Did the Beatles even reach their peak as a group?

Judging by their individual outputs through 1976 they would have continued to be successful sales-wise. Given where they seemed to be as individuals in 1969 I think it would have been tough for them, even with a break, to "re-gel" artistically as the Beatles in the early 70s. Momentum is hard to get and maintain and nigh impossible to recapture once it's gone. In breaking up, so much was avoided: disco, punk, the Rockestra Theme.

 

By the way, Debra Lee Scott, nice.

 

I'd say they did somewhere between '65-'67. Between their last couple of years together and their solo work, it seems quite clear to me that their best days were behind them.

 

Paul was, for one, because he had belief and hope that The Beatles could go back to being a stripped down Rock N Roll band again and play the clubs, essentially what he did with Wings. I think that since he had his heart set on The Beatles staying together, everything falling apart crushed him.

John seemed not to care, since he wanted a life of his own with Yoko. He may have been crushed by it, but may have resigned to the fact that the group was done a couple years before after Epstein died. If he was upset about it, it was clouded over by his drug use, primal therapy, etc.

George seemed happy to be on his own. He already walked out on the band before, and wanted his own life and career. Getting out from John and Paul's shadows as composer and musician seemed to be a healthy tonic for him.

Ringo I would think was one who suffered like Paul. He lost his 3 best friends and although would play on sessions with them here and there, it would never be the same.

To me, Paul and Ringo would have been messed up the most.

 

Didn't George have a widow's peak ? Maybe it was Paul. I don't know, I 'aven't got one.

 

I don't think so.

 

I m pleased they broke up when they did. You only have to look at U2 to see sometimes it just isn't worth it to keep going.

 

When creating music for the Beatles the individual members were forced to rise to the standards they themselves had created. The creative collusion under the mythic ''Beatles'' umbrella forced them to continually rise to the occasion and produce quality material. How much longer they could have gone on as a band remains a matter of opinion. But I think if the Beatles and George Martin had continued as a musical force they would have been much more focused and committed to quality releases instead of their , at times, self indulgent and undedited solo ventures. I think they really gelled as a group, bouncing ideas off of each other and that if they had reformed for a bit that would have been evident. Of course the latter is just speculation.

 

Ha, thanks I always thought she was a cute as a button

 

The Beatles broke up

 

Or in their case, even starting...

 

Yes, in 1966.

 

some people would say they peaked at the Cavern in 1962.

 

TWA imo but I would have liked to have seen them make it past Abbey Road and into the early 1970's with a concert tour.

 

I, too, believe they peaked with Revolver. Abbey Road is of their four best albums but it is not a peak. It is good they did not continue into the '70s because after Abbey Road there was nothing left. They had given all they had. They were done. Finished.

 

I thought this was forum consensus? Thought it gets bandied about frequently enough here. Could be wrong though.

 

Ha ha! Totally agree!

 

But how do we know this? That is what I'm proposing/asking. There's no way to know that Abbey Road wasn't a peak and just a further rung on the ascent upwards. There's not enough evidence to definitely say that they were in a slump creatively and were over. Historical narratives are often constructed for convenience's sake. For example had they ended as a group at the Get Back fiasco, people would say they were completely burnt out as a group, cooked, done, flamed out, etc. However history shows they just needed a break and to regroup, which they did with Abbey Road. Thus, the narrative becomes more triumphant.

But what if they took another break after that, got some solo stuff out of their systems, then came back as a collective? Would love to see how they would have assimilated the musical, artistic and political influences of the time. I think there could have been another two albums in them as a group.

 

I think returning for one or two albums every few years would have limited the damages from a mediocre album - not erased them of course . They always brought out the best in each other as Abbey Road demonstrates.

i'd say no touring - John never did and George did once. Paul wanted to but he could scratch that itch with Wings.

That's the nice thought. Ultimately I'm glad they stopped when they did - at the top. They avoided the 80s and that's something we can be thankful for!!

 

While I'm not trying to be snied here, I do believe that this thread is engaging in what you call speculative history and what I call fantasy. Life is what it is. As John said, "Didn't the Beatles give everything on God's green earth?" What more do you want? They broke up when they did. We will never know what might have happened if they'd continued...and we CAN NEVER know.

While Abbey Road is my personal favorite Beatles album, I agree with those who say that it is a clever disguise of patched together song fragments and a couple of truly execreble songs on side one. I never play those, but overall I really enjoy the album.

 

They had multiple peaks.

 

Late '66/early '67 was i.m.o. the most interesting period; when they'd decided not to tour anymore, they didn't really know if they were still a band.... And then Lennon came up with two of his ultimate psychedelic masterpieces (Strawberry Fields, A day in the Life) and Mccartney outdid himself with a breezy, cool and slightly surreal song (Penny Lane).

 

Were or when the Beatles peaked is a matter of opnion no more no less. One of the great things about the mop-tops-is that they unlike many others quit while still great. And all of them continued to make good/ great music after the split
One thing that is certain though is that they reached their peak as a group . They could hardly have peaked as a group when they were not a group.
At least that a my belief.

 

I have a hard time seeing how the Beatles could have been The Beatles if they started working outside the group and came back together periodically to record a Beatles album. That might be fine for an electronic or Indian album, and maybe even some version of the McCartney album, but once you have John, Paul, and George writing songs for their solo projects in earnest, the Beatles would've gotten short shrift and their albums probably would have had more half-written ideas and sundry leftovers, like the Get Back project. George would have wanted to put his best songs on ATMP, not save the good ones for the band that never took his material seriously. John had very few good songs left in him that would have fit the Beatles, and with Yoko in the picture, it's unlikely he would have collaborated with Paul to come up with any more. Those songs John had that could have been Beatles-friendly were also some of his best (Instant Karma, Gimme Some Truth, Jealous Guy), so it's anybody's guess what would have happened to those. By 1972, Lennon was by and large creatively spent. As for Paul, most of his 70s output was precisely the kind of stuff John and George were tired of working on and didn't respect.

The Beatles were The Beatles when they were giving everything they had to the band, bouncing ideas off each other, with John and Paul writing in concert with each other, if not eyeball to eyeball. There is simply no way that the group could have survived as a creatively worthwhile unit if it became something that four increasingly distant, wealthy, and in John's case, drug-addicted, band members jetted back to London (or New York, or LA) to reconvene once every two years for the sake of making a profit. The Rolling Stones certainly didn't fare too well once that became their business model--note that every album since Exile has been compared to Exile, the last album they made working and living together. Unless John and Paul continued to live and work in relatively close quarters, the Beatles were bound to fall apart, and it's highly unlikely that two men in their thirties with nothing to prove would choose the living arrangements they had as teenagers and twenty-two-year-olds over wives and families.

As for when the Beatles peaked--I think their recording output between September 1965 (the Rubber Soul sessions) and November 1967 (when the MMT sessions finished) represents their high watermark in terms both of creativity and as a unit.

 

Nope I don't think they reached their peak. The Beatles were constantly progressing as a band. The vocal harmonies and technical musicianship were just getting better. I am not the only who feels this way but the vocal harmonies on Abbey Road was just as good as The Beach Boys and technically they surpassed The Rolling Stones and at times on par with The Who.

Abbey Road is considered by many a very influential proto-prog album. I don't think they ever had a chance to peak. They broke up to early in their careers in my opinion.