I’ve never really thought about the screaming fans very much, but it strikes me that I’m not entirely sure what drove the hysteria. The music was great, but as Paul McCartney often points out nobody could hear it, and the screaming seemed to be independent of anything the band was doing.
Looks-wise the Beatles at the early part of their career were friendly-looking but nowhere near as conventionally handsome as Elvis Presley - although they got better-looking with age - and their stage moves were relatively modest. Synchronised hair-waving, no hip thrusting.
It’s as if the audiences were throwing fits at the idea of the Beatles. There are a few clips of them live on Youtube but it’s impossible to really evaluate what they were like live, e.g. in this one from Germany Paul’s screaming through “I’m Down” but you can barely hear him because the mixing is terrible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qMNE3TZGtA
Looking at a bunch of other clips I have the impression that they tended to go into autopilot on stage, and they seemed to rush through everything. They might have benefited from some hired help - a kind of Mick Taylor or Eric Clapton to give them less work. And yet their performance on the Ed Sullivan show isn’t bad at all. I guess they only had so many hours in the day.
Yes, exactly. The concept of prosody could’ve helped the Creams, Yardbirds, and Blind Faiths of the world. I’ve never listened to a Beatles song and wished it had more 32nd notes and string bending and harmonics.
On the other hand, the Beatles never wrote something they couldn’t handle - it’s not like the Kinks, where at times you could hear them barely hanging on to the song by a lifeline.
Another thing about the Beatles is that they were all together. Plenty of bands have a musician as good as the Beatles. Some even are better. But how many bands are there where all of the members are as good as the Beatles?
I agree. My best friend’s uncle was the director for entertainment at Disneyland in the 70’s, and was a pro drummer. For some reason, he had the job to work with Ringo on something (for Disney) and reported back that the guy just didn’t have a lot of basic skills. It’s true, Ringo probably didn’t know a paradiddle from a pancake. But man did he have a groove, and timing like a machine when he wanted it, and fluid when that’s what was called for.
Sometimes I try to recreate a song as close as possible to the original, for the fun of it and to learn. One tune I did some parts to (for others doing the same thing) was Drive My Car. My first step is to load the original into my digital audio workstation (DAW) and set up a “tempo map”, so that the DAW knows where all the measures start and where the beats are.
On tunes that were recorded to a click track, this is fairly easy and only takes a few adjustments, a 5-10 minute task. Songs without them take quite a bit longer, as the tempo picks up and backs off, taking me an hour or so. Well, they didn’t have click tracks in the 60’s, and I expected it to take an hour, but nope. Solid as a rock, as easy as most tunes recorded to a click. I gained respect for Ringo’s sense of time.
But more important, he rocked, and he did just what was required for the song, and didn’t sound like every other drummer at the time. The biggest underrater of Ringo was Ringo himself!
Bingo.
A huge number of tribute bands reproduce the albums (playing live) a lot more faithfully than the original artists ever did. Name just about any guitarist, and there’s a guy out there who can play just like him, flawlessly. Notice that none of these imitators are famous? Doing it isn’t the what matters; inventing it is.
The notion of the Beatles as overrated musicians probably stems as much from their ‘60s rivals as anyone else. Keith Richards takes the piss out of them in his memoir, saying “you guys can rock, but you can’t swing.” There’s a famous clip of Pete Townshend where he says, "when you actually hear the backing tracks of The Beatles without their voices, they’re flippin’ lousy." How much of this was really heartfelt vs. competitive bluster is probably debatable, yet I think stuff like this laid the foundation for a sort of unarticulated bias in some quarters that the Beatles were mere (albeit exceptionally skilled) pop craftsmen, not a pure rock band who could go head-to-head with the likes of the Stones or the Who.
There’s a quote by Paul McCartney that I half-remember that I think sums it up best, something to the effect of: “If we needed to play something a bit country, we could do it. If we wanted a bit of R&B, we could do that. Whatever we needed, we could do.” While their chops may not have been stellar (well, except for McCartney’s), their instincts as performers and arrangers were absolutely without equal. The fact they recorded some of the best-known songs of the rock canon and either completely demolished the originals (“Twist and Shout,” “Money,” “Kansas City”) or, at the very least, respectably matched them (“You Really Got a Hold on Me,” “Long Tall Sally”) proves they were a great band, even leaving aside the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership.
Yes, ask any professional drummer and they’ll say that technically, Ringo wasn’t all that good. But he could keep a beat and when some sort of fill was needed between verses or between a verse and a middle 8 or chorus, he had one. And that’s all that was needed for the Beatles. Sometimes, “good enough” is, in fact, good enough.
I forget which interview it was, maybe the Rolling Stone interview with Lennon, but it was one done in the midst of the McCartney/Lennon feud, where Lennon stated that one thing that always annoyed him was that McCartney seemed to be underrated as a bass player. Because he thought Paul was great on bass. In my mind, that’s pretty high praise from someone who is in hate with you.
And Harrison was as good of a lead guitarist as the Beatles needed. Could you imagine Clapton in the Beatles? What with John and Paul, there wasn’t room for another super-ego. Yes, there was talk when Harrison walked out of the Let It Be filming of replacing him with Clapton, but the talk was between Paul and John; Clapton wasn’t consulted and he later wrote if he had been asked he’d have turned it down flat.
Can someone recommend a few songs where paul’s bass playing stands out? Off the top of my head I can think of some good grooves, but can’t think of anything that makes me go Wow, this guy is a great bass player!
Stewart Copeland said in an interview years ago (Police-era) that he rated Ringo as one of his top 10 drummers. Can’t find it on-line though. Even an idiot like me can recognize that Copeland is a phenomenal drummer, so I’d say his opinion counts for quite a lot in this area.
For me, two of the best are on the same 45: Paperback Writer and Rain. PW is just off-the-hook brilliance, and Rain offers so much–power, the triplets… the song is amazing as it is, but that sudden change in meter during what I guess would be the what they call the “middle eight” just adds so much to the already complex track.
And, oh lord, Taxman. He gets a twofer here, because first, it’s an addictive bass track–just wait for him to unleash himself once they get to 0:55 (the “If you drive a ca-car, I’ll tax the street…” section)–and then he says “fuck it, think I can only play bass, do you?” and rocks the fantastic guitar solo that perfectly serves George’s Eastern-inspired sensibilities that would show up later in “Love You To” on the same album. I adore the Taxman moment at 1:14 where it’s Paul on bass accompanying Paul on that solo (which is repeated at the end, of course).
I can imagine that if one morning George Martin had said, “hmm, maybe a sousaphone would sound good on Tomorrow Never Knows, what do you think?” Paul would’ve been able to pick it up and handle it with aplomb. Guy is scary versatile.
As for Ringo, no less a brilliant musician/producer than George Martin himself remains one of Ringo’s biggest supporters and considers him criminally underrated. I’ve mentioned this before, but there was a marvelous BBC Radio 4 interview with Martin where GM dissects several albums and songs, and he spends a lot of time launching into eloquent dissertations on how amazing Ringo was as a collaborative musician, not just out for kickass solos but using his instrument to further the songs themselves. A Day in the Life would simply not be the same without that immortal drum as backup, and Tomorrow Never Knows has that sharp, hiccuping beat that you can set your watch by.
While I’m at it, Tomorrow Never Knows is great for Paul’s bass and lead guitar too. And I believe he’s the one who came up with the tape loop ideas, isn’t he? I’m pretty sure the seagull effect is his. (And speaking of voices as instruments, look at the skill with which both John and Paul could alter their styles to suit the songs. How the heck are the guys singing so delicately in “In My Life” and “Julia” (John) and “And I Love Her” and “For No One” (Paul) the same ones who then roar and scream in “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” and “Helter Skelter,” respectively?
(My favorite album transition is the one-two punch of Paul going from the James Brown-esque “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road” to the lovely grace of “I Will.”)
So, overrated? In my opinion, they’re not rated enough–it’s so easy to get lost in their incredible melodies and the vast variety of their repertoire, people don’t listen to the individual and above all collaborative musicianship that’s the support beam upon which the Beatles balanced their impeccable songwriting.
Nice choie. I’ve been on the road, but was going to point Yask to PW, Rain and Drive my Car. Hopefully Paul’s brilliance is easy to pick up by anyone on those tracks, and once you hear it, you can pick it up on the other songs. By the way, I have said it here previously, but the Beatles’ tracks still sound so fresh today because the really pushed the bass up in the mix - really set a new standard that still exists today.
It’s impossible to “overrate” anything about The Beatles. They were highly versitile and could play any style they wanted. Maybe the years have made some question their talent, by those who weren’t around in the 60’s. I always thought their musicianship was great, but was probably somewhat overshadowed by their general brilliance; the great songs John and Paul, and , later, George wrote were what set them apart, along with their great vocal harmony.
Another thing I’ve always loved about them is this: they were working-class guys and, despite their great success and wealth, have always remained working-class. Like me. I don’t mean that others could not or did not appreciate their talent. Every social class went nuts over them, and why wouldn’t they ? But we working-class folks loved their egalitarian and common-guys identity about which they had no pretentions. I know this question is about the music. But they spoke to me and others about social inequity and asked those in the back row to "rattle your jewelry a bit " (John). I loved that and I loved those guys. We shall not see another phenomenon like The Beatles.
You’re probably right. Anyway, his poking fun at the blue-bloods amused me. Lennon’s political views and his guts in expressing them affected me deeply. Still do. Such a damned shame. I miss him greatly though, of course, we never met. A personal side-note; my dog Frankie died (hit by a car) on the very same Monday evening. A dark day for so many of us.
In addition to the songs mentioned by choie and Wordman, the first really great bass line that comes to my mind is in “Hey Bulldog”. On its own, the song is so-so - not really bad, just not exactly one of their greatest. But that bass line makes it magical.
I think Something is a good example of what Paul excelled at- beautiful, melodic bass lines. It contains more evidence of Ringo’s impeccable drumming as well.
Yeah, Paul is great on bass. A drummer friend of mine told me something about Ringo’s distinctive style; that he’s left-handed and was playing on right-handed drums left over from Pete Best’s tenure with the band. I don’t know if that’s true, but his drumming was distinctive. And great. Those lads from Liverpool were really something. We older folks remember how Beatlemania swept though America like a tsunami. It was something to behold. I wish the younger members were there. I wish I were there, still. Maybe I am, in some way.