Shout!

The Beatles in Their Generation

By: Philip Norman

Narrated by: Matthew Lloyd Davies

Updated to include Paul McCartney’s knighting and the deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison.

Philip Norman’s biography of the Beatles is the definitive work on the world's most influential band—a beautifully written account of their lives, their music, and their times. Now brought completely up to date, this epic tale charts the rise of four scruffy Liverpool lads from their wild, often comical early days to the astonishing heights of Beatlemania, from the chaos of Apple and the collapse of hippy idealism to the band's acrimonious split. It also describes their struggle to escape the smothering Beatles’ legacy and the tragic deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison. Witty, insightful, and moving, Shout! is essential reading not just for Beatles fans but for anyone with an interest in pop music.

Highly critical and overly general

The best part of this book is the early days in Liverpool and Hamburg. Once The Beatles start to succeed Norman becomes a critic. We get a lot of his opinions most of which are not shared by fans or history. For example, his derision of The White Album, one of the most iconic records in any genre, is more humorous than intended. This author is a real lover of MOR music. He completely fails to note that coming several months prior to the release of Led Zeppelin 1, Helter Skelter invented the music that would come to be called “Heavy Metal.” In mentioning Lennon’s Rock & Roll album, he fails to mention the annoying history of how that record came about. This is a straight old man’s view of The Beatles and it fails to place their reactions and behaviour in the context of the general milieu of those very unusual times.

The granddaddy of Fab bios is still the best

Norman is still a sour, conservative whiner in this latest edition, and there’s still very little music discussed, but this Beatles bio is still the most readable of them all.