Knowing you have a problem is the first step to really enjoying it. Like Beatlemania. I’ve got it bad and that means I can’t help serving up any Fabs-adjacent musical act I run across. Today’s acts are afflicted too. Such sweet suffering …

Let’s kick things off with a straight-up cover album. Or is it? From Christchurch New Zealand Pickle Darling amble through five mid-period Beatles tunes on Oh Golly Gosh, It’s the Beatles, accent on ambling. These are very acoustic-guitar pleasant renderings of famous selections, slowed down and coloured in with original instrumentation. I mean, I never really realized how much “Hello Goodbye” needed a melodica accompaniment until now. Or check out the transformation of “We Can Work It Out” which now comes off like some Donovan hippy-era folk tune.

The year’s going-meta award has to go to Nick Frater for imagining a convincing album/song arc for everybody’s fave imaginary band, The Rutles. His first foray into this territory was spent imagining what a solo career might have sounded like from each of The Rutles’ four members. Now he goes backward to provide a ‘blue’ album of could-have-been hits on The Rebutles 1967​-​1970. The songs are all original works but they don’t hide their inspiration. I’m not going to spoil the fun of ‘spot the Beatles original’ but take “One Lump or Two” as an illustrative example. The pumping piano is clearly vibing “Lady Madonna” while the melody goes elsewhere.

Rounding things out on our faux pre-Fabs contributions are two tunes that name drop Beatle-isms shamelessly. And oh-so effectively I might add. Escape Artists hardly dent the internet. Who are they?  Maybe we’ll never know. At least we’ve got a great song with “Beatles For Sale.” The tune has an Alan Parson Project soft rock melodic charm while endlessly dropping Beatles song references. The concept should amount to an unlistenable hot mess but it works somehow. Meanwhile on “She Likes the Beatles (Party)” Radiant Radish Records house band The Robinsons bemoan how a punk rock girlfriend just keeps stealing song ideas from the singer’s Beatles, Beach Boys and Weezer tapes. Performed in a spot-on Beach Boys’ Party fake live style.

Image of the American Beetles courtesy Bill Ande. You can read more about this actual pre-fabbed fake Beatles that toured Latin America in 1964 here.