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Outstanding
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Boston Globe Carlo Wolff
Bob Spitz's ''The Beatles" is a startlingly well-reported and consistently engaging revisionist biography of the most familiar, and arguably the best, pop group in history.
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
Spitz both captures a moment in time and humanizes his subjects. [3 Oct 2005, p. 64]
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Outstanding
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PopMatters Zeth Lundy
For the umpteenth time, is another biography of this band absolutely necessary? Yes: for the obsessive fan, the cultural archivist, the absolutely true believer, undoubtedly yes. Spitz's seven-year labor of love, an 860-page tome with nearly 100 pages of notes, is the definitive account of the Beatles to date, trumping even the band's own Anthology book in terms of readability and accuracy.
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Favorable
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The New York Times Book Review Jane and Michael Stern
Bob Spitz's beautifully written chronicle breathes new life into the familiar story of the Liverpool boys who conquered the world and became, according to a recent Variety poll, the most influential entertainers of the past century.
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Favorable
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Village Voice Richard Gehr
Spitz hits the Lennon-as-drug-addled-emotional-cripple note with jarring frequency, a riff that often obscures the bad-boy rock expressionist's outright genius... Otherwise, Spitz has done a masterful job of focusing his kaleidoscope eyes on the greatest pop thing since Jesus.
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Favorable
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Daily Telegraph Christopher Bray
The Beatles is a long book... and one that makes little attempt to analyse or explain its subject's musical successes and failures. But with its formidable accumulation of detail... it is the most vital account of the band since the late Ian Macdonald's Revolution in the Head.
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Favorable
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The New York Times Janet Maslin
With sweep already built into its story and the cumulative effects of the author's levelheaded, anecdotal approach, the book emerges as a consolidating and newly illuminating work. For the right reader, that combination is irresistible.
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Favorable
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Booklist June Sawyers
Spitz's group portrait should now be considered the definitive Beatles biography, especially for new generations of Beatles enthusiasts. [15 Sep 2005, p. 5]
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Favorable
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Christian Science Monitor John Kehe
If you're looking for insights into the flesh-and-blood men behind the mop tops--warts, peccadilloes, drugs, and all--then this is your definitive Beatles volume.
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Favorable
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Entertainment Weekly Bob Cannon
Do we really need another bio about The Beatles? If it's as detailed and comprehensive as this massive, 983-page doorstop, we do.
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Mixed
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Library Journal Lloyd Jansen
Despite ... flaws, The Beatles emerges as the most complete chronicle of the Fab Four to date. [15 Sept. 2005, p. 67]
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Mixed
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Chicago Tribune Mark Rozzo
In the end, the journey Spitz takes us on is all too much and yet not quite enough.
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Unfavorable
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Salon David Amsden
If "definitive" means producing a work as clumsy as it is ambitious, as flat is it is evocative, as stultifying as it is entertaining, then without question Spitz has succeeded.
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Unfavorable
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Kirkus Reviews
Coupled with pet peeves, a tin ear ... and some curious notions ... this obese book seems less the "definitive biography" Spitz proclaims than another exercise in ax-grinding for profit. [15 Sep 2005, p. 1016]
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