Beatles Rewind Podcast copertina

Beatles Rewind Podcast

Beatles Rewind Podcast

Di: Steve Weber and Cassandra
Ascolta gratuitamente

3 mesi a soli 0,99 €/mese

Dopo 3 mesi, 9,99 €/mese. Si applicano termini e condizioni.

A proposito di questo titolo

 Beatles. All day, every day. Eight Days a Week !!!

beatlesrewind.substack.comSteve Weber Musica
Episodi
  • Queen's Reign: The REAL Streaming King of Spotify? 🎸

    Queen's Reign: The REAL Streaming King of Spotify? 🎸
    Jan 21 2026
    What is “great” music? Everyone’s got an opinion. And while there’s no accounting for taste, let’s assume, for the moment, that popularity (the amount of listening) equals “great.”Whatever our taste, “great” music must stand the test of time. Let’s say 10 years. By my math, that means anything released in 2016 or earlier is now officially entering “Oldies” territory. And when you look at the data right now, the results are shocking. Ladies and gentlemen, we aren’t just listening to the past, we are living in it. Oldies currently account for over 75% of all music consumed in the U.S. 🤯But who is at the top of the mountain? Let’s dive in.The “Immortals” of the Digital Age 🎧When it comes to pure “volume”—how many times a song is clicked on a streaming app—three names consistently rise like cream.Queen: This is the big surprise, the perfect example of an act more popular today than during their creative zenith 40 years ago. Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Queen was a superstar band, but they weren’t necessarily “Number One.” They didn’t have the endless string of chart-toppers that the Beatles or the Bee Gees had. But today? They are the undisputed heavyweight champions of legacy streaming. 👑 With over 50 million monthly listeners on Spotify, they are outperforming almost everyone, including today’s pop megastars. Even though the legendary Freddie Mercury has passed away, original members Brian May and Roger Taylor have kept the flame alive by touring the world’s biggest stadiums with vocalist Adam Lambert. The Beatles: They remain the gold standard. While they stream well (over 40 million monthly), their real power is in Physical Ownership. In a world where music is mostly “free,” the Beatles still move millions of dollars in physical merchandise every year, including vinyl. People don’t just want to hear Abbey Road, they want to hold it in their hands. 🍏 Not to mention the endless stream of books and documentaries— on average, between 20 and 40 new Beatles-related books are published each year. Fleetwood Mac: Rumours is a permanent resident of the Top 20. It has spent over 600 weeks on the Billboard 200. Thanks to a unique “vibe” that 19-year-olds have adopted as their own, the Mac is a streaming juggernaut. Their superpower: The music never gets old.The TikTok Time Machine 📱TikTok has become the most powerful force for resurrecting old music since classic rock radio (and believe it or not, many kids today don’t even know what “radio” is). When Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” appeared in Stranger Things in 2022, that 1985 song hit #1 on iTunes 37 years after release. And this pattern repeats constantly: Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” went viral in 2020 after a skateboarding-cranberry-juice video, resulting in a 127% spike in streams and re-entering the Billboard Hot 100 after 43 years. TikTok doesn’t just revive songs; it strips away the “oldness” and presents them as fresh discoveries. (Of course, it helps if the music is good.) 🛹Cross-Generational Discovery 🎸Now, something fascinating: Younger generations are bypassing their parents’ tastes and diving straight into their grandparents’ era. When I was a kid, nothing was more cringeworthy than hearing my parents’ muzak. But today, a 16-year-old might scroll past Taylor Swift to listen to Led Zeppelin, unaware that “Stairway to Heaven” is an antique. Algorithms don’t care about chronology: if you like guitar-heavy rock, Spotify serves you up Nirvana and Metallica alongside Greta Van Fleet. In a college dorm this semester, you might hear Dark Side of the Moon blasting down the hallway, not because it’s a “classic” but because it just slaps. And the kicker: discovering your favorite “new” song is actually 40 years old doesn’t diminish it—it enhances it. In a world of disposable content, that permanence is credibility. 🌙The “New” Oldies (The 10-Year Graduates) 📱Since we’re using the 10-year rule, we have to acknowledge the obvious: The “Oldies” club keeps getting bigger. We are now welcoming the heavyweights of the late 2000s and early 2010s.Eminem is the poster child for this. He is currently one of the top 10 most-streamed artists period. His catalog from 20 years ago (like “Lose Yourself”) is pulling daily numbers that would make a modern pop star weep. 🎤Then there’s Linkin Park and Nirvana. For the current generation, these aren’t just “alt-rock” bands; they are the “Classic Rock” of their era. Their 10-year-plus tracks are the foundation of the “Billion Stream Club,” proving that raw grit has a much longer shelf life than polished pop. 🤘Albums vs. Songs: How We “Vote” 🗳️Do people still listen to albums? Short answer: “yes and no.”* The “Single Song” Stars: There are plenty of “Oldies” stars kept alive by one or two massive songs. Think of Journey with “Don’t ...
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    12 min
  • If the Beatles Started Today, Would They Use Guitars or AI?

    If the Beatles Started Today, Would They Use Guitars or AI?
    Jan 20 2026
    When we think of the Beatles, perhaps the most iconic image is of four young men in suits singing and strumming guitars. When they burst onto the scene in America in 1964, guitar sales exploded; boys started buying them because they wanted that same look, that same attention. The guitar wasn’t just an instrument; it was a ticket to fame and a physical extension of a new kind of creative power.Some fans have gone even further to secure a connection to those instruments. In May 2024, a collector paid $2.85 million at auction for John Lennon’s 1964 Framus Hootenanny 12-string acoustic—the “lost” guitar heard on Help! and Rubber Soul. That someone would almost three million for a piece of wood with strings speaks volumes about how deeply the guitar is embedded in our cultural memory of what makes a “band.”Yet, there was a practical reality to the Beatles’ gear. They needed musical accompaniment, and a backup band wasn’t an option. They needed sound to support the vocals—George Harrison might never have been invited into the group if not for his endless practice and his ability to serve as a lead guitarist. While they weren’t classical virtuosos, their musicianship was the essential engine that supported their true gifts: transcendent vocals and songwriting creativity.The World Has ChangedWith today’s technology, playing a traditional instrument is no longer a prerequisite for stardom. In one sense, it never was—throughout history, vocalists like Frank Sinatra or Barbra Streisand built legendary careers on their voices alone, but they still required a physical backing band—musicians standing in the shadows or an orchestra in the pit, playing in real time.Now, with prerecorded musical backing tracks, you can be a global superstar without needing a band at all. Nowadays, you’re more likely to see a troupe of dancers accompanying a singer than a bassist or a drummer. While Taylor Swift still tours with a full band, many of her contemporaries—Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, and various other chart-toppers—perform primarily to backing tracks, focusing their energy on choreography and visual spectacle.This is a massive shift from the evolution of popular music. To understand where we’re headed, it helps to look at where we’ve been. In the early 20th century, the banjo was king because its punchy, percussive sound could cut through a room without electronic amplification. Jazz bands of the 1920s relied on brass; the electric guitar revolution of Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly followed. By the 1980s, synthesizers began to take precedence. Yet, through all these shifts, one thing remained constant: a human being was playing an instrument in real time.A Recent RevelationI am not a music snob. I genuinely enjoy today’s pop stars. But lurking in the back of my mind is always the issue of “the band”—or the conspicuous absence thereof.I recently attended a show by Halsey, a powerhouse performer who blends alternative pop with confessional, hip-hop-influenced lyrics. She actually had a 12-piece band dressed in sharp white suits, but they were hidden on a platform below the right side of the stage. Perhaps 80 percent of the audience didn’t even know they were there. It begs the question: why go to the expense of touring with a dozen professional instrumentalists if you’re going to hide them? It feels like a strange middle ground: keeping the “authenticity” of live musicians while presenting the visual aesthetic of a solo performer.Contrast this with Post Malone. He tours with no band whatsoever, and frankly, nobody in the arena seems to care. He has genuine charisma that fills the space. At a recent show I saw, about 15 minutes into his set, he sat on a stool and sang a ballad while playing an acoustic guitar. It was a beautiful change of pace after he had come out like a house on fire, singing to prerecorded tracks so loud they rattled my bones, quickly pacing around a stage lit in multiple colors from below.Then, as the quiet ballad ended, he stood up, raised that guitar high, and smashed it on the ground. He spent a full minute pounding it into the stage until it was nothing left but a pile of splinters and a mess of broken strings.The Art of DestructionThis routine reminded me of The Who and Pete Townshend’s “auto-destructive art.” Townshend’s guitar smashing began as an accident at the Railway Hotel in 1964 when his guitar neck snapped when he hit is against a low ceiling. When the audience laughed, he reacted in anger and smashed it to smithereens.It became a signature move, but Townshend’s reasons were complex. He once suggested it was an act of rebellion against his father, a musician who didn’t believe in Pete’s talent. Frontman Roger Daltrey viewed it as a “sacrificial lamb,” describing the “incredible sonic experience” of a guitar screaming as it died. Others connected it to Gustav Metzger’s art movement, protesting consumerism. Eventually,...
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    12 min
  • Ghost in the Machine: How The Beatles Survived Their First Live TV Nightmare

    Ghost in the Machine: How The Beatles Survived Their First Live TV Nightmare
    Jan 19 2026
    Picture this: December 17, 1962. Granada Television studios in Manchester. Four young men from Liverpool are stepping up to the microphones to perform their forthcoming song “Please Please Me,” which their producer, George Martin, has declared will become their first number-one hit (no pressure 😂). Cameras go live, the red light is on, and there’s no safety net because this is early live television—no edits, no rewinds, and no time for amateurs. These were the days before cable, when being on TV was a big deal.Granada’s People and Places was a fast-moving program, but the audio technicians were accustomed to mixing polite jazz quartets, not the aggressive, dual-vocal assault of Lennon and McCartney. As soon as the band launched into “Please Please Me,” the studio mix went haywire. It wasn’t a minor glitch; it was a total failure of the vocal balance, leaving the lead vocals struggling to compete with the sheer volume of the guitars and drums. 📺The harmonica riffs and ascending vocal harmonies were badly mangled. Historians and eyewitnesses noted that the harmonica microphone—essential for the song’s “hook”—either failed to activate or was mixed so low it became a ghost in the machine. For a band that relied on the tight interplay between instruments and voices, this was a potential disaster in real-time, and something everyone could hear. (This was in the days before incessant screaming drowned out the Beatles’ sound.) 😱The Beatles didn’t panic. Instead, they leaned into the chaos with the same cheeky wit they had honed in the damp cellars of the Cavern Club and the rowdy bars of Hamburg. Earlier in the show, during the pre-performance banter with host Bill Grundy, John Lennon had set the tone by jokingly warning that the wires had a mind of their own. Minutes later, when those wires actually failed, the band treated the mishap not as a tragedy, but as part of the act. 😅 No sweat. After the show, George Harrison quipped: “It wasn’t us, Bill. We were perfectly in tune. It was the wires.”Paul kept singing, his voice strong despite having no way to hear himself properly. George delivered his lead guitar parts by feel alone, trusting muscle memory over his ears. And Ringo—beautiful, steady Ringo—kept the time like a metronome, becoming the anchor that kept the ship from capsizing. 🚢Fast forward just over a year to February 9, 1964—the Beatles’ legendary American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. Seventy-three million Americans tuned in, and once again, technical gremlins crashed the party. Paul’s lead vocal mic was barely audible—the CBS engineers simply weren’t prepared for a rock band whose sound depended on precise vocal blending and instrumental balance. 📻Paul compensated by projecting his voice harder, and the band adjusted their positions on the fly. They made it work, and the vast majority of those 73 million viewers had no idea anything was wrong. What they saw was a confident, electric performance by a band that looked like they’d been conquering television studios their entire lives. 🗽Sadly, that Grenada TV performance no longer exists. Granada TV, like most studios of that era, routinely wiped and reused their videotape to save money. No one dreamed that decades later, people would still care about a regional TV show that featured an unknown band. What survives are only fragments: still photographs snapped from TV screens by fans (and Paul’s brother, Mike McCartney). 📼So that moment exists now only in memory and myth but reminds us they were, first and foremost, one of the greatest live acts in history. 🏆Ultimately, perfection isn’t what matters—connection and energy are the real currency of a great performance. 🎯 S**t happens. The "show must go on" tradition demands that an artist never acknowledge a technical failure because doing so shatters the "fourth wall" and ruins the audience's immersion. Always, the gremlins show up just when they’re least expected, none more so than during Adele’s performance of "All I Ask" at the 2016 Grammys. When a piano microphone fell onto the strings, creating a jarring, metallic clatter, she didn’t flinch. Adele kept her composure and stayed perfectly in key, proving that true professionals conquer the sonic chaos without ever missing a beat. 🎤Ultimately, the People and Places incident is the final word on the “luck” of the Beatles. People often say they were in the right place at the right time, but the truth is they were the right people for the wrong circumstances. They understood that the show must go on, and that high-level psychological warfare against failure would define their entire career. Whether facing technical disasters or the pressure of global fame, they kept their heads up and their wit sharp. 🌟Not bad for a Tuesday night in Manchester. Not bad at all. 🔥✨Visit my Beatles Store: Get full access to Beatles Rewind at beatlesrewind.substack.com...
    Mostra di più Mostra meno
    4 min
Ancora nessuna recensione