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Why The Beatles' Star Club Tapes Best Represent the Group's Early Bar-Band Spirit

These raw 1962 bootlegs capture the young Fab Four at their hungriest

"Any deep-delver into the Beatles' catalog is familiar with those raging pockets of sound where this band, so often remembered for their beautiful melodies and graceful harmonic transitions, could be one badass mother of a group.... They are the toughest recordings the Beatles ever made, the rawest, the most fun, perhaps, judging by their comments while making them, and maybe the most purely Beatles-esque, for it was a badass mother of a band the Beatles first set out to be, not the sonic wizards of a Revolver or a Sgt. Pepper. "

If you REALLY want to understand this article, and were a raw, powerful, insanely raw rock n roll band, listen to "I'm Talking About You" (leaving it out is this article's biggest flaw). It captures EVERYTHING you ever heard about the early band.