The Mannerist Phase
When musicologists of the future start rummaging through the LP artifacts of the '60s, they will be able to discern several distinct phases in the stylistic evolution of the Beatles. Rubber Soul (1966) was the last album of their archaic period, blending the best kind of rock naivete with a mastery of simple forms. Sgt. Pepper (1967) represents the Beatles at their classic moment, fusing the pop spirit and an astoundingly eclectic range of sounds into a harrowing but harmonious whole. Their double-disk album called simply The Beatles, which has just been released in the U.S.,* may well be interpreted as an example of the group in a mannerist vein. Skill and sophistication abound, but so does a faltering sense of taste and purpose. The album's 30 tracks are a sprawling, motley assemblage of the Beatles' best abilities and worst tendencies.
High among their abilities, of course, is songwriting, and the album provides a handful of superb additions to the canon. The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill, called an "all-American bullet-headed Saxon mother's son," is a cunningly simple ditty that flashes with hints of America's burgeoning violence and shrinking mythology. Cry Baby Cry demonstrates anew the Beatles' knack for rendering an Alice-in-Wonderland vision in a melancholy modern vein. Dear Prudence superimposes Indian-style drones and swooping tones on childlike lyrics ("Won't you come out to play . . . greet the brand-new day"). It adds up to an invitation to love, to hope, to feel "part of everything."
Pop Panorama. In a way, though, The Beatles is too much a virtuoso display of the quartet's versatility. From the ricky-tick Honey Pie to the West Indian Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da to the schmaltzy Good Night, a sweeping panorama of pop genres unfolds in parodies, pastiches, takeoffs and put-ons. The boys even spoof themselves. George Harrison's Savoy Truffle contains a cross reference to Lennon and Mc Cartney's Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. In Rocky Raccoon, Paul McCartney imitates successfully and amusingly the nasal delivery of Bob Dylan. The lyric of Why Don't We Do It in the
Road?, which lampoons raunch-rock, reads in full:
Why don't we do it in the road?
No one will be watching us
Why don't we do it in the road?
Among other things, the Beatles in The Beatles seem to be signaling the listener that they have pulled back from the electronic adventurousness and the matic unity of Sgt. Pepper. Their new album is much more relaxed and modest. Well and good; there is no reason why Sgt. Pepper should be a shackling precedent for whatever follows. But when the foursome meander from style to style without any apparent guiding objective or sense of urgency, they seem to be substituting synthetics for synthesis. Even their renewed interest in the song styles of the English music hall and rhythm and blues--one of the album's most attractive features--is slightly tainted. In the hollow Yer Blues or the sentimental While My Guitar Gently Weeps, the longing for roots is too calculated, like the urban sophisticate's nostalgia for the primitive.
A Day in the Life. Apparently, the Beatles themselves realize that their work in the recording studio has become too mannered and grown too far away from their beginnings in Liverpool. Next month they will tape a one-hour TV show for the BBC in concert format, facing a live audience for the first time in more than two years. It may be that the manifest mannerism of The Beatles will turn out to be what it now seems--just a day in the life of four of the century's most inventive pop artists.
* Coincidentally with Beatle John Lennon's conviction by a London court for possessing marijuana. Lennon, who said through his lawyer that he had now "cleansed himself" of narcotics, was fined $360.
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