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133rd out of 276 books
—
9 voters
The Beatles: The Biography
by
Bob Spitz
With this massive opus, veteran music journalist Spitz (Dylan: A Biography) tells the definitive story of the band that sparked a cultural revolution. Calling on books, articles, radio programs and primary interviews, Spitz follows the band from each member's family origins in working-class Liverpool to the band's agonizing final days. Spitz's unflinching biography reveals...more
Hardcover, 992 pages
Published
November 1st 2005
by Little, Brown and Company
(first published 2005)
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Still finishing this up, but it's certainly the most comprehensive Beatles bio out there, and very well-written and readable. The best chapters are probably the school years and the Hamburg period which the author fleshes out with much more detail than I've ever encountered. He also has a talent for making it feel immediate when you are reading, with great descriptive passages that give you a sense of what the dives in Hamburg were like and just how grueling the Beatles early touring schedule wa...more
Holy crap is this book long. And informative. Also fun to read, so yay. Here's some fun stuff I learned:
1. They all had gonorrhea when they recorded "Love Me Do."
2. John was a huge asshole.
3. Brian Epstein would invite really rough dudes back to his house to beat the crap out of him.
4. Yoko was even worse than John.
5. Paul was kind of a dick, too.
6. But Ringo was a nice guy.
7. During early Beatles concerts, theater owners or whoever would wheel retards into the front row until John started makin...more
1. They all had gonorrhea when they recorded "Love Me Do."
2. John was a huge asshole.
3. Brian Epstein would invite really rough dudes back to his house to beat the crap out of him.
4. Yoko was even worse than John.
5. Paul was kind of a dick, too.
6. But Ringo was a nice guy.
7. During early Beatles concerts, theater owners or whoever would wheel retards into the front row until John started makin...more
Aug 25, 2008
Tami O
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
die hard classic rock/ Beatles fans
Recommended to Tami by:
Mojo magazine (classic rock periodical)
Spitz goes into the deep painstaking details that die hard Beatles fans are looking for in a biography. I've read a few of them and this is by far the best. Its unique in that it goes beyond a simple biography to tell the story with feeling and personality. At times the story read like a work of fiction- Spitz treats the Beatles like characters in a novel and tries to get into their motivations and desires. Very easy to get into from both the rock biography point of view and as a story- even if...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Amazing, sad, disturbing, funny, ridiculous, disgusting, unbelievable, humorous, awe-inspiring… basically just about every type of emotion that could be experienced in reading a book. This is a very through account of The Beatles. It starts with a history of Liverpool and then takes you from the beginning of John, Paul, George and Ringo’s life and shows all that the band went thorough in it’s formation and rise in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Then the absurdity of Beatlemania. And everything th...more
I'm a huge Beatles fan. HUGE. And this book was telling me things I didn't know. This is a brilliant book that made me completely bereft when I was finished with it.
The first hundred pages gave me the impression that it was going to be yet another John-worshiping biography, but if anything, Spitz pulls no punches when it comes to Lennon, while also managing to portray Paul as much more than the cheery one (or the Machiavellian one, which is the other typical McCartney you see in band biographie...more
The first hundred pages gave me the impression that it was going to be yet another John-worshiping biography, but if anything, Spitz pulls no punches when it comes to Lennon, while also managing to portray Paul as much more than the cheery one (or the Machiavellian one, which is the other typical McCartney you see in band biographie...more
I am in the midst of this book and enjoying it at the end of the day. I am reading it on my iPad though which sounds recommended due to the book's size. But there is another reason for liking the digital version. i am loving jumping over to youtube to seek out all the more obscure skiffle or early rock songs Spitz mentions. What a great time.
Aug 21, 2007
Chris Q. Murphy
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
beatle fans with a lot of time on their hands.
having spent the better part of the last 15 years ingesting any written documentation of the beatles lives and careers that i could get my grubby paws on, i was fully prepared to be undewhelmed by yet another lengthy beatle book; so it was thrilling for me to find a text that not only provided me with new fab four facts, but also offered new insight into the same stories i have been reading for so long. while this book is decidedly "john-centric" and spends far more time documenting the first-ha...more
2 likes
·
like
· see review
The Beatles? Again?
There's not much more you can say about these guys but Spitz gives it the college try and with some new research and rehashing of some familiar stories he manages to capture best (even better than Norman's "Shout" in my opinion) the madness and daily treadmill of the Beatlemania days, which is the highpoint of this book.
He also suggests (with some merit) that the Beatles were already breaking up at the time of Sgt. Pepper with its fractured production and heavy drug use at th...more
There's not much more you can say about these guys but Spitz gives it the college try and with some new research and rehashing of some familiar stories he manages to capture best (even better than Norman's "Shout" in my opinion) the madness and daily treadmill of the Beatlemania days, which is the highpoint of this book.
He also suggests (with some merit) that the Beatles were already breaking up at the time of Sgt. Pepper with its fractured production and heavy drug use at th...more
There are many ways to write a story. Leaving aside the already proclaimed factual errors listed on any site out there, the construction of Spitz's text has an obvious formula. After so many decades since the end of the band, it was expected that someone could finally tell the story of four guys from Liverpool who, with their individual life stories, eventually started, reinvented and ended the biggest band in the history of music to this day. Well, this continues to be expected because it is no...more
Great straight-ahead history of the band. Solid and engaging all the way through, but I found Spitz at his best in covering the members' pre- and early Beatles years, their individual journeys to music in the very particular time and place that was post-war Liverpoole. Interestingly, he put most of this together from secondary sources (other writers' books about or interviews with the band) and from eyewitness accounts by people who were not Beatles. (The sources, as far as I can tell, include o...more
It's all Yoko's fault the Beatles broke up and Bob Spitz does take the time to explain why. Actually, she just brought out the discontent that was already there. My cousin once told me success was the kiss of death to a rock band. The money comes in, you began to believe your own press, etc. What made the Beatles great is that they never rested on their laurels, but that also brought about their demise. They reached a pinnacle no other band will ever reach. They stopped touring, they stopped rel...more
A threshold book. If your interest in The Beatles is only so-so, you'll be bored stiff by the book and I suspect you won’t make it to page one-hundred. The writing is only fair--in style not quite historical, not quite journalistic, and not quite pure tabloid-y entertainment--and the substance is frankly too thin to warrant eight-hundred plus pages of reading for all but the most maniacal of Beatle maniacs. For good or bad, I am such a one. And so I raced through it over a long weekend.
It doesn...more
It doesn...more
After reading about Les Paul, I wanted to discover more about this time period of musical revolution. And what other band is better known for revolution than The Beatles? The Beatles revolutionized rock as one of the earliest British musical influences on American culture.
My favorite thing about this band is that I really don't like their music all that much ironically. I find it hilarious that I have such a high level of respect and appreciation for a band which I hardly listen to, but it real...more
My favorite thing about this band is that I really don't like their music all that much ironically. I find it hilarious that I have such a high level of respect and appreciation for a band which I hardly listen to, but it real...more
Sep 22, 2010
Kirk Kiefer
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
music-biography,
beatles
The first half of this book may be one of the best Beatles bios ever written. The sense of excitement is palpable as Spitz chronicles the Beatles' rise to super-duper-stardom, and there are lots of interviews with folks I'd not really heard from in other Beatles books.
However, the second half of the book is pretty rough; it's obvious that once the Beatles quit touring there are simply less people to interview, and while the music was better (in my opinion) from there on, things become a bit less...more
However, the second half of the book is pretty rough; it's obvious that once the Beatles quit touring there are simply less people to interview, and while the music was better (in my opinion) from there on, things become a bit less...more
I’m telling myself, as I pulled Bob Spitz’s The Beatles: The Biography off the bookstore shelf, that reading yet another Beatles book is superfluous. I mean, what else could possibly be new? And I’m not saying that because I consider myself a Beatles expert.
pfft…hardly.
But there is the cynicism that, unless the author had a place in that coveted inner-sanctum of the FabFour, there really couldn’t be any other tidbit that can be dished out that hasn’t been told in the past 3 or 4 books I’ve rea...more
pfft…hardly.
But there is the cynicism that, unless the author had a place in that coveted inner-sanctum of the FabFour, there really couldn’t be any other tidbit that can be dished out that hasn’t been told in the past 3 or 4 books I’ve rea...more
This book was extremely informative and quite a good read also. It reads very fluidly, in a novel-like style.
Lots of people like to throw out the "definitive" word about a lot of books, and I've heard people say that about the Beatles bio "Shout," but I would not be surprised if this is considered the new definitive bio about the group. It's hard not to say that, given its 900 page yield. To give you an idea of how epic this book is, Spitz doesn't even mention Ringo until page 300.
I thoroughly...more
Lots of people like to throw out the "definitive" word about a lot of books, and I've heard people say that about the Beatles bio "Shout," but I would not be surprised if this is considered the new definitive bio about the group. It's hard not to say that, given its 900 page yield. To give you an idea of how epic this book is, Spitz doesn't even mention Ringo until page 300.
I thoroughly...more
If as I was, you are or have been a Beatles fan(atic); there is not alot that is new here. However if you only know of the Beatles as they were packaged for the public, this will be a good listen for you. It is not a rewriting of the Beatles myth, but is the truth that was left out of the authorized version by Davies and sadly by The Beatles themselves when they issued their anthology.
I did catch a couple of small errors in the book: As I recall,It was a fan that called and got the Paul is Dead...more
I did catch a couple of small errors in the book: As I recall,It was a fan that called and got the Paul is Dead...more
I didn't have tons of exposure to the Beatles growing up and while I realized they were part of - and had made - history, they lived in a "pop music" category in my head but weren't anything special. Then I read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and he uses them as an example of the 10K hour rule - to be an expert you must have put in 10K hours of work. Gladwell briefly discusses their time in Hamburg, how the whole "hard days night" wasn't just a song title - I was intrigued. I listened to as many o...more
Good info on the pre-stardom Liverpool/Hamburg stuff; after that, it's pretty hard to come up with info that hasn't been written a zillion times before. One annoyance: the author had the habit of ending chapters with such portentious cliches as: "Little did they know all that was about to change", which were doubly ill-conceived since anybody shelling out the cash for this book already knows what's coming next.
This book was quite a feat of biography. The work that went into almost 1000 pages of recreating the daily life of the Beatles is mind boggling. Sadly, I'm not sure it was the best use of his time. For a lot of the book, including most of the first of half, it was clear that he had little to go on in terms of primary sources or interviews. I often felt like I had no sense of the people at all, merely a list of things they did over the years. Also, I would have loved to hear more about their live...more
Rating for the quality of the book: 4 out of 5
Rating for how much I enjoyed the book: 2 out of 5
I realized as I was finishing this book that I wished I hadn't read it. Don't get me wrong - it was well-written and well-researched and I learned a great deal I didn't know about the Beatles. And therein lies the problem.
There is a whole lot I learned in this book that I wished I didn't know. I mean, I knew there was drug use. I knew there were countless affairs. I knew that none of them were standup...more
Rating for how much I enjoyed the book: 2 out of 5
I realized as I was finishing this book that I wished I hadn't read it. Don't get me wrong - it was well-written and well-researched and I learned a great deal I didn't know about the Beatles. And therein lies the problem.
There is a whole lot I learned in this book that I wished I didn't know. I mean, I knew there was drug use. I knew there were countless affairs. I knew that none of them were standup...more
I have been a huge fan of the Beatles for most of my life and have had this book in my pile of to-be-read books for a couple of years. I have put off reading it, one, because it is a huge book and two, because I was not sure that I wanted to learn all the horrible details concerning my heroes lives. In the end, I am glad that I read this book because it was extremely well researched and written. I would say, like a lot of other reviewers, that the author’s main focus does seem to be on John Lenn...more
This was a fun biography, with lots of detail. I liked how he introduced each Beatle individually; we started with John's childhood up until he met Paul and George, then we got their backstory, and then we followed the three of them until we met Ringo, then we got his backstory, and so on. I liked getting history on Brian Epstein and Yoko Ono, which I hadn't seen before.
This really paints a picture of generally unhappy Beatles. It tells us how incredible amounts of fame, money, and drugs really...more
This really paints a picture of generally unhappy Beatles. It tells us how incredible amounts of fame, money, and drugs really...more
As one scans one's reading options, this is not one to consider if you are not very interested in the subject matter. It is long and extrememly comprehensive. Which isn't to say that the book reads like a textbook; rather, it is well-written and goes quickly once you get into it (it took me about 100 pages to get the rythym of it). There are certainly times that it drags - paricularly their time in Hamburg. But, all in all, i was really fascinated by the sheer improbability of the beatles' rise...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Feb 05, 2009
Bookmarks Magazine
added it
Edited down from a staggering 2,700 pages, The Beatles took eight years of research and writing. But with some 500 books chronicling their lives, loves, and legacy, one would think The Beatles' story had been adequately told. Adequate isn't authoritative, however, and most critics believe that Spitz, a former manager for Bruce Springsteen and author of Dylan: The Biography, has synthesized his subject masterfully. Though some would prefer hagiography (Charles Taylor of Newsday seems particularly
...more
John has been singing daily along with his friends on the top of a hill in Liverpool, gotten an harmonica which he plays on his bike, and is close to buying a guitar. He's not interested in school and making crude cartoons in class. He has not met Paul yet, but Bob Spitz is building up to it and I can't wait.
5/24 Paul just wrote "yesterday".
When 9, Stuart started listening to the Beatles--every single day in the car, in went the tape. We eventually got all the Beatles, and I discovered with him...more
5/24 Paul just wrote "yesterday".
When 9, Stuart started listening to the Beatles--every single day in the car, in went the tape. We eventually got all the Beatles, and I discovered with him...more
This Beatles biography (now considered the "definitive" one) is very well-written and full of a lot of colorful, interesting detail. As a long-time Beatles fan, I thought I was already pretty familiar with the Beatles' trajectory, but I learned many things I hadn't known about the boys before. And a lot of it I kind of wish I had remained ignorant about.
While this book gave me a new appreciation for the Beatles as musicians, I felt really disappointed and even a little disgusted at who they were...more
While this book gave me a new appreciation for the Beatles as musicians, I felt really disappointed and even a little disgusted at who they were...more
Good Lord, this book is BIG!
It's fair to say that it fancies itself as the definitive Beatles biography something rotten and, for the first 10-15 years of the book's timeline, it almost carries it off. There's also quite a few things later on that, even to these seen-it-all eyes, were new and surprising (such as Brian's, ahem, friendship with infamous Liverpool solicitor, Rex Makin). So, the Messiah of Beatles biogs then? I was close to feeling that way (and I should know - I've followed a few)...more
It's fair to say that it fancies itself as the definitive Beatles biography something rotten and, for the first 10-15 years of the book's timeline, it almost carries it off. There's also quite a few things later on that, even to these seen-it-all eyes, were new and surprising (such as Brian's, ahem, friendship with infamous Liverpool solicitor, Rex Makin). So, the Messiah of Beatles biogs then? I was close to feeling that way (and I should know - I've followed a few)...more
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| The Beatles News | 1 | 7 | Apr 11, 2013 11:00am |
Bob Spitz is the award-winning author of The Beatles, a New York Times best seller, as well as seven other nonfiction books and a screenplay. He has represented Bruce Springsteen and Elton John in several capacities. His articles appear regularly in magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times Magazine; The Washington Post; Rolling Stone; and O, The Oprah Magazine, among others.
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“Later, when the other Beatles arrived, the crowd in the street had swelled to an estimated twenty-thousand, some of whom were whipped up in a terrific heat. Others, many of them young girls who had been waiting since dawn, suffered from hunger and exhaustion. The police force, which had been monitoring the situation nervously, called in the army and navy to help maintain order, but it was short-lived. By late afternoon, with chants of "We want the Beatles!" ringing through the square, the shaken troops, now four-hundred strong, felt control slipping from their grasp. They didn't know where to look first: at the barricades being crushed, the girls fainting out of sight, the hooligans stomping on the roofs of cars or pushing through their lines. A fourteen-year-old "screamed so hard she burst a blood-vessel in her throat." It was "frightening, chaotic, and rather inhuman," according to a trooper on horseback. There most pressing concern was the hotels plate-glass windows bowing perilously against the violent crush of bodies. They threatened to explode in a cluster of razor-sharp shards at any moment. Ambulances screamed in the distance, preparing for the worst; a detachment of mounted infantry swung into position.”
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Thanks for the info.
Oct 14, 2007 03:50pm