Music | The Beatles: Let It Be

Running head: MUSIC
Music
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction:
The modern world of music has changed in a significant manner over the years and
one of the main influential factor in the same, is seen to be the varying preferences of the
listeners. Considering the evolution of the music industry, it is visible that the preferences of
the customers are of great significance for production houses in creating their music (Naveed,
Watanabe & Neittaanmäki, 2017). With a precise look at modern music industry, the
prominence of the band culture is pretty evident. Aubert (2017) claimed that the evolution of
the rock culture is seen to be a major trend in the modern world of music and with a look at
the consumption characteristics, the attractiveness of the form of music amongst the youth
generation is visible. The study discusses regarding a music album named as “Let It Be”
created by a renowned Liverpool based band named as “The Beatles”. Along with that, the
study analyses the genre of music that the band provides and in addition to this, the study
evaluates the style that the band follows and along with the historical context. In addition to
this, the study delivers a brief overview of the band.
The Beatles:
The preferences of general people towards the rock music has a deep rooted history
and the evolution of The Beatles is an important chapter in the history of rock culture (NA,
2016). The band was formed in the year 1960 in Liverpool of England. John Lennon, Ringo
Starr, Paul McCartney and George Harrison formed the nucleus of a band which was
regarded as one of the most influential bands of all time (Thebeatles.com, 2020). The main
focus of the group was on the rock culture and on the pop music and that was visible with the
music albums that the band delivered in these many years. The band was famous for their
ability in combining the traditional pop and classical music in innovative ways
(Thebeatles.com, 2020). Along with that, the band had the tendency of exploring different

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music styles which was evident with their interest on the music styles such as the hard rock,
Indian music, psychedelia and ballads. In the year 1988, the contribution of the band was
recognized with an induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Thebeatles.com, 2020).
With a precise look at the awards and achievements that the band received, the 1971
Academy Award for Best Original Score for “Let It Be” is pretty prominent (Thebeatles.com,
2020). The band is seen to achieve seven Grammy awards along with fifteen Ivor Novelllo
Awards. Other than this, it achieved one silver album, six diamond albums, 16 Platinum
albums along with 20 Multi-Platinum albums in the United States region. In addition to this,
the band is observed to have one silver album, four Multi-Platinum albums, eight Gold
albums and four Multi-Platinum albums in UK (Thebeatles.com, 2020).
Let It Be:
The selected album is known as the final and twelfth studio album developed by the
English rock band, The Beatles (Ramet, 2019). The album was released in the year 1970 and
attractiveness of the album amongst the rock music lovers was pretty prominent with the fact
that it topped he record charts in majority of the countries which includes both United
Kingdom and United States (Clercq, 2017).
Historical Context to the formation of the Let It Be:
Paul McCartney showed considerable amount of interest in managing the band
members to perform live again after two years from the time they left touring collectively in
the year 1968. The formation of the group had certainly faced some major blows which was
visible with a number of serious arguments and strained relationship amongst the members of
the group. The other members of the band were seen to be reluctant in considering the
proposal of McCartney (Deschênes, 2016). The fiercest opposition came from the part of

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George Harrison which was visible with the strong dislike from his part to the idea of group
touring. Under such circumstances, the band created the “Let It Be” album.
The album was enacted at the Apple Corps rooftop of London. The band utilized the
infrastructure of Apple studio, Twickenham Film studios along with EMI studios. The
producer of the album was Phil Spector and the album was of 35.10 minutes (Agha & Nader,
2016).
Genre:
The genre of the music album was rock music which was one of the main attraction of
music “The Beatles” delivered. The root of the rock music was the “Rock and Roll” music
culture visible in United States in 1950s. The stylistic origins that the rock music belonged to,
were the blues, electric blues, rock and roll, rockabilly, folk, rhythm and blues, folk, jazz,
soul and country. The cultural origins of the rock music is United Kingdom and United
States. The rock music achieved the market limelight during the timespan 1950s to 1960s
(Ramet, 2019). The typical instruments that are used for creating the rock music are seen to
be the drums, bass guitars and electric guitars. According to the esteemed opinion of Tjora
(2016), the primary concept of the rock music was developed in the year 1940 and was
developed with significant influence of the rhythms and blues along with the country music.
In addition to this, Ding et al. (2017), claimed that the combination of different music genres
such as the jazz, musical electric blues and folk has played a crucial role in the evolution of
the rock music across the world.
As per the comments of Baugh (2017), the usage of the electric bass, electric guitars
and drums are seen to be synonymous to the practice of the rock culture. Ding et al. (2017)
claimed that the style followed by The Beatles in “Let It Be” is typical rock presentation
where the band used song based music and utilized the 4/4 time signature with the help of the

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verse- chorus form. According to the comments of Tjora (2016), the lyrics of the rock music,
in many of the cases, put strong emphasis on the romantic love and at the same time, it also
covers a variety of social and political themes. During the late 1960s which is considered to
be the classic rock period, a number of subgenres in the rock music were seen to emerge
which includes the jazz rock, raga rock, blues rock, country rock, folk rock, southern rock
and psychedelic rock. The emergence of the psychedelic rock was seen too be dependent on
the hippie scene and counter cultural psychedelic. As the rock culture is seen to be associated
with great level of evolution, the introduction of the new subgenres such as the progressive
rock, glam rock, punk rock, alternative rock and heavy metal is pretty prominent. The
increasing level of consumption of these sub genres by the modern youth and audience, is
playing a noteworthy role in stating the high demands of the rock music and acceptance level
of the rock culture amongst the people across the world.
Conclusion:
On a concluding note, it is visible that the rock music is a widely preferred genre of
music amongst the modern audience. The selection of rock and pop music has certainly
played an important role in influencing the general audience across the globe in loving the
music of The Beatles. Simultaneously, the popularity of the rock music is seen to be largely
influenced with the creations of The Beatles and one of the significant creations that raised
the level of popularity of rock amongst the people were seen to be the “Let It Be”.

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References:
Agha, G. F., & Nader, M. (2016). A stylistic analysis of the Beatles’‘Let it be’. Научный
результат. Серия «Вопросы теоретической и прикладной лингвистики», 2(2 (8)).
Aubert, L. (2017). The music of the other: new challenges for ethnomusicology in a global
age. Routledge.
Baugh, B. (2017). Prolegomena to any aesthetics of rock music. In Rock Music (pp. 3-9).
Routledge.
Clercq, T. D. (2017). Embracing Ambiguity in the Analysis of Form in Pop/Rock Music,
1982–1991. Music Theory Online, 23(3).
Deschênes, G. (2016). The Homo-Faber-Religiosus-Ludens as a spiritual model of leisure
through the aging process: a post-secular illustrations of three Beatles songs.
Counselling and Spirituality, 35(1), 47-66.
Ding, N., Patel, A. D., Chen, L., Butler, H., Luo, C., & Poeppel, D. (2017). Temporal
modulations in speech and music. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 81, 181-
187.
NA, N. (2016). The Beatles, popular music and society: a thousand voices. Springer.
Naveed, K., Watanabe, C., & Neittaanmäki, P. (2017). Co-evolution between streaming and
live music leads a way to the sustainable growth of music industry–Lessons from the
US experiences. Technology in Society, 50, 1-19.
Ramet, S. P. (2019). Rocking the state: Rock music and politics in Eastern Europe and
Russia. Routledge.

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Thebeatles.com (2020). The Beatles. Retrieved 11 January 2020, from
https://www.thebeatles.com/
Tjora, A. (2016). The social rhythm of the rock music festival. Popular Music, 35(1), 64-83.