I love the Beatles, but as far as technical talent goes, were they really that good? I think if they didn’t have such awesome production, they wouldn’t be nearly as acclaimed as they are now.
Are The Beatles considered great technically? They seem to be mostly lauded for their songwriting.
Reported for forum change.
The Beatles collectively were very good musicians, though they weren’t the sorts of virtuosos that generally get lauded as guitar gods or whatever. The guitar work on, let’s say, Rubber Soul on is inventive and still holds up, not that their work before that wasn’t great as well. Ringo is a criminally underrated drummer–as tasteful a drummer as you’ll find in rock–and their vocals are well-known as outstanding. They were a great live band as well.
They (with George Martin) were certainly pioneers in production, which was also part of their genius. But the boys could play (and did, in clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg, where they were immensely popular). Their musicianship was strong enough to serve their catalog, and that’s good enough for me!
As already mentioned, their technical virtuosity is pretty irrelevant seeing how many great songs they churned out (especially in the early to middle years of their career).
They were no slouches when it came to musicianship in my opinion.
They had melodies that feel timeless and surprising. Good enough for me.
Were they legendary, Clapton-style instrumentalists? Nah, not really. Ringo is definitely underrated, and Paul was a talented bassist, but it was never the main appeal. More importantly, that’s a feature, not a bug. Their instruments always served their songs, not the other way around. There were no 6 minute drum solos, no extended, complex guitar riffs. The cohesiveness and beauty of the song as a whole was always the main goal, the objective. Virtuoso musicians want to use their skills; if the Beatles had been incredible instrumentalists, it would’ve been at the expense of their melodies.
Moving over to CS.
This. Paul was a great bass player, but he was great because of the bass lines he created, not because he was some kind of Victor Wooten-style technical virtuoso. George came up with some lovely guitar parts. As Octarine points out, technical virtuosity would actually have detracted from their music.
So, yes, the Beatles were great musicians. None of them were great technical virtuosos. And they were better musicians for that.
On a bit of a tangent, the Beatles had a musical education that pop bands just don’t get anymore, which was playing several shows a night for quite a while in clubs in Hamburg. I’m sure they had to learn all the popular music of their day. And they (Paul, especially, to my ear) were familiar with the music hall stuff of their parents’ generation. So they could play a wide variety of music in a wide variety of styles.
Today’s bands don’t get that kind of education anymore. Sure, Springsteen (and van Zandt, and Johnny Lyons) played for years in Jersey Shore nightspots and learned the same way, but now it seems like bands start out right away writing their own songs and performing them as best they can, without much of a musical background. And it shows.
I always felt that they used their instruments in ways others in “Rock” had not, up until that time. I don’t recall anyone using the citar (in Rock) before the Beatles. Though they did not play the instruments, who used orchestral woodwinds, strings and horns prior to them? If you consider voice as an instrument, I thought Paul McCartney was pretty damn good. And let’s not forget the influence of George Martin.
No, definitely, let’s not forget Martin. Martin was way more than an influence on the Beatles – he was an integral part of their music. Martin wrote the arrangements for those strings and horns. Martin did have the technical expertise to do that, while the Beatles themselves almost certainly did not (even in recent years, Paul McCartney’s ventures into classical music required the aid of an orchestrator). The Beatles would not have been the Beatles without Martin.
I once saw a special and Paul McCartney admitted all those screaming girls, Beatlemania, “covered up alot of sins”. He said they screamed so loud they were playing terrible but who knew?
I think they were pretty talented in terms of technique and ability to play their instruments. I thing they were extremely creative in terms of instrument selection and arrangement. I’m thinking of the use of the Sitar in “Norwegian Wood” for example. They were really ahead of the curve in the cutting edge techniques of the day.
On the other hand, I thing they are seriously overrated as lyrical songwriters. Almost every song has the same predictable format of 4 lines of verse/4 lines of chorus. The pattern repeats until the 3/4 mark of the song when we get the 4 line chorus twice, followed by a denouement chorus and done.
Even my favourite Beatle, George, followed the L/M format on his own compositions.
That’s different - that’s not being able to hear yourself and being frustrated at the spectacle of it all.
- Paul is on the Mount Rushmore of rock bassists - he was that innovative and influential
- Ringo was an amazing drummer - don’t make me link to my Ringo thread!
- John was a great rhythm guitarist - if you disagree, try playing I Feel Fine correctly and make it rock and get back to me.
- George was an incredibly tasteful lead player, but he needed time to work out his parts. He couldn’t play extemporaneous leads, but he always contributed the right bits to the songs that took them over the top.
Who is it that supposedly “overrates” them as musicians? Ringo, indeed, has often been underrated as a drummer. However, (except maybe for the occasional bass player hoping to learn from Paul) nobody listens to The Beatles for their instrumental virtuosity. The reasons why their fans (which is much of the world) admire them so much are nothing to do with instrumental virtuosity.
I disagree. I shoot concert video, and the majority of my work is for various locations of the School of Rock. It’s an after-school program for kids age 7 through 18. Three seasons a year, the kids pick one of several programs of music, learn it, practice it for 12 weeks and then do a show. The best kids from each location form a band and gig around town, and the very best of those kids audition to become an All-Star, where they join others and tour nationally.
I’ve been shooting these shows since 2009, and following the “careers” of these kids. By the time they have to leave the program, they’ll have played a wide range of music from Alt-Country to Metal to Rock Opera…whatever shows the Music Director of the individual locations assemble. For instance, this season, the Chicago location’s shows are The White Stripes vs. The Black Keys, Led Zeppelin, 90s Alternative, Punk and Frank Zappa.
The Beatles was last season, and honestly, it was mostly a beginners show in that none of the Beatles instrumental parts are considered especially challenging to play. The more advanced kids were off in the Jimi Hendrix show.
It’s not cheap, but not much more expensive than regular music lessons (they get those as well) but it puts young musicians in a band right from the start. As the founder Paul Green put it “It’s the difference between shooting hoops and playing basketball.” The kids I’ve seen who have reached the All-Star level can join any band and play pretty much any style of music at a professional level.
But wasn’t that the formula for pop genre at the time?
If you include vocals as an instrument, they rank much higher - especially John and Paul, who were both great lead singers. They and George were exceptional harmony singers, too. The Beatles didn’t generally blow you away with great technique, but they had first-class feel. That counts for a lot.
Yes. That critique really misses the point: they didn’t invent pop songwriting, but they were extremely creative and innovative writers within that idiom and changed the course of pop and rock music in a bunch of different ways.
The Beatles were extremely creative and varied in their song structures and it is absolute nonsense to say that “almost every song” followed the same format. I have to assume from your description that you are conflating chorus and bridge (which the Beatles called “middle eight”), otherwise I can’t see how you could ignore the many songs that have no “four-line chorus” section at all (“This Boy,” “She’s a Woman,” “Lady Madonna”). The Beatles even had songs with no chorus or bridge (“Tomorrow Never Knows,” “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road”). They had lots of songs that began with the chorus (“She Loves You,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Don’t Let Me Down”). They had songs with distinct intro sections (“Do You Want to Know a Secret,” “Honey Pie”). They had songs with episodic, multi-part structures (“Happiness Is a Warm Gun,” “You Never Give Me Your Money”) and ones that knitted together ideas created separately by Lennon and McCartney (“I’ve Got a Feeling,” “A Day in the Life”).
A more pedestrian songwriter might have capped each verse of “Hey Jude” with a “Na-na-na-na-na-na-na, hey Jude” chorus. It was a genius songwriter who came up with the idea of saving up the choruses for an epic singalong coda. There was nothing formulaic about Lennon and McCartney’s songwriting.
I’m glad you picked up on that, as I was about to respond to that. The Beatles rarely used verse-chorus structure (in fact, I’m having a difficult time thinking of more that a couple original songs of theirs that is typical verse-chorus pop structure that we’re familiar with in Top 40 radio.) I have no idea how somebody could listen to the Beatles and say “Almost every song has the same predictable format of 4 lines of verse/4 lines of chorus.” The truth is pretty much the exact opposite.
As musicians, The Beatles were perfect for each other. Thousands of hours of playing in Hamburg and elsewhere made them an incredibly tight group. They all had an instinctive feel for how their own contributions fit into a song. And they were all good enough musicians that the songs were never held back by lack of musicianship. And that’s as much as you really need.