The Alternative Anthology - A Collection Of Rival Beatles Covers

 

All too often, people tend to think of The Beatles as though they were not just the most important cultural phenomenon of the sixties - which of course they were - but the only one, as if they were operating in complete isolation from everything else that was going on around them, and indeed that all of that everything else, from The Wednesday Play all the way to Pinky And Perky, was really just a more or less irrelevant sideshow. In reality, you can only really understand the effective social and cultural revolution of 'Beatlemania', and to an extent their music itself, if you consider them as the pioneering, game-changing creative centre of a social and cultural revolution that was going on all around them and with which they were intrinsically linked in all directions. All of which is an extremely long-winded way of saying that The Fab Four might not have been quite so fab if it wasn't for all of the influences they took from elsewhere, and the manner in which everyone else caught up in the excitement tried to replicate a little piece of Beatle magic for themselves, whether it was Joe Cocker boring his way through a histrionic chart-topping mauling of With A Little Help From My Friends or, well, Pinky And Perky sending them up as 'The Beakles', in a sketch that must have absolutely delighted the nasally-advantaged Ringo and John.

All of which is an even more extremely long-winded way of getting round to the fact that a lot of The Beatles' best-known songs were only over b-sides or album tracks, and a lot of other artists understandably thought that they should try and score an actual hit single with them instead. Early on these tended to be uninspiring carbon copies where you may as well just have put on the original and stood in another room, but during the mid-sixties and into the psychedelic era, things started to get a little more interesting. Modern Jazz quartets, world music ensembles, early electronic pioneers and many many others tried their hardest to get into the Top Ten with the songs that The Beatles forgot, and that's not even getting started on the buzzsaw guitar and swirly organ-toting Mod and psychedelic acts.

The Alternative Anthology is a playlist of some of my favourite Beatle covers released in direct competition with the originals, featuring the likes of The London Jazz Four, George Martin, Lord Sitar and someone who may or may not be David Bowie, with sleevenotes for each track and artist, and you can listen to it here. If you're in the mood for my thoughts on The Fab Four, then you might also want to listen to me on the I Am The Eggpod podcast talking to Chris Shaw about the Yellow Submarine album - with particular emphasis on the side given over to George Martin's score - which you can find here.