Q: How successful would have been? A:Not so much. He had the foresight to recognize the changing landscape of Modern Music at the time. For someone who was “stuck” with that gig, Sir George Martin was perfect for the job. Nobody else could have come close to doing as great a job as he did… NOBODY!
Now that you mention it, his very first albums came pretty close to that. I suppose they were in the same spirit of those who argue that if Picasso blew his nose into a napkin the result was art... but I digress. Those albums ("Two Virgins" and "Unfinished Music" or whatever they were called) didn’t exactly set the charts on fire, despite John's fame.
I subconsciously always thought that as well...the early Beatle records in particular, had a certain "textural tightness" lacking in many other Pop/Rock records of the time (so now your post here proves I'm not alone in thinking this). But the quality of the specific recording studio can't be underestimated, either. I didn't come to really see this till I read "Recording The Beatles". While in the latter sixties EMI was moving very slowly in terms of graduating from four track to eight track, in the earlier part of the decade, their consoles and recording mics were of uppermost quality standard. This greatly attributes as to why no matter how "on point" they performed live (BBC, as mentioned, is a great example), they never came close to sounding like the records.
Your history is a tad off. Spector didn't enter the picture on Let It Be until after Abbey Road was in the can.
What's with the sudden trend here to ask the Beatles to give up key contributors? George. Ringo. George Martin. All these guys made HUGE contributions to their success. Can we just leave them all together?
I guess you're figuring that record would have had a hit unlike Wedding Album which came out at the same time and bombed beyond belief.
Imagine, if you can, that somehow at the beginning of their career they managed to swing getting a big time successful pop music producer that they admired, like Phil Spector. I get sad just thinking about how disastrous that would have been, with some "genius" dictating to them what they needed to do and how their records must be made, with them going along with the demands because they didn't know any better. As it was, I'm sure they had to bend a little bit to the requirements of a professional recording environment and their business manager with his finger on the pulse of the audience at the time. Serendipity is all I can say about the way things turned out.
With an average EMI staff producer, with no background in composition, they would probably have done OK from 1962 up to 1965; thereafter, they would’ve had problems realising their vision and would probably have had to bring in a host of different arrangers/producers to deliver what they wanted. Some of those people might not have been as obliging as GM, and might have demanded co-write credits. Let It Be was a conscious attempt to ‘get back’ to what they did in the early days, so GM’s hand wasn’t really essential to it.
George Martin was essential for the studio Beatles sound especially Rubber Soul onward minus let it be
Only one, but I don’t think that’s the point. They were aiming for something raw and primal. In any case, they failed to achieve it, as what Spector gave them was anything but.
No! There has to be a hypothetical Beatles thread for every possible and impossible scenario. What if Ritchie Blackmore joined The Beatles in 1968? What if Mickie Most was their producer? What if Paul really did die in '67, and was replaced by Scott Walker? If Patti was John's girlfriend, would Clapton have stolen her anyway? And on and on and on....
It would be hard to imagine the Beatles without George Martin. They were a perfect marriage. He brought their musical vision and as an extension, their songs to life. Would they have been successful without him? Probably so, they had the talent, material, charisma and let’s not forget the drive to be successful. But without George Martin, their path would’ve been different and perhaps not as meteoric. What would In My Life, Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, A Day in the Life and I Am the Walrus , just to name a few songs, sounded like without Sir George’s input. Thankfully we’ll never know.
George Martin was the guy that did it..... but I vote that they would have been successful regardless... you trying to tell me that there are people like Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr toiling away together in obscurity? I find that very hard to believe. Did Martin turn Gerry and the Pacemakers into the greatest band of all time? No. Those fab 4 guys had something special and inevitable (and it wasn't just their trousers).