: yeah, Nick equally, could write about music with such a close connection so i took on nick Kent. It was very hard getting those two guys at the beginning, their reaction was that NME was pretty naff and why would they want to get involved. And my reaction to that was: ‘look this is an overnight change, by the very fact that you guys write for NME, NME will be different’. They took that onboard because they joined, we began to attract so many people out there on the street if you like, you loved music and were connected to music. Not just writing about it without any idea of just half listening to it. Many of them had been in bands. They knew a guitar from a piece of string. That’s why music reviews began to change.
I: well bringing it back to the Beatles, as Beatles progressed into lyrically complex with Rubber Soul, experimental and groundbreaking with Revolver and studio mastery with Sergeant Peppers. Did this call for a different style of writing about it?
AS: say that last bit again. Did it...?
I: did it call for a different way of writing about it?
AS: yes, you had to, you had to be intellectually connected to react to it you know. You did have to write in a different way, you had to write about it in a sense that was searching for the truth and what those artists whom you could now respect were trying to say. So absolutely it did, you couldn’t write any more in the way, and I as an editor on NME, wouldn’t have stood for, for people to write junk or pap or trivial stuff. I demanded of my writers that they enjoy the music that they know the music and that they write about it with passion and with attitude and with commitment. And some indication of how successful I was with it, is that in the period of the 18 months of my editorship , the NME circulation rose from somewhere between 40-000 a week to 50-000 a week, up to in just 18 months was 272000 copies a week.
I: that’s very impressive
AS: when I ...in just 18 months 272 000 copies a week. Now in magazines, in the publishing world there used to be, and certainly still is I’m sure, something called readership profile as opposed to just straight copies sold, and it was estimated that every copy of the NME had a pass on readership, in other words about 3 to 4 people would read the one copy so if you multiply it by 3 or 4, the 272000 copies that were being sold a week, you know you’re getting up to a million and more of people reading serious but fun and challenging music magazine every week just one copy of one magazine. Now I think NME is back to around 30 000 copies a week or less in print. Obviously there’s an online thing, but my own son, apart from having his doctorate in neuroscience, is a musician who has just signed a production deal
I: oh wow! What’s the band called?
AS: oh no, it’s, he and his mate they produce for other people. They’ve just started, and they’ve been signed to this deal where the produce and develop artists. But I wanted to say, he doesn’t read any music magazines! And it’s typical of the times, that it’s just more and more amorphous. But back then the influence of the NME was phenomenal, and the influence of the Beatles, and the artists who wanted to be as good as them, was phenomenal too.
I: what was the impact of Sergeant Peppers on music journalism?
AS: profound. This was absolutely a celebration of creativity. It was regarded, so stunningly set apart from anything anyone else had done in [pop music until that time. They absolutely changed overnight, one wanted to respect that and write about it with respect.
I: who were the most important bands and artists who changed the way music was written about do you think?
AS: I would say to have a look back at some of the files at some of these old papers. Before I go on, I just wanted to ask, do you know of a site called rock’s back pages?
I: yes, yes I do, I’ve been using it a lot, I’ve been going through a lot of articles. I email Barney Hoskyns quite often. In fact I believe that’s how I got your email address actually.
AS: [laugh] oh right. Well bands like the Moody Blues who were doing quite ethereal kind of stuff, which again was a development of the straight pop song, taking that further. The stones were doing a bit of grit, some of their early work, at least two of their early tracks were written by the Beatles. So the so called enmity between the two bands did exist,. The i do remember people like Eric Clapton began to develop a fan base based on the sheer musicality. Errm. And you know i am getting older, and my memories of those days, I almost have to look back at articles to check on some of it. But all the band surrounding the Beatles who were good album sellers you could say that definitely seriously influential. It became a time, the very late sixties and the early seventies became a time when the album became increasingly predominant over singles. And that was the big switch. Once albums became regarded as iconic, you know, and a sort of cultural statement in their own right, that changed the attitude of those both in journalism and from the public to music almost overnight. Whereas the three minute thrill if you like of a cracking single was still enjoyed, albums became er the collation of tracks became a statement of musicality. Strangely well not strangely, well it shows you how society and the social reaction to music has changed, in that now hardly anyone’s buying albums as such, and the importance of a collection of tracks in itself has become incredibly lessened. I mean people tend to pick up individual tracks and make their own iPod collection. And artists used to be able to say ‘look this is us. This is me. This is my whole body of work at this time. And that’s slipped away.
I: you reviewed the Beatles album Let It Be rather negatively in 1970
AS: yeah I did that, I can almost remember writing it
I: what I wanted to ask was, it shows that you could critically respond to the music, whereas you couldn’t really do that in the early part of the sixties
AS: no, you have to bear in mind that this was getting to the end of the era in which the editor I have mentioned had this dumbing down influence upon us. And we were beginning to get angry and say how we wanted to say it. I was incredibly angry as a writer, this is personal, I had spent years writing stuff in a jolly cheery way in a way that was just as i said earlier was just begun to conform without understanding what was happening to us. And then i was bursting free. And when I wrote that , it was the sheer rage that the band that had meant so much was begging to fall by the way-side a great deal and of course here were well publicized wrangling in the band and it was obvious this wonderful, this iconic band, was eating itself alive nearly. And I felt the album was, well time heals and of course now people revere the album
I: I don’t think it’s that good
AS: relative to how good thing had been, I think that was an early indication, it was not, financially, at the time, this sounds absolutely silly now but, the financial picture of the time. It was not good value, it was lot of err
I: filler?
AS: a lot of rubbish and fluff around the tracks and it was beefed out and mastered and so. That’s why I was angry.
I: So the writing in the sixties got more critical and analytical then did it?
AS: absolutely yeah. As I’ve said it got more critical, because the bands got more critical of their own and each other’s music. And each wanted to outpace the other. We all began to realise this was something we could write about and be a part of in a serious way just as people write about the theatre critically. They write about art critically. And music, popular music had for too long been part of a fluffy aspect of society of culture if you like. Not to be over –profound about it, music was still relatively enjoyed and experienced. But we wanted to respect it.
I: did it become like art?
AS: yeah! It was art! You listen seriously to some of the stuff of the late sixties and the mid seventies, there’s some beautiful stuff going on, and also it was far more honest i think than what’s around today. I may be an older guy now, but I’m exposed to music not only through my own interest but through my son and my wife was a singer with ‘modern romance’ in the 80’s.
I: oh yeah?
AS: and our family has connections through relatives to Noah and the Whale and we have friendships with U2 for various reasons. And Mumfords are connected to our extended family.
I: that’s amazing
AS: so you know, i kind of understand music and with some honourable exceptions and those are Mumfords, and Noah and the Whale ... I do hear a lot of stuff now that i think is brilliantly produced, but no real content. And I’ve heard, as a kid I was hearing old fathers and people going music today load of old rubbish , and I’m not saying that’s the case now, but I’m saying electronics really enabled people to make beautifully produced stuff with emptiness in the middle of it.
I: yeah i completely agree with you
AS: yeah its tragic
[1] Ian Macdonald Revolution In The Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties (London: Vintage Books, 2008) p.31
[2]Roy Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture (New York: Routledge, 2008) p. 162
[3] Gestur Gudmundsson, Ulf Lindberg, Morten Michelsen and Hans Weisthaunet ‘Brit Crit: Turning Points in British Rock Criticsm, 1960-1990’ in Steve Jones (ed.) Pop Music and The Press (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002)p. 41
[4] Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture p. 163 and Gudmundsson (et al) ‘Brit Crit’ p. 41
[5] Macdonald Revolution In The Head p.11
[6] Paul McCartney quoted in James M. Decker ‘Try Thinking More: Rubber Soul and the Beatles’ Transformation of Pop’ in Kenneth Womack (ed.) The Cambridge Companion To: The Beatles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) p. 77
[7] Macdonald Revolution In The Head p. 21
[8] Decker ‘Try Thinking More’ p. 79
[9] John Lennon quoted in Jerry Zolten ‘The Beatles as Recording Artists’ in Womack (ed.) The Cambridge Companion To: The Beatles p. 47
[10] Russel Reising and Jim Lebline ‘Magical Mystery Tours and Other Trips: Yellow Submarines, Newspaper Taxis and the Beatles Psycchadelic Years’ in Womack The Cambridge Companion To The Beatles p. 94
[11] Zolten ‘The Beatles as Recording Artists’ pp.45-48
[12] Reising and Lebline ‘Magical Mystery Tours and Other Trips’ p. 95
[13] Macdonald Revolution In The Head p. 188
[14] Ibid p.190
[15] ibid pp.185-193
[16] Ibid p. 136
[17] Paul McCartney quoted in Zolten: ‘The Beatles as Recording Artists’ in p.48
[18] Ian Macdonald quoted in Allan F. Moore The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Cambridge Music Handbooks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) p. 70
[19] T.G Ashplant and Gerry Smyth (eds.) Explorations in Cultural History (London: Pluto Press, 2001) p. 7
[20] Gerry Smyth ‘I’d Love to Turn You On: The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ in T.G Ashplant and Gerry Smyth (eds.) Explorations in Cultural History (London: Pluto Press, 2001) p.169
[21] Moore The Beatles p. 57
[22] Macdonald Revolution In The Head p. 238
[23] ibid p. 243
[24] Details on instrumentation in ibid pp.227-248
[25] Moore The Beatles p. 57
[26] Chris Smith The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Rock History: The Rise of Album Rock 1967-73 (London: Greenwood Press, 2006) p. 17
[27] Martin C. Strong The Great Rock Discography (Edinburgh: Mojo Books, 2000) p. 64
[28] Smith The Greenwood Encyclopaedia of Rock History p. 77
[29] First printed use of the word was in Daily Mirror 02/11/1963 quoted in Sean Egan (ed.) The Mammoth Book of The Beatles (London: Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2009) p. 3
[30] Smyth ‘I’d Love to Turn You On’ p.190
[31] Pat Long The History of the NME: High Times and Low Lives at the World’s Most Famous Music Magazine (London: Portico Books, 2012) p.29
[32] Barney Hosykns ’50 years of Rock Journalism’ [unpublished] correspondence with author 23/01/2013
[33] Alan Smith Interview With Author 08/03/2013
[34] ibid
[35] Smyth ‘I’d Love to Turn You On’ p.180
[36] Michael Lydon Interview With Author 04/03/2013
[37] Keith Altham Interview With Author 18/02/2013
[38] Norman Jopling Interview With Author 07/02/2013
[39] Alan Smith Interview With Author 08/03/2013
[40] Egan (ed.) The Mammoth Book of The Beatles p.2
[41] Michael Lydon Interview With Author 04/03/2013
[42] Quoted in Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture p. 68
[43] Quoted in Moore The Beatles p. 62
[44] Quoted in Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture p. 68
[45] Barney Hosykns email correspondence with author 23/01/2013
[46] Simon Frith The Sociology of Rock (London: Constable, 1978) pp.142-43
[47] ibid p. 140
[48] Simon Frith Taking Pop Music Seriously (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2007) p. x
[49] Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture p. 163
[50] Gudmundsson (et al) ‘Brit Crit’ p. 41
[51] Smyth ‘I’d Love to Turn You On’ p.184
[52] Macdonald Revolution In The Head p. 219
[53] In Moore The Beatles p. 20
[54] Smyth ‘I’d Love to Turn You On’ p.190
[55] Egan(ed.) The Mammoth Book of The Beatles p. 2
[56] Smyth ‘I’d Love To Turn You On’ p. 190
[57] Smyth ‘I’d Love to Turn You On’ p.195
[58] Jones Pop Music and The Press p.21
[59] Paul McCartney quoted in Smith The Greenwood Encyclopaedia of Rock History p. 166
[60] Macdonald Revolution In The Head p. 163
[61] Ibid p. 163
[62] Smyth ‘I’d Love to Turn You On’ p.179
[63] Macdonald Revolution In The Head p. 188
[64] NME 11/02/1966 p. 2
[65] MM 13/08/1966 p. 11
[66] Sandbrook, Dominic White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties (London: Abacus, 2007) p. 439
[67] See any issue footnoted.
[68] Keith Altham quoted Long The History of the NME p.28
[69] NME 17/06/1966 p.3
[70] NME 12/08/1966 p.2
[71] Keith Altham Interview With Author 18/02/2013
[72] Derek Johnson ‘BEATLES FINGER SNAPPER!’ in New Musical Express 03/07/1964 p.6
[73] NME 10/07/1964 p. 8
[74] Nick Logan ‘Sky High With The Beatles’ NME 25/11/1967 p. 14
[75] Alan Smith Interview With Author 08/03/2013
[76] Alan Smith NME 01/02/1963
[77] Alan Smith review of White Album NME 09/11/1968 p. 3
[78] Long The History of the NME p. 33
[79] ibid p. 32
[80] Alan Smith Interview With Author 08/03/2013
[81] All results in tables taken from last 5 issues of NME in the respective year, except 1967 which sampled the last 6 issues (due to author’s error). The dates of the issues are marked at the top of each table and column.
[82] Norman Jopling Interview With Author 07/02/2013
[83] Johnson NME 03/07/1964 p.6
[84] Johnson NME 13/11/1964 p.3
[85] Johnson NME 11/02/1967 p. 6
[86] Long The History of the NME p. 35
[87] Ibid p.15
[88] ibid p. 19
[89] ibid p. 33
[90] NME 20/05/1967
[91] Allen Evans ‘Revolver Review’ in NME 29/07/1966
[92] NME 19/08/1966
[93] Chris Hutchins in NME 11/03/1966
[94] Chris Hutchins in NME 20/05/1966
[95] NME 24/06/1966
[96] NME 15/07/1966 p. 3
[97] Revolver review in NME 29/07/1966 pp. 3 & 12 and ‘Beatles Dreams’ in 05/08/1966 NME p. 3
[98] Long The History of the NME p. 39
[99] Allen Evans ‘Revolver Review’ in NME 29/07/1966 p. 3
[100] ibid
[101] Ibid p. 3
[102] Ibid p. 3
[103] Ibid p. 12
[104] Derek Johnson in NME 11/02/1967 p. 6
[105] Allen Evans in NME 20/05/1967 p. 4
[106] Norrie Drummond in NME 27/05/1967 pp. 2-3
[107] Andy Gray ‘Have The Beatles Gone Too Far?’ in NME 01/07/1967 p. 3
[108] Norman Jopling Interview With Author 07/02/2013
[109] Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.142
[110] Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.143
[111] Miles, Barry interview (1967) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHbwDZUZwk4 [accessed 12/03/2013]
[112] Barry Miles review of The Beatles [White Album] International Times Rock’s Back pages Archives http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-beatles-ithe-beatles-white- [accessed 03/03/2013]
[113] Barry Miles ‘A Conversation With Paul McCartney’(November 1967) published in International Times Rock’s Backpages Archives http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/a-conversation-with-paul-mccartney [accessed 03/03/2013]
[114] Norman Jopling Interview With Author 07/02/2013
[115] Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.143
[116] Ibid p.143
[117] Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture p. 166
[118] Gudmundsson (et al) ‘Brit Crit’ p. 46
[119] Michael Lydon Interview With Author 04/03/2013
[120] Paul Williams Crawdaddy! 07/02/1966 Rock’s Backpages Archives http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/icrawdaddyi-get-off-of-my-cloud [accessed 05/03/2013]
[121] Jann Wenner Rolling Stone in Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.144
[122] Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.142
[123] ibid p. 146
[124] ibid p. 147
[125] Ibid p. 147
[126] ibid p. 146
[127] Nick Johnstone Melody Maker: History of 20th Century Popular Music (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1999) p. 152
[128] Melody Maker 01/01/1966 p. 10
[129] Quoted in Johnstone Melody Maker History p. 148
[130] Michael Lydon Interview With Author 04/03/2013
[131] Steve Race MM 5/05/1956 in Gudmundsson (et al) ‘Brit crit’ p. 45
[132] Johstnone Melody Maker History p. 119
[133] Martin Cloonan ‘Exclusive! The British Press and Popular Music: The Story So Far’ in Jones Pop Music and The Press p.115
[134] Quoted in Johnstone Melody Maker History p. 119
[135] ibid p. 122
[136] MM 27/11/1965 p. 3
[137] MM 04/07/1964
[138] MM 27/06/1964 p. 16
[139] MM 20/06/1964 p. 12
[140] MM 31/10/1964 p. 20
[141] MM Colour Supplement 4/12/1965 pp. 1-3
[142] ibid pp. 1-3
[143] MM 02/01/1966 p. 3
[144] MM 11/06/1966
[145] MM 16/07/1966 p. 10
[146] MM 17/07/1966 p.10
[147] MM 25/06/1966 p. 3
[148] NME 25/03/1966 p.3
[149] MM 18/06/1966 p.11
[150] MM 09/07/1966 p. 3 and 30/07/1966 p. 3
[151] MM 9/07/1966
[152] MM 9/07/1966 p. 3
[153] MM 30/07/1966 p. 3
[154] ibid p. 3
[155] Ibid p. 3
[156] Chris Welch quoted in Gudmundsson (et al) ‘Brit Crit’ p. 46
[157] Ibid p.46
[158] MM 03/06/1967
[159] Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.143
[160] Gudmundsson (et al) ‘Brit Crit’ p. 49
[161] MM 08/07.1967 p. 13
[162] Steve Race MM 1956 in Long The History Of The NME p. 16
[163] Steve Race (1965)quote in Michael Lydon ‘Lennon and McCartney: Songwriters – A Portrait From 1966’ [unpublished article for Newsweek] (1966) Rock’s Backpages Archives http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/lennon-and-mccartney-songwriters--a-portrait-from-1966 [accessed 03/03/2013]
[164] Quoted in Johnstone Melody Maker History p. 131
[165] MM 07/08/1965 p. 7
[166] MM 25/11/1967 p. 16
[167] ibid p. 16
[168] ibid p. 16
[169] Gudmundsson (et al) ‘Brit Crit’ p. 44
[170] Norman Jopling Interview With Author 07/02/2013
[171] Long The History Of The NME p. 29
[172] Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.141
[173] Ibid p.141
[174] Long The History Of The NME p. 29
[175] Ibid p.33
[176] Norman Jopling ‘How The Beatles Spend An Evening’ (15/05/1965) Record Mirror Rock’s Backpages Archives http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/how-the-beatles-spend-an-evening [accessed 05/03/2013]
[177] Long The History Of The NME p. 40
[178] Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.147
[179] Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture p. 165
[180] Circulation figures in Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.142. All subsequent figures unless otherwise footnoted refer to this source.
[181] Keith Altham Interview With Author 18/02/2013
[182] Chris Welch in Long The History Of The NME p. 49
[183] MM 06/02/1971
[184] Alan Smith Interview With Author 08/03/2013
[185] ibid
[186] Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture p. 165
[187] Rod Argent Interview With Author 29/09/2012
[188] Rolling Stone ‘The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time’ 25/07/2012 p. 7
[189] Q circulation figures The Audit Bureau of Circulations http://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/18454819.pdf [accessed 12/04/2013]
[190] Uncut May 2013 available online at http://www.uncut.co.uk/magazine/may-2013
[191] Uncut circulation figures The Audit Bureau of Circulations http://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/18455030.pdf [accessed 4/04/2013]
[192] Mojo circulation figures The Audit Bureau of Circulations http://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/18440465.pdf [accessed 12/04/2013]
[193]NME circulation figures The Audit Bureau of Circulations http://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/18435450.pdf [accessed 12/04/2013
[194] Bradley Hillier-Smith (2012) Do We Really Listen To Music Anymore? http://www.live-magazine.co.uk/2012/12/do-we-really-listen-to-music-anymore/ [accessed 14/04/2013]
Though Johnson’s style remained descriptive this precisely necessitated a change in language. The most common adjectives in 1964 are less applicable to more sophisticated music. As Norman Jopling of Record Mirror points out:
If you describe a fairly simple thing, it would be a simple piece of writing, but you weren’t describing a simple thing. Even if you were describing it as simply as you could for a pop audience, it would still be a more complex piece of writing because it was a more complex thing you were describing.[82]
Therefore this accounts for the dramatic drop in these adjectives from 141 total in 1964 to 51 in 1965. Remarkably, this result still conclusively stands despite the accidental inclusion of a sixth sample in the 1967 table.
Many early reviews were almost identical and filled with the tabled adjectives. The Beatles’ I Feel Fine: ‘happy go-lucky mid-tempo swinger’ with a ‘really catchy melody [...] arresting and ear catching’, A Hard Day’s Night: ‘finger snapper with a pounding beat and catchy melody’[83] and Eight Days A Week’: ‘A bouncy hand-clapper [with] a happy-go-lucky feel’.[84] Therefore this interchangeability of the adjectives is reflective of the relative simplicity of the Beatles early work. Thus the Beatles change in music changed the reviews to become more diverse in vocabulary.
Derek Johnson’s review of the more diverse Strawberry Fields Forever is testament to this:
MOST WAY OUT BEATLES EVER: Certainly the most unusual and way out single the Beatles have yet produced both in lyrical content and scoring [...] The complex backing consists of flutes, cellos, harpsichord and weird effects – plus constantly changing tempos, including a startling glissando that sounds as if the disc is slowing down [...] bustling crescendo with crisp brass [...] completely fascinating, more spellbinding with every play [with a] deep echo.[85]
The startling juxtaposition between the Strawberry Fields review containing zero of the tabled adjectives and the reviews of earlier singles shows diversification of vocabulary was necessitated by the Beatles’ evolution. Within three years the reviews had become more complex, the reviewer could no longer apply ‘a catchy finger snapper’ to more intricate compositions. Here there is evidence of comment on instrumentation, and studio affects, technical musical language ‘glissando, crescendo’ and even a sense of awe: ‘fascinating’, ‘spellbinding’. This review represents an unprecedented reciprocal response to the accumulative sophistication the music. Also as Johnson’s reviews changed, the change cannot be attributed to different writers.
Therefore there were unprecedented engagement with context, production and artefact, interviews with producers, an elevated reviewing style and a diversification of one of the essential trademarks of NME. This marks its new development as a response to the Beatles’ evolution.
Maintaining the Roots
Despite these significant new developments, NME remained anchored to its roots as a charts based, teen orientated fan magazine. The adherence to gossip style journalism focusing on the private lives of the musicians, despite the changing nature of popular music at this time, negates the thesis that NME underwent a full transformation.
[The readers were] a young teenage audience who Kinn [owner] and Gray [editor] believed were interested in nothing more than...what the Monkees like to eat for breakfast. [86]
Therefore despite new development on the part of young writers such as Keith Altham, Alan Smith and Nick Logan, the editorship maintained the status quo. This was due to the roots of NME. Its unique selling point in its inception in 1952, was that it published the first ever UK singles chart.[87] It was a chart based paper focused on the teenage consumer who accounted for 40% of the record buyers at that time.[88] It focused on news and gossip about the bands in the charts. Chart potential was the sole criteria for judging a single. NME remained tethered to its roots under the editorship of an older generation. Andy gray was ‘out of touch’ with new trends and maintained a simple formula:
The NME charts were the first and best in the country and anyone who featured in them was worth writing about...This was a method that frustrated the younger staffers.[89]
The NME points table featured in the first issue of each year throughout the 1960s. This points table ranked artists according to chart positions in the previous year. It gave 30 points to the artist/band who held the number one spot in each week, 29 points to the artist who was no.2 etc. reaching a total at the end of the year. The band with the largest total of points was named the top band of that year. This feature remained a steadfast component each year from 1964-69. Therefore this shows the equating musical merit with sales, and chart oriented style within the NME remained despite the evolution of the Beatles’ music demanding a different criterion of meritocracy.
Sales potential as criteria for criticism was maintained and was even applied the Beatles Sgt Pepper’s: ‘it should sell like hotcakes!’[90] Furthermore the review of Revolver failed to offer an opinion, offering instead: ‘[it] certainly has new sounds...should cause plenty of argument among fans as to whether it is as good or better than previous efforts’[91]. However a following issue offered a more forthright opinion, ‘REVOLVER FIRING ON ALL CYLINDERS!’ as it was revealed it had topped the NME chart.[92] Therefore this shows, NME maintained the status quo in assessing music merit through sales potential alone.
The pre-occupation with the Beatles private lives was a theme that did not abate despite their change in music styles. Chris Hutchins’ 1966 interview with John Lennon inquired: ‘What kind of TV programmes do you watch?’ the only mention of music was the very final question.[93] Similarly his interview with Ringo Starr covered equally riveting topics. Indeed the names of his dogs ‘Donovan and Daisy’ had as many column inches as the discussion of the forthcoming L.P.[94]
This aversion to musical discussion was not particular to that one interviewer or atypical. It fitted snugly next to the limited reviews and large articles on Paul McCartney’s new appearance: ’My Broken Tooth’.[95] Furthermore a series of articles dedicated to the Beatles dreams (actual sleeping dreams, not aspirations) ran weekly over 4 issues from July 15 1966 to august 5th. The focus on Ringo’s dream being chased by a lion[96] on page 3 highlights the priorities of NME. George Harrison’s dream profile had a larger word count than the review of Revolver.[97] This is indicative of NME’s prioritization of personalities over music and evidence of fan based journalism
Though there was significant new development, NME remained anchored to its roots as a chart based, news and gossip focused, teen oriented magazine. NME did become less hit focused but never fully discarded the overcoat of sales potential as criteria for judgement. Therefore the external factor of the accumulative sophistication and innovation of the Beatles’ music did create a need for a new approach; however it did not transform the NME due to the internal factors maintaining the status quo. ‘Under the stewardship of a middle aged businessman, the NME was unlikely ever to evolve beyond its showbusiness roots’.[98]This created a chasm between the simplicity of the critical engagement and the sophistication of the music. This exposed it as inadequate. This is the greatest impact of the Beatles’ music on NME.
Exposing of inadequacy
This trend is inextricably linked to the trend of maintaining the status quo. Due to its adherence to its roots, and strict editorship NME was exposed as unable to engage appropriately with the Beatles’ music as it progressed in sophistication.
NME was exposed as inadequate in these ways: it was unable to comprehend the new sounds and sophisticated music of the Beatles. Reviewers expressed bewilderment when faced with the radical innovation of the Beatles’ music, and made copious errors and misunderstandings. They in fact bemoaned the new styles and expressed alarm at their departure from simple pop. This trend of being exposed as inadequate is the result of the de-synchronisation of the NME style and the Beatles’ musical style. NME’s simple approach was perfectly synchronised with the simple pop music of the Beatles in the early years. However the maintenance of the simple approach contrasted with the sophistication of the Beatles latter music. Therefore the Beatles’ music did not in fact transform NME immediately but rather exposed it as inadequate.
The review of Revolver by Allen Evans highlights the inadequacy of the capability of the NME in dealing with one of the most radically progressive albums of the 60s. It in fact represents a near perfect microcosm of the trends within the NME I have indentified.
First, there is evidence of new development by describing And Your Bird Can Sing as ‘philosophical’ and the Indian influenced Love You Too as a ‘kama sutra type lyric’.[99] This shows a development of the descriptive style, using unprecedented terms to describe unprecedented music. Secondly there is evidence of maintaining the style of NME. The simple descriptive approach recurs: ‘a good horn sound’ in For No One. Yellow Submarine, which has a simple verse-chorus structure with a catchy chorus received the largest word count and is thereby comfortably reviewed. ‘You’ll soon be singing about a ‘Yellow Submarine’... A simple song with a repeating line in the chorus’.[100] The title of the review is ‘The Beatles Create A New Nursery Rhyme’ this epitomizes the NME’s focus on the simple Yellow Submarine with a reluctance to focus on the more radical instrumentation and production on the album.
The most identifiable trend is the exposing of inadequacy. Describing Love You Too as ‘oriental sounding’ mistakes the origin of the sitar in the song. A greater error is mistaking the meaning of Dr. Robert (which was Lennon’s reference to a drug dealer) as ‘Lennon’s tribute to the medical profession who does well for everyone.’[101] This literal interpretation of the lyric exposes the NME’s inadequacy to acknowledge the subtleties and dual meanings in the Beatles’ now advanced music. Its continuation to engage with the sophisticated music in a simple way exposes a lack of credibility and accuracy.
The radical new sounds are not dealt with by the reviewer, and the review has an air of discomfort. This is shown through the lack of overall opinion implying the reviewer did not know how to interpret it. ‘It certainly has new sounds and ideas...[it] should cause plenty of argument among fans as to whether it is as good or better than previous efforts’[102]. This shows how the reviewer was unable to sufficiently engage with the album, and an explicit admission of being unable to give a decisive critical opinion of the album.
Tomorrow Never Knows seems to have exasperated the reviewer and exposed the NME’s inability to engage with it.
John’s vocal telling you to turn off your mind, relax and float down stream. But how can you relax with the electronic outer space noises often sounding like seagulls? Even John’s voice is weirdly fractured and given a faraway sound. Only Ringo’s rock steady drumming is natural.[103]
By misunderstanding the intentions of the song, which was a soundtrack to drug experience, Evans questions the possibility of relaxing. With literal interpretations and therefore misinterpretations of the music, the reviewer fails to adequately comprehend the subtleties in the increasing sophistication of the Beatles’ music. This is emphasised further by the distaste for the electronic sounds, finding comfort in Ringo’s drumming which represents a relative continuity with earlier Beatles simplicity compared to the radical changes of the other instruments. This is indicative of the de-synchronisation of simple NME with complex Beatles.
Evan’s review of Sgt. Peppers continues this trend. He focuses and expresses preference for the simpler pop tunes of the album. ‘I also liked Paul’s amusing ‘When I’m 64’ and ‘Getting Better’ ...and Ringo’s homely ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ very much’. This indicates an estrangement with the more complicated compositions, and ‘I liked it very much’ is a limited critical engagement at best. In an almost identical phrase to the one used to judge Revolver, Evans admits: ‘whether the album is their best yet, I wouldn’t like to say’. The Beatles’ music repeatedly exposed the inability of the critics within NME to be just that. In the Strawberry Fields Forever review Johnson exclaimed ‘quite honestly I don’t know what to make of it.’[104] This bewilderment vis-à-vis the innovative Beatles’ music exposes the critic at being unable to review it adequately, making this overt concession. It is the literal admission of being unable to do one’s job. This is the extent of how radical and new the Beatles’ music was, and this is the extent of how inept NME was in responding.
The literal interpretations of lyrics thereby missing their psychedelic connotations recurs. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is a song awash with psychedelic imagery: ‘newspaper taxis’, ‘marmalade skies’ and girls ‘with kaleidoscope eyes’. However Evans appears oblivious to this as he writes it is a ‘song about a girl and a pier, with its electric lights’.[105] It may be true that Allen Evans was not oblivious to the drug references but chose to omit them due to a perceived responsibility to his teenage audience. Nonetheless, oblivious or not, the review fails to engage competently with the music, and therefore is particularly exposed as unable to provide a comprehensive or credible review. This shows that through errors, omissions, and a stubborn descriptive style with limited comprehension NME was exposed as inadequate in responding to the growing complexity of the Beatles’ music.
Many articles even bemoaned the creative leaps of the Beatles. ‘Having achieved worldwide fame by singing pleasant, hummable numbers, don’t they feel they may be too far ahead of the record buyers?’[106] This indictment of the Beatles’ new psychedelic direction, not only rings hollow in face of the evidence that Revolver and Sgt. Peppers immediately topped the charts, but can be read as a veiled admission that the Beatles may be too far ahead of NME. This is explicitly expressed in Andy Gray’s article ‘Have the Beatles Gone Too Far?’ which appeared on the opening page in the issue directly following the review of Sgt. Pepper. ‘Have younger fans...decided that the Beatles have left them behind musically and visually? ...The Beatles built up their reputation on happy music with a simple catchy beat...the lyrics were simple and easy to remember’. Expressing dislike for their ‘more complicated lyrics and more intricate music forms’ and their ‘taking longer to produce records’, Gray describes their lack of plans to perform live as ‘alarming’.[107] This is clear evidence of a reluctance to evolve with the music, and nostalgia for simpler Beatles’ music. This shows how the rooted NME did not evolve with the music and thus was increasingly exposed as inadequate and thus desynchronised with the complex music.
The three identifiable currents within NME at this time: new development, maintenance of roots, and exposing of inadequacy, indicate a capricious trajectory of the paper. The internal forces of obstinate editors and adherence to its roots maintained the status quo and its inability to engage credibly exposed its inadequacy in dealing with more sophisticated pop music. There existed a tug of war within the NME with Keith Altham and Alan Smith pulling towards new development on one side and Andy Gray and Allen Evans pulling in the opposite direction with a maintaining of the status quo. However on the latter side, the older generation’s rope was tied strongly to the rock of NME’s roots. This accounts for NME’s inability to evolve sufficiently with the music. As Norman Jopling recalls:
[The Beatles] certainly changed the way people wanted to write about the music, but of course it was like any other process.[108]
The changing music ‘didn’t change the nature of the music papers coverage; they continued to assume...that their basic market was...teenagers with a limited, immediate interest in the latest pop’.[109] It is precisely this gap between the sophistication of the most popular band and the lack of sophistication in the most popular music paper that fuelled the demand for more serious journalism which new underground publications and rival publication Melody Maker filled.
Chapter 3: The Transformation of Melody Maker and the Alternative Publications.
The Beatles’ evolution is shown to have transformed music journalism, from limited to developed, by the rise of new species of publications and the transformation of MM. This chapter focuses on the theme of synchronised journalism. Synchronised journalism reflects, and is in tune with, the music it engages. Limited pop journalism such as NME’s descriptive and gossip style was synchronised with simple pop but this approach became desynchronised as the Beatles evolved. As a result of the Beatles’ evolution MM, the underground press and new specialist publications exhibited more sophisticated, developed and therefore synchronised journalism.
The Alternative Publications
NME had not evolved sufficiently to meet the growing demand for synchronised journalism. Therefore other publications arose and filled in the gap. The Beatles’ evolution was key in transforming demand and creating a ‘new rock audience’ which turned ‘to their own self generated papers for the articulation of their musical ideology’.[110] The two most circulated publications of the underground press, Oz and International Times, were established precisely at the time when The Beatles’ evolution had transformed perception of pop in 1966 and 1967 respectively. International Times editor Barry Miles spoke of the unique ability of the underground press to engage with the newly evolved Beatles, something NME could not offer.
Paul McCartney is on the scene and is available to be interviewed and will probably say more intimate and direct things to us than he would to any other newspaper because we have the same concept of freedom[111]
This shows the new style, ideology and synchronised approach. Barry Miles’ review of The Beatles [White Album] exhibits this developed journalism: ‘very complex music, using the old backwards tapes to great effect...John cage would be proud’. This comfortable engagement with recording techniques even calling them ‘old’, and referring to John Cage (the avant-garde experimental composer) shows an awareness starkly contrasted to the desynchronised NME.[112] Miles’ 6000 word article and interview entitled the ‘Conversation With Paul McCartney’ was conducted ‘after a [marijuana] joint’ because ‘it was not for a normal newspaper or magazine’.[113] This is evidence of a new style of journalism as a contrasted and alternative approach to a ‘normal newspaper or magazine’ .Refusing to treat the Beatles as simple teenage pop idols but rather as representatives of the counter culture and ‘freedom’, is indicative of the developed approach of the underground press. Norman Jopling testifies to the more synchronised and developed journalism of the underground press: ‘those people were writing about things in a lot more depth than say we were in the pop papers’.[114] The Beatles’ evolution created the idea that popular music had become more significant. This was the ideology that the underground press thrived on. ‘The music that was most despised by the underground press was precisely the commercial...teenage pop’.[115] Therefore the underground press was symptomatic of the perception that new music was more significant and ideologically important than early pop.
This perception was catered for by ‘new specialist music magazines’.[116] The Beatles’ most creative leaps in 1966-1967 precisely coincided with creation of new publications aiming at the new market of serious popular music treatment.[117] Crawdaddy! (established 1966) is cited as the birth of rock criticism[118] and its founder Paul Williams ‘was a real pioneer in pop music writing’.[119] Its first issue ran with an attack on existing music papers.
YOU ARE looking at the first issue of a magazine of rock and roll criticism. Crawdaddy! ... the specialty of this magazine is intelligent writing about pop music. Billboard, Cash Box etc., serve very well as trade news magazines; but their idea of a review is: "a hard-driving rhythm number that should spiral rapidly up the charts just as (previous hit by the same group) slides." And the teen magazines are devoted to rock and roll, but their idea of discussion is a string of superlatives below a fold-out photograph.[120]
This synchronised ‘intelligent writing about pop music’ and devotion to criticism marks the perception of popular music as worthy of serious consideration. It is an explicit reaction to this perception and an explicit reaction to inadequacy of existing papers.
Rolling Stone established in 1967 and echoing the sentiments of Crawdaddy!, ran its first issue with this editorial comment describing the papers incentive for publication: ‘because the trade papers have become so inaccurate and irrelevant and the fan magazines are an anachronism fashioned in the mould of myth and nonsense.’[121] The first issue of Rolling Stone featured a John Lennon cover story. This confirmed the Beatles’ evolution had transformed music journalism into treating their music seriously. Therefore both Crawdaddy! and Rolling Stone can be said to be an explicit reaction to the perception of popular music being worthy of serious consideration and an explicit reaction to the lack of serious engagement in existing publications.
The Transformation of Melody Maker
The Beatles’ evolution transformed MM more completely than NME. The greatest difference between the two papers was precisely their greatest similarity: the influence of their roots. MM’s roots as a jazz paper meant it had a groundswell of experience of developed music journalism. Once the Beatles’ music had evolved sufficiently and was perceived as such, this incurred the transferability of developed music journalism from jazz to pop music in a similar vain to the transferability of classical criticism evidenced in Chapter 1. The Beatles’ evolution reaching an aesthetic peak transformed MM. It became awash with developed and serious pop journalism that had hitherto been the preserve of jazz.
Frith acknowledges the importance of the Beatles in challenging the assumptions that their music could be valued simply by their sales.[122] However he remarks ‘how little the Beatles phenomenon affected the ideas of the music press’.[123] This is certainly true of NME but Frith mistakenly argues that this applied to MM. He asserts that ‘MM’s music coverage was still the excitement and news generated by action in the singles charts’ which changed to longer album reviews which were signed and in-depth interviews and thus developed pop journalism.[124] The turning point for Frith was 1969.[125] However there is clear evidence of this exact change with reference to the Beatles long before 1969. Therefore he acknowledges the transformation however misplaces the origin and impetus. The Beatles’ evolution incurred developed pop journalism drawing upon experience in jazz criticism. This runs contrary to Frith’s assertion that until 1969 ‘singles got more review space than albums’ and ‘serious analysis was confined to folk and jazz’.[126] Fortunately so does the evidence.
Johnstone in Melody Maker: History of 20th Century Popular Music argues the importance of the music of Jimi Hendrix in changing MM. ‘[It] heralded a new era of music journalism in MM...Outright awe had not been seen in the paper before...from this point on many pieces would be marked by passionate criticisms and verbal riches’.[127] However this too is evidenced before MM covered Hendrix.
MM’s roots as a jazz paper entailed it had a groundswell of experience in critically engaging with music. This is evidenced in the weekly ‘New Jazz Records’ section. ‘Cherry is the outstanding soloist displaying the melancholy beauty and dainty turn of phrase reminiscent of his best work’.[128] John Coltrane’s ‘hysterical, discordant passages [means] the overall mood is one of reverence...wild frantic [and] impassioned’.[129]
MM initially lambasted against pop due its application of jazz criteria to simple pop music which was limited in instrumentation and intricate construction. ‘Jazz got serious coverage...[pop music] was considered a joke’.[130] Rock ‘n’ roll was detested as ‘the antithesis of all that jazz has been striving for’[131] Elvis Presley’s music as ‘a new low’ and the Beatles themselves as ‘brash and irreverent’.[132] MM even ‘urged the BBC to be weary of the ‘’cheap and nasty lyrics’’ of rock ‘n’ roll and called it ‘’one of the most terrifying things ever to happen to popular music’’.[133] As applying jazz criticism to early pop music necessitated negative reviews, a separate criterion for assessing pop was needed in order to tap the exponential demand for pop coverage in the wake of Beatlemania. ‘Every issue featured a Beatles report’.[134] ‘Whereas formerly the paper’s focus had been on musical talent it was now on personality, sex appeal and sales potential’.[135] It included a top 40 charts table in every issue and conformed to the early 1960’s sales-based approach to the Beatles: ‘Day Tripper has the more immediate beat appeal and will probably be the Beatles’ ticket to ride to the top’[136]. ‘Are the Beatles slipping?’ asked an article upon the news of the Beatles A Hard Day’s Night not matching their usual sales figures.[137]
Due to its roots as a jazz paper, MM retained a certain reluctance and begrudged engagement with the new beat (pop) phenomenon in the first half of the 1960s. It reserved only a total 500 word section for new pop albums, following its weekly full page ‘New Jazz Records’ section which gave 200 words to each record. It often bemoaned the new pop in features, ‘Ballads are back so let’s put an end to this beat and R&B rubbish’[138] , ‘The Guitar Boom Goes On And On’[139] and ‘Beat. Here’s the secret’ which concluded ‘excitement is the secret of their success’ thus dismissing any musical or creative quality of pop. [140]
This was transformed by the Beatles’ evolution. Its accumulative sophistication changed the attitudes of the writers into perceiving the music as worthy of serious consideration and celebration, and the transferability of jazz criticism could flourish. Jazz critics who hated pop music reversed their opinion. ‘Serious analysis’ (Frith) and ‘verbal riches’ (Johnstone) occurred far before 1969 and the coverage of Jimi Hendrix.
A detachable three page colour supplement exclusively on the Beatles’ music was issued on December 4th 1965 (the day after Rubber Soul’s release). Mike Hennessey, the author, brought an unprecedented detailed analysis and critical engagement of pop music to the pages of MM. This was an explicit confirmation of discarding the gossip style journalism in favour of developed pop journalism.
Millions of words have been written about their hair, their clothes, [their personal lives]. Very few have been written about their music. Here mike Hennessey puts matters right.[141]
Hennessey dignified their creative ability: a group rated as ‘second only to the Beatles ...it’s like saying brass is second only to gold’. He deployed musicology: ‘allied to their natural ear for harmony is an entirely original concept of song construction’, their ‘predilection for the key of E’, ‘rich middle eights’ and a ‘beautiful marriage of words and melody’. He included the all important recognition of the Beatles creativity as something beyond the conventional ability of pop: ‘the Beatles have broken new ground’, their talent and ability is ‘relatively rare in the musical context in which the Beatles operate [pop]’.[142] This recognition was important as it was upon this recognition that the transferability could occur. This exhibits the detailed and serious analysis that Firth assured readers was confined to jazz and the passionate criticism that, for Johnstone, occurred in 1967.
Furthermore Chris Welch’s article in the wake of Rubber Soul’s release, ‘The New Wave Of Beat’ acknowledged the growing sophistication of pop music: ‘Pop beat has taken a tortuous course...most groups tended to sound like an electrified infants percussion band, but now beat music standards have risen’.[143] Thus both Hennessey and Welch make this important recognition that incurred transferability. It marked the precedent of developed engagement with the Beatles. They were considered worthy of serious analysis, the dam between jazz criticism and pop criticism was breached.
The release of Revolver sparked an unprecedented series of articles exhibiting a new focus on the Beatles’ music. Diversification of instrumentation induced fuller engagement and excitement from the traditionally jazz based paper: ‘BEATLES PLUS JAZZMEN ON NEW ALBUM’. The same issue featured an interview with Ravi Shankar (George Harrison’s sitar mentor) discussing the convergence of Indian music with pop in the Beatles recordings.[144] Lengthy articles focused on the Beatles’ song-writing and recording techniques on Revolver[145] and acknowledged George Harrison ‘emerging as a song writing force within the Beatles coterie’.[146] This represents an astute observation as Harrison had written an unprecedented four songs for Revolver. This awareness and attention to detail vis-à-vis songwriters, techniques, influences and production is evidence of the transferral of sophisticated engagement and thus developed pop journalism as a response to the Beatles’ evolution.
The Beatles’ evolution sparked a further precedent in the series of in-depth interviews with the band focusing exclusively on music, instrumentation, influences and context and had a competent understanding of their evolution. ‘They were the first to use the now inevitable sitar; they have used tape feedback and even run tapes backwards’.[147] This strikingly contrasts with NME’s limited pop and fan journalism of the same year. This included the misspelling ‘citarist’[148] and the almost simultaneous Beatles Dreams interview series (July 15th – August 5th, see Chapter 2).
These articles and interviews represent that music coverage at MM was not exclusively ‘still the excitement and news generated by action in the charts’ as Frith argues. This was excitement and news on the Beatles’ music and recordings, not their chart success; the products of their influences, their inclusion of Indian and jazz musicians, not their sales figures: ‘The whole of the pop world looks forward expectantly to the fruits of the Beatles’ recording activity’.[149]
Two whole separate reviews of Revolver [150]marks a further precedent, and is indicative of the Beatles’ musical evolution inducing a fuller engagement. It crucially recognizes the Beatles’ aesthetic as more sophisticated and genre-transcendent. ‘The Beatles are about to send the British and possibly the world pop scene off on a tangent. [Revolver is] perhaps the musical catalyst that could lift the Beatles out of pop music into a league of their own’.[151] This was the important recognition that facilitated transferability. The second lengthier review entitled ‘BEATLES BREAK BOUNDS OF POP’ contradicts Frith’s assertion that lengthy reviews occurred after 1969. The Beatles’ evolution had transformed MM into changing the length and detail of pop reviews.
Both reviews contained competent engagement with instrumentation: ‘Wide range of musical influences...French horn, trumpet, sitar, violin, clavichord, viola and piano’, ‘George’s involvement in Indian sounds, rhythm and counterpoint are highly evident’. [152] The second review expanded this: ‘George’s stunning use of the sitar and Paul’s penchant for the classics’.[153] Love You Too was celebrated with verbal riches: ‘Fascinating mixture of minor melody with Indian accompaniment’. Instrumental techniques were recognized in She Said She Said: ‘eastern influence creeps into the opening chord...odd bits of choral bending in the backing’. Dissimilar from NME’s erroneous literal interpretation, it recognised implicit meaning in Dr. Robert: ‘mysterious lyrics...a message no doubt loaded with significance’.[154] This represents sophisticated engagement with lyrics, instrumentation, techniques, recording, influences, and meaning and represents developed pop journalism. All three recurring themes are evidenced in these reviews. The Beatles’ evolution inculcated the perception that they had transcended the ‘bounds’ of pop. This precisely facilitated transferability. Second, contrary to existing accounts, serious analysis was not confined to jazz and outright awe was expressed prior to the coverage of Jimi Hendrix: ‘BEATLES BREAK BOUNDS OF POP’, ‘[There are] more ideas buzzing around in the Beatles’ heads than in most of the pop world put together’.[155] Thirdly, MM had the ability to competently engage with the newly sophisticated music through its experience as a jazz paper thus providing more credible engagement than NME. Therefore the Beatles’ evolution transformed MM more fully and caused it to celebrate pop on musical terms. This was a new precedent.
Chris Welch of MM described his style as ‘treating rock as seriously as jazz’[156]. For Welch ‘standards of skill and creative musicianship were as important in rock as in jazz’.[157] This shows the transferability of MM’s jazz experience to pop music. This created the developed pop journalism which characterised the transformation of MM. Welch’s approach is evident in his review of Sgt. Pepper’s. The Beatles transformed journalism in facilitating the credible treatment of pop as seriously as jazz. Welch deciphers meanings and treat the album as a concept: ‘[Lovely Rita] is obviously about one of those iron-lipped jack booted femmes-fatales ...whose very iciness contains a sensual allure’, ‘the faintly self-mocking undercurrent that runs throughout [the album] might indicate this is the Beatles’ last album’. The Beatles’ musical dexterity forced recognition and enhanced appreciation, ‘song after song prove the Beatles- creatively speaking- are bursting into a hundred different directions at once [but] the music retains the Beatle stamp of humour, sorrow, sympathy and cynicism’. Their evolution produced unprecedented celebration of the Beatles’ music in MM: ‘the Beatles new album is a remarkable and worthwhile contribution to music.’[158]
Frith contends that the Beatles were ‘important in establishing the idea that rock... could be art’, but this was ‘far less important for the music papers attitudes than the development of a new music market...progressive rock’.[159] However this runs contrary to the contention that MM provided fertile ground for several ‘writers to elevate rock to the realm of art’[160]. This latter contention is shown to be true. The idea that the Beatles had created art was explicitly acknowledged by Nick Jones at MM: ‘Good Singles fall into two main categories...commercial pop records and the creative avant-garde progressive singles. The Beatles belong to the latter category, creating sounds which are pushing the boundaries of pop music...toward being established as new art form’.[161] Therefore this shows that the Beatles established the idea that rock was art. Nick Jones’ acknowledgement of this therefore shows it did change the attitudes of the music papers, and his passionate criticism and celebration of the Beatles’ music shows this new attitude. This was a precedent in MM before 1969. Therefore the Beatles’ music had transformed MM into developed pop journalism.
Clear evidence that the Beatles’ evolution transformed MM is the reversal of jazz critics’ opinions to popular music. This proves that the Beatles’ evolution reached an aesthetic peak, at which point, serious criticism that was previously the preserve of jazz could be credibly transferred. MM jazz critic Steve Race loathed pop music ‘for sheer repulsiveness coupled with the monotony of incoherence [Elvis Presley’s] ‘’Hound Dog’’ hit a new low in my experience’.[162] Yet barely a decade later when reviewing the Beatles’ Girl (from Rubber Soul) he remarked ‘it’s like a folk song from an undiscovered land. It’s so new – the alternation from major to minor is fantastic’.[163] In both cases jazz criteria and standards are applied to the song. Hound Dog falls short and is thus vilified. The Beatles’ music met these standards and was consequently celebrated. It seems pop music was no longer ‘the antithesis of all jazz has been striving for’ as Race had opined in 1956.
Similarly, prominent jazz critic Bob Dawbarn typically lambasted against popular music. He deplored the Rolling Stones: ‘it is still farcical to hear the accents, sentiments of an American negro coming out of a white face London lad’.[164] He berated Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone: ‘[it seemed] like the longest six minutes since the invention of time...horrific backing...monotonous melody ....expressionless intoning’. [165] However his positive review of the Beatles represents a key transformation. ‘Six tracks which no other pop group in the world could begin to touch for originality combined with the popular touch’[166] This shows his appreciation of the Beatles’ music as superior in quality to other pop groups therefore explaining his unprecedented positive review of a pop record. His engagement with instrumentation and effects, ‘prominent piano’ and ‘requisite eastern overtones’, indicate the utilisation of sophisticated engagement with instrumentation now applicable to pop music.[167] This conclusively supports the argument that the Beatles’ music transformed MM. Previous disdain for pop music from jazz critics due to its relative lack of sophistication was transformed as it became evident that the Beatles, as Dawbarn put it, had quality ‘which no other pop group could touch’.[168]
This also highlights the importance of the aesthetic. In vilifying Dylan’s ‘monotonous melody’ whilst lauding the Beatles’ instrumentation, this shows how it was the aesthetic that was the focus of the jazz critics. Thus whilst Dylan led the greatest challenge to pop’s lyrical orthodoxy, it was the Beatles’ assault on pop’s aesthetic orthodoxy involving correlations with jazz instrumentation and construction that incurred the transferability of jazz criticism. Aesthetics such as instrumentation and composition rather than lyrics are typically prioritized in jazz. The significance of MM’s roots is acknowledged in Brit Crit: ‘It was MM’s more serious attitude, determined by jazz criticism that paved the way for more autonomous rock criticism’.[169] Therefore this serious treatment of pop, as resultant from the Beatles’ evolution, formed the precedent for new developed rock criticism.
Therefore the Beatles’ evolution created unprecedented changes within MM that preceded both Johnstone’s and Frith’s placement of change is 1967 and 1969 respectively. Though it is true that further changes did occur at these times, it was the Beatles’ initial transformation of MM that provided fertile group for these expanded developments. The Beatles’ evolution inculcated the perception that their music had broken the bounds of pop. This incurred the serious treatment of pop music with unprecedented forensic analysis of meaning, instrumentation and production along with in-depth interviews. The Beatles, by branching the dichotomy between previously semantically distinct spheres of pop music and sophisticated creative ability, had reversed the opinions of obstinate jazz critics. This point represents the time when MM celebrated pop music as never before. MM underwent a fuller transformation than NME due to its experience and history of developed journalism. It could provide the more sophisticated engagement via transferability which NME, anchored to its roots, could not sufficiently provide. MM’s versatility in providing developed pop journalism therefore ensured a complete transformation.
Survival of the Fittest
The most popular and in demand band had evolved significantly. Demand for synchronised Beatles coverage was a constant throughout the sixties. However the change was the components of synchronised journalism. Their evolution demanded the credible engagement of developed journalism in order to be synchronised. ‘The songs got more sophisticated...weird, and really out there and interesting...you couldn’t really talk about this music...in the same showbiz terms’.[170] Therefore to return to the zoological framing in the introduction, there existed a survival of the fittest environment between the two most circulated publications. The Beatles’ evolution demanded the adaptability of the music press. The papers needed to adapt to survive. NME’s capricious evolution and MM’s full adaption are reflected in their sales.
NME sales reached their all time peak of 306,881 in 1964,[171] with an average of 289,000 per week.[172] ‘These unprecedented circulation heights in early 1964 were just another aspect of the phenomenal appeal of the Beatles’.[173] It is acknowledged that ‘NME sales, tethered to the insatiable thirst for Beatles’ news, rose and rose’.[174] This marks the period of optimal synchronisation with the Beatles’ music, simple journalism for the relatively simple pop music and gossip based fan journalism. ‘This shallow showbizzy approach to describing pop music was typical of the mid-decade press’[175] Record Mirror was similarly providing simple Beatles fan news.[176] ‘As the sounds...evolved at quantum speed, NME was out of touch, and ill equipped to deal with the pace...music was developing’,[177] and ‘the papers singles-based, teenage pop formula remained intact’.[178] Therefore NME became desynchronised. Conversely, MM was certainly not ‘ill equipped’ and could evolve sufficiently with the music, providing developed and therefore synchronised journalism.
NME suffered a slump in sales in the late 1960s due to a ‘market assault from the now progressive Melody Maker’.[179] MM’s sales continued to accumulatively increase from 1965 onwards, precisely the point when it started seriously engaging with the Beatles. MM’s circulation jumped from 81000 per week in 1966 to 93,953 in 1967.[180] This was their largest accumulation of sales throughout the 1960s. It coincided with their unprecedented in-depth coverage of Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s, the two most popular pop albums of their respective years. Therefore these accretions in sales can be attributed to its ability to evolve with, and provide the synchronised coverage of, the most popular band. This is further supported by the shrinking disparity between sales figures of NME and MM. At NME’s peak in 1964, MM had circulation figures of 90,000, which was 210, 000 less than NME. By 1966 the difference had almost halved with 130, 000, and by 1969 was 101,000. ‘The journalism had to keep pace with the new directions’.[181] NME could not provide the synchronised journalism. It was now MM that provided the synchronised engagement with the most popular band.
‘We used to laugh at the NME who had really weak stories whereas we had powerful stuff’.[182] As MM surpassed NME in 1971, NME had to erase its boast from the front page of every issue, and upon this news, this editorial comment in MM exhibited its own boast:
The scene we report, reflect and interpret is now accepted as a great deal more serious and creative then previously catered for by a bubblegum philosophy of popular music. It’s a subject that requires careful sympathetic analysis. And the Melody Maker is the thinking fan’s paper.[183]
This shows that careful and sympathetic analysis of serious and creative music was the impetus for MM’s popularity and accretion in sales. The Beatles’ transformation of MM incepted this sympathetic analysis of music. Therefore a lasting impact of the Beatles’ transformation of MM into the ‘thinking fan’s paper’ saw its accretion in sales and eventual surpassing of NME.
NME eventually transformed in 1971-72. Alan Smith, a key writer for NME during the 1960s and eventual replacement of Andy Gray as editor, spoke specifically that ‘It was the Beatles profound influence...that made us change’.[184]
The big problem for us on the NME in particular was that we had an editor...who was an older man...[who was ]seeing it all as very showbusiness... it was only as things [music] started to change so evidently that we started to rebel...we’d suffered in the 60’s...something had to be done...I was appointed editor and radically overturned the entire approach to music journalism.[185]
The Beatles’ music necessitated a change that was not fulfilled due to strict editorship. This is the precise reason why it was eventually transformed. The Beatles, by creating the belief and the need for developed journalism, sowed the seeds within NME that led to its eventual transformation.
How awful the NME had become... sales were falling very rapidly and...had become incredibly skinny because nobody wanted to advertise in it. Then I took over as editor in 71, and it immediately, virtually overnight changed from being sort of teenybopperish or frivolous...I wanted colour. I wanted vitality. I wanted commitment to music.
Smith’s arguably modest account nonetheless precisely identifies the style of NME as being linked to their diminishing sales, thereby recognizing the need to transform it. Its transformation was the eventual fulfilment of synchronised journalism which had hitherto been stifled. The older generation was ousted, ‘when I took over...the first thing I did was to get rid of people like Derek Johnson and the old school and Andy Gray’ and new writers such as Nick Kent, and Charles Shar Murray were recruited from the synchronised underground press. By 1974 NME was back to 200 000 sales.[186]
Therefore the Beatles’ evolution changed musical journalism from limited to developed. This was shown in the rise of new species of publications that announced themselves to be proprietors of developed music journalism and reactionary to limited journalism. The Beatles’ evolution transformed MM more fully due to its experience as a jazz paper which facilitated the transferability of a history of developed music journalism. The Beatles’ evolution transformed MM’s entire approach to popular music long before existing accounts of this transformation. NME’s capricious development, was not fully transformed, this was reflected in the sales of MM and NME. NME’s de-synchronisation and acknowledgement thereof, was the impetus for its eventual transformation.
Conclusion
Rod Argent of 1960s band the Zombies, when interviewed by the author, recalled his experience of the historical phenomenon of the Beatles: ‘You would have to have been alive at that time to realise what an extraordinary thing the Beatles were.’ Their evolution had a transformative impact on those around them. ‘Throughout their whole career they were constantly trying to push boundaries and that was what was in the air. Anything seemed possible.’[187] The Beatles had invested popular music with the highest aspirations and belief in the importance of music. This transformed music journalism.
It has been shown that the Beatles’ evolution was rapid and radical. The Beatles were the converging point of the pinnacle of popularity, the pinnacle of ubiquity in the press and the pinnacle of innovation. This unique position meant that, more than any other act, the Beatles were the primary musical influence on the transformation.
The Beatles’ expansion of the aesthetic transformed the perception of popular music as worthy of serious attention. This saw a fundamental transformation of the attitudes of the journalists themselves, the rise of new species of publications, the transferability of jazz and classical criticism, and the belief that pop music could be art. This was a transformative impact.
The Beatles’ evolution transformed music journalism from limited to developed pop journalism. This challenged the very trademarks of the world’s most circulated music paper. NME’s simple reviewing style diversified and became more sophisticated. However, tethered to its roots, the Beatles’ evolution did in fact do much to expose NME as inadequate. Therefore it did not transform NME fully from limited to developed journalism. The Beatles did however transform MM. The Beatles’ evolution incurred the transferability of the serious treatment of jazz to pop. This saw MM’s entire approach of limited and often disdainful treatment of pop transformed into developed, serious and celebratory treatment.
The Beatles’ evolution had shaken the foundations and credibility of limited pop journalism. They created the idea that pop music could be engaged with in a sophisticated way. This transformed the demand for developed music journalism. This was reflected in the divergent sales trajectories of MM and NME and the subsequent and eventual transformation of NME.
This therefore reversed the traditional Darwinian framing: The Beatles’ evolution from 1965-68 adapted their environment. The Beatles had transformed the environment of music journalism that surrounded them with unparalleled coverage. Serious treatment and appreciation of popular music as an art form, the music journalism that exists today, was born.
The Beatles’ transformation of music journalism was profound to the point that music journalism today still reflects on the time when the Beatles altered the perceptions of popular music. Rolling Stone ran ‘The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time’ on the 25th July 2012. This was collated from a poll of music journalists and artists. There are no prizes for guessing which album was concluded to be the pinnacle achievement of popular music. This number one album is described as ‘the most important rock ‘n’ roll album ever made, an unsurpassed adventure in concept sound, songwriting, cover art and studio technology by the greatest rock ‘n’ roll group of all time’.[188] All three of the Beatles’ evolutionary L.P’s were in the top 5, along with the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds and Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited. Therefore this shows the profound and lasting impact from when popular music was challenged the most. The Beatles so strongly transformed the perceptions of their music as worthy of serious consideration that this still colours the majority of music journalism today.
There is still an insatiable demand for coverage of 1960s music, its perception as worthy of detailed reportage lives on. The latest issue of Q magazine (May 2013) featured a Beatles cover story it has an average circulation of 61000 copies.[189]Uncut magazine’s latest cover story featured the Who[190] and their latest instalment of their regular series ‘The Ultimate Music Guide’ exclusively features the Beatles. Uncut has an average circulation of 62 000 copies.[191] Mojo’s latest issue features a Dylan cover story and has a current circulation of 83,000.[192] These figures are huge in comparison to NME which at the time of writing features (modern band) Vampire Weekend and has an all time low circulation figure of 23,000.[193] This shows that today, massive demand and massive coverage of the Beatles’ leading the assault on the orthodoxy of popular music still exists as it had done in the 1960s and that coverage for 1960s music outsells coverage of modern music by a massive difference. Some young music journalists, though a rarity, even express nostalgia for when music was the central focus for attention.[194] Such was the transformative impact of the Beatles on music journalism.
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Primary Texts
Melody Maker (1962-70: International Publishing Corporation: London)
New Musical Express (1962-70: International Publishing Corporation: London)
Rolling Stone (25/07/2012) ‘The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time’
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Interviews and Correspondence with Author
Keith Altham 18/02/2013 [Keith provided written answers in a word document to questions submitted via email]
Rod Argent 21/09/2012
Colin Blunstone 21/09/2012
Barney Hosykns Editor of Rock’s Backpages Online Archive provided unpublished article via email ’50 years of Rock Journalism’ 23/01/2013
Norman Jopling 07/02/2013
Michael Lydon 04/03/2013 [Michael provided written answers in a word document to questions submitted via email]
Phillip Norman 28/01/2013
Alan Smith 08/03/2013
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T.G Ashplant and Gerry Smyth Explorations in Cultural History (London: Pluto Press, 2001)
Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook and Ben Saunders (eds) Rock Over The Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2002)
Egan, Sean (ed.) The Mammoth Book of The Beatles (London: Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2009)Frith, Simon The Sociology of Rock (London: Constable, 1978)
Frith, Simon Taking Popular Music Seriously (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing, 2007)
Heylin, Clinton The Act You’ve Known For All These Years: A Year In The Life Of Sgt. Pepper and Friends (Edinburgh: Canongate Books Ltd, 2007)
Hoskyns, Barney Rock Journalism At 50 (unpublished)Johnstone, Nick Melody Maker: History of 20th Century Popular Music (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1999)Jones, Steve (ed.) Pop Music and The Press (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002)Long, Pat The History of the NME: High Times and Low Lives at the World’s Most Famous Music Magazine (London: Portico Books, 2012)Macdonald, Ian Revolution In The Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties (London: Vintage Books, 2008)
Moore, Allan F. The Beatles: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band [Cambridge Music Handbooks] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)
Norman, Philip Shout! The True Story Of The Beatles (London: Pan Books, 2004)
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Rodriguez, Robert Revolver: How The Beatles Reimagined Rock‘n’Roll (Milwaukee: Blackbeat Books, 2012)
Sandbrook, Dominic White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties (London: Abacus, 2007)Shuker, Roy Understanding Popular Music Culture (New York: Routledge, 2008)
Smith, Chris The Greenwood Encyclopaedia of Rock History: The Rise of Album Rock 1967-73 (London: Greenwood Press, 2006)Womack, Kenneth (ed.) The Cambridge Companion To: The Beatles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)
Websites
Mojo circulation figures The Audit Bureau of Circulationshttp://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/18440465.pdf [accessed 12/04/2013]
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Uncut circulation figures The Audit Bureau of Circulations http://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/18455030.pdf [accessed 4/04/2013]
Appendix
Transcription of Personal Phone Interview With Alan Smith 08/03/2013
Interviewer: could you tell us a little bit about what waste state of music journalism was like at the start of the sixties compared to the end?
Alan Smith: In the late 50’s, it was mainly, it seemed to be what i like to call music by older people for younger people... I do know in my last days as a reporter on that local newspaper, that the editor said ‘now about this thing, this phenomenon they are calling teen ager. He said it as two words, we need something for teen agers, and I had to do something that was a called a teen age page. But musically it was you know older people and very white bread pale sort of music that was very very lightweight interpretation of what was going on in the American charts. There was no creativity, just about everybody sang songs that someone else had written for them. And errm, that was the big difference, it was like a machine, that did affect our writers. Without realising it at the time we sort of became part of the publicity machine, there was a great inclination, I’m speaking now as a journalist for many years, there was a great inclination to write what you felt the fans and the bands or the groups wanted to hear. One wrote nice things and wrote in a cheerful sort of way about what was happening. There was very little, not in pop music as it was, very little serious criticism.
I: but as the pop music became more serious, was there a need to write about it in a more serious way
AS: it sort of evolved without one realising, that’s true. the Beatles who made it more serious, if one studies the evolution of the Beatles from the ‘twist and shout’ session on ‘please please me’ and the album, if one takes their earliest work and follows it through no more than about 2 or 3 or 4 years when they started to do quite weighty stuff, their metamorphosis over a very short space of time was profound, and we found ourselves kind of without realising it having to think about it a bit more seriously. Some of my early writing i am deeply embarrassed about, we were all the same, we would just write this jolly stuff about it’s all happening for some band or other that got to number 1 in the charts. It was the Beatles profound influence on other bands as well as ourselves, society was changing, just over that short period of time, that made us change, we hardly realised it, but just as today when you don’t want to be one outside of the crowd, we began to realise that this was a more serious trade. The big problem for us on the NME in particular was that we had an editor at that time who predated me whose name was Allen Evans. Who was an older man who was very into golf and seeing it all as show business. And he used to make excruciating changes to our copies, so if you read stuff by my and others then, there’s lots of exclamation marks, and golfing jokes, terrible stuff. Inserted in without our seeing it until it appeared in the magazine. It was only as things started to change so evidently that we started to rebel and by the time i became editor of NME in the early seventies , the rebellion had really...we’d suffered in the sixties. And by the turn of the seventies the rebellion was such that there was little bit of a management realization that something had to be done. To cut a long story short, I was appointed editor and I radically overturned the entire approach to music journalism.
I: it’s said there was like a shallow showbiz approach to describing pop music in the early sixties in the NME?
AS: yeah that was true, I mean it got better, by reading articles in the NME specifically, you will see that by about the time of 64,65 and 66 onwards, the attitudes of the writers are changing. There are fewer exclamation marks, and the interviews became – the way i got around some of the atrocious sub-editing that gave the wrong flavour was to get rather interested in question and answer interviews, in which I would ask the question then print the answer directly as it was given by the artist...then I could get more of the actual flavour in. That flavour was taken up in later years when a magazine called q was launched which became very popular – the q standing for ‘question’. And err you know, it just evolved. That’s the way it was.
I: ok so when do you think the turning point was, if you think there was one in the sixties, when did people start writing a bit more seriously?
AS: well i would. Melody maker or MM, which was the competitor of the NME which i wrote for so many years then went on to edit, was, began to be more profound about music earlier than the NME. Because it had always seen itself as the weekly magazine, or newspaper as it was then, for musicians. It liked to feel that it was the musician’s bible. And err you’d see in the back pages the ads for drum kits and guitars and sheet music and jobs for people within the music industry so it became more serious earlier than the NME. The problem with MM was that it got so proud of being a serious organ of record, if you like I’m saying this in quote, that it got a bit pretentious and profound. And that’s when my moment came, because in the early seventies I had something to do with agitating how terrible how awful NME had become, because its sales were falling very badly and the size of the magazine had become incredibly skinny because nobody wanted to advertise in it. Then I took over as editor in 71, and it immediately, virtually overnight changed from being a sort of teenybopperish or frivolous to wanting my writers to really tell it as it was. I wanted colour. I wanted vitality. I wanted commitment to music. I wanted complete integrity. I just felt that we could write about anybody that was happening in music of any kind, and we could put our own spin it. So there was something frivolous and teeny that we didn’t really like, but at least we could write about it honestly just as today one of the Sunday magazines might, with a bit of grit. Whereas prior my reign it would have been written in a way that read as if it had been issued by a fan club.
I: so would you say that the style of NME, was relatively consistent in the sixties and it was not until you became editor it changed? Or do you think there was a change in the sixties?
AS: there was a change but it was a sort of, it was just the evolution of society, the society that we saw, that was happening. If you follow that period, not just what was happening in the charts, but attitudes to drugs, sexuality and art and what was happening politics. You know you have Harold Wilson wanting to court favour by wanting to be identified with the Beatles. And the famous show that they did at the royal variety where Lennon made a reference to the jewellery in the best seats. ‘Rattle your jewellery’ or whatever it was. Was a sort of quite a breath of fresh air, it sound pretty trivial now, but at that time attitudes, there was still a kind of hangover from the officer class of the second world war , or even before. We didn’t know it, but this was the way society was then, very profound things were happening, almost day by day without you realising it. I mean as far as the gay situation it, you know, you must think that must have had the most amazing change, I was happily married, but what was happening is that that kind of particular thing in gay society where there’s a creative aspect and there’s an approach to art and there’s a kind of looseness. You know was being opened up enormously, altogether you had the whole king’s road scene. The freedom the loosening up of society’s viewpoint, which the Beatles, by being so radical for their time, were spearheading. Everybody wanted to be like the Beatles and everybody wanted to meet the Beatles. This was going on with kings and queens, and the pope and presidents; everyone wanted to meet the Beatles because they represented a connection new young emerging society.
I: well you wrote prolifically about the Beatles in the pages of NME, did the style of writing change as their music changed? Did it progress as the Beatles were experimenting.?
AS: yes it did, and I make the point again the style changed because there began to be more of a respect for music as a creative force, because previously, in the earliest days, no one had particularly written their own songs. The Beatles, in America, buddy holly was one of the first to write his own songs and sing them . Talking in the pop field, the Beatles became the first more or less to write their own songs, and as they grew from the mid sixties on, there became a respect for pop music as a real creative force. And therefore, we the journalists, certainly in the music press, began to react to that , and change our style. We became as well more challenging; we started to be more confrontational or probing questions. Whereas before we just went a long with it. I did notice that the national press, were very very slow to understand what was happening. They were still looking for the cheap story which is now more the case in things like heat magazine and so on. They were always looking for that kind of angle, but in the music press the writing most definitely changed with the increasing respect for the Beatles, because their album output was becoming so fascinating, and so very different from the earlier work. This was now, something you could just stand up and talk about popular music as if it were a very serious matter. And that’s why our writing did absolutely change over that period of time.
I: I see, well I’ve been reading old copies of the NME; I’ve been reading the singles review section usually written by Derek Johnson
AS: [laughs] Derek Johnson was bloody awful!
I: I was reading the things, and they sounded very limited and vague
AS: he was a man old before his time, very straight lace, wore a tie in this office, in days when we were beginning to loosen up, and he was very stayed in his manner there’s a lot I could say, but I won’t. But when I became editor he had to go, and he did. Because the style was, I think you did have a question about ‘jogging beat’
I: yeah jog trotting – what does that mean? Because I’ve been racking my brains
AS: he didn’t have any musical comprehension in the sense that he could write about the timing of tracks so he would, you know a jogging beat he was merely talking about mid paced or a 4/4 beat or something like that. He would talk about the song trying to give it some colour, by jogging he meant jogging along a mid paced track. Err ‘toe-tapping shuffle beat’ was one of his favourites. [laughs] there is a classic case which I think is in somebody’s book about that era, which gives you some understanding about how Derek, were talking about Derek Johnson aren’t we, and others who were lacking in awareness of what they were really writing about. Duane Eddy who was a magnificent guitar rock guitarist of the time, an instrumental, the review of Duane Eddy was ‘he’s in fine voice’ [laughs]. It was almost don’t even listen, they used to get loads of freebies, freebie singles and CDs or whatever or albums, whatever they were at the time, there would be at least one guy in the music business who had a stall on Portobello road on Saturdays and I recognized a lot of the free releases that they were selling, but I mean those days are gone
I: I see, did the reviews change as the music got more interesting, the way you responded to the music, not necessarily interviews but the way you reviewed?
AS: oh absolutely. Absolutely. When I took over the editorship...the first thing I did was to get rid of people like Derek Johnson and the old school and Andy Gray, g-r-a-y, who was the editor before me. They had no musical awareness, they were too old to understand the street, what was happening on the street, they went out. And then I got, with the help of people that were working for me nick Logan and others, Nick Logan went on to do the Face and other seminal magazines in the 80s, but Nick Logan was my deputy . What we did was we went out and we got really very interesting people from the alternative press as it was called, you know about things like Oz? And a lot of these guys were writing about music with such passion, with such knowledge and fire, and these guys, no one was writing like that for the mainstream music press. One such guy was Charles Shar Murray do you know that name?
I: no
AS: ah well, you should research him, Google him. That’s Charles , s-h-a –r, and his last name is Murray as in Andy Murray. He was a magnificent writer, he could really pick you up and carry you along with his musical awareness. And another guy, Nick Kent
I: yeah I’m a big fan
AS: yeah, Nick equally, could write about music with such a close connection so i took on nick Kent. It was very hard getting those two guys at the beginning, their reaction was that NME was pretty naff and why would they want to get involved. And my reaction to that was: ‘look this is an overnight change, by the very fact that you guys write for NME, NME will be different’. They took that onboard because they joined, we began to attract so many people out there on the street if you like, you loved music and were connected to music. Not just writing about it without any idea of just half listening to it. Many of them had been in bands. They knew a guitar from a piece of string. That’s why music reviews began to change.
I: well bringing it back to the Beatles, as Beatles progressed into lyrically complex with Rubber Soul, experimental and groundbreaking with Revolver and studio mastery with Sergeant Peppers. Did this call for a different style of writing about it?
AS: say that last bit again. Did it...?
I: did it call for a different way of writing about it?
AS: yes, you had to, you had to be intellectually connected to react to it you know. You did have to write in a different way, you had to write about it in a sense that was searching for the truth and what those artists whom you could now respect were trying to say. So absolutely it did, you couldn’t write any more in the way, and I as an editor on NME, wouldn’t have stood for, for people to write junk or pap or trivial stuff. I demanded of my writers that they enjoy the music that they know the music and that they write about it with passion and with attitude and with commitment. And some indication of how successful I was with it, is that in the period of the 18 months of my editorship , the NME circulation rose from somewhere between 40-000 a week to 50-000 a week, up to in just 18 months was 272000 copies a week.
I: that’s very impressive
AS: when I ...in just 18 months 272 000 copies a week. Now in magazines, in the publishing world there used to be, and certainly still is I’m sure, something called readership profile as opposed to just straight copies sold, and it was estimated that every copy of the NME had a pass on readership, in other words about 3 to 4 people would read the one copy so if you multiply it by 3 or 4, the 272000 copies that were being sold a week, you know you’re getting up to a million and more of people reading serious but fun and challenging music magazine every week just one copy of one magazine. Now I think NME is back to around 30 000 copies a week or less in print. Obviously there’s an online thing, but my own son, apart from having his doctorate in neuroscience, is a musician who has just signed a production deal
I: oh wow! What’s the band called?
AS: oh no, it’s, he and his mate they produce for other people. They’ve just started, and they’ve been signed to this deal where the produce and develop artists. But I wanted to say, he doesn’t read any music magazines! And it’s typical of the times, that it’s just more and more amorphous. But back then the influence of the NME was phenomenal, and the influence of the Beatles, and the artists who wanted to be as good as them, was phenomenal too.
I: what was the impact of Sergeant Peppers on music journalism?
AS: profound. This was absolutely a celebration of creativity. It was regarded, so stunningly set apart from anything anyone else had done in [pop music until that time. They absolutely changed overnight, one wanted to respect that and write about it with respect.
I: who were the most important bands and artists who changed the way music was written about do you think?
AS: I would say to have a look back at some of the files at some of these old papers. Before I go on, I just wanted to ask, do you know of a site called rock’s back pages?
I: yes, yes I do, I’ve been using it a lot, I’ve been going through a lot of articles. I email Barney Hoskyns quite often. In fact I believe that’s how I got your email address actually.
AS: [laugh] oh right. Well bands like the Moody Blues who were doing quite ethereal kind of stuff, which again was a development of the straight pop song, taking that further. The stones were doing a bit of grit, some of their early work, at least two of their early tracks were written by the Beatles. So the so called enmity between the two bands did exist,. The i do remember people like Eric Clapton began to develop a fan base based on the sheer musicality. Errm. And you know i am getting older, and my memories of those days, I almost have to look back at articles to check on some of it. But all the band surrounding the Beatles who were good album sellers you could say that definitely seriously influential. It became a time, the very late sixties and the early seventies became a time when the album became increasingly predominant over singles. And that was the big switch. Once albums became regarded as iconic, you know, and a sort of cultural statement in their own right, that changed the attitude of those both in journalism and from the public to music almost overnight. Whereas the three minute thrill if you like of a cracking single was still enjoyed, albums became er the collation of tracks became a statement of musicality. Strangely well not strangely, well it shows you how society and the social reaction to music has changed, in that now hardly anyone’s buying albums as such, and the importance of a collection of tracks in itself has become incredibly lessened. I mean people tend to pick up individual tracks and make their own iPod collection. And artists used to be able to say ‘look this is us. This is me. This is my whole body of work at this time. And that’s slipped away.
I: you reviewed the Beatles album Let It Be rather negatively in 1970
AS: yeah I did that, I can almost remember writing it
I: what I wanted to ask was, it shows that you could critically respond to the music, whereas you couldn’t really do that in the early part of the sixties
AS: no, you have to bear in mind that this was getting to the end of the era in which the editor I have mentioned had this dumbing down influence upon us. And we were beginning to get angry and say how we wanted to say it. I was incredibly angry as a writer, this is personal, I had spent years writing stuff in a jolly cheery way in a way that was just as i said earlier was just begun to conform without understanding what was happening to us. And then i was bursting free. And when I wrote that , it was the sheer rage that the band that had meant so much was begging to fall by the way-side a great deal and of course here were well publicized wrangling in the band and it was obvious this wonderful, this iconic band, was eating itself alive nearly. And I felt the album was, well time heals and of course now people revere the album
I: I don’t think it’s that good
AS: relative to how good thing had been, I think that was an early indication, it was not, financially, at the time, this sounds absolutely silly now but, the financial picture of the time. It was not good value, it was lot of err
I: filler?
AS: a lot of rubbish and fluff around the tracks and it was beefed out and mastered and so. That’s why I was angry.
I: So the writing in the sixties got more critical and analytical then did it?
AS: absolutely yeah. As I’ve said it got more critical, because the bands got more critical of their own and each other’s music. And each wanted to outpace the other. We all began to realise this was something we could write about and be a part of in a serious way just as people write about the theatre critically. They write about art critically. And music, popular music had for too long been part of a fluffy aspect of society of culture if you like. Not to be over –profound about it, music was still relatively enjoyed and experienced. But we wanted to respect it.
I: did it become like art?
AS: yeah! It was art! You listen seriously to some of the stuff of the late sixties and the mid seventies, there’s some beautiful stuff going on, and also it was far more honest i think than what’s around today. I may be an older guy now, but I’m exposed to music not only through my own interest but through my son and my wife was a singer with ‘modern romance’ in the 80’s.
I: oh yeah?
AS: and our family has connections through relatives to Noah and the Whale and we have friendships with U2 for various reasons. And Mumfords are connected to our extended family.
I: that’s amazing
AS: so you know, i kind of understand music and with some honourable exceptions and those are Mumfords, and Noah and the Whale ... I do hear a lot of stuff now that i think is brilliantly produced, but no real content. And I’ve heard, as a kid I was hearing old fathers and people going music today load of old rubbish , and I’m not saying that’s the case now, but I’m saying electronics really enabled people to make beautifully produced stuff with emptiness in the middle of it.
I: yeah i completely agree with you
AS: yeah its tragic
[1] Ian Macdonald Revolution In The Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties (London: Vintage Books, 2008) p.31
[2]Roy Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture (New York: Routledge, 2008) p. 162
[3] Gestur Gudmundsson, Ulf Lindberg, Morten Michelsen and Hans Weisthaunet ‘Brit Crit: Turning Points in British Rock Criticsm, 1960-1990’ in Steve Jones (ed.) Pop Music and The Press (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002)p. 41
[4] Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture p. 163 and Gudmundsson (et al) ‘Brit Crit’ p. 41
[5] Macdonald Revolution In The Head p.11
[6] Paul McCartney quoted in James M. Decker ‘Try Thinking More: Rubber Soul and the Beatles’ Transformation of Pop’ in Kenneth Womack (ed.) The Cambridge Companion To: The Beatles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) p. 77
[7] Macdonald Revolution In The Head p. 21
[8] Decker ‘Try Thinking More’ p. 79
[9] John Lennon quoted in Jerry Zolten ‘The Beatles as Recording Artists’ in Womack (ed.) The Cambridge Companion To: The Beatles p. 47
[10] Russel Reising and Jim Lebline ‘Magical Mystery Tours and Other Trips: Yellow Submarines, Newspaper Taxis and the Beatles Psycchadelic Years’ in Womack The Cambridge Companion To The Beatles p. 94
[11] Zolten ‘The Beatles as Recording Artists’ pp.45-48
[12] Reising and Lebline ‘Magical Mystery Tours and Other Trips’ p. 95
[13] Macdonald Revolution In The Head p. 188
[14] Ibid p.190
[15] ibid pp.185-193
[16] Ibid p. 136
[17] Paul McCartney quoted in Zolten: ‘The Beatles as Recording Artists’ in p.48
[18] Ian Macdonald quoted in Allan F. Moore The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Cambridge Music Handbooks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) p. 70
[19] T.G Ashplant and Gerry Smyth (eds.) Explorations in Cultural History (London: Pluto Press, 2001) p. 7
[20] Gerry Smyth ‘I’d Love to Turn You On: The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ in T.G Ashplant and Gerry Smyth (eds.) Explorations in Cultural History (London: Pluto Press, 2001) p.169
[21] Moore The Beatles p. 57
[22] Macdonald Revolution In The Head p. 238
[23] ibid p. 243
[24] Details on instrumentation in ibid pp.227-248
[25] Moore The Beatles p. 57
[26] Chris Smith The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Rock History: The Rise of Album Rock 1967-73 (London: Greenwood Press, 2006) p. 17
[27] Martin C. Strong The Great Rock Discography (Edinburgh: Mojo Books, 2000) p. 64
[28] Smith The Greenwood Encyclopaedia of Rock History p. 77
[29] First printed use of the word was in Daily Mirror 02/11/1963 quoted in Sean Egan (ed.) The Mammoth Book of The Beatles (London: Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2009) p. 3
[30] Smyth ‘I’d Love to Turn You On’ p.190
[31] Pat Long The History of the NME: High Times and Low Lives at the World’s Most Famous Music Magazine (London: Portico Books, 2012) p.29
[32] Barney Hosykns ’50 years of Rock Journalism’ [unpublished] correspondence with author 23/01/2013
[33] Alan Smith Interview With Author 08/03/2013
[34] ibid
[35] Smyth ‘I’d Love to Turn You On’ p.180
[36] Michael Lydon Interview With Author 04/03/2013
[37] Keith Altham Interview With Author 18/02/2013
[38] Norman Jopling Interview With Author 07/02/2013
[39] Alan Smith Interview With Author 08/03/2013
[40] Egan (ed.) The Mammoth Book of The Beatles p.2
[41] Michael Lydon Interview With Author 04/03/2013
[42] Quoted in Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture p. 68
[43] Quoted in Moore The Beatles p. 62
[44] Quoted in Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture p. 68
[45] Barney Hosykns email correspondence with author 23/01/2013
[46] Simon Frith The Sociology of Rock (London: Constable, 1978) pp.142-43
[47] ibid p. 140
[48] Simon Frith Taking Pop Music Seriously (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2007) p. x
[49] Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture p. 163
[50] Gudmundsson (et al) ‘Brit Crit’ p. 41
[51] Smyth ‘I’d Love to Turn You On’ p.184
[52] Macdonald Revolution In The Head p. 219
[53] In Moore The Beatles p. 20
[54] Smyth ‘I’d Love to Turn You On’ p.190
[55] Egan(ed.) The Mammoth Book of The Beatles p. 2
[56] Smyth ‘I’d Love To Turn You On’ p. 190
[57] Smyth ‘I’d Love to Turn You On’ p.195
[58] Jones Pop Music and The Press p.21
[59] Paul McCartney quoted in Smith The Greenwood Encyclopaedia of Rock History p. 166
[60] Macdonald Revolution In The Head p. 163
[61] Ibid p. 163
[62] Smyth ‘I’d Love to Turn You On’ p.179
[63] Macdonald Revolution In The Head p. 188
[64] NME 11/02/1966 p. 2
[65] MM 13/08/1966 p. 11
[66] Sandbrook, Dominic White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties (London: Abacus, 2007) p. 439
[67] See any issue footnoted.
[68] Keith Altham quoted Long The History of the NME p.28
[69] NME 17/06/1966 p.3
[70] NME 12/08/1966 p.2
[71] Keith Altham Interview With Author 18/02/2013
[72] Derek Johnson ‘BEATLES FINGER SNAPPER!’ in New Musical Express 03/07/1964 p.6
[73] NME 10/07/1964 p. 8
[74] Nick Logan ‘Sky High With The Beatles’ NME 25/11/1967 p. 14
[75] Alan Smith Interview With Author 08/03/2013
[76] Alan Smith NME 01/02/1963
[77] Alan Smith review of White Album NME 09/11/1968 p. 3
[78] Long The History of the NME p. 33
[79] ibid p. 32
[80] Alan Smith Interview With Author 08/03/2013
[81] All results in tables taken from last 5 issues of NME in the respective year, except 1967 which sampled the last 6 issues (due to author’s error). The dates of the issues are marked at the top of each table and column.
[82] Norman Jopling Interview With Author 07/02/2013
[83] Johnson NME 03/07/1964 p.6
[84] Johnson NME 13/11/1964 p.3
[85] Johnson NME 11/02/1967 p. 6
[86] Long The History of the NME p. 35
[87] Ibid p.15
[88] ibid p. 19
[89] ibid p. 33
[90] NME 20/05/1967
[91] Allen Evans ‘Revolver Review’ in NME 29/07/1966
[92] NME 19/08/1966
[93] Chris Hutchins in NME 11/03/1966
[94] Chris Hutchins in NME 20/05/1966
[95] NME 24/06/1966
[96] NME 15/07/1966 p. 3
[97] Revolver review in NME 29/07/1966 pp. 3 & 12 and ‘Beatles Dreams’ in 05/08/1966 NME p. 3
[98] Long The History of the NME p. 39
[99] Allen Evans ‘Revolver Review’ in NME 29/07/1966 p. 3
[100] ibid
[101] Ibid p. 3
[102] Ibid p. 3
[103] Ibid p. 12
[104] Derek Johnson in NME 11/02/1967 p. 6
[105] Allen Evans in NME 20/05/1967 p. 4
[106] Norrie Drummond in NME 27/05/1967 pp. 2-3
[107] Andy Gray ‘Have The Beatles Gone Too Far?’ in NME 01/07/1967 p. 3
[108] Norman Jopling Interview With Author 07/02/2013
[109] Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.142
[110] Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.143
[111] Miles, Barry interview (1967) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHbwDZUZwk4 [accessed 12/03/2013]
[112] Barry Miles review of The Beatles [White Album] International Times Rock’s Back pages Archives http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/the-beatles-ithe-beatles-white- [accessed 03/03/2013]
[113] Barry Miles ‘A Conversation With Paul McCartney’(November 1967) published in International Times Rock’s Backpages Archives http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/a-conversation-with-paul-mccartney [accessed 03/03/2013]
[114] Norman Jopling Interview With Author 07/02/2013
[115] Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.143
[116] Ibid p.143
[117] Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture p. 166
[118] Gudmundsson (et al) ‘Brit Crit’ p. 46
[119] Michael Lydon Interview With Author 04/03/2013
[120] Paul Williams Crawdaddy! 07/02/1966 Rock’s Backpages Archives http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/icrawdaddyi-get-off-of-my-cloud [accessed 05/03/2013]
[121] Jann Wenner Rolling Stone in Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.144
[122] Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.142
[123] ibid p. 146
[124] ibid p. 147
[125] Ibid p. 147
[126] ibid p. 146
[127] Nick Johnstone Melody Maker: History of 20th Century Popular Music (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1999) p. 152
[128] Melody Maker 01/01/1966 p. 10
[129] Quoted in Johnstone Melody Maker History p. 148
[130] Michael Lydon Interview With Author 04/03/2013
[131] Steve Race MM 5/05/1956 in Gudmundsson (et al) ‘Brit crit’ p. 45
[132] Johstnone Melody Maker History p. 119
[133] Martin Cloonan ‘Exclusive! The British Press and Popular Music: The Story So Far’ in Jones Pop Music and The Press p.115
[134] Quoted in Johnstone Melody Maker History p. 119
[135] ibid p. 122
[136] MM 27/11/1965 p. 3
[137] MM 04/07/1964
[138] MM 27/06/1964 p. 16
[139] MM 20/06/1964 p. 12
[140] MM 31/10/1964 p. 20
[141] MM Colour Supplement 4/12/1965 pp. 1-3
[142] ibid pp. 1-3
[143] MM 02/01/1966 p. 3
[144] MM 11/06/1966
[145] MM 16/07/1966 p. 10
[146] MM 17/07/1966 p.10
[147] MM 25/06/1966 p. 3
[148] NME 25/03/1966 p.3
[149] MM 18/06/1966 p.11
[150] MM 09/07/1966 p. 3 and 30/07/1966 p. 3
[151] MM 9/07/1966
[152] MM 9/07/1966 p. 3
[153] MM 30/07/1966 p. 3
[154] ibid p. 3
[155] Ibid p. 3
[156] Chris Welch quoted in Gudmundsson (et al) ‘Brit Crit’ p. 46
[157] Ibid p.46
[158] MM 03/06/1967
[159] Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.143
[160] Gudmundsson (et al) ‘Brit Crit’ p. 49
[161] MM 08/07.1967 p. 13
[162] Steve Race MM 1956 in Long The History Of The NME p. 16
[163] Steve Race (1965)quote in Michael Lydon ‘Lennon and McCartney: Songwriters – A Portrait From 1966’ [unpublished article for Newsweek] (1966) Rock’s Backpages Archives http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/lennon-and-mccartney-songwriters--a-portrait-from-1966 [accessed 03/03/2013]
[164] Quoted in Johnstone Melody Maker History p. 131
[165] MM 07/08/1965 p. 7
[166] MM 25/11/1967 p. 16
[167] ibid p. 16
[168] ibid p. 16
[169] Gudmundsson (et al) ‘Brit Crit’ p. 44
[170] Norman Jopling Interview With Author 07/02/2013
[171] Long The History Of The NME p. 29
[172] Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.141
[173] Ibid p.141
[174] Long The History Of The NME p. 29
[175] Ibid p.33
[176] Norman Jopling ‘How The Beatles Spend An Evening’ (15/05/1965) Record Mirror Rock’s Backpages Archives http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/how-the-beatles-spend-an-evening [accessed 05/03/2013]
[177] Long The History Of The NME p. 40
[178] Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.147
[179] Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture p. 165
[180] Circulation figures in Frith The Sociology Of Rock p.142. All subsequent figures unless otherwise footnoted refer to this source.
[181] Keith Altham Interview With Author 18/02/2013
[182] Chris Welch in Long The History Of The NME p. 49
[183] MM 06/02/1971
[184] Alan Smith Interview With Author 08/03/2013
[185] ibid
[186] Shuker Understanding Popular Music Culture p. 165
[187] Rod Argent Interview With Author 29/09/2012
[188] Rolling Stone ‘The 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time’ 25/07/2012 p. 7
[189] Q circulation figures The Audit Bureau of Circulations http://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/18454819.pdf [accessed 12/04/2013]
[190] Uncut May 2013 available online at http://www.uncut.co.uk/magazine/may-2013
[191] Uncut circulation figures The Audit Bureau of Circulations http://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/18455030.pdf [accessed 4/04/2013]
[192] Mojo circulation figures The Audit Bureau of Circulations http://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/18440465.pdf [accessed 12/04/2013]
[193]NME circulation figures The Audit Bureau of Circulations http://www.abc.org.uk/Certificates/18435450.pdf [accessed 12/04/2013
[194] Bradley Hillier-Smith (2012) Do We Really Listen To Music Anymore? http://www.live-magazine.co.uk/2012/12/do-we-really-listen-to-music-anymore/ [accessed 14/04/2013]