I always think it’s interesting when people look back in wonder at “The Beatles” as this amazing supernova, when the “supernova” part of it actually ended long before they did.  By the summer of 1966, they were annoyed by the whole thing, took a vacation, came back, and were never really the same.  No more touring, hardly even any live appearances, started taking themselves WAY too seriously, and just got…kind of weird.  Even if they were as commercially successful as ever- someday, maybe I’ll “get” why Sergeant Pepper was this otherworldly masterpiece, outside of producer George Martin doing most of the hard work– the nostalgia that Boomers reference almost all took place between 1963 and 1966.  By 1970, it already seemed like they had been separate entities for a while, and had they “stayed together”, it probably would have been mostly in name, anyway.  Also, the whole notion that Phil Spector “ruined” Let It Be only became conventional wisdom, once it was revealed that he was a psychopathic nutcase.

Putting all that aside, the details were still interesting, how the breakup unraveled and caught everyone off guard.  Another interesting sidenote is they did collaborate from time to time with each other (ie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ4EmA5X-PQ).  It rarely gets mentioned because none of it was very inspired, probably a good indication that breaking up was for the best.