yellowstone's Journal: Was it a mistake for Decca to turn down the Beatles?

I just clicked on an article The Stupidest Business Decisions in History. First on the list was the record label Decca, declining to sign the Beatles to a record contract.

For those that aren't aware of the background: in the late 50s and early 60s, the Beatles were a cover band that, not to put too fine a point on it, played a lot of dives in Hamburg Germany. Along came Brian Epstien to be their manager, and set to work getting them a recording contract.

Epstien got them an audition with Decca, and early in the morning of January 1, 1962, the Beatles recorded 15 songs for them.

If you click through to look at the set list, notice it's mostly cover songs, along with three Lennon/McCartney originals. Also note that, with the exceptions of Money and Till there was you, none of these songs made it into their main-line releases. (Versions of some of them can be found on Live at the BBC).

The fact is... these demos are pretty underwhelming. There's just none of the raw energy you can hear on Please Please Me, and the Lennon/McCartney compositions don't come anywhere near the quality of their later work. (Four of the tracks are available on the Anthology 1 set, for those that are interested).

Of course, in rejecting the Beatles, Decca executives famously said "guitar groups are on the way out". But the fact is, even if they had prescience to know that was wrong, there's precious little evidence on the Decca audition recordings that the Beatles would or could lead a world-wide resurgence of guitar groups..

So, while Decca didn't handle things very well, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that John, Paul, George, and Pete Best were not the Fab Four (or even the Fab Three plus another guy) yet, and it probably would've been a mistake for Decca to sign them to a recording contract.

Dang

[Captain Splendid]

You totally had me until your last phrase.