Of course, The Rutles were Beatles' impersonators. The were The Beatles of Beatles' Impersonators.
Contrary to what you'd think from the following video, their songs were seldom written to sound like parodies of specific individual Beatles songs. Their leader, the great Neil Innes, actually recycled several songs he had written for projects years earlier, with no original intention of emulating The Beatles. The modus operandi was to arrange and produce the songs in an accurate parody of The Beatles' records.
'Piggie In the Middle' and "Get Up And Go' (like 'Get Back') however, were too close!
The Dukes of Stratosphear -- Mole from the Ministry (1985)
Of course, this is actually the British pop group XTC getting psychedelic. Like The Rutles, none of their other songs sound this much like another song, as far as I know.
KLAATU -- Sub-Rosa Subway
In 1976, the rumor spread that this anonymous band were actually The Beatles. The rumor seemed to be a suspiciously useful way to promote Klaatus' lackluster record sales. They were actually three Canadian studio musicians. They don't really sound like The Beatles -- just Beatles inspired. This song is an exception -- starting off like a good mid-70s Wings track and ending all too much like The Beatles' 'All Too Much'. Another of their songs fades out like 'I Am the Walrus', but it takes something like seven minutes to get to it!
The Residents -- Beyond the Valley of A Day in the Life (1977)
Another anonymous band once rumored to be the fab four. These guys sound NOTHING like 'em! Probably the person who made up the rumor assumed that only a band with connections to The Beatles could so openly repurpose their material without getting sued out of existence!
Here is the cover of their debut album from 1974;
It would seem almost indecent to utilize all the following 'samples' with NO permission to do so, but that's exactly what The Residents did. Recently, The Residents' spokesman Homer Flynn marveled that, after much sampling of famous artists and utilizing frequent quotes from other compositions, (for 47 years and counting!) The Residents have never been sued -- an indicator that The Residents' 'victims' might actually choose to 'look the other way' out of respect for The Residents' as artists.
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