title: The Beatles

text: In mid-October, the Beatles entered the recording studio; for the first time when making an album, they had an extended period without other major commitments. Until this time, according to George Martin, "we had been making albums rather like a collection of singles. Now we were really beginning to think about albums as a bit of art on their own." Released in December, "Rubber Soul" was hailed by critics as a major step forward in the maturity and complexity of the band's music. Their thematic reach was beginning to expand as they embraced deeper aspects of romance and philosophy, a development that NEMS executive Peter Brown attributed to the band members' "now habitual use of marijuana". Lennon referred to "Rubber Soul" as "the pot album" and Starr said: "Grass was really influential in a lot of our changes, especially with the writers. And because they were writing different material, we were playing differently." After "Help!"s foray into classical music with flutes and strings, Harrison's introduction of a sitar on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" marked a further progression outside the traditional boundaries of popular music. As the lyrics grew more artful, fans began to study them for deeper meaning.


title: The Beatles

text: While some of "Rubber Soul"s songs were the product of Lennon and McCartney's collaborative songwriting, the album also included distinct compositions from each, though they continued to share official credit. "In My Life", of which each later claimed lead authorship, is considered a highlight of the entire Lennon–McCartney catalogue. Harrison called "Rubber Soul" his "favourite album", and Starr referred to it as "the departure record". McCartney has said, "We'd had our cute period, and now it was time to expand." However, recording engineer Norman Smith later stated that the studio sessions revealed signs of growing conflict within the group – "the clash between John and Paul was becoming obvious", he wrote, and "as far as Paul was concerned, George could do no right". In 2003, "Rolling Stone" ranked "Rubber Soul" fifth among "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", and AllMusic's Richie Unterberger describes it as "one of the classic folk-rock records".


title: The Beatles

text: Capitol Records, from December 1963 when it began issuing Beatles recordings for the US market, exercised complete control over format, compiling distinct US albums from the band's recordings and issuing songs of their choosing as singles. In June 1966, the Capitol LP "Yesterday and Today" caused an uproar with its cover, which portrayed the grinning Beatles dressed in butcher's overalls, accompanied by raw meat and mutilated plastic baby dolls. According to Beatles biographer Bill Harry, it has been incorrectly suggested that this was meant as a satirical response to the way Capitol had "butchered" the US versions of the band's albums. Thousands of copies of the LP had a new cover pasted over the original; an unpeeled "first-state" copy fetched $10,500 at a December 2005 auction. In England, meanwhile, Harrison met sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, who agreed to train him on the instrument.


title: The Beatles

text: During a tour of the Philippines the month after the "Yesterday and Today" furore, the Beatles unintentionally snubbed the nation's first lady, Imelda Marcos, who had expected them to attend a breakfast reception at the Presidential Palace. When presented with the invitation, Epstein politely declined on the band members' behalf, as it had never been his policy to accept such official invitations. They soon found that the Marcos regime was unaccustomed to taking no for an answer. The resulting riots endangered the group and they escaped the country with difficulty. Immediately afterwards, the band members visited India for the first time.


title: The Beatles

text: Almost as soon as they returned home, the Beatles faced a fierce backlash from US religious and social conservatives (as well as the Ku Klux Klan) over a comment Lennon had made in a March interview with British reporter Maureen Cleave. "Christianity will go", Lennon had said. "It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right ... Jesus was alright but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me." His comments went virtually unnoticed in England, but when US teenage fan magazine "Datebook" printed them five months later, it sparked a controversy with Christians in America's conservative Bible Belt region. The Vatican issued a protest, and bans on Beatles' records were imposed by Spanish and Dutch stations and South Africa's national broadcasting service. Epstein accused "Datebook" of having taken Lennon's words out of context. At a press conference, Lennon pointed out, "If I'd said television was more popular than Jesus, I might have got away with it." He claimed that he was referring to how other people viewed their success, but at the prompting of reporters, he concluded: "If you want me to apologise, if that will make you happy, then okay, I'm sorry."


title: The Beatles

text: Released in August 1966, a week before the Beatles' final tour, "Revolver" marked another artistic step forward for the group. The album featured sophisticated songwriting, studio experimentation, and a greatly expanded repertoire of musical styles, ranging from innovative classical string arrangements to psychedelia. Abandoning the customary group photograph, its Aubrey Beardsley-inspired cover – designed by Klaus Voormann, a friend of the band since their Hamburg days – was a monochrome collage and line drawing caricature of the group. The album was preceded by the single "Paperback Writer", backed by "Rain". Short promotional films were made for both songs; described by cultural historian Saul Austerlitz as "among the first true music videos", they aired on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "Top of the Pops" in June.


title: The Beatles

text: Among the experimental songs on "Revolver" was "Tomorrow Never Knows", the lyrics for which Lennon drew from Timothy Leary's "". Its creation involved eight tape decks distributed about the EMI building, each staffed by an engineer or band member, who randomly varied the movement of a tape loop while Martin created a composite recording by sampling the incoming data. McCartney's "Eleanor Rigby" made prominent use of a string octet; Gould describes it as "a true hybrid, conforming to no recognisable style or genre of song". Harrison's emergence as a songwriter was reflected in three of his compositions appearing on the record. Among these, "Taxman", which opened the album, marked the first example of the Beatles making a political statement through their music. In 2003, "Rolling Stone" ranked "Revolver" as the third greatest album of all time.


title: The Beatles

text: As preparations were made for a tour of the US, the Beatles knew that their music would hardly be heard. Having originally used Vox AC30 amplifiers, they later acquired more powerful 100-watt amplifiers, specially designed for them by Vox, as they moved into larger venues in 1964; however, these were still inadequate. Struggling to compete with the volume of sound generated by screaming fans, the band had grown increasingly bored with the routine of performing live. Recognising that their shows were no longer about the music, they decided to make the August tour their last.


title: The Beatles

text: The band performed none of their new songs on the tour. In Chris Ingham's description, they were very much "studio creations ... and there was no way a four-piece rock 'n' roll group could do them justice, particularly through the desensitising wall of the fans' screams. 'Live Beatles' and 'Studio Beatles' had become entirely different beasts." The band's concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on 29 August was their last commercial concert. It marked the end of four years dominated by almost non-stop touring that included over 1,400 concert appearances internationally.


title: The Beatles

text: Freed from the burden of touring, the Beatles embraced an increasingly experimental approach as they recorded "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", beginning in late November 1966. According to engineer Geoff Emerick, the album's recording took over 700 hours. He recalled the band's insistence "that everything on "Sgt. Pepper" had to be different. We had microphones right down in the bells of brass instruments and headphones turned into microphones attached to violins. We used giant primitive oscillators to vary the speed of instruments and vocals and we had tapes chopped to pieces and stuck together upside down and the wrong way around." Parts of "A Day in the Life" featured a 40-piece orchestra. The sessions initially yielded the non-album double A-side single "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" in February 1967; the "Sgt. Pepper" LP followed with a rush-release in May. The musical complexity of the records, created using relatively primitive four-track recording technology, astounded contemporary artists. Among music critics, acclaim for the album was virtually universal. Gould writes:


title: The Beatles

text: In the wake of "Sgt. Pepper", the underground and mainstream press widely publicised the Beatles as leaders of youth culture, as well as "lifestyle revolutionaries". The album was the first major pop/rock LP to include its complete lyrics, which appeared on the back cover. Those lyrics were the subject of critical analysis; for instance, in late 1967 the album was the subject of a scholarly inquiry by American literary critic and professor of English Richard Poirier, who observed that his students were "listening to the group's music with a degree of engagement that he, as a teacher of literature, could only envy". The elaborate cover also attracted considerable interest and study. A collage designed by pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, it depicted the group as the fictional band referred to in the album's title track standing in front of a crowd of famous people. The heavy moustaches worn by the group reflected the growing influence of hippie style, while cultural historian Jonathan Harris describes their "brightly coloured parodies of military uniforms" as a knowingly "anti-authoritarian and anti-establishment" display.


title: The Beatles

text: "Sgt. Pepper" topped the UK charts for 23 consecutive weeks, with a further four weeks at number one in the period through to February 1968. With 2.5 million copies sold within three months of its release, "Sgt. Pepper"s initial commercial success exceeded that of all previous Beatles albums. It sustained its immense popularity into the 21st century while breaking numerous sales records. In 2003, "Rolling Stone" ranked "Sgt. Pepper" at number one on its list of the greatest albums of all time.


title: The Beatles

text: Two Beatles film projects were conceived within weeks of completing "Sgt. Pepper": "Magical Mystery Tour", a one-hour television film, and "Yellow Submarine", an animated feature-length film produced by United Artists. The group began recording music for the former in late April 1967, but the project then lay dormant as they focused on recording songs for the latter. On 25 June, the Beatles performed their forthcoming single "All You Need Is Love" to an estimated 350 million viewers on "Our World", the first live global television link. Released a week later, during the Summer of Love, the song was adopted as a flower power anthem. The Beatles' use of psychedelic drugs was at its height during that summer. In July and August, the group pursued interests related to similar utopian-based ideology, including a week-long investigation into the possibility of starting an island-based commune off the coast of Greece.


title: The Beatles

text: On 24 August, the group were introduced to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in London. The next day, they travelled to Bangor for his Transcendental Meditation retreat. On 27 August, their manager's assistant, Peter Brown, phoned to inform them that Epstein had died. The coroner ruled the death an accidental carbitol overdose, although it was widely rumoured to be a suicide. His death left the group disoriented and fearful about the future. Lennon recalled: "We collapsed. I knew that we were in trouble then. I didn't really have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music, and I was scared. I thought, 'We've fuckin' had it now. Harrison's then-wife Pattie Boyd remembered that "Paul and George were in complete shock. I don't think it could have been worse if they had heard that their own fathers had dropped dead." During a band meeting in September, McCartney recommended that the band proceed with "Magical Mystery Tour".


title: The Beatles

text: The "Magical Mystery Tour" soundtrack was released in the UK as a six-track double extended play (EP) in early December 1967. It was the first example of a double EP in the UK. The record carried on the psychedelic vein of "Sgt. Pepper", however, in line with the band's wishes, the packaging reinforced the idea that the release was a film soundtrack rather than a follow-up to "Sgt. Pepper". In the US, the soundtrack appeared as an identically titled LP that also included five tracks from the band's recent singles. In its first three weeks, the album set a record for the highest initial sales of any Capitol LP, and it is the only Capitol compilation later to be adopted in the band's official canon of studio albums.


title: The Beatles

text: "Magical Mystery Tour" first aired on Boxing Day to an audience of approximately 15 million. Largely directed by McCartney, the film was the band's first critical failure in the UK. It was dismissed as "blatant rubbish" by the "Daily Express"; the "Daily Mail" called it "a colossal conceit"; and "The Guardian" labelled the film "a kind of fantasy morality play about the grossness and warmth and stupidity of the audience". Gould describes it as "a great deal of raw footage showing a group of people getting on, getting off, and riding on a bus". Although the viewership figures were respectable, its slating in the press led US television networks to lose interest in broadcasting the film.


title: The Beatles

text: The group were less involved with "Yellow Submarine", which featured the band appearing as themselves for only a short live-action segment. Premiering in July 1968, the film featured cartoon versions of the band members and a soundtrack with eleven of their songs, including four unreleased studio recordings that made their debut in the film. Critics praised the film for its music, humour and innovative visual style. A soundtrack LP was issued seven months later; it contained those four new songs, the title track (already issued on "Revolver"), "All You Need Is Love" (already issued as a single and on the US "Magical Mystery Tour" LP) and seven instrumental pieces composed by Martin.


title: The Beatles

text: In February 1968, the Beatles travelled to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in Rishikesh, India, to take part in a three-month meditation "Guide Course". Their time in India marked one of the band's most prolific periods, yielding numerous songs, including a majority of those on their next album. However, Starr left after only ten days, unable to stomach the food, and McCartney eventually grew bored and departed a month later. For Lennon and Harrison, creativity turned to question when an electronics technician known as Magic Alex suggested that the Maharishi was attempting to manipulate them. When he alleged that the Maharishi had made sexual advances to women attendees, a persuaded Lennon left abruptly just two months into the course, bringing an unconvinced Harrison and the remainder of the group's entourage with him. In anger, Lennon wrote a scathing song titled "Maharishi", renamed "Sexy Sadie" to avoid potential legal issues. McCartney said, "We made a mistake. We thought there was more to him than there was."


title: The Beatles

text: In May, Lennon and McCartney travelled to New York for the public unveiling of the Beatles' new business venture, Apple Corps. It was initially formed several months earlier as part of a plan to create a tax-effective business structure, but the band then desired to extend the corporation to other pursuits, including record distribution, peace activism, and education. McCartney described Apple as "rather like a Western communism". The enterprise drained the group financially with a series of unsuccessful projects handled largely by members of the Beatles' entourage, who were given their jobs regardless of talent and experience. Among its numerous subsidiaries were Apple Electronics, established to foster technological innovations with Magic Alex at the head, and Apple Retailing, which opened the short-lived Apple Boutique in London. Harrison later said, "Basically, it was chaos ... John and Paul got carried away with the idea and blew millions, and Ringo and I just had to go along with it."


title: The Beatles

text: From late May to mid-October 1968, the group recorded what became "The Beatles", a double LP commonly known as "the White Album" for its virtually featureless cover. During this time, relations between the members grew openly divisive. Starr quit for two weeks, leaving his bandmates to record "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Dear Prudence" as a trio, with McCartney filling in on drums. Lennon had lost interest in collaborating with McCartney, whose contribution "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" he scorned as "granny music shit". Tensions were further aggravated by Lennon's romantic preoccupation with avant-garde artist Yoko Ono, whom he insisted on bringing to the sessions despite the group's well-established understanding that girlfriends were not allowed in the studio. McCartney has recalled that the album "wasn't a pleasant one to make". He and Lennon identified the sessions as the start of the band's break-up.


title: The Beatles

text: With the record, the band executed a wider range of musical styles and broke with their recent tradition of incorporating several musical styles in one song by keeping each piece of music consistently faithful to a select genre. During the sessions, the group upgraded to an eight-track tape console, which made it easier for them to layer tracks piecemeal, while the members often recorded independently of each other, affording the album a reputation as a collection of solo recordings rather than a unified group effort. Describing the double album, Lennon later said: "Every track is an individual track; there isn't any Beatle music on it. [It's] John and the band, Paul and the band, George and the band." The sessions also produced the Beatles' longest song yet, "Hey Jude", released in August as a non-album single with "Revolution".


title: The Beatles

text: Issued in November, the White Album was the band's first Apple Records album release, although EMI continued to own their recordings. The record attracted more than 2 million advance orders, selling nearly 4 million copies in the US in little over a month, and its tracks dominated the playlists of American radio stations. Its lyric content was the focus of much analysis by the counterculture. Despite its popularity, reviewers were largely confused by the album's content, and it failed to inspire the level of critical writing that "Sgt. Pepper" had. General critical opinion eventually turned in favour of the White Album, and in 2003, "Rolling Stone" ranked it as the tenth greatest album of all time.


title: The Beatles

text: Although "Let It Be" was the Beatles' final album release, it was largely recorded before "Abbey Road". The project's impetus came from an idea Martin attributes to McCartney, who suggested they "record an album of new material and rehearse it, then perform it before a live audience for the very first time – on record and on film". Originally intended for a one-hour television programme to be called "Beatles at Work", in the event much of the album's content came from studio work beginning in January 1969, many hours of which were captured on film by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Martin said that the project was "not at all a happy recording experience. It was a time when relations between the Beatles were at their lowest ebb." Lennon described the largely impromptu sessions as "hell ... the most miserable ... on Earth", and Harrison, "the low of all-time". Irritated by McCartney and Lennon, Harrison walked out for five days. Upon returning, he threatened to leave the band unless they "abandon[ed] all talk of live performance" and instead focused on finishing a new album, initially titled "Get Back", using songs recorded for the TV special. He also demanded they cease work at Twickenham Film Studios, where the sessions had begun, and relocate to the newly finished Apple Studio. His bandmates agreed, and it was decided to salvage the footage shot for the TV production for use in a feature film.


title: The Beatles

text: To alleviate tensions within the band and improve the quality of their live sound, Harrison invited keyboardist Billy Preston to participate in the last nine days of sessions. Preston received label billing on the "Get Back" single – the only musician ever to receive that acknowledgment on an official Beatles release. After the rehearsals, the band could not agree on a location to film a concert, rejecting several ideas, including a boat at sea, a lunatic asylum, the Tunisian desert, and the Colosseum. Ultimately, what would be their final live performance was filmed on the rooftop of the Apple Corps building at 3 Savile Row, London, on 30 January 1969. Five weeks later, engineer Glyn Johns, whom Lewisohn describes as "Get Back"s "uncredited producer", began work assembling an album, given "free rein" as the band "all but washed their hands of the entire project".


title: The Beatles

text: New strains developed between the band members regarding the appointment of a financial adviser, the need for which had become evident without Epstein to manage business affairs. Lennon, Harrison and Starr favoured Allen Klein, who had managed the Rolling Stones and Sam Cooke; McCartney wanted Lee and John Eastman – father and brother, respectively, of Linda Eastman, whom McCartney married on 12 March. Agreement could not be reached, so both Klein and the Eastmans were temporarily appointed: Klein as the Beatles' business manager and the Eastmans as their lawyers. Further conflict ensued, however, and financial opportunities were lost. On 8 May, Klein was named sole manager of the band, the Eastmans having previously been dismissed as the Beatles' lawyers. McCartney refused to sign the management contract with Klein, but he was out-voted by the other Beatles.


title: The Beatles

text: Martin stated that he was surprised when McCartney asked him to produce another album, as the "Get Back" sessions had been "a miserable experience" and he had "thought it was the end of the road for all of us". The primary recording sessions for "Abbey Road" began on 2 July. Lennon, who rejected Martin's proposed format of a "continuously moving piece of music", wanted his and McCartney's songs to occupy separate sides of the album. The eventual format, with individually composed songs on the first side and the second consisting largely of a medley, was McCartney's suggested compromise. Emerick noted that the replacement of the studio's valve mixing console with a transistorised one yielded a less punchy sound, leaving the group frustrated at the thinner tone and lack of impact and contributing to its "kinder, gentler" feel relative to their previous albums.


title: The Beatles

text: On 4 July, the first solo single by a Beatle was released: Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance", credited to the Plastic Ono Band. The completion and mixing of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" on 20 August was the last occasion on which all four Beatles were together in the same studio. On 8 September, while Starr was in hospital, the other band members met to discuss recording a new album. They considered a different approach to songwriting by ending the Lennon–McCartney pretence and having four compositions apiece from Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, with two from Starr and a lead single around Christmas. On 20 September, Lennon announced his departure to the rest of the group but agreed to withhold a public announcement to avoid undermining sales of the forthcoming album.


title: The Beatles

text: Released on 26 September, "Abbey Road" sold four million copies within three months and topped the UK charts for a total of seventeen weeks. Its second track, the ballad "Something", was issued as a single – the only Harrison composition that appeared as a Beatles A-side. "Abbey Road" received mixed reviews, although the medley met with general acclaim. Unterberger considers it "a fitting swan song for the group", containing "some of the greatest harmonies to be heard on any rock record". Musicologist and author Ian MacDonald calls the album "erratic and often hollow", despite the "semblance of unity and coherence" offered by the medley. Martin singled it out as his favourite Beatles album; Lennon said it was "competent" but had "no life in it".


title: The Beatles

text: For the still unfinished "Get Back" album, one last song, Harrison's "I Me Mine", was recorded on 3 January 1970. Lennon, in Denmark at the time, did not participate. In March, rejecting the work Johns had done on the project, now retitled "Let It Be", Klein gave the session tapes to American producer Phil Spector, who had recently produced Lennon's solo single "Instant Karma!" In addition to remixing the material, Spector edited, spliced and overdubbed several of the recordings that had been intended as "live". McCartney was unhappy with the producer's approach and particularly dissatisfied with the lavish orchestration on "The Long and Winding Road", which involved a fourteen-voice choir and 36-piece instrumental ensemble. McCartney's demands that the alterations to the song be reverted were ignored, and he publicly announced his departure from the band on 10 April, a week before the release of his first self-titled solo album.


title: The Beatles

text: On 8 May 1970, "Let It Be" was released. Its accompanying single, "The Long and Winding Road", was the Beatles' last; it was released in the US, but not in the UK. The "Let It Be" documentary film followed later that month, and would win the 1970 Academy Award for Best Original Song Score. "Sunday Telegraph" critic Penelope Gilliatt called it "a very bad film and a touching one ... about the breaking apart of this reassuring, geometrically perfect, once apparently ageless family of siblings". Several reviewers stated that some of the performances in the film sounded better than their analogous album tracks. Describing "Let It Be" as the "only Beatles album to occasion negative, even hostile reviews", Unterberger calls it "on the whole underrated"; he singles out "some good moments of straight hard rock in 'I've Got a Feeling' and 'Dig a Pony'", and praises "Let It Be", "Get Back", and "the folky 'Two of Us', with John and Paul harmonising together".


title: The Beatles

text: McCartney filed suit for the dissolution of the Beatles' contractual partnership on 31 December 1970. Legal disputes continued long after their break-up, and the dissolution was not formalised until 29 December 1974, when Lennon signed the paperwork terminating the partnership while on vacation with his family at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.


title: The Beatles

text: Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr all released solo albums in 1970. Their solo records sometimes involved one or more of the others; Starr's "Ringo" (1973) was the only album to include compositions and performances by all four ex-Beatles, albeit on separate songs. With Starr's participation, Harrison staged the Concert for Bangladesh in New York City in August 1971. Other than an unreleased jam session in 1974, later bootlegged as "A Toot and a Snore in '74", Lennon and McCartney never recorded together again.


title: The Beatles

text: Two double-LP sets of the Beatles' greatest hits, compiled by Klein, "1962–1966" and "1967–1970", were released in 1973, at first under the Apple Records imprint. Commonly known as the "Red Album" and "Blue Album", respectively, each has earned a Multi-Platinum certification in the US and a Platinum certification in the UK. Between 1976 and 1982, EMI/Capitol released a wave of compilation albums without input from the ex-Beatles, starting with the double-disc compilation "Rock 'n' Roll Music". The only one to feature previously unreleased material was "The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl" (1977); the first officially issued concert recordings by the group, it contained selections from two shows they played during their 1964 and 1965 US tours.


title: The Beatles

text: The music and enduring fame of the Beatles were commercially exploited in various other ways, again often outside their creative control. In April 1974, the musical "John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert", written by Willy Russell and featuring singer Barbara Dickson, opened in London. It included, with permission from Northern Songs, eleven Lennon-McCartney compositions and one by Harrison, "Here Comes the Sun". Displeased with the production's use of his song, Harrison withdrew his permission to use it. Later that year, the off-Broadway musical "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road" opened. "All This and World War II" (1976) was an unorthodox nonfiction film that combined newsreel footage with covers of Beatles songs by performers ranging from Elton John and Keith Moon to the London Symphony Orchestra. The Broadway musical "Beatlemania", an unauthorised nostalgia revue, opened in early 1977 and proved popular, spinning off five separate touring productions. In 1979, the band sued the producers, settling for several million dollars in damages. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1978), a musical film starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, was a commercial failure and an "artistic fiasco", according to Ingham.


title: The Beatles

text: Accompanying the wave of Beatles nostalgia and persistent reunion rumours in the US during the 1970s, several entrepreneurs made public offers to the Beatles for a reunion concert. Promoter Bill Sargent first offered the Beatles $10 million for a reunion concert in 1974. He raised his offer to $30 million in January 1976 and then to $50 million the following month. On 24 April 1976, during a broadcast of "Saturday Night Live", producer Lorne Michaels jokingly offered the Beatles $3,000 to reunite on the show. Lennon and McCartney were watching the live broadcast at Lennon's apartment at the Dakota in New York, which was within driving distance of the NBC studio where the show was being broadcast. The former bandmates briefly entertained the idea of going to the studio and surprising Michaels by accepting his offer, but decided not to.


title: The Beatles

text: In December 1980, Lennon was shot and killed outside his New York City apartment. Harrison rewrote the lyrics of his song "All Those Years Ago" in Lennon's honour. With Starr on drums and McCartney and his wife, Linda, contributing backing vocals, the song was released as a single in May 1981. McCartney's own tribute, "Here Today", appeared on his "Tug of War" album in April 1982.


title: The Beatles

text: In 1984, Starr co-starred in McCartney's film "Give My Regards to Broad Street", and played with McCartney on several of the songs on the soundtrack. In 1987, Harrison's "Cloud Nine" album included "When We Was Fab", a song about the Beatlemania era.


title: The Beatles

text: When the Beatles' studio albums were released on CD by EMI and Apple Corps in 1987, their catalogue was standardised throughout the world, establishing a canon of the twelve original studio LPs as issued in the UK plus the US LP version of "Magical Mystery Tour". All the remaining material from the singles and EPs that had not appeared on these thirteen studio albums was gathered on the two-volume compilation "Past Masters" (1988). Except for the "Red" and "Blue" albums, EMI deleted all its other Beatles compilations – including the "Hollywood Bowl" record – from its catalogue.


title: The Beatles

text: In 1988, the Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, their first year of eligibility. Harrison and Starr attended the ceremony with Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, and his two sons, Julian and Sean. McCartney declined to attend, citing unresolved "business differences" that would make him "feel like a complete hypocrite waving and smiling with them at a fake reunion". The following year, EMI/Capitol settled a decade-long lawsuit filed by the band over royalties, clearing the way to commercially package previously unreleased material.


title: The Beatles

text: "Live at the BBC", the first official release of unissued Beatles performances in seventeen years, appeared in 1994. That same year McCartney, Harrison and Starr collaborated on the "Anthology" project. "Anthology" was the culmination of work begun in 1970, when Apple Corps director Neil Aspinall, their former road manager and personal assistant, had started to gather material for a documentary with the working title "The Long and Winding Road". Documenting their history in the band's own words, the "Anthology" project included the release of several unissued Beatles recordings. McCartney, Harrison and Starr also added new instrumental and vocal parts to songs recorded as demos by Lennon in the late 1970s.


title: The Beatles

text: During 1995–96, the project yielded a television miniseries, an eight-volume video set, and three two-CD/three-LP box sets featuring artwork by Klaus Voormann. Two songs based on Lennon demos, "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love", were issued as new Beatles singles. The releases were commercially successful and the television series was viewed by an estimated 400 million people. In 1999, to coincide with the re-release of the 1968 film "Yellow Submarine", an expanded soundtrack album, "Yellow Submarine Songtrack", was issued.


title: The Beatles

text: The Beatles' "1", a compilation album of the band's British and American number-one hits, was released on 13 November 2000. It became the fastest-selling album of all time, with 3.6 million sold in its first week and 13 million within a month. It topped albums charts in at least 28 countries. The compilation had sold 31 million copies globally by April 2009.


title: The Beatles

text: Harrison died from metastatic lung cancer in November 2001. McCartney and Starr were among the musicians who performed at the Concert for George, organised by Eric Clapton and Harrison's widow, Olivia. The tribute event took place at the Royal Albert Hall on the first anniversary of Harrison's death.


title: The Beatles

text: In 2003, "Let It Be... Naked", a reconceived version of the "Let It Be" album, with McCartney supervising production, was released. One of the main differences from the Spector-produced version was the omission of the original string arrangements. It was a top-ten hit in both Britain and America. The US album configurations from 1964 to 1965 were released as box sets in 2004 and 2006; "The Capitol Albums, Volume 1" and "Volume 2" included both stereo and mono versions based on the mixes that were prepared for vinyl at the time of the music's original American release.


title: The Beatles

text: As a soundtrack for Cirque du Soleil's Las Vegas Beatles stage revue, "Love", George Martin and his son Giles remixed and blended 130 of the band's recordings to create what Martin called "a way of re-living the whole Beatles musical lifespan in a very condensed period". The show premiered in June 2006, and the "Love" album was released that November. In April 2009, Starr performed three songs with McCartney at a benefit concert held at New York's Radio City Music Hall and organised by McCartney.


title: The Beatles

text: On 9 September 2009, the Beatles' entire back catalogue was reissued following an extensive digital remastering process that lasted four years. Stereo editions of all twelve original UK studio albums, along with "Magical Mystery Tour" and the "Past Masters" compilation, were released on compact disc both individually and as a box set. A second collection, "The Beatles in Mono", included remastered versions of every Beatles album released in true mono along with the original 1965 stereo mixes of "Help!" and "Rubber Soul" (both of which Martin had remixed for the 1987 editions). "", a music video game in the "Rock Band" series, was issued on the same day. In December 2009, the band's catalogue was officially released in FLAC and MP3 format in a limited edition of 30,000 USB flash drives.


title: The Beatles

text: Owing to a long-running royalty disagreement, the Beatles were among the last major artists to sign deals with online music services. Residual disagreement emanating from Apple Corps' dispute with Apple, Inc., iTunes' owners, over the use of the name "Apple" was also partly responsible for the delay, although in 2008, McCartney stated that the main obstacle to making the Beatles' catalogue available online was that EMI "want[s] something we're not prepared to give them". In 2010, the official canon of thirteen Beatles studio albums, "Past Masters", and the "Red" and "Blue" greatest-hits albums were made available on iTunes.


title: The Beatles

text: In 2012, EMI's recorded music operations were sold to Universal Music Group. In order for Universal Music to acquire EMI, the European Union, for antitrust reasons, forced EMI to spin off assets including Parlophone. Universal was allowed to keep the Beatles' recorded music catalogue, managed by Capitol Records under its Capitol Music Group division. The entire original Beatles album catalogue was also reissued on vinyl in 2012; available either individually or as a box set.


title: The Beatles

text: In 2013, a second volume of BBC recordings, "On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2", was released. That December saw the release of another 59 Beatles recordings on iTunes. The set, titled "The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963", had the opportunity to gain a 70-year copyright extension conditional on the songs being published at least once before the end of 2013. Apple Records released the recordings on 17 December to prevent them from going into the public domain and had them taken down from iTunes later that same day. Fan reactions to the release were mixed, with one blogger saying "the hardcore Beatles collectors who are trying to obtain everything will already have these."


title: The Beatles

text: On 26 January 2014, McCartney and Starr performed together at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The following day, "" television special was taped in the Los Angeles Convention Center's West Hall. It aired on 9 February, the exact date of – and at the same time, and on the same network as – the original broadcast of the Beatles' first US television appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show", 50 years earlier. The special included performances of Beatles songs by current artists as well as by McCartney and Starr, archival footage, and interviews with the two surviving ex-Beatles carried out by David Letterman at the Ed Sullivan Theater. In December 2015, the Beatles released their catalogue for streaming on various streaming music services including Spotify and Apple Music.


title: The Beatles

text: In September 2016, the documentary film "" was released. Directed by Ron Howard, it chronicled the Beatles' career during their touring years from 1961 to 1966, from their performances in Liverpool's the Cavern Club in 1961 to their final concert in San Francisco in 1966. The film was released theatrically on 15 September in the UK and the US, and started streaming on Hulu on 17 September. It received several awards and nominations, including for Best Documentary at the 70th British Academy Film Awards and the Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special at the 69th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. An expanded, remixed and remastered version of "The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl" was released on 9 September, to coincide with the release of the film.


title: The Beatles

text: On 18 May 2017, Sirius XM Radio launched a 24/7 radio channel, The Beatles Channel. A week later, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was reissued with new stereo mixes and unreleased material for the album's 50th anniversary. Similar box sets were released for "The Beatles" in November 2018, and "Abbey Road" in September 2019. On the first week of October 2019, "Abbey Road" returned to number one on the UK Albums Chart. The Beatles broke their own record for the album with the longest gap between topping the charts as "Abbey Road" hit the top spot 50 years after its original release.


title: The Beatles

text: In November 2021, "", a documentary directed by Peter Jackson using footage captured for the "Let It Be" film, was released on Disney+ as a three-part miniseries. A book also titled "The Beatles: Get Back" was released on 12 October, ahead of the documentary. A of the "Let It Be" album was released on 15 October. In January 2022, an album titled "Get Back (Rooftop Performance)", consisting of newly mixed audio of the Beatles' rooftop performance, was released on streaming services.


title: The Beatles

text: In October 2022, a of "Revolver" was released, featuring unreleased demos, studio outtakes, the original mono mix and a new stereo remix using de-mixing technology developed by Peter Jackson's WingNuts Films.


title: The Beatles

text: In "Icons of Rock: An Encyclopedia of the Legends Who Changed Music Forever", Scott Schinder and Andy Schwartz describe the Beatles' musical evolution:


title: The Beatles

text: In "The Beatles as Musicians", Walter Everett describes Lennon and McCartney's contrasting motivations and approaches to composition: "McCartney may be said to have constantly developed – as a means to entertain – a focused musical talent with an ear for counterpoint and other aspects of craft in the demonstration of a universally agreed-upon common language that he did much to enrich. Conversely, Lennon's mature music is best appreciated as the daring product of a largely unconscious, searching but undisciplined artistic sensibility."


title: The Beatles

text: Ian MacDonald describes McCartney as "a natural melodist – a creator of tunes capable of existing apart from their harmony". His melody lines are characterised as primarily "vertical", employing wide, consonant intervals which express his "extrovert energy and optimism". Conversely, Lennon's "sedentary, ironic personality" is reflected in a "horizontal" approach featuring minimal, dissonant intervals and repetitive melodies which rely on their harmonic accompaniment for interest: "Basically a realist, he instinctively kept his melodies close to the rhythms and cadences of speech, colouring his lyrics with bluesy tone and harmony rather than creating tunes that made striking shapes of their own." MacDonald praises Harrison's lead guitar work for the role his "characterful lines and textural colourings" play in supporting Lennon and McCartney's parts, and describes Starr as "the father of modern pop/rock drumming".


title: The Beatles

text: The Beatles' earliest influences include Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Little Richard and Chuck Berry. During the Beatles' co-residency with Little Richard at the Star-Club in Hamburg, from April to May 1962, he advised them on the proper technique for performing his songs. Of Presley, Lennon said, "Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis. If there hadn't been Elvis, there would not have been the Beatles." Other early influences include Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, Roy Orbison and the Everly Brothers.


title: The Beatles

text: The Beatles continued to absorb influences long after their initial success, often finding new musical and lyrical avenues by listening to their contemporaries, including Bob Dylan, the Who, Frank Zappa, the Lovin' Spoonful, the Byrds and the Beach Boys, whose 1966 album "Pet Sounds" amazed and inspired McCartney. Referring to the Beach Boys' creative leader, Martin later stated: "No one made a greater impact on the Beatles than Brian [Wilson]." Ravi Shankar, with whom Harrison studied for six weeks in India in late 1966, had a significant effect on his musical development during the band's later years.


title: The Beatles

text: Originating as a skiffle group, the Beatles quickly embraced 1950s rock and roll and helped pioneer the Merseybeat genre, and their repertoire ultimately expanded to include a broad variety of pop music. Reflecting the range of styles they explored, Lennon said of "Beatles for Sale", "You could call our new one a Beatles country-and-western LP", while Gould credits "Rubber Soul" as "the instrument by which legions of folk-music enthusiasts were coaxed into the camp of pop".


title: The Beatles

text: Although the 1965 song "Yesterday" was not the first pop record to employ orchestral strings, it marked the group's first recorded use of classical music elements. Gould observes: "The more traditional sound of strings allowed for a fresh appreciation of their talent as composers by listeners who were otherwise allergic to the din of drums and electric guitars." They continued to experiment with string arrangements to various effect; "Sgt. Pepper"s "She's Leaving Home", for instance, is "cast in the of a sentimental Victorian ballad", Gould writes, "its words and music filled with the clichés of musical melodrama".


title: The Beatles

text: The band's stylistic range expanded in another direction with their 1966 B-side "Rain", described by Martin Strong as "the first overtly psychedelic Beatles record". Other psychedelic numbers followed, such as "Tomorrow Never Knows" (recorded before "Rain"), "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "I Am the Walrus". The influence of Indian classical music was evident in Harrison's "The Inner Light", "Love You To" and "Within You Without You" – Gould describes the latter two as attempts "to replicate the raga form in miniature".


title: The Beatles

text: Innovation was the most striking feature of their creative evolution, according to music historian and pianist Michael Campbell: "'A Day in the Life' encapsulates the art and achievement of the Beatles as well as any single track can. It highlights key features of their music: the sound imagination, the persistence of tuneful melody, and the close coordination between words and music. It represents a new category of song – more sophisticated than pop ... and uniquely innovative. There literally had never before been a song – classical or vernacular – that had blended so many disparate elements so imaginatively." Philosophy professor Bruce Ellis Benson agrees: "the Beatles ... give us a wonderful example of how such far-ranging influences as Celtic music, rhythm and blues, and country and western could be put together in a new way."


title: The Beatles

text: Author Dominic Pedler describes the way they crossed musical styles: "Far from moving sequentially from one genre to another (as is sometimes conveniently suggested) the group maintained "in parallel" their mastery of the traditional, catchy chart hit while simultaneously forging rock and dabbling with a wide range of peripheral influences from country to vaudeville. One of these threads was their take on folk music, which would form such essential groundwork for their later collisions with Indian music and philosophy." As the personal relationships between the band members grew increasingly strained, their individual tastes became more apparent. The minimalistic cover artwork for the White Album contrasted with the complexity and diversity of its music, which encompassed Lennon's "Revolution 9" (whose musique concrète approach was influenced by Yoko Ono), Starr's country song "Don't Pass Me By", Harrison's rock ballad "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", and the " roar" of McCartney's "Helter Skelter".


title: The Beatles

text: George Martin's close involvement in his role as producer made him one of the leading candidates for the informal title of the "fifth Beatle". He applied his classical musical training in various ways, and functioned as "an informal music teacher" to the progressing songwriters, according to Gould. Martin suggested to a sceptical McCartney that the arrangement of "Yesterday" should feature a string quartet accompaniment, thereby introducing the Beatles to a "hitherto unsuspected world of classical instrumental colour", in MacDonald's description. Their creative development was also facilitated by Martin's willingness to experiment in response to their suggestions, such as adding "something baroque" to a particular recording. In addition to scoring orchestral arrangements for recordings, Martin often performed on them, playing instruments including piano, organ and brass.


title: The Beatles

text: Collaborating with Lennon and McCartney required Martin to adapt to their different approaches to songwriting and recording. MacDonald comments, "while [he] worked more naturally with the conventionally articulate McCartney, the challenge of catering to Lennon's intuitive approach generally spurred him to his more original arrangements, of which "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" is an outstanding example." Martin said of the two composers' distinct songwriting styles and his stabilising influence:


title: The Beatles

text: Harrison echoed Martin's description of his stabilising role: "I think we just grew through those years together, him as the straight man and us as the loonies; but he was always there for us to interpret our madness – we used to be slightly avant-garde on certain days of the week, and he would be there as the anchor person, to communicate that through the engineers and on to the tape."


title: The Beatles

text: Making innovative use of technology while expanding the possibilities of recorded music, the Beatles urged experimentation by Martin and his recording engineers. Seeking ways to put chance occurrences to creative use, accidental guitar feedback, a resonating glass bottle, a tape loaded the wrong way round so that it played backwards – any of these might be incorporated into their music. Their desire to create new sounds on every new recording, combined with Martin's arranging abilities and the studio expertise of EMI staff engineers Norman Smith, Ken Townsend and Geoff Emerick, all contributed significantly to their records from "Rubber Soul" and, especially, "Revolver" onwards.


title: The Beatles

text: Along with innovative studio techniques such as sound effects, unconventional microphone placements, tape loops, double tracking and vari-speed recording, the Beatles augmented their songs with instruments that were unconventional in rock music at the time. These included string and brass ensembles as well as Indian instruments such as the sitar in "Norwegian Wood" and the swarmandal in "Strawberry Fields Forever". They also used novel electronic instruments such as the Mellotron, with which McCartney supplied the flute voices on the "Strawberry Fields Forever" intro, and the clavioline, an electronic keyboard that created the unusual oboe-like sound on "Baby, You're a Rich Man".


title: The Beatles

text: Former "Rolling Stone" associate editor Robert Greenfield compared the Beatles to Picasso, as "artists who broke through the constraints of their time period to come up with something that was unique and original ... [I]n the form of popular music, no one will ever be more revolutionary, more creative and more distinctive ..." The British poet Philip Larkin described their work as "an enchanting and intoxicating hybrid of Negro rock-and-roll with their own adolescent romanticism", and "the first advance in popular music since the War".


title: The Beatles

text: The Beatles' 1964 arrival in the US is credited with initiating the album era; the music historian Joel Whitburn says that LP sales soon "exploded and eventually outpaced the sales and releases of singles" in the music industry. They not only sparked the British Invasion of the US, they became a globally influential phenomenon as well. From the 1920s, the US had dominated popular entertainment culture throughout much of the world, via Hollywood films, jazz, the music of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley and, later, the rock and roll that first emerged in Memphis, Tennessee. The Beatles are regarded as British cultural icons, with young adults from abroad naming the band among a group of people whom they most associated with UK culture.


title: The Beatles

text: Their musical innovations and commercial success inspired musicians worldwide. Many artists have acknowledged the Beatles' influence and enjoyed chart success with covers of their songs. On radio, their arrival marked the beginning of a new era; in 1968 the programme director of New York's WABC radio station forbade his DJs from playing any "pre-Beatles" music, marking the defining line of what would be considered oldies on American radio. They helped to redefine the album as something more than just a few hits padded out with "filler", and they were primary innovators of the modern music video. The Shea Stadium show with which they opened their 1965 North American tour attracted an estimated 55,600 people, then the largest audience in concert history; Spitz describes the event as a "major breakthrough ... a giant step toward reshaping the concert business". Emulation of their clothing and especially their hairstyles, which became a mark of rebellion, had a global impact on fashion.


title: The Beatles

text: According to Gould, the Beatles changed the way people listened to popular music and experienced its role in their lives. From what began as the Beatlemania fad, the group's popularity grew into what was seen as an embodiment of sociocultural movements of the decade. As icons of the 1960s counterculture, Gould continues, they became a catalyst for bohemianism and activism in various social and political arenas, fuelling movements such as women's liberation, gay liberation and environmentalism. According to Peter Lavezzoli, after the "more popular than Jesus" controversy in 1966, the Beatles felt considerable pressure to say the right things and "began a concerted effort to spread a message of wisdom and higher consciousness".


title: The Beatles

text: Other commentators such as Mikal Gilmore and Todd Leopold have traced the inception of their socio-cultural impact earlier, interpreting even the Beatlemania period, particularly on their first visit to the US, as a key moment in the development of generational awareness.<ref name="Leopold (Beatlemania/CNN)"></ref> Referring to their appearance on "the Ed Sullivan Show" Leopold states: "In many ways, the Sullivan appearance marked the beginning of a cultural revolution ... The Beatles were like aliens dropped into the United States of 1964." According to Gilmore:


title: The Beatles

text: Established in 2009, Global Beatles Day is an annual holiday on 25 June each year that honours and celebrates the ideals of the Beatles. The date was chosen to commemorate the date the group participated in the BBC programme "Our World" in 1967, performing "All You Need Is Love" broadcast to an international audience.


title: The Beatles

text: In 1965, Queen Elizabeth II appointed Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). The Beatles won the 1971 Academy Award for Best Original Song Score for the film "Let It Be" (1970). The recipients of seven Grammy Awards and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards, the Beatles have six Diamond albums, as well as 20 Multi-Platinum albums, 16 Platinum albums and six Gold albums in the US. In the UK, the Beatles have four Multi-Platinum albums, four Platinum albums, eight Gold albums and one Silver album. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.


title: The Beatles

text: The best-selling band in history, the Beatles have sold more than 600 million units . From 1991 to 2009 The Beatles have sold 57 million albums in United States according to Nielsen Soundscan. They have had more number-one albums on the UK charts, fifteen, and sold more singles in the UK, 21.9 million, than any other act. In 2004, "Rolling Stone" ranked the Beatles as the most significant and influential rock music artists of the last 50 years. They ranked number one on "Billboard" magazine's list of the all-time most successful Hot 100 artists, released in 2008 to celebrate the US singles chart's 50th anniversary. , they hold the record for most number-one hits on the "Billboard" Hot 100, with twenty. The Recording Industry Association of America certifies that the Beatles have sold 183 million units in the US, more than any other artist. They were collectively included in "Time" magazine's compilation of the . In 2014, they received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.


title: The Beatles

text: On 16 January each year, beginning in 2001, people celebrate World Beatles Day under UNESCO. This date has direct relation to the opening of the Cavern Club in 1957. In 2007, the Beatles became the first band to feature on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail.


title: The Beatles

text: Through 1969, the Beatles' catalogue was published almost exclusively by Northern Songs Ltd, a company formed in February 1963 by music publisher Dick James specifically for Lennon and McCartney, though it later acquired songs by other artists. The company was organised with James and his partner, Emmanuel Silver, owning a controlling interest, variously described as 51% or 50% plus one share. McCartney had 20%. Reports again vary concerning Lennon's portion – 19 or 20% – and Brian Epstein's – 9 or 10% – which he received in lieu of a 25% band management fee. In 1965, the company went public. Five million shares were created, of which the original principals retained 3.75 million. James and Silver each received 937,500 shares (18.75% of 5 million); Lennon and McCartney each received 750,000 shares (15%); and Epstein's management company, NEMS Enterprises, received 375,000 shares (7.5%). Of the 1.25 million shares put up for sale, Harrison and Starr each acquired 40,000. At the time of the stock offering, Lennon and McCartney renewed their three-year publishing contracts, binding them to Northern Songs until 1973.


title: The Beatles

text: Harrison created Harrisongs to represent his Beatles compositions, but signed a three-year contract with Northern Songs that gave it the copyright to his work through March 1968, which included "Taxman" and "Within You Without You". The songs on which Starr received co-writing credit before 1968, such as "What Goes On" and "Flying", were also Northern Songs copyrights. Harrison did not renew his contract with Northern Songs when it ended, signing instead with Apple Publishing while retaining the copyright to his work from that point on. Harrison thus owns the rights to his later Beatles songs such as "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Something". That year, as well, Starr created Startling Music, which holds the rights to his Beatles compositions, "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden".


title: The Beatles

text: In March 1969, James arranged to sell his and his partner's shares of Northern Songs to the British broadcasting company Associated Television (ATV), founded by impresario Lew Grade, without first informing the Beatles. The band then made a bid to gain a controlling interest by attempting to work out a deal with a consortium of London brokerage firms that had accumulated a 14% holding. The deal collapsed over the objections of Lennon, who declared, "I'm sick of being fucked about by men in suits sitting on their fat arses in the City." By the end of May, ATV had acquired a majority stake in Northern Songs, controlling nearly the entire Lennon–McCartney catalogue, as well as any future material until 1973. In frustration, Lennon and McCartney sold their shares to ATV in late October 1969.


title: The Beatles

text: In 1981, financial losses by ATV's parent company, Associated Communications Corporation (ACC), led it to attempt to sell its music division. According to authors Brian Southall and Rupert Perry, Grade contacted McCartney, offering ATV Music and Northern Songs for $30 million. According to an account McCartney gave in 1995, he met with Grade and explained he was interested solely in the Northern Songs catalogue if Grade were ever willing to "separate off" that portion of ATV Music. Soon afterwards, Grade offered to sell him Northern Songs for £20 million, giving the ex-Beatle "a week or so" to decide. By McCartney's account, he and Ono countered with a £5 million bid that was rejected. According to reports at the time, Grade refused to separate Northern Songs and turned down an offer of £21–25 million from McCartney and Ono for Northern Songs. In 1982, ACC was acquired in a takeover by Australian business magnate Robert Holmes à Court for £60 million.


title: The Beatles

text: In 1985, Michael Jackson purchased ATV for a reported $47.5 million. The acquisition gave him control over the publishing rights to more than 200 Beatles songs, as well as 40,000 other copyrights. In 1995, in a deal that earned him a reported $110 million, Jackson merged his music publishing business with Sony, creating a new company, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, in which he held a 50% stake. The merger made the new company, then valued at over half a billion dollars, the third-largest music publisher in the world. In 2016, Sony acquired Jackson's share of Sony/ATV from the Jackson estate for $750 million.


title: The Beatles

text: Despite the lack of publishing rights to most of their songs, Lennon's estate and McCartney continue to receive their respective shares of the writers' royalties, which together are 33% of total commercial proceeds in the US and which vary elsewhere around the world between 50 and 55%. Two of Lennon and McCartney's earliest songs – "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You" – were published by an EMI subsidiary, Ardmore & Beechwood, before they signed with James. McCartney acquired their publishing rights from Ardmore in 1978, and they are the only two Beatles songs owned by McCartney's company MPL Communications. On 18 January 2017, McCartney filed a suit in the United States district court against Sony/ATV Music Publishing seeking to reclaim ownership of his share of the Lennon–McCartney song catalogue beginning in 2018. Under US copyright law, for works published before 1978 the author can reclaim copyrights assigned to a publisher after 56 years. McCartney and Sony agreed to a confidential settlement in June 2017.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has played its home games at Anfield since its formation.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Domestically, the club has won nineteen League titles, eight FA Cups, a record nine League Cups and sixteen FA Community Shields. In international competitions, the club has won six European Cups, three UEFA Cups, four UEFA Super Cups—all English records—and one FIFA Club World Cup. The club established itself as a major force in domestic and European football in the 1970s and 1980s, when Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Kenny Dalglish, led the club to a combined eleven League titles and four European Cups. Liverpool won two further European Cups in 2005 and 2019 under the management of Rafael Benítez and Jürgen Klopp, respectively; the latter led Liverpool to a nineteenth League title in 2020, the club's first during the Premier League era.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Liverpool is one of the most valuable and widely supported clubs in the world. The club has long-standing rivalries with Manchester United and Everton. Under management by Shankly, in 1964 the team changed from red shirts and white shorts to an all-red home strip which has been used ever since. The club's anthem is "You'll Never Walk Alone".


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: The club's supporters have been involved in two major tragedies. The Heysel Stadium disaster, where escaping fans were pressed against a collapsing wall at the 1985 European Cup Final in Brussels, resulted in 39 deaths. Most of these were Italians and Juventus fans. Liverpool were given a six-year ban from European competition, with all other English clubs received a five-year ban. The Hillsborough disaster in 1989, where 97 Liverpool supporters died in a crush against perimeter fencing, led to the elimination of fenced standing terraces in favour of all-seater stadiums in the top two tiers of English football. Prolonged campaigning for justice saw further coroners inquests, commissions and independent panels that ultimately exonerated the fans.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Liverpool F.C. was founded following a dispute between the Everton committee and John Houlding, club president and owner of the land at Anfield. After eight years at the stadium, Everton relocated to Goodison Park in 1892 and Houlding founded Liverpool F.C. to play at Anfield. Originally named "Everton F.C. and Athletic Grounds Ltd" (Everton Athletic for short), the club became Liverpool F.C. in March 1892 and gained official recognition three months later, after The Football Association refused to recognise the club as Everton.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Liverpool played their first match on 1 September 1892, a pre-season friendly match against Rotherham Town, which they won 7–1. The team Liverpool fielded against Rotherham was composed entirely of Scottish players – the players who came from Scotland to play in England in those days were known as the Scotch Professors. Manager John McKenna had recruited the players after a scouting trip to Scotland – so they became known as the "team of Macs". The team won the Lancashire League in its debut season and joined the Football League Second Division at the start of the 1893–94 season. After the club was promoted to the First Division in 1896, Tom Watson was appointed manager. He led Liverpool to its first league title in 1901, before winning it again in 1906.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Liverpool reached its first FA Cup Final in 1914, losing 1–0 to Burnley. It won consecutive League championships in 1922 and 1923, but did not win another trophy until the 1946–47 season, when the club won the First Division for a fifth time under the control of ex-West Ham United centre half George Kay. Liverpool suffered its second Cup Final defeat in 1950, playing against Arsenal. The club was relegated to the Second Division in the 1953–54 season. Soon after Liverpool lost 2–1 to non-league Worcester City in the 1958–59 FA Cup, Bill Shankly was appointed manager. Upon his arrival he released 24 players and converted a boot storage room at Anfield into a room where the coaches could discuss strategy; here, Shankly and other "Boot Room" members Joe Fagan, Reuben Bennett, and Bob Paisley began reshaping the team.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: The club was promoted back into the First Division in 1962 and won it in 1964, for the first time in 17 years. In 1965, the club won its first FA Cup. In 1966, the club won the First Division but lost to Borussia Dortmund in the European Cup Winners' Cup final. Liverpool won both the League and the UEFA Cup during the 1972–73 season, and the FA Cup again a year later. Shankly retired soon afterwards and was replaced by his assistant, Bob Paisley. In 1976, Paisley's second season as manager, the club won another League and UEFA Cup double. The following season, the club retained the League title and won the European Cup for the first time, but it lost in the 1977 FA Cup Final. Liverpool retained the European Cup in 1978 and regained the First Division title in 1979. During Paisley's nine seasons as manager Liverpool won 20 trophies, including three European Cups, a UEFA Cup, six League titles and three consecutive League Cups; the only domestic trophy he did not win was the FA Cup.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Paisley retired in 1983 and was replaced by his assistant, Joe Fagan. Liverpool won the League, League Cup and European Cup in Fagan's first season, becoming the first English side to win three trophies in a season. Liverpool reached the European Cup final again in 1985, against Juventus at the Heysel Stadium. Before kick-off, Liverpool fans breached a fence that separated the two groups of supporters and charged the Juventus fans. The resulting weight of people caused a retaining wall to collapse, killing 39 fans, mostly Italians. The incident became known as the Heysel Stadium disaster. The match was played in spite of protests by both managers, and Liverpool lost 1–0 to Juventus. As a result of the tragedy, English clubs were banned from participating in European competition for five years; Liverpool received a ten-year ban, which was later reduced to six years. Fourteen Liverpool fans received convictions for involuntary manslaughter.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Fagan had announced his retirement just before the disaster and Kenny Dalglish was appointed as player-manager. During his tenure, the club won another three league titles and two FA Cups, including a League and Cup "Double" in the 1985–86 season. Liverpool's success was overshadowed by the Hillsborough disaster: in an FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest on 15 April 1989, hundreds of Liverpool fans were crushed against perimeter fencing. Ninety-four fans died that day; the 95th victim died in hospital from his injuries four days later, the 96th died nearly four years later, without regaining consciousness, and the 97th, Andrew Devine, died of injuries sustained in the disaster in 2021. After the Hillsborough disaster there was a government review of stadium safety. The resulting Taylor Report paved the way for legislation that required top-division teams to have all-seater stadiums. The report ruled that the main reason for the disaster was overcrowding due to a failure of police control.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Liverpool was involved in the closest finish to a league season during the 1988–89 season. Liverpool finished equal with Arsenal on both points and goal difference, but lost the title on total goals scored when Arsenal scored the final goal in the last minute of the season.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Dalglish cited the Hillsborough disaster and its repercussions as the reason for his resignation in 1991; he was replaced by former player Graeme Souness. Under his leadership Liverpool won the 1992 FA Cup Final, but their league performances slumped, with two consecutive sixth-place finishes, eventually resulting in his dismissal in January 1994. Souness was replaced by Roy Evans, and Liverpool went on to win the 1995 Football League Cup Final. While they made some title challenges under Evans, third-place finishes in 1996 and 1998 were the best they could manage, and so Gérard Houllier was appointed co-manager in the 1998–99 season, and became the sole manager in November 1998 after Evans resigned. In 2001, Houllier's second full season in charge, Liverpool won a "treble": the FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup. Houllier underwent major heart surgery during the 2001–02 season and Liverpool finished second in the League, behind Arsenal. They won a further League Cup in 2003, but failed to mount a title challenge in the two seasons that followed.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Houllier was replaced by Rafael Benítez at the end of the 2003–04 season. Despite finishing fifth in Benítez's first season, Liverpool won the 2004–05 UEFA Champions League, beating A.C. Milan 3–2 in a penalty shootout after the match ended with a score of 3–3. The following season, Liverpool finished third in the Premier League and won the 2006 FA Cup Final, beating West Ham United in a penalty shootout after the match finished 3–3. American businessmen George Gillett and Tom Hicks became the owners of the club during the 2006–07 season, in a deal which valued the club and its outstanding debts at £218.9 million. The club reached the 2007 UEFA Champions League Final against Milan, as it had in 2005, but lost 2–1. During the 2008–09 season Liverpool achieved 86 points, its then-highest Premier League points total, prior to the record-breaking 2018-19 season, and finished as runners up to Manchester United.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: In the 2009–10 season, Liverpool finished seventh in the Premier League and failed to qualify for the Champions League. Benítez subsequently left by mutual consent and was replaced by Fulham manager Roy Hodgson. At the start of the 2010–11 season Liverpool was on the verge of bankruptcy and the club's creditors asked the High Court to allow the sale of the club, overruling the wishes of Hicks and Gillett. John W. Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox and of Fenway Sports Group, bid successfully for the club and took ownership in October 2010. Poor results during the start of that season led to Hodgson leaving the club by mutual consent and former player and manager Kenny Dalglish taking over. In the 2011–12 season, Liverpool secured a record 8th League Cup success and reached the FA Cup final, but finished in eighth position, the worst league finish in 18 years; this led to the sacking of Dalglish. He was replaced by Brendan Rodgers, whose Liverpool team in the 2013–14 season mounted an unexpected title charge to finish second behind champions Manchester City and subsequently return to the Champions League, scoring 101 goals in the process, the most since the 106 scored in the 1895–96 season. Following a disappointing 2014–15 season, where Liverpool finished sixth in the league, and a poor start to the following campaign, Rodgers was sacked in October 2015.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Rodgers was replaced by Jürgen Klopp. Liverpool reached the finals of the Football League Cup and UEFA Europa League in Klopp's first season, finishing as runner-up in both competitions. The club finished second in the 2018–19 season with 97 points (surpassing the 86 points gained during the 2008–09 season), losing only one game: a points record for a non-title winning side. Klopp took Liverpool to successive Champions League finals in 2018 and 2019, with the club defeating Tottenham Hotspur 2–0 to win the 2019 UEFA Champions League Final. Liverpool beat Flamengo of Brazil in the final 1–0 to win the FIFA Club World Cup for the first time. Liverpool then went on to win the 2019–20 Premier League, winning their first top-flight league title in thirty years. The club set multiple records in the season, including winning the league with seven games remaining making it the earliest any team has ever won the title, amassing a club record 99 points, and achieving a joint-record 32 wins in a top-flight season.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: For much of Liverpool's history, its home colours have been all red. When the club was founded in 1892, blue and white quartered shirts were used until the club adopted the city's colour of red in 1896. The city's symbol of the liver bird was adopted as the club's badge (or crest, as it is sometimes known) in 1901, although it was not incorporated into the kit until 1955. Liverpool continued to wear red shirts and white shorts until 1964 when manager Bill Shankly decided to change to an all-red strip. Liverpool played in all red for the first time against Anderlecht, as Ian St John recalled in his autobiography:


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: The Liverpool away strip has more often than not been all yellow or white shirts and black shorts, but there have been several exceptions. An all grey kit was introduced in 1987, which was used until the 1991–92 centenary season when it was replaced by a combination of green shirts and white shorts. After various colour combinations in the 1990s, including gold and navy, bright yellow, black and grey, and ecru, the club alternated between yellow and white away kits until the 2008–09 season, when it re-introduced the grey kit. A third kit is designed for European away matches, though it is also worn in domestic away matches on occasions when the current away kit clashes with a team's home kit. Between 2012 and 2015, the kits were designed by Warrior Sports, who became the club's kit providers at the start of the 2012–13 season. In February 2015, Warrior's parent company New Balance announced it would be entering the global football market, with teams sponsored by Warrior now being outfitted by New Balance. The only other branded shirts worn by the club were made by Umbro until 1985, when they were replaced by Adidas, who produced the kits until 1996 when Reebok took over. They produced the kits for 10 years before Adidas made the kits from 2006 to 2012. Nike became the club's official kit supplier at the start of the 2020–21 season.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Liverpool was the first English professional club to have a sponsor's logo on its shirts, after agreeing a deal with Hitachi in 1979. Since then the club has been sponsored by Crown Paints, Candy, Carlsberg and Standard Chartered. The contract with Carlsberg, which was signed in 1992, was the longest-lasting agreement in English top-flight football. The association with Carlsberg ended at the start of the 2010–11 season, when Standard Chartered Bank became the club's sponsor.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: The Liverpool badge is based on the city's liver bird symbol, which in the past had been placed inside a shield. In 1977, a red liver bird standing on a football (blazoned as ""Statant upon a football a Liver Bird wings elevated and addorsed holding in the beak a piece of seaweed gules"") was granted as a heraldic badge by the College of Arms to the English Football League intended for use by Liverpool. However, Liverpool never made use of this badge. In 1992, to commemorate the centennial of the club, a new badge was commissioned, including a representation of the Shankly Gates. The next year twin flames were added at either side, symbolic of the Hillsborough memorial outside Anfield, where an eternal flame burns in memory of those who died in the Hillsborough disaster. In 2012, Warrior Sports' first Liverpool kit removed the shield and gates, returning the badge to what had adorned Liverpool shirts in the 1970s; the flames were moved to the back collar of the shirt, surrounding the number 96 for the number who died at Hillsborough.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Situated 2 miles (3 km) from Liverpool city centre, it was originally used by Everton before the club moved to Goodison Park after a dispute over rent with Anfield owner John Houlding. Left with an empty ground, Houlding founded Liverpool in 1892 and the club has played at Anfield ever since. The capacity of the stadium at the time was 20,000, although only 100 spectators attended Liverpool's first match at Anfield.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: The Kop was built in 1906 due to the high turnout for matches and was called the Oakfield Road Embankment initially. Its first game was on 1 September 1906 when the home side beat Stoke City 1–0. In 1906 the banked stand at one end of the ground was formally renamed the Spion Kop after a hill in KwaZulu-Natal. The hill was the site of the Battle of Spion Kop in the Second Boer War, where over 300 men of the Lancashire Regiment died, many of them from Liverpool. At its peak, the stand could hold 28,000 spectators and was one of the largest single-tier stands in the world. Many stadiums in England had stands named after Spion Kop, but Anfield's was the largest of them at the time; it could hold more supporters than some entire football grounds.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Anfield could accommodate more than 60,000 supporters at its peak and had a capacity of 55,000 until the 1990s, when, following recommendations from the "Taylor Report", all clubs in the Premier League were obliged to convert to all-seater stadiums in time for the 1993–94 season, reducing its capacity to 45,276. The findings of the report precipitated the redevelopment of the Kemlyn Road Stand, which was rebuilt in 1992, coinciding with the centenary of the club, and was known as the Centenary Stand until 2017 when it was renamed the Kenny Dalglish Stand. An extra tier was added to the Anfield Road end in 1998, which further increased the capacity of the ground but gave rise to problems when it was opened. A series of support poles and stanchions were inserted to give extra stability to the top tier of the stand after movement of the tier was reported at the start of the 1999–2000 season.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Because of restrictions on expanding the capacity at Anfield, Liverpool announced plans to move to the proposed Stanley Park Stadium in May 2002. Planning permission was granted in July 2004, and in September 2006, Liverpool City Council agreed to grant Liverpool a 999-year lease on the proposed site. Following the takeover of the club by George Gillett and Tom Hicks in February 2007, the proposed stadium was redesigned. The new design was approved by the Council in November 2007. The stadium was scheduled to open in August 2011 and would hold 60,000 spectators, with HKS, Inc. contracted to build the stadium. Construction was halted in August 2008, as Gillett and Hicks had difficulty in financing the £300 million needed for the development. In October 2012, BBC Sport reported that Fenway Sports Group, the new owners of Liverpool FC, had decided to redevelop their current home at Anfield stadium, rather than building a new stadium in Stanley Park. As part of the redevelopment the capacity of Anfield was to increase from 45,276 to approximately 60,000 and would cost approximately £150m. When construction was completed on the new Main stand the capacity of Anfield was increased to 54,074. This £100 million expansion added a third tier to the stand. This was all part of a £260 million project to improve the Anfield area. Jürgen Klopp the manager at the time described the stand as "impressive."


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: In June 2021, it was reported that Liverpool Council had given planning permission for the club to renovate and expand the Anfield Road stand, boosting the capacity by around 7,000 and taking the overall capacity at Anfield to 61,000. The expansion, which is estimated to cost £60m, was described as "a huge milestone" by managing director Andy Hughes, and would also see rail seating being trialled in the Kop for the 2021–22 Premier League season.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Liverpool is one of the best supported clubs in the world. The club states that its worldwide fan base includes more than 200 officially recognised Supporters Clubs in at least 50 countries. Notable groups include Spirit of Shankly. The club takes advantage of this support through its worldwide summer tours, which has included playing in front of 101,000 in Michigan, U.S., and 95,000 in Melbourne, Australia. Liverpool fans often refer to themselves as Kopites, a reference to the fans who once stood, and now sit, on the Kop at Anfield. In 2008 a group of fans decided to form a splinter club, A.F.C. Liverpool, to play matches for fans who had been priced out of watching Premier League football.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: The song "You'll Never Walk Alone", originally from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Carousel" and later recorded by Liverpool musicians Gerry and the Pacemakers, is the club's anthem and has been sung by the Anfield crowd since the early 1960s. It has since gained popularity among fans of other clubs around the world. The song's title adorns the top of the Shankly Gates, which were unveiled on 2 August 1982 in memory of former manager Bill Shankly. The "You'll Never Walk Alone" portion of the Shankly Gates is also reproduced on the club's badge.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: The club's supporters have been involved in two stadium disasters. The first was the 1985 Heysel Stadium disaster, in which 39 people, mostly Italians and Juventus supporters, were killed. They were confined to a corner by Liverpool fans who had charged in their direction; the weight of the cornered fans caused a wall to collapse. UEFA laid the blame for the incident solely on the Liverpool supporters, and banned all English clubs from European competition for five years. Liverpool was banned for an additional year, preventing it from participating in the 1990–91 European Cup, even though it won the League in 1990. Twenty-seven fans were arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and were extradited to Belgium in 1987 to face trial. In 1989, after a five-month trial in Belgium, 14 Liverpool fans were given three-year sentences for involuntary manslaughter; half of the terms were suspended.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: The second disaster took place during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, on 15 April 1989. Ninety-seven Liverpool fans died as a consequence of overcrowding at the Leppings Lane end, in what became known as the Hillsborough disaster. In the following days, "The Sun"s coverage of the event spread falsehoods, particularly an article entitled "The Truth" that claimed that Liverpool fans had robbed the dead and had urinated on and attacked the police. Subsequent investigations proved the allegations false, leading to a boycott of the newspaper by Liverpool fans across the city and elsewhere; many still refuse to buy "The Sun" 30 years later. Many support organisations were set up in the wake of the disaster, such as the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, which represents bereaved families, survivors and supporters in their efforts to secure justice.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Liverpool's longest-established rivalry is with fellow Liverpool team Everton, against whom they contest the Merseyside derby. The rivalry stems from Liverpool's formation and the dispute with Everton officials and the then owners of Anfield. The Merseyside derby is one of the few local derbies which do not enforce fan segregation, and hence has been known as the "friendly derby". Since the mid-1980s, the rivalry has intensified both on and off the field and, since the inception of the Premier League in 1992, the Merseyside derby has had more players sent off than any other Premier League game. It has been referred to as "the most ill-disciplined and explosive fixture in the Premier League". In terms of support within the city, the number of Liverpool fans outweighs Everton supporters by a ratio of 2:1.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Liverpool's rivalry with Manchester United stems from the cities' competition in the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. Connected by the world's first inter-city railway, by road Liverpool and Manchester are separated by approximately 30 miles (48 km) along the East Lancs Road. Ranked the two biggest clubs in England by "France Football" magazine, Liverpool and Manchester United are the most successful English teams in both domestic and international competitions, and both clubs have a global fanbase. Viewed as one of the biggest rivalries in world football, it is considered the most famous fixture in English football. The two clubs alternated as champions between 1964 and 1967, and Manchester United became the first English team to win the European Cup in 1968, followed by Liverpool's four European Cup victories. Despite the 39 league titles and nine European Cups between them the two rivals have rarely been successful at the same time – Liverpool's run of titles in the 1970s and 1980s coincided with Manchester United's 26-year title drought, and United's success in the Premier League-era likewise coincided with Liverpool's 30-year title drought, and the two clubs have finished first and second in the league only five times. Such is the rivalry between the clubs they rarely do transfer business with each other. The last player to be transferred between the two clubs was Phil Chisnall, who moved to Liverpool from Manchester United in 1964.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: As the owner of Anfield and founder of Liverpool, John Houlding was the club's first chairman, a position he held from its founding in 1892 until 1904. John McKenna took over as chairman after Houlding's departure. McKenna subsequently became President of the Football League. The chairmanship changed hands many times before John Smith, whose father was a shareholder of the club, took up the role in 1973. He oversaw the most successful period in Liverpool's history before stepping down in 1990. His successor was Noel White who became chairman in 1990. In August 1991 David Moores, whose family had owned the club for more than 50 years, became chairman. His uncle John Moores was also a shareholder at Liverpool and was chairman of Everton from 1961 to 1973. Moores owned 51 percent of the club, and in 2004 expressed his willingness to consider a bid for his shares in Liverpool.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Moores eventually sold the club to American businessmen George Gillett and Tom Hicks on 6 February 2007. The deal valued the club and its outstanding debts at £218.9 million. The pair paid £5,000 per share, or £174.1m for the total shareholding and £44.8m to cover the club's debts. Disagreements between Gillett and Hicks, and the fans' lack of support for them, resulted in the pair looking to sell the club. Martin Broughton was appointed chairman of the club on 16 April 2010 to oversee its sale. In May 2010, accounts were released showing the holding company of the club to be £350m in debt (due to leveraged takeover) with losses of £55m, causing auditor KPMG to qualify its audit opinion. The group's creditors, including the Royal Bank of Scotland, took Gillett and Hicks to court to force them to allow the board to proceed with the sale of the club, the major asset of the holding company. A High Court judge, Mr Justice Floyd, ruled in favour of the creditors and paved the way for the sale of the club to Fenway Sports Group (formerly New England Sports Ventures), although Gillett and Hicks still had the option to appeal. Liverpool was sold to Fenway Sports Group on 15 October 2010 for £300m.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Liverpool has been described as a global brand; a 2010 report valued the club's trademarks and associated intellectual property at £141m, an increase of £5m on the previous year. Liverpool was given a brand rating of AA (Very Strong). In April 2010 business magazine "Forbes" ranked Liverpool as the sixth most valuable football team in the world, behind Manchester United, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Barcelona and Bayern Munich; they valued the club at $822m (£532m), excluding debt. Accountants Deloitte ranked Liverpool eighth in the Deloitte Football Money League, which ranks the world's football clubs in terms of revenue. Liverpool's income in the 2009–10 season was €225.3m. According to a 2018 report by Deloitte, the club had an annual revenue of €424.2 million for the previous year, and "Forbes" valued the club at $1.944 billion. In 2018, annual revenue increased to €513.7 million, and "Forbes" valued the club at $2.183 billion. In 2019 revenue increased to €604 million (£533 million) according to Deloitte, with the club breaching the half a billion pounds mark.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: In April 2020, the owners of the club came under fire from fans and the media for deciding to furlough all non-playing staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. In response to this, the club made a U-turn on the decision and apologised for their initial decision. In April 2021 "Forbes" valued the club at $4.1 billion, a two-year increase of 88%, making it the world's fifth-most-valuable football club.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Liverpool featured in the first edition of BBC's "Match of the Day", which screened highlights of their match against Arsenal at Anfield on 22 August 1964. The first football match to be televised in colour was between Liverpool and West Ham United, broadcast live in March 1967. Liverpool fans featured in the Pink Floyd song "Fearless", in which they sang excerpts from "You'll Never Walk Alone". To mark the club's appearance in the 1988 FA Cup Final, Liverpool released the "Anfield Rap", a song featuring John Barnes and other members of the squad.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: A docudrama on the Hillsborough disaster, written by Jimmy McGovern, was screened in 1996. It featured Christopher Eccleston as Trevor Hicks, who lost two teenage daughters in the disaster, went on to campaign for safer stadiums and helped to form the Hillsborough Families Support Group. Liverpool featured in the 2001 film "The 51st State", in which ex-hitman Felix DeSouza (Robert Carlyle) is a keen supporter of the team and the last scene takes place at a match between Liverpool and Manchester United. The club also featured in the 1984 children's television show "Scully", about a young boy who tries to gain a trial with Liverpool. The opening scenes of the "Doctor Who" episode "The Halloween Apocalypse", aired in October 2021, features The Doctor (played by Jodie Whittaker) exiting the TARDIS outside Anfield as she exclaims: "Liverpool? Anfield! Klopp era, classic!".


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Since the establishment of the club in 1892, 45 players have been club captain of Liverpool F.C. Andrew Hannah became the first captain of the club after Liverpool separated from Everton and formed its own club. Alex Raisbeck, who was club captain from 1899 to 1909, was the longest serving captain before being overtaken by Steven Gerrard who served 12 seasons as Liverpool captain starting from the 2003–04 season. The present captain is Jordan Henderson, who in the 2015–16 season replaced Gerrard who moved to LA Galaxy.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Liverpool's first trophy was the Lancashire League, which it won in the club's first season. In 1901, the club won its first League title, while the nineteenth and most recent was in 2020. Its first success in the FA Cup was in 1965. In terms of the number of trophies won, Liverpool's most successful decade was the 1980s, when the club won six League titles, two FA Cups, four League Cups, one Football League Super Cup, five Charity Shields (one shared) and two European Cups.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: The club has accumulated more top-flight wins and points than any other English team. Liverpool also has the highest average league finishing position (3.3) for the 50-year period to 2015 and second-highest average league finishing position for the period 1900–1999 after Arsenal, with an average league placing of 8.7.


title: Liverpool F.C.

text: Liverpool is the most successful British club in international football with fourteen trophies, having won the European Cup/UEFA Champions League, UEFA's premier club competition, six times, an English record and only surpassed by Real Madrid and A.C. Milan. Liverpool's fifth European Cup win, in 2005, meant that the club was awarded the trophy permanently and was also awarded a multiple-winner badge. Liverpool also hold the English record of three wins in the UEFA Cup, UEFA's secondary club competition. Liverpool also hold the English record of four wins in the UEFA Super Cup. In 2019, the club won the FIFA Club World Cup for the first time, and also became the first English club to win the international treble of Club World Cup, Champions League and UEFA Super Cup.


title: Ted Bundy

text: Theodore Robert Bundy (born Cowell; November 24, 1946 – January 24, 1989) was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. After more than a decade of denials, he confessed to 30 murders committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. His true victim total is unknown and likely significantly higher.


title: Ted Bundy

text: Bundy was regarded as charismatic and handsome, and exploited this to win the trust of both his victims and society as a whole. He would typically approach his victims in public places, either feigning a physical impairment such as an injury, or impersonating an authority figure, before bludgeoning them into unconsciousness and taking them to secondary locations to be raped and strangled. Bundy often revisited his victims, grooming and performing sexual acts with the corpses until decomposition and destruction by wild animals made any further interactions impossible. He decapitated at least twelve victims and kept their severed heads as mementos in his apartment. On a few occasions, he broke into homes at night and bludgeoned his victims as they slept.


title: Ted Bundy

text: In 1975, Bundy was arrested and jailed in Utah for aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault. He then became a suspect in a progressively longer list of unsolved homicides in several states. Facing murder charges in Colorado, Bundy engineered two dramatic escapes and committed further assaults in Florida, including three murders, before his ultimate recapture in 1978. For the Florida homicides, he received three death sentences in two trials. Bundy was executed at Florida State Prison in Raiford on January 24, 1989.


title: Ted Bundy

text: Biographer Ann Rule described him as "a sadistic sociopath who took pleasure from another human's pain and the control he had over his victims, to the point of death and even after." Bundy once described himself as "the most cold-hearted son of a bitch you'll ever meet," a statement with which attorney Polly Nelson, a member of his last defense team, agreed. "Ted," she wrote, "was the very definition of heartless evil."


title: Ted Bundy

text: Ted Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell on November 24, 1946, to Eleanor Louise Cowell (1924–2012, known by her middle name) at the Elizabeth Lund Home for Unwed Mothers in Burlington, Vermont. His biological father's identity has never been confirmed; his original birth certificate apparently assigns paternity to a salesman and United States Air Force veteran named Lloyd Marshall, though a copy of it listed his father as unknown. Louise claimed she met a war veteran named Jack Worthington, who abandoned her soon after she became pregnant. Census records reveal that several men by the name of "John Worthington" and "Lloyd Marshall" lived near Louise when Bundy was conceived. Some family members expressed suspicions that Bundy might have been fathered by Louise's own father, Samuel Cowell. In the 2020 documentary film "Crazy, Not Insane", psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis claimed she got a sample of Bundy's blood—though she did not specify from where, and have arranged a DNA test which confirmed that Bundy was not the product of incest.