Sony Pictures will make four films about Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Oscar winner Sam Mendes will direct
Sony Pictures Entertainment and Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes and his company Neal Street Productions plan to make four separate films – one about each member of The…
Sir Paul McCartney could be given a peerage to mark his 80th birthday
Sir Paul was knighted 25 years ago, before being appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in 2017 for services to music. Membership is…
Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard are intoxicating proof that they do make rock bands like they used to
If you don’t think they make rock bands like they used to, then do yourself a favour and go and see Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard. The Cardiff quartet’s…
‘I could make colours freak out’: meet photography’s answer to Jimi Hendrix
Ferris’s psychedelic photography is memorialised in an ongoing show at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London, Beautiful People: The Boutique in 1960s Counterculture, and also in…
It turns out some people get cooler with age – here’s how
It has been confirmed that Paul McCartney will be headlining Glastonbury in June, one week after he turns 80, which means the rumour is now official: Paul…
Why everyone got Yoko Ono wrong
“She was very quiet, mainly talking to John and not the musicians,” says Voormann. “There was a certain distance between us. She wasn’t used to being in…
The empty-headed, cynical world of celebrity NFTs
When Reese Witherspoon took to Twitter in December to advocate for investment in cryptocurrency and NFTs, it seemed like a strange pivot. Normally you’d expect to find…
It’s time to bust the myth of the Swinging Sixties
And it turns out that, as in archaeology, these material details can richly express the flavour and character of past times. Stories about class and taste and…
We’re heading for a future where all pop music will be scrubbed of human imperfection
This is a global problem but all eyes are on Britain, where the #BrokenRecord campaign started by Tom Gray (a member of Merseyside indie rockers Gomez) has…
John Lennon, Charles Manson and UFOs — what The Beatles: Get Back left out
Indeed, Lennon was largely responsible for The Beatles’ flirtation with the more far-out elements of the counterculture. As their renown grew, he increasingly took a performative, Warhol-esque…
Someone needs to tell Peter Jackson and the makers of James Bond to read Lord of the Flies
Of course, editing isn’t just about adjusting length. Thoughtful editing can often transform a work, rescuing it from the slush pile and turning it into a gleaming…
Want to write the perfect pop song? Let Paul McCartney show you how
Even better was Paphides’s programme on the perfect power ballad, the kind of song that’s perfect to sing loudly en masse with clenched fists, contorted brows and…
The best new music books to buy for Christmas 2021
Bobby Gillespie’s Tenement Kid (White Rabbit, £20) takes us from his rough working-class childhood in Glasgow to the release of Primal Scream’s trailblazing acid rock album, Screamadelica,…
The blazing talent – and heartbreaking decline – of ‘fifth Beatle’ Billy Preston
For The Beatles, a slot on the same bill as Little Richard at the Tower Ballroom in New Brighton on October 12 1962 was a dream made…
The Beatles: Get Back, review: Peter Jackson’s epic edit is truly fab, but too long and winding
Episode one (which debuts today) depicts the group getting to grips with a huge, cold, acoustically challenging film studio in Twickenham, whilst Harrison’s mood visibly darkens and…
The Beatles, the Bee Gees and the terrible Sgt. Pepper’s movie they’d all rather forget
Things take a dark turn when Strawberry Fields is killed and Frampton’s Billy Shears attempts to kill himself. All is saved in the film’s final, head-spinning twist:…
The 100 best Christmas songs of all time
16. Please Come Home for Christmas (1978) – Eagles Originally by bluesman Charles Brown, The Eagles play it dead straight on a miserable country rocker that doesn’t hold…
Disney lets ‘Scouse swearing’ in new Beatles Get Back documentary
Disney relaxed rules to accommodate the Beatles’ “Scouse swearing” in a new documentary, its director has revealed. Peter Jackson directed The Beatles: Get Back, which explores the…