I get why the Beatles were so popular back in the 1960’s, but why now? Why do millions of people, many of whom weren’t even born when the Beatles were still together, think they’re so great?
I’m not saying that they aren’t worthy of adulation. I’m trying to understand why are they still so influential and popular? Is it the lyrics? The melodies? The haircuts? The accents?
What am I missing that I think they were OK but really no better or worse than any other group from the same era? Is it because I’m a Monkees fan?
And to keep this in IMHO, are there any other people/groups/things you don’t get the popularity of?
I really don’t think age is a factor. It’s does the stuff stand the test of time. Mozart will be known forever (IMHO).
I love the Beatles. Too Bad about Paul. http://www.getback.org/bpidnew.html
Well, I certainly don’t speak for everybody, but I can tell you why I love them.
Musically: They have a CD to match most of my moods. For example, if I feel like fairly poppy up-beat music, I can pop in “Please Please Me”. If I feel like introspective songs, I can pop in “The White Album.” Sometimes I want straight rock, “With the Beatles” and “Help!” are both good choices. But furthermore, all of their records are different They released 251 songs, total, and all of them are different.
Also their music is universal. I’m sure most of us have experienced everything from “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” to “Yer Blues.” We can relate to them, because they could relate to us.
Personality: They were extremely charasmatic young men. But they also gave us something to believe in. John and pacifism, Paul with his animal rights, George with Eastern Philosophies, and Ringo, well, is Ringo.
Careers: They had very satisfying careers after The Beatles. But music is not what they are all about (see Personalities) However, they were not overnight successes. They began in Liverpool, and their journey took 6 years before they even received a record deal. In those 6 years they worked hard on their music, perfecting their sounds. However, their worked constantly to improve their music and themselves. Paul still does. “Flaming Pie” was probably his best album in 20 years.
Influence: Pretty much all popular music after 1964 has been influenced in some degree or the other by The Beatles. Both subtley (Kurt Cobain claimed John Lennon was his biggest influence) to not-so-subtley (Oasis and anybody remember Electric Light Orchestra?)
…the popularity of Monty Python. People love that “crap” and I have yet to laugh even once. I’ve been told that don’t get “dark humor” but I laughed my ass of durring “War of the roses”…so what am I missing?
Hmm. That certainly explains the Reagan administration’s crayon-style “Daddy says it’s an umbrella” ad to drum up support for the Star Wars initiative.
The popularity of the Beatles is quite simply that they wrote good songs, and good songwriters are timeless. They wrote a whole gamut from pop, to some harder rock, to ballads. Lennon and McCartney were the two top popular songwriters of their time, and their popularity continues the same way the popularity of great songwriters like Gershwin, Porter, Berlin, Warren, or Kern continues. New audiences hear the songs and realize how good they are.
It is probably because no four people in the history of music has developed pieces in as many styles and forms as the 4 members of the Beatles have done and are doing. From rock, soul, jazz, folk, classic, electronica, various ethnic styles, you name it, the Beatles experimented with them all and still maintained commercial success.
Didn’t Mr Jackson buy all the rights to all their songs for $20M ? That has to be the best music deal I have heard since the Stones got $18M for their song Start Me Up from Microsoft.
So, maybe Mr Jackson wants the Beatles to be known better so he can sell more songs.
So do you guys think Michael Jaskson sounds better than the Beatles?
If you ever figure it out, let me know. I have always thought that the Beatles were the single most overrated group in music history. It’s not that I think they completely suck or anything, just that I have never understood what was so special about them. In my more cynical moments I am inclined to speculate that perhaps it was their very lack of specialness that made them so popular. It often seems as though most people prefer the mediocre over the extraordinary. This is likely just snobbery on my part, though.
I understand what you’re saying - I’m a bit of a music snob myself - but I don’t think it applies to the Beatles. The climate wasn’t the same then - these days, most top 40 hits are usually lowest-common-denominator crap for teenyboppers, with the good stuff relegated to the underground, but back then there wasn’t much of an underground rock/pop scene; almost all styles of music were considered popular (from rock to pop to soul to folk) and were played side by side on pop radio. There were also a lot fewer records released then, which led to competition for airplay, with groups trying to outdo their peers (and themselves) to stand out.
Anyway, I don’t think you could objectively call the Beatles mediocre. They not only wrote catchy tunes, but expanded the boundaries of what a pop song could encompass. Listen to rock’n’roll made before '63; now listen to how much it had transformed by, say, ‘68. If you don’t think the Beatles were at the forefront of this change, all you need to do is check the archives. They were pioneering in many respects: writing their own songs, their distinct personas, use of instrumentation (first to use feedback, sitar, backwards tape effects on pop records, as well as the strings on “Yesterday”, a big deal for what was essentially a rock band at the time), subject matter (it’s a long way, lyrically from “Love Me Do” to “I’m A Loser”, if you think about it, and even longer from the latter to “Happiness Is a Warm Gun”), etc. They basically invented psychadelia and the album as an entity in itself. Plus, they just had that special unnameable “something” - just listen to other groups’ cover versions of their songs if you doubt it. Has anybody ever covered a Beatles song and made it better than the original? Not that I’ve ever heard. They, however, did many covers that surpassed the originals and became known as the standard versions (“Twist and Shout”, “Money”, etc.). Hey, I like the Monkees too, but if you can’t see the debt they owed the Beatles, just check out “Help!” (the movie). Basically, they kept growing and surpassing themselves, and everybody else around was just trying to catch up.
I know it’s very empowering to hate anything that’s popular and to love things that are obscure and that only the very hip can appreciate. Oops, I’ve just explained why some people don’t like the Beatles.
The Beatles more or less singlehandely changed rock music from music for teenagers to dance to into a means of serious artistic expression. They made rock music credible enough for blues purists like the Stones and folkies like Dylan to become rock musicians. They were the very first rock act to be taken seriously by the mainstream musical establishment.
Their music is the richest and most diverse in rock history. There are other artists who have made individual records that are as good as Beatle albums…but not every single album. Their artistic trajectory was nothing but straight up, and they had the smarts to get out at the right time.
The Beatles are one of the rare cases where the best of something is also the most popular.
I snipped the rest of your post because I agreed with a lot of it and can at least see where you’re coming from on most of the rest, and it’s so much more interesting to post disagreements. And the above I heartily disagree with! The Beatles version of “Twist and Shout” may have become known as the standard version, but it is (IMHO of course) painfully bad. Every time they play it on the radio I feel compelled to make some snarky remark like, “Ladies and gentlemen, the world’s whitest cover of ‘Twist and Shout’!”
I could also take issue with some of the innovations credited to the Beatles, but I will admit that they were at least the first to popularize those you listed even if they didn’t actually come up with all of them on their own.
Just to clarify, I wasn’t the one who claimed to be a Monkees fan; that was the OP.
as someone who is NOT a Beatles fan (although I can enjoy them) , and never really was a Beatles fan, and has been fully aware and exposed to the Beatles since 1963:
They were, unquestionably, the most terrifically talented band that ever existed. All the reasons have been cited by others in this thread.
I am not a beatles worshipper, never have been, as I say, yet it is very plain to me why they are so revered. They were extraordinary in many ways, starting with musically. And in fact, the combination of McCartney and Lennon was exceptionally amazing, as evidenced by their output separately…each had a kind of genius that wasn’t * quite * there, but add the other’s genius to it, and voila!
Then there is the charisma…they had it to spare, especially John. How could they be that talented and be adorable, smart, funny and committed to the betterment of the world, too?
I’m grateful to have lived in their time. (Which was remarkably short, really. About 6 years from popular explosion to implosion)
Oh, I know the Monkees were based on the Beatles. I just prefer the “Prefab Four” to the “Fab Four” is all. Besides Mike and Micky were way cuter than Paul and John
