The Beatles: Podcasts From Yesterday

Pod­casts often have a nice way of bring­ing the past back to life. Bea­t­les fans will undoubt­ed­ly appre­ci­ate sev­er­al audio files ded­i­cat­ed to the Fab Four. Let’s start with a par­tic­u­lar­ly good one. Rolling Stone Mag­a­zine, as part of a web fea­ture called Lennon Lives Fore­over, has released a pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) of Jann Wen­ner’s famous 1970 inter­view with John Lennon, which was con­duct­ed short­ly after the band’s bit­ter breakup. Run­ning over 3 hours, it is one of Lennon’s most exten­sive inter­views, and it ranges broad­ly, touch­ing not just on the breakup, but also on art and pol­i­tics, drugs, Yoko, pri­mal ther­a­py and more. Anoth­er notable pod­cast along these lines is The Lost Lennon Tapes (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). Orig­i­nal­ly pre­sent­ed by West­wood One in 1988, this pod­cast presents a col­lec­tion of Lennon’s pri­vate tapes — tapes that include ear­ly record­ings of The Bea­t­les, radio inter­views with John, demo tapes, chron­i­cles of the Dou­ble Fan­ta­sy record­ing ses­sions, and pri­vate moments at home.

Next up is some­thing for George Har­ri­son fans. This pod­cast, called George Har­ri­son Liv­ing in a Mate­r­i­al World (iTunes — Web Site) takes a look back at George Harrison’s 3rd solo album. And, among oth­er things, it includes inter­views with artists who played on the album. Liv­ing in a Mate­r­i­al World, which went to #1 on the charts in 1973 and was dig­i­tal­ly remas­tered last year, rep­re­sents, at least for some, Har­rison’s most artis­ti­cal­ly pure solo work.

Last­ly, we con­clude with a cou­ple of pod­casts that look at The Bea­t­les as the col­lec­tive Bea­t­les. Here, we give you Beat­legs Pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), a show that always fea­tures rare inter­views or behind the scenes clips, fol­lowed by a rare out­take or live per­for­mance that few have heard before. And then there is Bea­t­les Minute (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), a pod­cast com­ing out of Philadel­phia that gives you short, dai­ly tid­bits about the band.

Bonus: you can get a few alter­na­tive takes on songs from the Help! and Abbey Road-era here. (The site pro­vides songs in mp3 for­mat.)

As a final note, all of these pod­casts are housed in our devel­op­ing Music Pod­cast Col­lec­tion. If you are not sure what a pod­cast is, check out our Pod­cast Primer. And final­ly, if you want more cul­tur­al media along these lines, be sure to Sub­scribe to Our Feed.