As recommended by USA Today and excerpted on Rolling Stone.com! More
than forty years after breaking up, The Beatles remain the
biggest-selling and most influential group in the history of popular
music. Fans endlessly replay their songs, craving more, while thousands
of cover versions of their songs have been recorded and performed. Band
biographies, pop music histories, song books, and academic titles on the
Fab Four clutter shelves. But never has there been a definitive guide to
the finest songs of The Beatles after they called it quits. Still the
Greatest is a love song to the songwriting and recording achievements of
Paul, John, George, and Ringo after each struck out on his own. In this
creative history, Jackson selects the best songs in each solo career and
organizes them into fantasy albums they might have formed had the
legendary group stayed together. This romp through the post-Beatles
history of each artist delves into the circumstances behind the
composition, recording, and reception of each work, offering a
refreshing take on how spectacular much of The Beatles' second act truly
is. Jackson assesses the more than seventy albums and nine hundred songs
the four collectively released, selecting the crème de la crème of their
output. Still the Greatest brims with facts (release dates, writing and
performing credits, and information about production techniques) and
insightful analyses of the music and lyrics. In telling the stories
behind the songs, Jackson recounts the remarkable influence the Post Fab
Four continued to have long after the big split. Both a handy reference
and an engrossing cover-to-cover read, Still the Greatest is an
invaluable companion for those who thought it all ended with the 1970
album Let It Be.
