How The Beatles’ Decision to Stop Touring Impacted Their Music for the Better
While The Beatles broke up in 1970, they had stopped touring by 1966. While many fans were disappointed they could no longer see their favorite band perform live, the decision to stop touring was great for The Beatles’ music. In the four years where The Beatles stopped touring, the group was able to make their most commercially successful music.
The Beatles stopped touring in 1966
The Beatles’ final tour occurred in North America in the summer of 1966. The tour consisted of 18 concerts and ended at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. While the public was unaware this would be their last tour, The Beatles knew they needed to take time away from performing. The screaming from fans was becoming too much, and they no longer enjoyed the experience.
According to Rolling Stone, Paul McCartney said concerts stopped being fun, and they knew Candlestick Park would be their final show before they walked on stage.
“It wasn’t fun anymore, and that was the main point: We’d always tried to keep some fun in it for ourselves,” he shared. “In anything you do you have to do that, and we’d been pretty good at it. But even now America was beginning to pall because of the conditions of tour, and because we’d done it so many times. So by Candlestick Park it was like, ‘Don’t tell anyone, but this is probably our last gig.’”
The band had more time to focus on their music
With no touring plans, The Beatles had more time to perfect their music. It also allowed them to experiment more, leading to some of their more psychedelic and meaningful tracks. Their first album after 1966 was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. While it took them the longest to make, it is one of the band’s most creative and experimental albums.
After Sgt. Pepper’s, band took a trip to Rishikesh, India, to participate in a Transcendental Meditation course. This course became a productive songwriting journey, and many of these songs were used on The White Album, and a few made it onto Abbey Road. George Harrison benefitted most from this trip as he developed a strong passion for Indian and spiritual music and culture.
Between the time they stopped touring, and before they split, The Beatles had made four albums: Sgt. Pepper’s, The White Album, Abbey Road, and Let it Be. All of these are arguably their best-known albums and contain dozens of hits. Since they no longer had to worry about touring, they had more time to perfect their music and deliver classic albums.
The Beatles made their most successful music after they stopped touring
The Beatles achieved unprecedented success with their music after they stopped touring. Sgt. Pepper’s remains their best-selling album, with Abbey Road and The White Album rounding out the top 3. Let it Be didn’t have the same success, but that’s because of the negative aura of it being their final album.
The top 3 also dominated the charts as each reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and held the spot for many consecutive weeks. Even now, these albums remain popular as they reappear on the charts whenever they are remastered or remixed.
