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Toronto Sun
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Toronto Sun
Let's talk about the Beatles: The records, the friendships and why they endure
Published May 28, 2025 • Last updated 0 minutes ago • 6 minute read The Beatles address the media in the press room of Kennedy International Airport on their arrival, Feb. 7, 1964 in New York. Photo by Uncredited / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS John Lennon once defined himself as a 'record man' – he preferred listening to records over attending live performances. Though I saw the Beatles live in Ed Sullivan's studio, I have to agree with John: Records provide a repeatable pleasure that's often exclusively personal, a romance between the singer's voice and the listener's ear. Records are material, tangible and portable; they enter history in a way live performances can't. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account For fans of recorded music – and the Beatles – 'Ribbons of Rust: The Beatles' Recording History in Context' delivers a fascinating look at how the group's record-making dream became a reality. This detail-heavy history by Robert Rodriguez and Jerry Hammack showcases the postwar Liverpool environment that fostered the Beatles' first No. 1 record, 'Please Please Me': the 45s the Beatles listened to; the technology available to them, such as house studios and portable tape recorders (the book's title is a reference to the recording tape the band used). The book also examines how British publications such as Mersey Beat magazine and New Musical Express, along with Radio Luxembourg, which played American rock-and-roll, helped create an audience for youth-focused music. Finally, it explores the role of certain important people, most notably Brian Epstein and George Martin, but also small-time impresarios such as Allan Williams, the man who brought the band to Hamburg, in 1960. And we shouldn't forget the unnamed man who sold John his 1958 Rickenbacker guitar while there. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Rodriguez, author of multiple books about the Beatles and host of the podcast 'Something About the Beatles,' writes expertly about the group and indulges in information that I suspect only Beatles superfans know, such as the name of the man who requested 'My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean,' a record the Beatles cut while in Germany, from Brian Epstein, then the owner of a record store. Hammack, an authority on recording techniques, is the author of the five-volume series 'The Beatles Recording Reference Manuals.' The structure of 'Ribbons' has the feel of a deeply informed scrapbook. It is full of historical facts and photographs; it also includes QR codes that allow readers to connect to additional online content, such as performances by the Coasters, Chuck Berry and the pre-Beatles skiffle band the Quarrymen. Included, too, are playlists of old Beatles gigs and in-depth technical information about studio recordings and their instrumentation. I haven't any idea what a 'modified … connection on a Leak Point One preamplifier to accept McCartney's bass … then combined to a Tannoy Dual Concentric 15-inch speaker' means, but I'm glad it facilitated the recording of 'Please Please Me.' More tech information will appear in the second volume of 'Ribbons,' covering the band's recording years after 1963. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. This extratextual information invites readers to step inside history and imagine what it was like to live and create as the Beatles did. After seeing the staid album covers featured in the book and listening to some of the songs on Top 10 lists, younger Beatles fans might have to recalibrate their perceptions of the early years of rock-and-roll. Older fans, such as myself, will remember how various popular music actually was, and that radio playlists often included both wild man Little Richard and the soporific Perry Como. The immersive facts and visuals of 'Ribbons' demonstrate how profoundly the Beatles changed specific aspects of culture that might be easily overlooked. For example, album covers were relatively tame until 1965, when the Beatles chose their own distorted photograph for 'Rubber Soul.' The iconic 'Sgt. Pepper' cover appeared two years later. The exceptions to this album cover decorum were the fabulously dynamic and often abstract covers from the Blue Note jazz label beginning in the mid-1950s. The Beatles didn't listen to modern jazz, but their musical and visual stands against the status quo were widely felt across the culture. Today, eruptions of visual excitement are common, ditto for advances in recording technology, but Rodriguez and Hammack remind us that even with primitive equipment, the Beatles created magic. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Ribbons of Rust' draws a map of the cultural environment in which the Beatles discovered their ambitions and displayed their talents. As readers, we can pick and choose where to stop and linger on this map – to look, listen or simply contemplate how four young men changed how we think about a record, that thin piece of vinyl that spins around and around, bringing us joy. Ribbons of Rust Photo by Bemis Publishing Group / Bemis Publishing Group Reading Ian Leslie's 'John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs' after 'Ribbons of Rust' is a bit of a jolt. Hoisted out of the material history of the Beatles' first hit records, we're plunged into a psychological portrait of two men who, according to Leslie, fell in love, platonically, with each other. The evidence for this, he argues, is in the songs they wrote and co-wrote. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. This is a bold argument but one that incites curiosity. Leslie, a British journalist whose previous books focus on human psychology and creativity, is interested in other nonsexual but compelling aspects of romantic coupling: jealousy, fear of abandonment, competition, belittlement, private modes of communication, disappointment and grief. Examples of these emotions are found in the songs Leslie analyzes, and his explications, bolstered by historical and biographical information, make his book readable but also troubling. John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs Photo by Celadon / Celadon The foundation of John and Paul's friendship is well-known. As teenagers, both lost their mothers. Both loved rock-and-roll, played guitars and secretly wrote songs. Both were good singers, and both hated authority. Most important, both recognized the other's talent, which turned out to be a blessing and a curse. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Leslie is keen to demonstrate how certain songs deviate from standard songwriting practices in ways that yield psychological significance. Yes, the narrative of 'She Loves You' revolves around a 'friendship between boys,' but does that mean the singer is in love with the 'you' he is addressing? It's hard to say. Leslie is more astute regarding the use of 'you' in 'Help.' Given Paul's ability to calm John through difficult times, when John sings, 'Help me if you can,' it's plausible to think the 'you' he's calling out to is Paul instead of a female lover. But when Leslie asserts that Paul's behavior is the cause of John's anguished phrase 'I'm crying' in his song 'I Am the Walrus,' he strays too far. Too often Leslie makes interpretations to suit his own inclinations. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. No one would contest the psychological duel apparent in some of John's and Paul's post-Beatles songs. John's 'How Do You Sleep,' what Leslie calls a 'musical nail bomb,' is answered by Paul's 'Dear Friend,' an offering of truce. Leslie's later chapters grow in complexity and insight, just as John and Paul's songs did. 'Eleanor Rigby,' 'Strawberry Fields Forever,' 'Hey Jude,' 'Two of Us,' 'Get Back,' 'Jealous Guy' and 'Here Today' reflect how Paul and John's maturing friendship evolved both personally and creatively after 1965. The legal and personal difficulties during the Beatles' slow demise are also clearly represented. Leslie offers examples of unlikable qualities in both musicians. (I was astounded to learn, for instance, that in 1976, Paul, while touring with Wings, chose not to attend his father's funeral.) This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Though the band dissolved, friendship between John and Paul, however truncated, remained. 'Ribbons of Rust' and 'John and Paul' remind us how rare a deeply personal and loving friendship between talented songwriters-singers is. The only other pair that comes to my mind is Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, a.k.a. Steely Dan. Now that I think about it, a book about Fagen and Becker as told through their songs was published recently, but perhaps sometimes it's best to just let it be. Sometimes a song is just a song. Sometimes a really good one can change the world. – – – Sibbie O'Sullivan, a former teacher in the Honors College at the University of Maryland, is the author of 'My Private Lennon: Explorations From a Fan Who Never Screamed.' – – – Ribbons of Rust The Beatles' Recording History In Context: Volume 1 – July 1954 Through January 1963 By Robert Rodriguez and Jerry Hammack. Bemis Publishing Group. 254 pp. $39.95, paperback – – – John & Paul A Love Story in Songs By Ian Leslie. Celadon. 448 pp. $32 Love concerts, but can't make it to the venue? Stream live shows and events from your couch with VEEPS, a music-first streaming service now operating in Canada. Click here for an introductory offer of 30% off. Explore upcoming concerts and the extensive archive of past performances! Toronto & GTA Canada Tennis Canada Toronto & GTA
Washington Post
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
How time, place and a fraught friendship made the Beatles the Beatles
John Lennon once defined himself as a 'record man' — he preferred listening to records over attending live performances. Though I saw the Beatles live in Ed Sullivan's studio, I have to agree with John: Records provide a repeatable pleasure that's often exclusively personal, a romance between the singer's voice and the listener's ear. Records are material, tangible and portable; they enter history in a way live performances can't.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
TV's Upfront Week, Once Cheery, Gets Crabby, Cramped and Contentious
Making a buck in the TV business isn't as easy as it used to be. As a result, the glitzy showcases that networks put on for their advertisers aren't as much fun as they once were, either. TV's annual 'upfront' has been a staple of the Madison Avenue calendar for decades. Since the 1960s, executives from at least one TV network have put on, as Ed Sullivan once said, 'a really big show' for the top spenders from General Motors, Coca-Cola and Apple in hopes of securing millions of dollars ahead of the next programming season. Attendees regularly visited New York City, dined on chilled shellfish, drank free booze, collected TV-star autographs and met up with TV ad-sales executives and media buyers from their current agency of record. More from Variety What Scares TV Advertisers Most? Fears of Trump Tariffs, Sports Spending Will Drive 2025 Upfront 'Legally Blonde' Prequel Series 'Elle' Adds Five to Cast NBCUniversal Strikes Deal to Sell Versant Ads for Two Cycles Now this spectacle is decidedly less spectacular. Upfront Week once played out over four days, but has recently been scaled down to three. Gone is a long-running end-of-the-week soiree backed by Fox that once drew all the top media agency executives (Fox's current after-showcase celebration is less ambitious and no longer is open to the press that has attended its upfronts for years. Perhaps the Murdochs have grown weary of feeding the media that bites them?). Missing, also, is the last-day presentation from CW, when it was backed by CBS and the company once known as Time Warner. The network's current owner, the TV-station giant Nexstar, seems less likely to spend big on luring ad dollars when it's still working to wring profits from the operation. With fewer days to lure ad dollars, all the current industry players are running up against one another. Amazon, which last year took over a Tuesday-morning slot previously held by Disney's ESPN, this year plans to talk to would-be Prime Video advertisers on Monday evening — a slot that has in recent years been used by Fox and NBCUniversal. Suddenly, those two companies are losing their grip on hours once used to hold dinners and meetings with clients in town. As a result, NBC has moved an event built around Telemundo typically held on Monday evenings to Tuesday, where it is likely to bump up against an after-party usually put on by Disney. Disney, meanwhile, is holding a press event Tuesday morning to talk about ESPN that executives at Spanish-language giant TelevisaUnivision fear will siphon away journalists who might typically attend an upfront showcase it has planned in a similar time slot. In 2024, Amazon did just that by holding an event in lower Manhattan that started later than expected, making the trek for a Univision spotlight in midtown more onerous. The joy is palpable? It's easy to blame the current state of affairs on the coronavirus pandemic. With big events then seen as 'super-spreaders,' the networks turned to virtual, streaming presentations and advertisers and agencies learned they didn't need to meet in person to get business done. And with more ad dollars moving to streaming and digital — arenas in which the TV networks are less dominant — the networks seem weaker, particularly as Amazon and Netflix join them as part of the upfront calendar. One significant player has gotten off the ride. CBS once served a sort of upfront bellwether, holding forth each year from Carnegie Hall, once recruiting The Who to spotlight its primetime schedule. These days, the network's parent company, Paramount Global, is desperately hoping to sell itself to a new owner. CBS hasn't had a Carnegie Hall upfront since 2022. The company's current ad-sales chief has no regrets. Traditional upfront presentations have become 'a thing which we just roundly hear is not a great user experience,' says John Halley, Paramount's president of advertising. The events are 'bombastic,' he says, and don't allow for an exchange of ideas between media outlet and advertiser. Instead, Paramount holds nine different dinners for specific agencies and advertisers, replete with guests that might include Drew Barrymore, Jon Stewart, Tony Romo and Jeremy Renner. 'Being able to hear from our customers, what they need from us, is critical,' Halley says. 'It's critical, and it can't be replicated in the big show.' The upfront market remains important for advertisers who want to secure a presence in programing with a limited, blink-and-you'll-miss-it shelf life. That's stuff like sports, a 'SNL' anniversary special, news programming, an awards show, maybe a limited series that only posts episodes once a week. Most everything else can be consumed or binged at a viewer's leisure. The modern reality is that advertisers are frequently in the market all year long, not just in May. They know that if they need inventory, they can probably snatch something up via programmatic technology that allows them to buy impressions defined by specific audience characteristics or use new-era systems that beam a commercial for dog food to one household and a spot for cat food to another. With such dynamics in play, the upfronts carry less importance than they once did, though holding them seems to still be of use. The showcases bring the industry and its sponsors together for a week and generate reams of promotion. Still, it's clear that their utility is in decline, while their costs remain significant. No one will stop doing upfront outreach until advertisers like Procter & Gamble and McDonald's say they're done buying ads in such fashion. Until that happens, the parties will continue. But some of the 'Mad Men' who put on the shows may find themselves getting angrier. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz Oscars Predictions 2026: 'Sinners' Becomes Early Contender Ahead of Cannes Film Festival
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
These Are Your Favorite Summer Driving Songs
Unless you frequent private karaoke venues or vast desolate prairie expanses of empty, echoing nothingness, your car is probably the only place where you don't really have restrictions on the volume at which you listen to your music. A car is a place for cranking your stereo, singing along to your heart's content, and parking without embarrassment for who might have heard. But as the mercury rises and the vibes improve as summer comes around, what will you be listening to in your car? Earlier this week, we asked you for your favorite summer driving songs. Today, we're combing through your answers to pick out our favorites. Throw them together into a playlist if you'd like, or grab your personal picks to play on repeat until you arrive at your summer destinations — always just a bit hoarser than when you left. Let's see what kinds of music all you beautiful Jalops are into. Read more: There's A Relic Runway From America's Failed Supersonic Future Hiding In The Everglades There's one thing I really miss about living in the LA area (and this leads to the song choice.) I miss the warm June evenings with the sun starting to set over the Santa Monica pier. The ocean breeze picks up a little bit and takes away some of the heat of the day. The top goes down and the stereo gets turned up. And Jim Morrison belts out "LA Woman" like the worn out blues man that he wanted to musical tastes were formed in the 1980s so my driving playlists have a lot of Depeche Mode, INXS, Tears for Fears, and if I'm in the mood to violate some speed laws and rupture some eardrums, launch into the intro of Paradise City and hang on. There's some country roads to conquer. The Ed Sullivan scene of the Doors movie has lived rent-free in my head for approximately my entire life. RIP to Val Kilmer, truly. Submitted by: Xavier96 I don't know why, but the beginning to Talking Heads "I Zimbra" sounds like the soundtrack to the beginning of an Italian Job-style heist scene. Everybody makes their last preparations, looks at some plot-related memento, and starts their engines. And then the heist begins in earnest. I always feel a little cooler when that song comes on while I'm driving, or better yet, walking to my car.I am very excited for someone to come in here and show me a clip of exactly this, perhaps even in that very-unnecessary remake of The Italian Job. Hey, I liked that remake! The fact that I was seven when it came out surely doesn't factor in. Submitted by: Give Me Tacos or Give Me Death There is no better song to drop the windows (and the top/t-tops/targa top) and cruise to than Panama by Van the sun, drum on the steering wheel, and sing along with your friends. Heck, if you pull up next to me blasting Panama, I'll probably turn my music down and sing along!! "Panama" goes hard as hell and anyone who disagrees is simply, objectively, wrong. Submitted by: Stillnotatony Radar Love, original version or the equally good White Lion cover. Hey! No self-promo! Submitted by: Golden Earring Hollywood Nights, Bob it's dad-rock. Sure, it's old. But, with the windows down on a summer night, it's sublime. I feel like this AOTD is going to be really helpful in terms of putting titles and artists that I grew up listening to on classic rock radio. "Hollywood Nights" was a mainstay of 95.1 WRKI Brookfield-Danbury, A Cumulus Media Station, The Home Of Rock And Roll, I-95. Submitted by: JohnnyWasASchoolBoy The Cars: Moving in Stereo/All Mixed UpNot sure its my favorite, but it has to be near the top for summer driving. "Moving In Stereo" is pretty downtempo for a summer vibe, but maybe Rapchat is thinking more in the top-down-cruise-at-sunset vein. Submitted by: Rapchat Ventura Highway - Immaculate summer vibes and alligator lizards in the air is one of the greatest lines in any song ever I'll be honest here, I don't know that I've ever heard an America track besides "A Horse With No Name." Submitted by: AlligatorLizard Isn't Joe Satriani's Summer Song the only correct answer??? As a former Ibanez player, I'm legally mandated to listen to this track all the way through in the course of writing this AOTD. They make you sign a contract when you buy the guitar. Submitted by: Smricha2 Life is a Highway by Tom Cochran. Was on a family road trip as a kid and heard it all the time it seemed like when the song came out. With how overplayed "Life Is A Highway" is, I'm genuinely shocked it only came out in 1991. I thought it had another couple decades on it. Submitted by: Max Alfa 4C So many to choose from, but one of my long-standing favorites is "Interstate Love Song" by Stone Temple a wonderfully simple and calm guitar riff overlayed with silky smooth (and very singable) vocals make it a perfect soundtrack for a good was originally written to be a bossa-nova type song. It got changed a good bit throughout the writing process, but still kept a lot of that relaxed sound characteristic of bossa nova. Now this one's a throwback for me personally, as one of my dad's go-to guitar songs when I was a kid. Submitted by: Stubb063 During the summer day?Probably something normal like ride of the valkyries (classical music) or leave it on some local music stationAt night? Definitely something in the synthwave genre originally from before my time lol... newer artists like carpenter brut and kavinsky has some solid hits, and gunship and etc... definitely had more than a few nights cruising/speeding around to this before. I'm sorry, something normal like "Ride Of The Valkyries"? I'm all in on the synthwave, but Richard Wagner is normal casual listening for you? Submitted by: Killerhurtalot Tonight I feel ambitious and so does my foot as it sinks on the pedal, I press it to the floor.I don't need a girl, don't need a friend, cuz my friend lonesome's unconditional we're flying forever boredFor a moment I love everything I see and think and feel I love my broke side view mirrorCuz it's so perfect, I'm so perfect, you're so perfect, you're not hereI hear the change is gearMy pile shakes as I hit 80 on the open road. This is an open road - Open Road Song is up there among the best. Max from Eve 5 follows me on Bluesky and I'll be sure to tell him our commenters are singing his praises. Submitted by: potbellyjoe It's not summer yet, and I had absolutely no summer last year, so I have to pull if from my memory of the summer 2023. And that year, it was $20 and Not Strong Enough by boygenius. They are so fantastic Personally, I'm a big fan of having a motorcycle in your front lawn. More people should listen to boygenius, I think. Both as music and as advice-givers. Submitted by: J.B.2.1. Foghat - Slow Ride. Gotta love the riff, take it easy, take it sleazy. Ah, memories of Guitar Hero 3. I remember being able to fully walk out of the room with a wireless guitar controller, playing on Hard, and not fail song. Good times. Submitted by: dolor Last year was Not like us and Houdini by Eminem. Let's see what the summer has to show us! SAY DRAKE. Submitted by: Noturbestfriend Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
