Couldn’t find a thread for it, but it was pretty glorious. I grew up listening to the Beatles but was never on the spectrum of “Beatles Fan”, I just really liked the music. To see them in their process was as fascinating as anything, and I was floored by how talented outside of my own preconceptions they were at the rough age of 29. Pretty much all of them could switch among instruments at will, with varying ability, but not with anyone being incapable of playing.
I was always a Paul guy, and while he comes off a bit as the taskmaster in this, he also is clearly the genius of the group. That the songs they made came out of his head, in rough form, and were then forged into what they became is ridiculous, the whole documentary takes place across a month and by the end they have more than half a dozen of their greatest songs in the can.
I always appreciated John for his raw edge, but like McCartney recently made a friendly poke at the Stones, he kinda wanted to be a blues cover band. I came away from it with some new ideas, mainly that Paul was trying to produce, produce, produce, John was trying to have fun, Ringo was solid but more or less resigned to his role, and George as well. Yoko didn’t come off well, if anything I’m a bit more negative on her afterwards.
Billy Preston, who I was tangentially aware of, was the breakout revelation. That guy’s so talented it’s the kind of talented that makes me want to say, “fuck that guy!” because it doesn’t seem real. Dude can eat a sandwich, smoke a cigarette, never look at the keyboard and just churn out brilliance nonstop. Goddammit, look at the keyboard! You’re not supposed to be able to improvise perfect keyboard harmony and fills while you’re looking somewhere else!
Anyway, I deeply loved it. Good pacing, Jackson teases the songs you know and leads you through the development while keeping the final version in his pocket. Highly recommend.