Brian May on The Beatles: “John Lennon was at the heart of this awesome power”
“In music, there is The Beatles, and then there is everybody else.” These are the words of Andrew Loog Oldham, the Rolling Stones manager, who credited the band from Liverpool for their ability to not only make it in America but to set the groundwork for other bands, showing them how they could make it big in the States even if they were travelling over from the UK.
To a certain extent, Oldham is right. If it wasn’t for The Beatles, the British invasion might never have happened, and without this, the charts wouldn’t have entered the period of experimentation that we saw in the ‘60s, one that meant different branches of rock and pop had their chance to hit the mainstream and the consumer was quite open-minded to what was being released. It was as a direct result of this period that other popular British rock bands, such as Queen, got together and started making music.
It’s very easy to link the work of the Fab Four to what Queen ended up doing, and subsequently, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Brian May is a big fan of the band. He has spoken at length in the past about how much he loves the band. “The Beatles were our bible,” he said. “Absolutely at every stage in their career and their music development, they were models. And they still are to me, I must say.”
The Beatles represent to May the same thing that they represent to many people: the epitome of music and creative writing. “I love all those albums. To me, they are the greatest,” he said, “They are the pinnacle of writing, performance and ethos of rock music. They broke down so many barriers they changed the world many times. I will always love The Beatles without any reservation.”
It’s not a surprise that artists from the ‘60s and ‘70s are fans of The Beatles, but what is always telling is who their favourite band member is. Each band member brought their own unique spin to The Beatles, and each of them was important when contributing to what became such a genre-defying sound.
Given that May specifically talks about the writing that went into some of The Beatle’s work, it’s not surprising that he cites John Lennon as one of his favourites. Whenever it came to writing from an honest point of view, John Lennon was always one of the greatest, never worrying about laying his emotions and opinions on the line with his music.
“It is impossible to doubt that the combination of the four lads was unique, a piece of magic in a million – the perfect rock group to inspire all rock groups, and rewrite the framework of not only popular music, but the whole culture of the young,” said May, “But, as time went on, it became apparent that John Lennon was at the heart of this awesome power.”
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