George Martin, the Fifth Beatle, Dead at 90

[Maxiton]

George Martin, music producer, and the man responsible for The Beatles' sound, died yesterday, aged 90.

Here is a roundup of stories and obituaries.

The Guardian: Sir George Martin, Beatles producer, dies aged 90

Rolling Stone: Beatles Producer George Martin Dead at 90

The New York Times: George Martin, Redefining Producer Who Guided the Beatles, Dies at 90

Lastly, here is a more detailed (and really interesting) biography, from The Fifth Beatle Movie Discussion Forum:
Sir George Martin Biography

Thank you, George Martin. Life without The Beatles would be a mistake.

 

[Echoes]

The man was a Satanist but the musician had genius.

As music history fascinates me I've always wondered whether Martin truly invented the "baroque pop" genre when he backed up "Yesterday" with an orchestra. We are in 1965, then. But I've heard several French chansonniers singing with an orchestra, such as Charles Trenet or Jean Ferrat before Yesterday was released. And Yesterday truly looked like a French "chanson".

 

[Maxiton]

The man was a Satanist but the musician had genius.

What indications, much less proof, do you have that George Martin was a Satanist?

As music history fascinates me I've always wondered whether Martin truly invented the "baroque pop" genre when he backed up "Yesterday" with an orchestra. We are in 1965, then. But I've heard several French chansonniers singing with an orchestra, such as Charles Trenet or Jean Ferrat before Yesterday was released. And Yesterday truly looked like a French "chanson".

Not surprised that certain popular music, especially this music, has antecedents in the avant-garde. I'd be surprised, in fact, if that weren't the case. Very interested in some links, if you have any at hand.

 

[Echoes]

I'm sorry. I don't have any proof that he was, himself. Only Sgt Pepper was dedicated to well-known Satanist Aleister Crowley. The Beatles were open about it.

I don't understand your second remark, sorry. But I have a bad Internet at the moment. So I'm writing in a hurry.

 

[Maxiton]

I'm sorry. I don't have any proof that he was, himself. Only Sgt Pepper was dedicated to well-known Satanist Aleister Crowley. The Beatles were open about it.

I don't understand your second remark, sorry. But I have a bad Internet at the moment. So I'm writing in a hurry.

Do you have any links to Charles Trenet or Jean Ferrat or French chanson?

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

There were more Fifth Beatles than there were Beatles.

 

[Maxiton]

Re:

There were more Fifth Beatles than there were Beatles.

Of course there were. It takes a village. But back in the day, before the Internet, when everyone and his dog was putting forth someone or other as "fifth Beatle", I was the only person I knew saying that, clearly, George Martin was the fifth Beatle. Martin not only gave their sound aesthetic cohesiveness, as you might expect a good producer to do; he also shaped the sound into something recognizable to us as "The Beatles". It was because of him that the sum of the whole was greater than its parts.

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

I notice they left Harry Nilsson off the list.




And Yoko.

 

[Maxiton]

I'm sorry. I don't have any proof that he was, himself. Only Sgt Pepper was dedicated to well-known Satanist Aleister Crowley. The Beatles were open about it.

I don't understand your second remark, sorry. But I have a bad Internet at the moment. So I'm writing in a hurry.

Only because they saw Crowley's otherwise ridiculous and harmless "Satanism" as a metaphor for opposition to bourgeois conformity and authoritarianism.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Re: Re:

Martin not only gave their sound aesthetic cohesiveness, as you might expect a good producer to do; he also shaped the sound into something recognizable to us as "The Beatles". It was because of him that the sum of the whole was greater than its parts.

Pretty much agree with all you wrote about Martin, and his contribution. Though I loathe the title of "fifth Beatle". There were four of them, and it ends there.

Still, Martin lived a great life by all counts, and was a great man. May he rest in peace.

 

[Echoes]

Do you have any links to Charles Trenet or Jean Ferrat or French chanson?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_OSpcQKoQY

 

[Maxiton]

Do you have any links to Charles Trenet or Jean Ferrat or French chanson?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_OSpcQKoQY

Thanks for that, Echoes. You probably didn't understand what I was saying about the influence of the avant-garde, because there is nothing avant-garde about the music you were referring to; I misunderstood. Having listened to a bit of it I think I can hear some similarities to baroque pop as we know it, but I don't know that it could be fairly described as the same thing. I'm also not sure George Martin could lay claim to having invented baroque pop, but he could certainly lay claim to having made it sound great.

Anyway, here's an interesting page you might enjoy:

The Debt Progressive Rock Owes George Martin

 

[Tonton]

RIP Sir George.

Something not mentioned here: his work on old concert tapes which resulted in the "Live At The Hollywood Bowl" LP in released in '76 iirc, songs from the '64 and '65 performances at the Hollywood Bowl. I own two of them, including one in mint condition . Beatlemania at its best, girls screaming, faster versions than the studio songs...really cool.

 

[blutto]

Do you have any links to Charles Trenet or Jean Ferrat or French chanson?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_OSpcQKoQY

Thanks for that, Echoes. You probably didn't understand what I was saying about the influence of the avant-garde, because there is nothing avant-garde about the music you were referring to; I misunderstood. Having listened to a bit of it I think I can hear some similarities to baroque pop as we know it, but I don't know that it could be fairly described as the same thing. I'm also not sure George Martin could lay claim to having invented baroque pop, but he could certainly lay claim to having made it sound great.

Anyway, here's an interesting page you might enjoy:

The Debt Progressive Rock Owes George Martin

...its funny, but having piled thru literally thousands and thousands and thousands of used records from that era I can say with absolute certainty that that sort of music was quite common on this side of the pond ( the place where rock and roll originated and rose as very much a protest against was often called snooze-ak, the stuff that was the normal fare produced by The Big Five record companies, who for all intents and purposes controlled the record market in the early to mid 50's...)....anything with strings was absolutely the kiss of death by any cool youth of the day, it was considered to be the worst kind of un-hip dross ( and this regardless of any actual artistic quality the recording may have had )...like can you imagine something called Howling Wolf With Strings ( and many quite talented artists were forced to do recording to appeal tp mainstream tastes )....

.....one of the aspects of The Beatles genius was that they could, with considerable help from George Martin, take what was considered a formulaic dross style and make it fresh and meaningful....and in the way The Beatles did in a lot of their stuff also poke fun at the staid and silly parent culture and the dross they listened to....actually much like you pointed out about their Crowley reference....

Cheers

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

.....one of the aspects of The Beatles genius was that they could, with considerable help from George Martin, take what was considered a formulaic dross style and make it fresh and meaningful....and in the way The Beatles did in a lot of their stuff also poke fun at the staid and silly parent culture and the dross they listened to....actually much like you pointed out about their Crowley reference...

I think the song that may best exemplify that is When I'm Sixty-Four. Paul's parents had been in showtunes and that was an obvious influence. But during that time no one alive other than the Beatles could have pulled off a song like that. Any other artist and it would have been viewed as quaint and pointless drivel. But the Beatles? It is about as timeless of song as any they ever did. And the song is pretty much Paul, and George Martin.

Though he seemed to appreciate him, Lennon often downplayed Martin's influence. But if you look through history there are several songs he did lean heavily on him. Strawberry Fields for example. Still I have to agree with what I said before, and Lennon said, there was no real "fifth Beatle" George Martin was their producer, and a great one for them at that. But he wasn't a fifth member of the band.

I'm not too sure what to say about Crowley, but after a while the band, especially Lennon, was tired of being followed around and every quote analyzed and interpreted. So he seemed to say whatever he felt like saying sometimes, just for entertainment purposes. As in, his own entertainment.

 

[Echoes]

It might have been tempting in that era to be seduced by hedonism, the hippie movement and Crowley’s wild theories but we’ve moved on from that era now. The old conformism based on the patriarchal family and production has been replaced by a new one based on over-consumption, individualism and liberalism (if not libertarianism or neoliberalism, whatever you call it). Pier Paolo Pasolini was among the first to notice how the new hedonistic way of life was actually a conformism. He wrote a masterpiece of column against long-haired men. French Marxist Michel Clouscard realized that Marxist class struggle had often been considered from the viewpoint of production but never in the viewpoint of consumption, while it stands clear now that the ruling class is inciting the common people to consume in a certain way, playing on our subjectivity. He argued that the new liberal order opened up new markets for businessmen and companies that they could never have hoped to do in the former traditional society.

The present-day youth needs to burn their idols, I think and the whole rock & roll generation is one such idol (for myself included, of course). Whether we like this music or not (and I of course am a fan of many rock artists!) we got to objectively realise that it was instrumental in promoting this new societal order. And it’s particularly true here in non-Anglophone countries. We massively got to listen to English-speaking music, we dreamed about America, wore jeans, smoke weed, etc. (actually with the Marshall Plan, we already got to see more US films) It all alienated us from our own culture.

This being said, I can’t deny that the musical creativity of that era in the rock & roll genre was huge. Hence it is comprehensible for a whole generation to be attracted by it (and the next generations too). I’m going to read the article about Martin & prog rock because as some might know here I am a prog rock fan and I do know that the Beatles’ track “A Day in the Life” is often seen as an early example of prog rock (and for sure Martin contributed a lot to it). I do know that the Beatles were very innovative and influential, a lot more than the Stones (I’ve always thought that the Stones were overrated, except for the Mick Taylor period). As a fan of the Byrds, for example, I got to admit that the Beatles song “What You’re Doing” (1964) has “jingle jangle” sound of the Byrds, before the Byrds’ first single.

However the Beatles’ lyrics were so damn poor and stupid. I mean I once had the misfortune to translate the lyrics of Imagine at a time I was not really fluent in English and I’d say holy crap!! It’s just inane, probably Crowley-influenced. I have to repeat myself but the youth of today should walk away from that now. The youth of that era are now the parents and grandparents, we have our revolution to make.

 

[Maxiton]

It might have been tempting in that era to be seduced by hedonism, the hippie movement and Crowley’s wild theories but we’ve moved on from that era now. The old conformism based on the patriarchal family and production has been replaced by a new one based on over-consumption, individualism and liberalism (if not libertarianism or neoliberalism, whatever you call it). Pier Paolo Pasolini was among the first to notice how the new hedonistic way of life was actually a conformism. He wrote a masterpiece of column against long-haired men. French Marxist Michel Clouscard realized that Marxist class struggle had often been considered from the viewpoint of production but never in the viewpoint of consumption, while it stands clear now that the ruling class is inciting the common people to consume in a certain way, playing on our subjectivity. He argued that the new liberal order opened up new markets for businessmen and companies that they could never have hoped to do in the former traditional society.

The present-day youth needs to burn their idols, I think and the whole rock & roll generation is one such idol (for myself included, of course). Whether we like this music or not (and I of course am a fan of many rock artists!) we got to objectively realise that it was instrumental in promoting this new societal order. And it’s particularly true here in non-Anglophone countries. We massively got to listen to English-speaking music, we dreamed about America, wore jeans, smoke weed, etc. (actually with the Marshall Plan, we already got to see more US films) It all alienated us from our own culture.

This being said, I can’t deny that the musical creativity of that era in the rock & roll genre was huge. Hence it is comprehensible for a whole generation to be attracted by it (and the next generations too). I’m going to read the article about Martin & prog rock because as some might know here I am a prog rock fan and I do know that the Beatles’ track “A Day in the Life” is often seen as an early example of prog rock (and for sure Martin contributed a lot to it). I do know that the Beatles were very innovative and influential, a lot more than the Stones (I’ve always thought that the Stones were overrated, except for the Mick Taylor period). As a fan of the Byrds, for example, I got to admit that the Beatles song “What You’re Doing” (1964) has “jingle jangle” sound of the Byrds, before the Byrds’ first single.

However the Beatles’ lyrics were so damn poor and stupid. I mean I once had the misfortune to translate the lyrics of Imagine at a time I was not really fluent in English and I’d say holy crap!! It’s just inane, probably Crowley-influenced. I have to repeat myself but the youth of today should walk away from that now. The youth of that era are now the parents and grandparents, we have our revolution to make.

I was right there with you up til your last paragraph. Anyway, the burst of creativity in the 50s and 60s, especially in America, was a powerful thing. Powerful indeed. What's overlooked is the extent to which this was engineered and encouraged as a response to the Soviet Union. Spend a few hours with Google looking into the deep history of modern art, creative writing, and rock n roll, and you might be surprised. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

 

[Maxiton]

...its funny, but having piled thru literally thousands and thousands and thousands of used records from that era I can say with absolute certainty that that sort of music was quite common on this side of the pond ( the place where rock and roll originated and rose as very much a protest against was often called snooze-ak, the stuff that was the normal fare produced by The Big Five record companies, who for all intents and purposes controlled the record market in the early to mid 50's...)....anything with strings was absolutely the kiss of death by any cool youth of the day, it was considered to be the worst kind of un-hip dross ( and this regardless of any actual artistic quality the recording may have had )...like can you imagine something called Howling Wolf With Strings ( and many quite talented artists were forced to do recording to appeal tp mainstream tastes )....

.....one of the aspects of The Beatles genius was that they could, with considerable help from George Martin, take what was considered a formulaic dross style and make it fresh and meaningful....and in the way The Beatles did in a lot of their stuff also poke fun at the staid and silly parent culture and the dross they listened to....actually much like you pointed out about their Crowley reference....

Cheers

The interesting thing about The Beatles in general and Martin in particular is how they more or less fully integrated elements and techniques of classical music, from baroque to contemporary and everything in between, and did so without sounding cheesy. You see and hear plenty of faux classical elements larded onto pop music, especially since the Beatles, but it's almost always total cheese. Not so with (almost all of) The Beatles, where the classical elements actually add something to the music and enhance, rather than detract from, its aesthetic depth and integrity. This really is a merging of high and low, and this inventiveness, along with the overall sound, is almost certainly attributable to Martin, and Martin alone. It is this (along with, granted, much of the lyrics and the performance energy) that accounts for the signal position of The Beatles in the world of popular music.

 

[StyrbjornSterki]

The Beeb has made available a profile on Martin first aired in 2011.

 

[red_flanders]

Individualism equals conformism. More genius.

 

[Maxiton]

Re:

Individualism equals conformism. More genius.

 

[ray j willings]

Seemed like a nice chap.
I just don't get the beatles . Fair enough they had some good songs but its all very nice sounding. It has no edge to it.
Lets face it in the late 60's everybody was in Hendrix's shadow.

 

[blutto]

Re:

Seemed like a nice chap.
I just don't get the beatles . Fair enough they had some good songs but its all very nice sounding. It has no edge to it.
Lets face it in the late 60's everybody was in Hendrix's shadow.

....really don't want to be the bearer of bad news but there was a great big world outside of rock'n'roll ...not to say that Hendrix wasn't a pretty good player or that rock music wasn't important but it was a pretty narrow product category ( just to put this into perspective....at the height of "rock's power" the pet food industry was 4 times a big as the music industry...)....so maybe in the confines of one's parent's basement or in some dingy club Hendrix was a god, but in the real world he was just the latest cog in the star making machinery..

...so speaking of revolutionary music with an edge what do you think of Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman or Cecil Taylor ?....or the musical giants of hard bop who laid down the foundation that Hendrix worked from like Thelonious Monk, Clifford Brown, Charlie Parker or Sonny Rollins...

Cheers

 

[Echoes]

It's genius to assume that individualism can never be a conformism ...

Anyway, George Martin reminds me of some replies of Wim Wenders' Million Dollar Hotel. Normally I don't like the Wenders films but that one was pretty good. I'm uneasy when I realise that Bono is the scriptwriter, he might be a better scriptwriter than singer, apparently.

So you had the character Dixie (Peter Stormare) with John Lennon looks. He's a die-hard Beatles fan, he had a Beatles album cover with him, the four Beatles were on them and he argued that George Martin should have been pictured on the cover as well. Dixie was a lazy-bone hippie, a squatter and a dreamer: "we are all dreamer", he would say, paraphrasing Lennon's Imagine. He does no effort to get out of his misery and embarks all his mates in it. Then you had detective "Skinner" (Mel Gibson) who can't stand him. I remember one quote in which he listed a few Beatles' songs, with a lot of sarcasm. Mel did not seem to force himself for this because in real life he's always hated the Beatles , hates "Imagine" and is accused of having celebrated Lennon's death (which he denies, though). I think it's normal for someone like him to dislike Lennon, though (though I won't celebrate his murder, of course).

On another note, I also remember a news report that George Martin was invited by Fidel Castro to inaugurate a statue of John Lennon, in Cuba. Fidel argued that Lennon's lyrics were inspiring and other stupid things. I think it says a lot about the Castro regime. A lot of people here among dissidents still think that Castro has been a resistant to globalization but I guess his hyping Lennon shows his true face...

Oh and of course it's about time common sense people cast aside the Hendrix myth. Saturated guitars that you burn does not make you a great artist. This guy had no respect for the secondary sector of the economy.

 

[aphronesis]

Re: Re:

Seemed like a nice chap.
I just don't get the beatles . Fair enough they had some good songs but its all very nice sounding. It has no edge to it.
Lets face it in the late 60's everybody was in Hendrix's shadow.

....really don't want to be the bearer of bad news but there was a great big world outside of rock'n'roll ...not to say that Hendrix wasn't a pretty good player or that rock music wasn't important but it was a pretty narrow product category ( just to put this into perspective....at the height of "rock's power" the pet food industry was 4 times a big as the music industry...)....so maybe in the confines of one's parent's basement or in some dingy club Hendrix was a god, but in the real world he was just the latest cog in the star making machinery..

...so speaking of revolutionary music with an edge what do you think of Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman or Cecil Taylor ?....or the musical giants of hard bop who laid down the foundation that Hendrix worked from like Thelonious Monk, Clifford Brown, Charlie Parker or Sonny Rollins...

Cheers

But economic scale is not the same as cultural and aesthetic affects and significance. Even if a lot of those energies were only repurposed as new forms of capture in the service of further economic ends and the celebrity machine.

Enough time has passed that I now appreciate all the people you list--I can listen to it for what it is and not be reminded of overly serious and precious geezers sitting in Greenwich Village basement clubs arguing that the world begins and ends there.

Who's to say what the reach or aesthetic suspensions and transformations of instrumentalized power might actually be?