Still Fab by Charles Paul Freund: The resurgence of Beatlemania prompts an insightful revisionist inquiry into the sources of their original popularity. “By 1966, the Beatles were far more interested in melody than in beat, had largely abandoned the influences

from American country music and American blues that had been apparent on their earlier recordings, and

were building an increasing number of their compositions around narrative lyrics that told stories rather than

expressed adolescent emotions. The more they developed as composers and lyricists, the less they tried to

harmonize like the Everly Brothers or whoop like the Isley Brothers, and the more they drew on their own

roots in British popular music. While they continued to use rock elements to make their music, there is

almost as much British Music Hall in their later work as there is rock.

The apotheosis of their personal development is not the avant-garde experimentation of the White Album

(only a few of its cuts get much play anymore). It is Abbey Road, which, dear as it is to the hearts of many

rock enthusiasts, could just as well be hailed as the greatest pop album of all time. Certainly, it could have

been played almost in its entirety on MOR radio.” It was, by the way, not on a youth-oriented rock’n’roll station but a MOR station in Washington DC that the Beatles first caught on with American audiences. Reason Magazine