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Rick Rubin is not pleased. The famed and famously hirsute record producer and cofounder of Def Jam Records is sitting in his Malibu home with Giles Martin, a fellow producer best known for carrying the torch passed on by his father, George, the man who produced every album recorded by the Beatles. Rubin leans forward on his leather sofa, listening intently.

"It doesn’t sound very soulful," Rubin complains.

"It’s interesting that you’re saying that," says Martin. "Do you mean around about the vocal range?"

The two men go back and forth about various frequency ranges and the sonic details they’re hearing, throwing around adjectives like "warm" and "crunchy." Their dialogue sounds very much like what it is: Two top-shelf sound experts picking apart music in their native jargon. But contrary to how this conversation might sound, Martin and Rubin are not mixing and mastering songs. Today, they’re focused on how music sounds, not as it emanates from recording studio monitors, but at the opposite end of its creative life cycle: The way it sounds when we press the play button at home.

Instead of listening back on an $80,000 professional audio setup, as the Rubins and Martins details

Back when his old band was still together, Ringo Starr didn't just play a reliable backbeat or sing the occasional number penned especially for him, like "Yellow Submarine" or "With a Little Help From My Friends."

The Beatles' percussionist, when he wasn't keeping time behind his drum kit, was also an indefatigable shutterbug. That much is clear from the scores of images he dug out of his personal archives to put on display earlier this month at the National Portrait Gallery in London, images that also form part of a collection he released last week as a coffee-table book titled Photograph.

"I'd opened a case that came out of an old storage of mine," Starr tells The Week. "I'm like — what's in this trunk? It was full of photo books and negatives. Hundreds and hundreds of negatives. I was like — wow! I've got some great photos."

The resulting large-sized volume he assembled is a veritable treasure trove for Beatles fans, packed with the kind of candid shots of the group in its happy days that only one of four people in the world could have taken. Shots like the one of Beatle guitarist George Harrison leaning against a studio window to smash his nose against it, trying to make Starr laugh.

When John Lennon returned in 1980 with some of the most melodic, contented sounds of his solo career, that gave greater weight to an earlier tune like “Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down and Out).” Arriving on Sept. 26, 1974 as part of Walls and Bridges, it stands as one of the more memorable indictments on rock music’s curious tendency toward necrophilia.

And, of course, an eerie prophesy of his own fate.

Then exiled on the other side of the country from Yoko Ono and New York City, John Lennon finally and completely opened himself to an elemental fear of isolation that he once angrily confronted on his initial solo release. A moment of brutal honesty, there is none of the closed-fist bravado that marked Lennon’s recordings of five years before. Instead, John Lennon submits to the roiling emotions sparked by endings.

I’m still struck by Lennon’s willingness to strip himself bare. These days, most overlook Walls and Bridges because of its period-piece studio tricks. Yet John Lennon remains in complete control of a lyric — and, by 1974, he was being just as hard on himself as he is on everybody else.

Finally, in a harrowing moment that defines “ details

WHEN people are famous enough to be written about in the media, they develop two selves. One is the self they possess, the other is the hologram that they read about. For more than half a century, Paul McCartney has read about himself as if there were a separate, fictional character with the same name.

Out in the world at large, it’s different again. He was chatting to my wife one day and described going into TJ Hughes, the Liverpool department store, to buy some decorations for a relative’s wedding car. "How do you manage in a crowded shop like that?" she asked. "You just keep moving," he replied. "Smile, and just keep moving."

How, then, does Paul McCartney see Paul McCartney?

‘It’s funny,’ he says. ‘I’ve come out with the safe image. People don’t look beyond the smile. They look at the thumbs-up and they think it’s a safe image. It isn’t. Beyond the thumbs-up, there’s more to it than all that. Which I know about, obviously, because I lived the fucking shit.’

The term ordinary people crops up in a few of your songs…

‘Yeah. What are ordinary people?’

It does beg that question.

By: T details

Abbey Road found the Beatles ostensibly coming together — even though, once side one is done, there is very little overt John Lennon sprinkled throughout the rest.

Try as he might, Abbey Road (released on Sept. 26, 1969) is no Paul McCartney record. Sure, this is among McCartney’s brightest, most artistically satisfying, moments. But it’s Lennon’s punctuations (and, to a quickly emerging degree, George Harrison’s), undoubtably, that make it so.

It’s easy to unfairly narrow the critical scope, since McCartney’s most cohesive medley can be found as part of the second half of Abbey Road. Yet, the enduring magic here only grows more impressive after hearing similarly constructed John Lennon-less also-ran attempts from solo projects like Ram and Red Rose Speedway. There is a missing balance achieved here. Moreover, Abbey Road was the album where George Harrison’s latent potential finally was realized — to the tune of an A-side No. 1 hit in “Something” and the lilting, uplifting “Here Comes the Sun.”

Moments away from imploding, they arrived for these sessions as distinct individuals, rather than stylized mop tops. Yet, for a moment details

In time for Breast Cancer Awareness month in October, British designer Stella McCartney unveiled a bra dubbed the Louise Listening bra.

Except it's not your typical piece of lingerie. McCartney crafted a bra specifically for women who have undergone double mastectomy surgery. McCartney noticed that the options for post-surgery bras mostly had a dull utilitarian look. The light rose, lace-detailed bra is a change from your typical utilitarian post-double mastectomy bra that McCartney noticed.

So McCartney set out to design a bra that women could feel both comfortable and confident in.

McCartney said the Louise Listening bra was created in honor of her mother, Linda, who she lost to breast cancer in 1998.

“We wanted to bring something feminine and beautiful into a bra that is taboo,” McCartney said in a statement. “There are so many different emotions attached to the tragic realities of having had a double mastectomy, many cultures are unaccepting and terrible things happen to women both physically and emotionally. And we just wanted to make something that allows women undergoing this to have something to be proud of, something with no shame attached.”

By: Clarissa - details

Music legend Ringo Starr should be awarded a knighthood, says Labour’s culture spokesman. All the Beatles were appointed MBEs in 1965 and Paul McCartney was made a Sir in 1997 – but not drummer Ringo.

Shadow Culture Secretary Michael Dugher said the Beatles’ drummer had waited far too long and should finally get a top honour. Sir Paul McCartney was tapped on the shoulder by the Queen for his honour in 1997. But Ringo, who is the only other surviving Beatle, just has the MBE he received in 1965 to show for his hugely successful career.

Mr Dugher said: “ The Beatles changed the course of popular music forever and they continue to bring massive benefits to the UK in terms of trade and tourism. “Ringo’s unique drumming was intrinsic to the music of the Beatles - just listen to A Day in the Life or Strawberry Fields Forever - and his charisma and personal charm was an intrinsic part of their act as entertainers.

“Ringo is a legend and has made a massive contribution to our country. It’s been over 50 years since he got his MBE. “At the age of 75, it’s time for Ringo to get a knighthood for services to music. No other country in the world would take so details

In this latest edition of the Underrated Beatles Songs series, the tunes featured appear in both, some of their earliest works as well as their latest.

5. The Inner Light

"The Inner Light" is arguably, one of George Harrison's greatest contributions to The Beatles' discography. It was recorded in early 1968 and released on March 15, 1968 as the B-side to the "Lady Madonna" single.

Harrison declared that a letter he received from a Sanskrit scholar at Cambridge, who had participated in a conversation along with Harrison and John Lennon about the benefits of transcendental meditation, inspired the song. The lyrics, though, are in a way a musical restoration of the 47th chapter of the Tao Te Ching.

In regards to the music and the melody, one does not have to guess too much to figure out its inspiration. It is well known that Harrison was very interested in and involved with Indian music, culture, and way of life. It is because of him that the Beatles were first introduced to and inspired to experiment with Indian music in their work, which was a constant in their latter years. The instrumental piece for this song was recorded in Mumbai, India in January 1968 while Harrison was working on his first s details

On October 9, 1968, Paul McCartney asked engineer Ken Townshend to join him in Studio One at Abbey Road. The singer had an idea for a simple, bluesy track, and wanted to get the vocals and basic backing track (minus the drums) laid down. Thus “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road,” one of the White Album’s raunchiest and shortest tracks, was born, along with some subsequent controversy.

During the late stages of the Beatles White Album sessions, McCartney improvised the rocker, and elected to enter the studio by himself to record the track. He laid down five takes, which began with acoustic guitar and McCartney’s vocals. Originally he sang in a subdued style, gradually escalating to the screaming technique present on the final version. By take five, he decided to stick with the raucous vocalization throughout the track. This early version, which features McCartney thumping his guitar to create a beat, later surfaced on the Anthology 3 compilation. Once take five was completed, Paul McCartney overdubbed the piano section.

The next day, McCartney and Townshend resumed work on the track while John Lennon and George Harrison were overseeing the string overdubs for “Glass Onion” an details

The contract between The Beatles and their manager Brian Epstein is set to fetch up to £500,000 at a London auction this month. The document, signed by all four members of the band, is the only managerial contract signed by both the final line-up of the Beatles - and their manager. Signed in October 1962, the contract was finalised just days before the release of the band's first single, Love Me Do.

The contract is between Brian Epstein and The Beatles, signed by John Winston Lennon, George Harrison, James Paul McCartney, and Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr). As Paul and George were under 21, their fathers, Harold Hargreaves Harrison and James McCartney, were also summoned to co-sign the contract. 

The contract states that The Beatles agree to 'appoint the Manager to act as such Manager throughout the world ... for a period of 5 years from the 1st day of October 1962', signed by Brian Epstein as company Director and Clive Epstein as company Secretary, then signed by all other parties including all four Beatles. 'Without this contract, and the relationship it represents, it seems inconceivable that The Beatles could have achieved all that they did,' Sotheby's writes on its website. 'It took more than insp details