Beatles

1.     A Hard Day’s Night. This is happening because I was asked and because I'd like to. I must post ten albums that “greatly influenced my taste in music.” I will defy the rules and talk about these recordings, drawing only from albums in my own collection. All the Beatles albums are brilliant. Time and familiarity does not dull them because we are in the middle of a creative storm direct to tape. This one is my first big sound at-home encounter with the Parlophone masterpieces. They are doing several things at once. They are merging the elements of existing American rock and roll into combinations of voice and sound that transform it into something higher and more thrilling. They are replacing hackneyed English lyric with a cross of street talk and BBC comedy that takes everyone by surprise. They comprise a band of four vocalists who can all compose and improvise at a moment’s notice. Our family saw the film at the Queenscliff Cinema that summer and I remember the main effect being well, the music, but equally the fact that these people everything they said and did was utterly hilarious. That Goons-like infectiousness is another underlying element of their perennial charm.