Love Kris but he has one of the worst voices in a professional musician ever. Is this a joke?
Leonard Cohen is not one of the greatest bands in the world. Or singers, or even songwriters. Great first LP.
Contra your assertion Elvis didn’t write any songs to speak of. You fail on that.
I want to hold your hand, she loves you are great rock and roll songs. If you think they aren’t you must have been born very recently and invented your aesthetic by reading web threads or else you are just confused about the logical sequences of cause and effect. Maybe downloading too much without any context or knowledge about what led to what. This is what is irritating. Not that you don’t like the Beatles, but that you move the goalposts constantly and refuse to address any points correcting false assumptions you are peddling. The thread is that the Beatles aren’t great. But you are really attacking those who love them for loving them more than you would like them to. Too bad. They are right.
These songs are how the Beatles became famous. Not Their first three Lps, or cover songs of others. Timing was accidental. They would have been great regardless of time.
The marketing was a mad gold rush that the Beatles didn’t even profit from. It wasn’t marketing for them any more than for anyone else. Meaning: You fail on that assertion.
Bob Dylan heard those songs and said that it was where music had to go, “the chords were outrageous and the harmonies made it all valid”
Your favorite acts list is so all over the place it’s hard to figure out whether it’s real or not.
I don’t understand where all these people are that are insisting you must revere and lionize The Beatles. If you start a thread on a subject, then yeah, people will offer their opinions. And you did start the thread for just that purpose I assume. Is anyone telling you that you have to consider The Beatles to be the best of all time? Are you accosted at parties and the like and called unclean and blasphemous? I’m seeing some people in this thread calling you on trivializing them (really, like them or not, but to consider them as nothing more than a boy band? That seems a tad overstated), but no one is saying you have to change your lineup of fave musicians.
Check the demographics. I’ll bet they don’t include many people born after 1980.
So give me a cite - not one from a Beatles related event - where any Beatle has been listed as an influence. Give me one.
I’ve listened to a great number of musicians give interviews and they are all asked about their influences so it shouldn’t be hard.
Not at all. I grew up on pop-pablum.I love NKOTB, Paul Abdul, Milli Vanilli, Vanilla Ice, Snow etc. You name a pre-packaged pop group and it is likely that I owned at least one album at some point.
Popular does not equal shitty. Just the same as popular does not equal good. Harry Potter (for instance) was popular but not shitty (not great literature but no one ever pretended it was.) Twilight was popular and shitty; see also 50 Shades of Grey.
Popularity does not denote quality or lack thereof. That’s pretty much one of my man points. Just cause lots o’ people love it doesn’t mean it’s great.
Really? They didn’t write the songs - please quit pretending that they did - look at the discography, look at the writing credits and you’ll see that, as I’ve said, they didn’t always. And even if they did so fucking what? Yay for them?
Gillions of people before them wrote their own songs and gillions of people after them have done the same. Yay for them I guess?
The same goes for playing their own instruments - yay! That’s baseline shit. They weren’t the first they weren’t the last. Or are suggesting that Chuck Berry (and his band) didn’t? What about Woody Guthrie?
Or are you suggesting that merely being able to sing (without playing your own instruments) is lacking? If so then I’d refer you to any number of operatic singers and / or musical performers. I’ve never seen Tevyeh break out a fiddle on stage.
I’m sorry, your point was?
Gosh, the fervor thing sounds familiar… so does the longevity. Ever heard of The Bible? Seems to me that Beatles fans and God-botherers are on about equal footing:
1)It must be great because look at the sales
2)Criticism must be ignored or - better yet - shouted down by “but so many people love it”
3)repeatedly ignoring huge gaping holes in the accepted narrative.
Yup, fervor sounds about right. So does zealotry.
Hate to tell you this Sparky but the fact that they have continued to be commercialized doesn’t really bolster your argument. As to getting new fans… you wanna bet that the number dwindles every year?
Seems to me that a poster here is doing his best to indoctrinate one of his kids and failing. I know anecdote doesn’t equal evidence.
And there are countless fucking tribute bands to countless fucking bands. 4 or 5 Beatles tributes? How many Cher tributes do you think there are? More than 4 or 5? Oh so Cher must be the greatest. Her or Elvis.
It is vapid and disposable and it is bubblegum. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. A great pop song is a great pop song. I can give you any number of great pop songs that are vapid and disposable. That doesn’t mean they aren’t great pop songs it just means that they are what they are and pretending that they are anything other is simple pretention.
Please read further here I’ll grant that the Beatles were not responsible for the He’s So Fine / My Sweet Lord one (it was only a Beatle) but still twice in a seven year career - that’s not bad. And regardless your opinion there was at least one judge (and possibly 12 jurors) that found twice that they were plagiarists.
Maybe you know more about it than they did. I sure don’t.
Cool, so I can utterly discount the post above that cited the “100 greatest Beatles Songs” from Rolling Stone? Decent. I already had but it is always nice to have an ally.
BTW I’ll bet that whatever you did (I’m assuming you’re retired) had a joke about it unless it was mundane enough to not be worthy of one. Don’t slag all journalists be they music or otherwise. If it weren’t for them you wouldn’t know quarter of the shit you do.
Sometimes names do say it all.
I don’t hate the Beatles and I don’t think they suck.
The saying “you’re entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts” never seemed more pertinent. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
I was 13 when the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan. They changed everything. Nobody at the time thought they were bubblegum. They were the dictionary definition of rock music. Nobody thought they were a boy band. Yes, they had a huge following of young teenagers. That’s because they brought those huge numbers into the market as nobody before had. Teens are often the first to get a new trend. Older teens had moved over into folk music. They hated the Beatles and had to be slowly wooed back. But folk died a hideous death and rock boomed.
The Beatles’ audience stayed with them as they matured, and matured along with them. The Beatles changed music in 1964. And in 1965. And in 1966. And in 1967. They were the leaders, the innovators, the benchmark against which every other band measured themselves. (Individuals had Dylan, the only other innovator and leader who can been spoken of in the same terms.) buddha_david is also wrong. The British A Hard Day’s Night is their first mature album, although it was harder to tell that by the American version. 1965’s Rubble Soul and 1966’s Revolver are their best albums and the ones with the highest level of innovation. *Sgt. Pepper’s *was the peak of rock music being a single all-encompassing worldwide event. Nothing can ever compare to that because the music world fragmented immediately afterward. Every one of those albums was consumed by the same 13-year-olds who saw them on Ed Sullivan.
Say whatever you like about how good The Beatles were. Nobody cares about your obviously uninformed opinion. But your facts are insulting to anybody who knows or cares about music and rock history. They’re begging to be demolished and I’m happy to dance up and down on them.
(1963) Please Please Me : 14 songs 8 original
(1963) With The Beatles: 14 songs 8 original
(1964) A Hard Day’s Night: 13 songs all original
(1964) Beatles for Sale: 14 songs 8 original
(1965) Help!: 12 songs 11 original
(1965) Rubber Soul: 14 songs all original
(1966) Revolver: 14 songs all original
First bolding: do you have a cite that Dave Grohl was paid for his attendance at this event? :dubious:
Second bolding: you’re wrong. You’re utterly wrong. You’re so wrong it calls into question whether or not you actually watched and listened to this video. Here’s a challenge for you: why don’t you transcribe what (you think) was said by Dave Grohl in that video and post it here?
Here’s a rather pertinent couplet: Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
BTW Zeke, speaking as a fellow fan of The Kinks, Dylan, Cohen and Simon, but also as someone who tends to believe that The Beatles reputation is possibly over-stated, I don’t think you’re presenting a particularly coherent case – and your headline:
is laughable, and not helped at all when you risibly include the likes of Guns ‘n’ Roses, Kris Kristofferson, The Police, Metallica, Offspring, Emimem, and Anthrax as possible contenders.
And even if we grant that the Beatles were the first bubblegum-pop boy band, what’s wrong with that? That means that they managed to originate a completely new genre of music: Few musicians can make that claim. And they didn’t stop there, but also went on to pioneer another new genre of music, and did very well in a few others. They’re like the Einstein of music.
At the time of the Beatles’ breakup, Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood of The Move were inspired to start to create music that would, in their own words, “pick up where the Beatles left off.” They created Electric Light Orchestra, which Lennon himself referred to as “Sons of the Beatles.”
At the time, every band was a “boy band,” unless it was full of girls, in which case it was a “girl group.” Even Frank Sinatra, when he started out in the 1940s, was looked down on as a purveyor of music for juveniles. The OP has no understanding that there was no such thing as “adult rock music” when the Beatles came on the scene — all rock and roll was music for teenagers. Ironically, the Beatles (along with Bob Dylan) were the ones most responsible for establishing the very idea that a rock group could appeal to a sophisticated audience — the OP is bizarrely trashing the Beatles for supposedly failing to live up to the standards they themselves established.
You know who didn’t include all original songs on their first album?
The Who
Bob Dylan
Simon & Garfunkel
The Rolling Stones
The Kinks
The Yardbirds (not one!)
Cream
The Beach Boys
Buddy Holly
Jerry Lee Lewis
Them
The Byrds
The Doors
The Animals
The Band
The Grateful Dead
The Allman Brothers
Jefferson Airplane
Duane Eddy
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Bob Marley and the Wailers
all of Motown
others (I got tired)
Also obviously Badfinger. Gosh, people thought that Come And Get It WAS a Beatles song (ok, it was a McCartney composition). Of course Badfinger were also crucial to power pop, which is so obviously modeled from '64-'66 Beatles, so add Big Star et al. to the bands that are unthinkable without the Beatles. And that’s only the most direct musical influence, the greater musical influence and the cultural impact of the Beatles up to today are unquestionable.
I’m vaguely positive on the Beatles but I love arguments like this because there is too much tiresome Baby Boomer nostalgia which assumes the Beatles catalog is about as important to human civilization as the discovery of electromagnetic waves.
So the people that bought into it then continued to buy into it and therefore yada yada ya. Have anything to say that others haven’t?
So about 25% of their stuff wasn’t theirs. And even if it was 100% theirs who cares? Writing your own stuff is BASELINE. Why do they get special credit for doing what any angsty 9th grader does? They wrote 3/4 of their own stuff yay for them. I think Leonard Cohen (for instance) did write 100% of his own stuff. No why no one points that out? Because it’s fucking exceptional.
Why why why does the best band ever get special accolades for doing some of their own writing? Why?
Your first cite is specifically aimed toward Beatles admiration. And even that is weak. “We used to air guitar to them” “We talked about them.”
You second is Ozzy saying he wanted to be the Beatles to get out of his life and Geezer saying, “They had accents like us. They were working class blokes” <– paraphrase.
So wherein lies the influence?
And I said show a musician that has cited A Beatle as an influence (Lennon singing / lyrics, McCartney bass / lyrics / singing, Harrison guitar, Ringo drums.) Lest I be accused of moving the goal-posts I will remind that these are the criteria I have always laid out.
I want unsolicited, non-Beatles love-in cites.
Bad Example: So how did the Beatles influence you? Well the Beatles were a major band and I heard them when I was a kid and yeah.
Good Example: So who were your musical influences? Well I’d say that Paul McCartney certainly influenced my bass playing with the way he worked chords.
Jesus Christ even the Joe Walsh example doesn’t work He outright says he heard a McCartney baseline, practised it, asked how it was done and was told it was done in the studio with 2 tracks. Then Walsh learned to do it himself. WTF is that supposed to prove?
Mean Mister Mustard (lousy song) is working on his next thread Tits on a Fish: How to be as Useful as.
If called on by a panther
Don’t anther.
Your point?
Wait, I think I get it. You are suggesting that I’ve reached the conclusion that the Beatles aren’t the greatest because I’ve had my eyes shut man. Like I need to open them dude. See the universe.
I grew up on the Beatles. I heard them all the time. I listened to my brother mourning Lennon getting shot. I know the fucking Beatles. I’ve always liked them but they’ve never been top 10.
What is it with you Beatles people that you assume that anyone who doesn’t revere them is either blind or stupid? You realize that you all come off as condescending and bullies right?
I mean really, I don’t think you’re band hung the stars and thus I should be insulted? For a group of supposedly brilliant people you sure act like back alley thugs sometimes.
And that’s okay. You all are pixels and thus don’t matter so I don’t much care but I just thought I should point out your hypocrisy. You all fucking hate bullies until you have the chance to be one. Cool I get it - big monkey takes fruit from small monkey small monkey punches smaller monkey (Heinlein - Stranger In a Strange Land) so monkey away.
I mean really. I accept that the title was a bit over the top but you people have been acting like I fucked your wives. You’ve been snotty, dismissive, insulting and bullyish. And once one has done it the next feels free to add on.
Check your fucking selves. If this is how worked up you get about a band then you have problems. And you know what? it isn’t just me.
[unrelated rant] I dare you smug self-affirmed tolerant people to check how often you have ganged up on and bullied people because they have a different point of view. You’d set fire to someone that mocked a mentally challenged person on the street but here you beat John Clay so mercilessly that he got banned for his own good.
For the most part you are a bunch of shrunk-nut thugs that just want to band together and thump something to make your collective selves feel like champs.
And if you’ve got anything to say about that you can take it to the fucking pit but leave it out here cause this is the “The Beatles Ain’t the Best Thread” [/unrelated rant]
[/unrelated rant]
Defend yourself you laughable nit
GnR released probably the most meaningful album of the 80’s it pretty much ended hair bands, Kris Kristofferson is a lyrical genius who has been covered by something like 400 people / groups. The Police (aside from some pretty brilliant lyrics) introduced North America to ska. The Offspring is just cool and funny. Eminem revolutionized rap and Anthrax (aside from some pretty funny words) invented rap-metal.
So I’m sure you had a fucking point but I don’t know what it was. Doorknob.
