Rock 'n' Roll Music (album)

• 1. Introduction

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  Rock 'n' Roll Music, the 1976 Beatles compilation, arrived during a summer when the band had been broken up for six years yet still managed to outperform nearly everyone else on the charts. Released on the 7th of June in the United States and on the 11th of June in the United Kingdom, it climbed to number 2 on the Billboard 200, kept off the top only by a Paul McCartney album. A double album with 28 tracks, it drew fire from at least two of the Beatles it was named after, sparked a last-minute single swap over murder-movie connotations, and went through a behind-the-scenes tug-of-war over the actual tapes before anyone heard a note. How did a repackage of old recordings become one of the more contested releases in the band's catalog?

• 2. The Troubled Tapes

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  George Martin, the Beatles' producer, used the word "appalled" to describe his reaction when Capitol Records president Bhaskar Menon asked him to sign off on the tapes. The masters Capitol planned to use were early twin-track mono recordings, and Capitol intended to transfer them to stereo for the release. Martin refused to approve them as presented. He reworked the already mixed tapes himself, reversing the left and right channels and slightly narrowing the stereo image on seven specific tracks: "Twist and Shout", "I Saw Her Standing There", "I Wanna Be Your Man", "Boys", "Roll Over Beethoven", "Drive My Car", and "I'm Down". Not all the editing survived scrutiny. On the original White Album pressing, "Back in the U.S.S.R." fades out, and on this compilation the beginning of the crossfade into "Dear Prudence" can be heard bleeding through during that fade. EMI Records, which handled the UK release on Parlophone, refused to use Martin's modified Capitol tapes entirely. The Beatles had standing instructions that any reissue had to match the original recordings exactly. The UK Parlophone double album went out with the original UK mixes, and it included five stereo mixes of songs that had never before appeared in stereo in the UK, among them tracks from the Long Tall Sally EP and "I'm Down".

• 3. The Single Swap

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  Capitol's original plan for the US promotional single (catalogue number Capitol 4274) had "Helter Skelter" on the A-side, with "Got to Get You into My Life" on the flip. Then came the announcement that a made-for-television film about the 1969 Charles Manson murders would air in April 1976, spotlighting a cover of "Helter Skelter". Capitol judged the connotations bad enough to reverse the sides. The repositioned A-side, "Got to Get You into My Life", reached number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. The British single (Parlophone R 6016) paired "Back in the U.S.S.R." with "Twist and Shout" and reached number 19. The Manson film connection did not ultimately damage album sales. If anything, the renewed public awareness of "Helter Skelter" likely drew additional attention to the album during the weeks it charted.

• 4. Cover Controversy

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  Ringo Starr went to Rolling Stone to register his objection in plain terms: "It made us look cheap and we never were cheap. All that Coca-Cola and cars with big fins was the Fifties!" The artwork that prompted this complaint featured an embossed color portrait of the Beatles against a shiny silver background, with the album title rendered in what appeared to be neon lights. Inside the gatefold sleeve, Capitol had arranged a collage of 1950s symbols: a jukebox, an outdoor movie screen showing a picture of Marilyn Monroe, ice cream, a 1957 Chevrolet, a cheeseburger, and a glass of Coca-Cola. John Lennon wrote Capitol an angry letter calling the cover something that "looks like a Monkees reject". He suggested the design team use photographs taken by Astrid Kirchherr or Jurgen Vollmer, both of whom had photographed the band during their Hamburg period. Lennon also offered to design the cover himself and was turned down. When budget-line single albums were released in October 1980, splitting the compilation in two, the original artwork was replaced with a photograph of the group taken in 1964. The US edition set the band in a crowd; the British version placed them against a plain white background.

• 5. Summer of Beatles Nostalgia

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  Paul McCartney's Wings Over America tour was crossing the United States and Canada in the weeks just after Rock 'n' Roll Music came out, and the concert activity kept the Beatles' name prominent on both sides of the Atlantic. The album hit number 2 on the Billboard 200, held off the top by McCartney's own Wings at the Speed of Sound. It also reached number 11 on the UK Top 60 Albums Chart. The chart positioning created an unusual echo of an earlier moment. During the week ending the 6th of June 1970, Let It Be had jumped from its debut position at number 104 all the way to number 2, while McCartney's self-titled solo debut sat at number 1 for a third straight week. The following week the positions swapped, and both albums held their new spots for four consecutive weeks. Now, six years later, a Beatles compilation and a McCartney album were once again occupying the top two rungs of the same chart. The 28-track compilation also gave some listeners their first chance to own "I'm Down" on an album: not counting a 1971 Spanish compilation called Por Siempre Beatles, this was the first Beatles album to include that track, which had previously only appeared as the B-side of the "Help!" single. The international chart reach extended beyond the US and UK, with the album charting at number 4 in Australia, number 12 in Italy, and number 14 in Finland.