# Beatles - Not Even Close To The Best Group Ever. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 19, 2016, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280 "2016-08-19T09:43:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/181 "2016-08-23T01:25:04Z")
Grace Slick was third best after Marty Balin and Paul Kantner in Jefferson Airplane. Unless it was one of the other two. Richie Furey was third to Stephen Sills and Neil Young in Buffalo Springfield. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/182 "2016-08-23T01:32:44Z")
> [@Tibby or Not Tibby](#): > > Can you name one band who has a song-writer as talented as George Harrison in it and have him be only the 3rd best in a group of 4? I can’t > [@Steophan](#): > > The Byrds. I’m not sure how I’d rank Gene Clark, David Crosby, Chris Hillman and Roger McGuinn, but they all contributed great songs to the band and did fantastic work afterwards. Ah, so you decided to take the bait in **Tibby** ’s otherwise (?) excellent post. I was thinking possibly Fleetwood Mac, The Moody Blues, or The Eagles. But it is a short list. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/183 "2016-08-23T01:38:14Z")
Another point about boy bands: they are manufactured products, conceived and assembled with little regard for the music aside from how it can be turned into revenue. They may as well have been built in a laboratory. The Beatles formed, grew, and matured organically, playing dozens of shows a week in the early days to hone their talent and develop their sound. Sure, they wanted to make some cheese, but the music was always the central reason for their existence. mmm ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/184 "2016-08-23T01:39:44Z")
Stephen “Window” Sills, of course, was quickly replaced by Stephen “I made an illegal fortune from” Stills because he had to be held upright when the band jambed. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/185 "2016-08-23T01:51:28Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I dunno about that timeline. “Hard Day’s Night” was 1964. I would not call it “vapid, disposable bubblegum pop.” Besides having perhaps the most recognizable opening chord in pop history with the title track, “Things We Said” today is a gorgeous, perhaps underappreciated, bit of pop songwriting with those modal, mysterious sounding minor verses segueing into the rocking major-key middle 8. And that chromatic melody line at “someday when I’m lonely,” ending with the harmonic surprise of Bb major at “wishing you weren’t so _far away_” before going back down to A minor… Just gorgeous and anything but disposable or vapid. Every time I hear it, something about those lines just sends chills down my spine: from the first time I heard it to now. The lyrical, melodic, and harmonic content of those lines just sell a _feeling_ to me. And that’s exactly what I want music to do for me, emote. So THAT’S why! Worked like that for me fifty years ago and I finally know I was just being psychologically manipulated. 😃 > [@Zeke\_N.Destroi](#): > > The Police (aside from some pretty brilliant lyrics) introduced North America to ska. Silly me, I thought it was Millie Small in 1964. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dwrHCa9t0dM](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dwrHCa9t0dM) > [@Enter\_the\_Flagon](#): > > Assessing the Beatles’ worth by judging their '64 and later live performances - when they couldn’t even hear themselves, let alone hear each other - is kind of like asking Beethoven to perform his 9th symphony after he’d gone deaf, then finding fault with the composition. Um, he _ **wrote** _ the 9th after he went deaf. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/186 "2016-08-23T02:04:11Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > In the realm of live performance, I’m totally willing to give the Beatles a pass. They were by all reports a very good bar band by the time they left Hamburg. By the time they were trying to be much beyond a bar band, the tech wasn’t adequate to deal with the crowds. I can vouch that any loud show without stage monitors is a crapshoot; could be great, could be bad. Sage monitors were still a few years away when the Beatles tried their big shows, and in-ear monitors were sci-fi. If the tech would have been there, they could have even done a decent facsimile of their late album work. Why not, they’d played it before? They would have needed the incentive to work with each other enough, though. By the time they were really experimenting, they were fracturing enough that long practices were probably out of the question. > > In the realm of studio trickery, the Beatles may have popularized the techniques for that generation, but I’m having a hard time thinking of techniques they used that weren’t already done by a predecessor. Les Paul has a better claim to 90% of it himself, and he was pretty popular. You can claim that it was the first time that such techniques were first coupled with good songwriting by the Beatles, but it seems to me that they didn’t do a lot that isn’t covered by [Waiting for the Sunrise](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-prZi3Lyh8) and [Lover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8jEkQ7FB8g). They have multi-tracking by the same artist (in fact, it’s some of the earliest multi-tracking), speed alteration, and quite good songwriting/arranging. When the Beatles were extending the studio tricks of others, it was sometimes just because they new Martin could “fix it”. The one exception of this I can think of is “Tomorrow Never Knows”, I can’t think of a song structured around tape loops that preceded it. So, props to the Beatles there. > > Now, as to whether they were a “boy band”? Oh yes, they were. Live up to it, love it. You love an early boy band and their vapid songs, and so do I. Get it out there. Work that tension out of those shoulders and your neck. Boy Band doesn’t mean that it’s not well done, and it doesn’t mean that the members are forever limited to that. That they developed beyond that has already been detailed in the thread. Their boy band status and success was what allowed them to popularize their experiments. If they hadn’t had success with obvious boy band pablum such as “She Loves You”, et al, they wouldn’t have been popularizing anything when they went experimental. They’d have had as tough a row to hoe, and have been as obscure as another great band that followed them on the Hamburg scene, [The](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5iI0__9S1c) [Monks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feMvRfOQC50). The Monks started without the “boy band” foundation, so they had a hard time getting heard, but they _had_ to pull off their live performances as a result. In a world of an amazing live band vs. a band with million selling hits, guess which one is going to be easier to make popular? > > So, yes, a band that was plentiful amounts of good, able to pivot when they needed to, and were lucky to pivot the right way and capitalize on their previous successes. So, very popular. Best of the best? Nah, it would be too easy of an answer, even if it were possible to prove it true. I’d even argue that holding the idea that they could be provably the best would result in stagnation in current musicians, anyway. There’s been plenty done since their demise that they couldn’t have anticipated, and their output after the band’s passing is mixed, at best. > > If I can lay a semi-novel complaint against believing the Beatles were the best ever, it’s similar to rooting for General Motors. Sure they popularized things, they were the biggest band on the planet before they started experimenting beyond blending rock sensibilities with traditional pop, which isn’t especially groundbreaking, but they were the cute guys who were successful at it for the period. But to attempt to freeze things at that period before 1970, and say “yep, best” because of a lot of entirely debatable points makes you look like the people who claimed that Buddy Holly was still living forever somehow, or that Elvis is still the King. > On preview: YAY! Wall o’ text. No TL; DR this time. And, **John Mace** : when I was in high school decades ago, I heard a girl utter those words completely without irony. “The Monks started without the “boy band” foundation, so they had a hard time getting heard” "So, yes, a band that was plentiful amounts of good, able to pivot when they needed to, and were lucky to pivot the right way and capitalize on their previous successes. " ?? Boy, are you twisting and spinning away here or what? One might say “The Beatles were a maserati everyone could drive. They were the best and we are lucky to have coexisted with them. Get used to it. Live it love it” to you. You can’t suppress it with this banal wallpaper. Boy band is not something that existed at the time so you are just hindsighting here, but you knew that. It’s kind of related to doo-wop, but I don’t hear much in it, not like say bubblegum has got. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/187 "2016-08-23T02:05:03Z")
“The Beatles were the original boy band” seems to be a thing on the internet these days. Maybe we’re getting to the point where they were so long ago that people aren’t actually familiar with the early history of Rock, or with the Beatles themselves? ---
**Author:** ![Enter\_the\_Flagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Enter\_the\_Flagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enter_the_Flagon)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/188 "2016-08-23T02:25:24Z")
> [@Sarahfeena](#): > > “The Beatles were the original boy band” seems to be a thing on the internet these days. Maybe we’re getting to the point where they were so long ago that people aren’t actually familiar with the early history of Rock, or with the Beatles themselves? I think that’s the case. I doubt many people referring to them as such actually remember how different popular music was before and after their arrival. And then too, if you look at the videos of their live performances without having seen the impact their music had on the culture, you might come away with the impression that all their fans were screaming teenage girls. > [@](#): > > Um, he wrote the 9th after he went deaf. Yeah, that’s what I meant, although I see now that I could’ve expressed it more clearly. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/189 "2016-08-23T02:46:53Z")
But his playing it would probably be embarrassing, since the conductor told the band to humor, but ignore, the old, deaf co-conductor. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/190 "2016-08-23T03:17:37Z")
> [@Enter\_the\_Flagon](#): > > I think that’s the case. I doubt many people referring to them as such actually remember how different popular music was before and after their arrival. And then too, if you look at the videos of their live performances without having seen the impact their music had on the culture, you might come away with the impression that all their fans were screaming teenage girls. We all know the images from _The Ed Sullivan Show_ and _A Hard Day’s Night_. The deeply important difference about the Beatles is that boys were an equal part of their fanbase. They didn’t get the cameras turned on them but they bought the records, filled the clubs, and auditoriums, and stadiums, wrote the fanzines, and started bands of their own. And screaming girls were part of every group’s audience in the early days. My first concert was in 1967. The Beach Boys headlined, with the Buckinghams and Tommy James and the Shondells backing them up. All I remember from it are the screaming girls. The music was somewhere buried underneath it. If screaming girls made the Beatles a boy band, then every single band of that era was a boy band. Nothing could be more meaningless than that. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/191 "2016-08-23T03:20:25Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Ah, so you decided to take the bait in **Tibby** ’s otherwise (?) excellent post. > > I was thinking possibly Fleetwood Mac, The Moody Blues, or The Eagles. > > But it is a short list. When Fleetwood Mac had Danny Kirwan, Christine McVie, and Bob Welch it was a perfect balance of composers all at their peak. You probably weren’t referring to that era though, alas. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/192 "2016-08-23T04:43:37Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > You got to help me here. My mind won’t stretch far enough to think of any way the Beatles could be described as a boy band. What are you thinking of? Well, they were a pre-packaged look presented to be safer than how they had dressed [earlier](https://www.rutherford.org/files_images/general/Oldspeak_Hamburg-1.jpg), and they sang safe songs about holding your hand. That’s pretty much a boy band, in my book. The developments of boy bands not playing instruments (or not even being able to sing) was later. All rock music was teenybopper? Ehh, no. At least, some of it was already being geared more toward late teen/early adult themes. Instrumental surf music was certainly willing to deal with subjects more dangerous than kissing, teen love, and wanting to hold your hand, rockabilly did too. Why? Because those bands were often still bar bands like The Beatles once were before they got cleaned up for the teen girls. Those bands played to their audience, same as The Beatles did. If changing your act to appeal more easily to teen girls doesn’t make them a boy band, I don’t know what would. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/193 "2016-08-23T05:14:58Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > Well, they were a pre-packaged look presented to be safer than how they had dressed [earlier](https://www.rutherford.org/files_images/general/Oldspeak_Hamburg-1.jpg), and they sang safe songs about holding your hand. That’s pretty much a boy band, in my book. The developments of boy bands not playing instruments (or not even being able to sing) was later. > > All rock music was teenybopper? Ehh, no. At least, some of it was already being geared more toward late teen/early adult themes. Instrumental surf music was certainly willing to deal with subjects more dangerous than kissing, teen love, and wanting to hold your hand, rockabilly did too. Why? Because those bands were often still bar bands like The Beatles once were before they got cleaned up for the teen girls. Those bands played to their audience, same as The Beatles did. If changing your act to appeal more easily to teen girls doesn’t make them a boy band, I don’t know what would. You mean that “later” development as in when boy bands became an actual thing as opposed to a figment of your imagination looking backwards out of complete ignorance? Instrumental music doesn’t have lyrical subjects man. You think I don’t want to hear the other side, but I really do. I would like to hear it well stated by someone with some new ideas, but this is just a fail. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/194 "2016-08-23T05:25:08Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > You mean that “later” development as in when boy bands became an actual thing as opposed to a figment of your imagination looking backwards out of complete ignorance? > > Instrumental music doesn’t have lyrical subjects man. > > You think I don’t want to hear the other side, but I really do. I would like to hear it well stated by someone with some new ideas, but this is just a fail. Boy bands started somewhere. I’m sorry that you’re not willing to accept they can take the “first” moniker there, maybe. Instrumental songs have subjects, though. For instance, every one of them has a title. I don’t think I mentioned them having lyrics. You also ignored rockabilly for reasons that aren’t clear. I notice you also didn’t address the meat of my argument, which was that they changed their act to chase the teenybopper market. It’s not a sin, and it put them on a path to being very wealthy. So, they were a boy band for a time. It’s not the end of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/195 "2016-08-23T06:11:57Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > I notice you also didn’t address the meat of my argument, which was that they changed their act to chase the teenybopper market. It’s not a sin, and it put them on a path to being very wealthy. So, they were a boy band for a time. It’s not the end of the world. Dude (or dudette), **there was no other market**. There was no distinction, like there is today, between pop/rock music for teenyboppers and “serious” pop/rock music. All rock and roll was teenybopper music. The Beatles played to audiences of teenagers at the Cavern Club before Brian Epstein cleaned them up and they played to the same audiences after. The only difference was they no longer looked like a gang of idiots (as Paul McCartney described their Hamburg leather look), no longer ate, smoked or drank beer on stage and didn’t stop in mid-song to catcall someone in the audience or suddenly start playing another number. The changes Epstein made were to make them more attractive to promoters who could put them in better venues: he wanted them to be taken seriously as professional entertainers, partly out of personal pride and partly so he could command better fees for them. (He made them restrict their sets to an era-appropriate half-hour, which allowed them to play more than one booking a night.) Epstein never dictated what they should play; he wouldn’t have known what to suggest, and if he had, they wouldn’t have listened to him. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/196 "2016-08-23T06:19:03Z")
The Rolling Stones were always the raunchy and gritty alternative to the polished Beatles. The early Beatles were marketed as a wholesome band that parents let their kids watch. Heck, they were introduced to the US on the Ed Sullivan Show. Neatly presented along with the old vaudeville acts Sullivan usually booked. It certainly worked. The Beatles were commercially successful. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/197 "2016-08-23T06:21:50Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > The early Beatles were marketed as a wholesome band that parents let their kids watch. Heck, they were introduced to the US on the Ed Sullivan Show. Neatly presented along with the old vaudeville acts Sullivan usually booked. [So were the Rolling Stones](http://www.edsullivan.com/the-rolling-stones-1st-appearance-on-the-ed-sullivan-show-102564/). ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/198 "2016-08-23T06:35:17Z")
> [@Nonsuch](#): > > Dude (or dudette), **there was no other market**. They were certainly the largest market, but they weren’t the only one. There were other markets, that were largely intended for adults. The chitlin and the honky-tonk circuits were the places where a lot of American rock and roll artists got their Hamburg-like experience. Plus, The Beatles played in the red light district of Hamburg. I doubt there were really a lot of teenagers there, at least not the same type their early singles were aimed at. . ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/199 "2016-08-23T06:47:00Z")
The chitlin and honky-tonk circuits were irrelevant for a British act, and in an era when the charts were rigidly segregated by region and race, would have been closed off to the Beatles anyway; it’s not as though white guitar bands could choose to have their records on the R&B chart instead of the pop chart. (Not least because there hardly **were** any white guitar bands.) ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280/200 "2016-08-23T07:07:30Z")
> [@Nonsuch](#): > > The chitlin and honky-tonk circuits were irrelevant for a British act, and in an era when the charts were rigidly segregated by region and race, would have been closed off to the Beatles anyway; it’s not as though white guitar bands could choose to have their records on the R&B chart instead of the pop chart. (Not least because there hardly **were** any white guitar bands.) Being irrelevant to the British market isn’t the question, though. It’s a question of where a working musician could work. Yes, there was a lot more money in selling records to teenagers than endlessly touring or working in a bar, that’s obviously why they made the change. I’m honestly amazed that anyone finds it shocking that they would do that to chase the teenybopper market, or that anyone would behave like doing it is somehow a mark that would besmirch the rest of their careers. It’s economics, they did well by it. As you yourself noted before, the same was done with the Stones. Lots of people did it, the only ones that are it’s a mark against are the ones that couldn’t move beyond being a teenybopper act. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/beatles-not-even-close-to-the-best-group-ever/763280.md?page=11)