Beatles books you own | Page 4 | Fab forum

I bought that "Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones" thing (that Joe reviewed elsewhere) by Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot over the Christmas holidays. It's pretty good, but a bit disappointing in a couple of ways. First, for some reason (and this is entirely my own fault, obv) I confused DeRogatis with Richie Unterberger, an older writer for whom I have more respect. And second, more importantly, I assumed that since there were two writers, one of them would be championing the Beatles, and the other the Stones, and that they'd fight it out. (Fun!) Instead, their ultimate conclusion – which they state in the preface, before the book proper even begins – is that both bands are great in their own way, so deciding "best" and "worst" is pointless, since musically they're equal. And that the Stones were, for what it's worth, "cooler" than the Beatles. (Surly, rebellious ugly dudes vs. handsome grinning moptops in suits, etc.) An opinion I probably agree with much of the time. (As if "coolness" has any bearing on musical greatness whatsoever.)

But once it's established that their shared (non-)answer to the question "Beatles or Stones?" is "Both!", they begin to move to the minute details and individual comparisons, and on these they don't always share opinions, so that's good.

*nein*

Joe, a question. Is All You Need Is Ears any good?

Thanks. It came out in 1980, and thanks for the warning.

The 1992 documentary "The Making Of Sgt. Pepper" has a lot of his interviews regarding Pepper, Along with Anthology era interviews with the Threetles.