Review: 'The Zapple Diaries: The Rise and Fall of the Last Beatles Label'

Like most things Beatles-related, the story of Apple Records is well known and well documented. The story of Zapple records, however, tends to be more of a footnote in Beatles lore. It was the experimental subsidiary of Apple masterminded by Paul McCartney and Barry Miles, co-owner of Swinging London’s famed Indica Bookshop.

Zapple was a bit like that old story about the blind men and the elephant. Miles felt the label should be used to document the works of underground poets and intellectuals. McCartney pictured it as an outlet for his own watered down avant-garde pretentions. John Lennon imagined it as a means to document his existence with Yoko Ono. George Harrison thought it was a nuisance.