Do The Beatles still mean anything to you?

I think this is my first thread in Cafe Society. I’m a lifelong Beatles fan, since I saw them on Ed Sullivan. Our babysitter used to bring over their albums on Saturday nights. I watched the cartoons. I was aware of their existence, but didn’t really get all the way interested in them until I heard “Come Together.” I was 11 years old. I’d never heard anything like it (still haven’t), and it made me want to listen to all their music. This led to buying all their records, and imports when you could find them. I’ve been keeping a Beatles discography since before there was one published on the subject (All Together Now by Castleman & Podrazik, 1976). When it came out, anybody who was a collector knew right off that there were scores of errors and omissions. That’s when I started seriously trying to document every instance of a Beatles record from every country, and obtaining an example, where possible.

The book mentioned bootlegs, filled with mysterious outtakes and unreleased recordings. I couldn’t wait to find any of these! And I did, in head shops in Toronto, for between $6-12. Now I’ve got nearly everything any of them ever committed to tape that’s managed to escape somehow. I still collect these recordings in all their various incarnations, because in the absence of commercial product, that’s all there is. It’s like Anthology, only moreso. I’ve got all kinds of books on them, not fan books, but those analyzing how the recordings were made, and more recent discographies and reference volumes.

Is there anybody here who likes The Beatles enough to listen to multiple takes of songs and alternate mixes? Can you sit through 8 versions of “What’s The New Mary Jane”? Any collectors here? Do you even listen to them anymore? Do you care?

I’m well aware that the group is long gone, and they’re definitely not the only thing I listen to. I’m not stuck in some kind of delusional fan rut, I just collect their records and have studied them a great deal, in order to learn how records are made, and what heights you can achieve with limited equipment and unbridled enthusiasm. You can learn a lot about it by figuring out what they did on their records, and how it was achieved.

I’d appreciate your thoughts on whether you still listen to The Beatles, if you think they’re important to music today, whether you hate them because they’re overplayed on the radio, if you couldn’t get into them, if you always did, or got in 'way late. Thanks for your input.

I never could find bootlegs, but I’ll sit and listen to 20 alternate versions of any song. This weekend I watched Concert for George, and the Anthology 6 & 7, and I’m listening to a Paul McCartney CD right now. I’m not nearly as fanatical or obessed as I used to be, but they’re still my First Love.

Wow. I can trace my Beatlemania back to the precise instant it started, watching a made for tv flick called Birth of the Beatles. I was 12, and it was 1979. I was fanatical for awhile, would spend my lunch hours in Jr. High in the library copying anything I could find about the group down on paper (I still have it all.)

In my later teens moved into more current music; mostly punk and ska. Now, 20 years later, I mostly listen to jazz. And the Beatles. They never left me. Can’t get enough of them.

I was sitting drunk in a bar the other night, my companion was in the bathroom, and I looked up and saw a poster of the Beatles on the wall above me. It was like seeing old friends. I got a little teary eyed.

**scuttles off to put on The White Album

I go through phases where I have a different favorite “new” band and explore a different style like Brazilian music or classical. But the Beatles are always there at the core of what I like.

One thing that surprises me is that, as allegedly overexposed and overrated as the Beatles are, they aren’t on the radio (at least mine) or TV very much - except for a few hits that are familiar to every living creature by now. And these hits, while all good songs, are mostly the less adventurous or more ‘pop’ songs like “I Wanna Hold You Hand” and “Hey Jude” that get played mostly on oldies radio stations. Most younger people who aren’t fans know them as the English mop-tops, then some confusing Sgt. Pepper phase, and finally maybe give a nod to “Revolution” or “Come Together” as something approaching relevant rock music - but they aren’t seen as important to modern rock as bands like the Doors and Led Zeppelin.

As a result, sometimes I get a kick out of playing a Beatles record when I have a friend over or in my car - because there’s a lot of stuff that most younger people who are not fans have never heard. For instance, I once was playing “She Said, She Said” from Revolver in my car. My friend asked who it was, and was surprised that it was a Beatles track from 1966.

You’re making me feel like I’ve never been born.

Always.

Always.

Like an earlier poster I watched the cartoons, I listened at the time, and like yet another, they are always there. The Beatles must be relevant to me still because in many ways they are actually a part of me. Lyrics I can recite by heart (because of the thousands of playings a song has had), Beatles songbooks, all the big volumes of Beatle information I’ve read over the years. They are always there. There may be better bands of any given genre, but they were masters of all styles. Their eclectic catalog has caused me to venture everywhere in search of music – from Avant Garde, to the bargin bin (where most of the really good bands seem to land).

Because they were there at the formation of my musical awareness, they will always be with me.

They worked so well in so many musical genres:

Electronica: Tomorrow Never Knows
Children’s: Yellow Submarine
Chanson: And I Love Her
Dylanesque folk: You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
String quartet: Eleanor Rigby
Lullaby: Good Night
Punk: Helter Skelter
Hard rock: Revolution
Country: Act Naturally
English music hall: Your Mother Should Know
Indian: Within You Without You
R&B: Got to Get You Into My Life
Psychedelia: Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
Blues: Oh! Darling
Rockabilly: One After 909

Grew up with them, my parents were fans so I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t listening to them. I can remember it being a big event when they split up and I was just a kid.

When I was about 13 I went as far as learning a Liverpool accent :rolleyes: . I don’t have any bootlegs but I’ve got pretty much all of the legit releases (even if the really early stuff is on my parents mono LPs). And I do still listen to them, Rubber Soul gets most airtime.

The Beatles are still one of my favorites and I listen to them fairly often.

I date back to the time when the Beatles were putting out New albums. I saw them on Ed Sullivan, but didn’t become a fan until Sgt. Pepper came out (it was the first album I bought – in monaural!).

I don’t care for the alternate takes. A song is a song (though, in theory, Let it Be . . . Naked should be an improvement over the awful strings Phil Spector added).

I once listened to Revolution #9 twenty times in a row - with headphones - to try and pick out all the phrases. I could listen to them all day and listen to the same songs tomorrow.

At one point, I had about 20 or 25 books about the Beatles. I lent them to someone who was doing a college paper about their music. Someone broke into her car and stole the books. She paid me for them, but it never really filled the hole in my heart about losing them. (The books had many newspaper and magazine articles I had cut out and saved over many years.)

Dear Friends;
I used to use All Together Now as my “Beatles-Bible”, whenever I was looking in the bootleg sections etc. At one time i had well over a hundred Beatles and Solo albums. I still regret selling My Christmas album :frowning: . A friend recently burned me an MP3 with all their albums on one disc, and I have been listening to it on “shuffle” mode, most days around the house. I cried the days John and George died. For people I never met, they had a big role in my life, and I Still mourn their loss. I guess you could call me a fan :slight_smile:

The Doctor is On. The Doctor is Happy

is this thread directed that experienced Beatles in their prime, or is it open for all?

I have only experienced Beatles second hand via my father, who was an avid fan. He made sure to have all the official songs, and I recently inherited all the 7"'s and vinyl albums. A mint condition Strawberry fields forever-single with swedish print on the backside might be a nice addition to your collection, fishbicycle? :wink:

Actually, John was my first idol, and I would very much say I have grown up with the Beatles, even though only as a used-to-be-rock-act. And it was only this morning that I gave “Hey Jude” another spin. :wink:

What the Beetles mean to me is forever having to hear about them. As I grew up I didn’t mind the Beetles, but at this point I have simply heard them too much. Further exposure to them is like nails on a chalkboard for me. Not their fault at all, I just cant handle hearing the same thing over and over for decades.

I have written many rants about why I think the Beatles just aren’t that great, and I don’t have the desire to go into a long ‘I hate the Beatles’ post right now. Perhaps I’ll treat y’all later on.

But I’ll say this. The music world needs to get over the Beatles. They were influential, important in their time and made a lot of teenagers in the '60s think that they were part some sort of chosen generation. But they were not the untoppable zenith of popular music for all time. They are not automatically number one on every list ever devised. They had a heap of shit songs - remember that those albums considered their best have some truly terrible songs on them - Sgt Peppers (When I’m 64), Revolver (Yellow Submarine). Those who don’t like the Beatles are not uncultured philistines. And there have been a million better bands since.

Oh, and John Lennon wasn’t some amazing visionary thinker.

Disagreeing with **gex gex ** here…

My first exposure to the Beatles was during the outpouring after John was killed. I was 13 years old. I listened to some but wasn’t all that interested.

In college while working on a music degree, I became very interested in alternative scales. Early Beatles music is almost exclusively pentatonic and watching them evolve musically as they became more proficient with their instruments was fascinating. Even the “bad” songs are complex and compelling even today. Also, remember that the Beatles only existed for 10 years, and recorded for less than that. I really doubt that people will be debating the musical significance of most groups today 33 years after their breakups.

And John Lennon was pretty dang spiffy, if you ask me.

I’m not sure whose opinions the OPer is looking for. It seems to me that this thread has become a Beatles love-fest from people who were alive during their heyday. Valid opinions, sure, but only a piece of the puzzle.

To wit: I’m a 28 year-old music fan, former DJ, and all-around audiophile.

Having missed Beatlemania by 11 years, and their best work having been put in the can several years by the time I was born, I can only give you the opinion of someone who heard them long after they were gone.

That said, I understand The Beatles as an abstract, and I can certainly appreciate “the sound” they helped usher in. They were part of something important in musical culture, and helped shape bands for years to come.

But I’m not a fan.

I didn’t (and still don’t) hear a resonating sound that speaks to multiple generations. I hear that sound from artists like Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, and (to a lesser degree) Aerosmith.

The Beatles remind me, strangely, of another group – Kiss. Kiss made great music that spoke to a specific generation. Kiss has (and had) little interest in cultivating new generations of fans – because they do what they do so well, there’s little necessity to change up a winning formula. You can also lump The Rolling Stones into this category – the music might change slightly, but there’s little need at this point to change directions mid-stream.

And that’s not to say I don’t enjoy the music of The Beatles. But that wasn’t the question.

Are The Beatles still relevant? Only in the sense that people remember the originators of a huge musical movement. Massive, rabid (and rapidly decreasing, thanks to mortality) fanbase aside, The Beatles’ sound does **not ** speak to my generation. And maybe that’s okay. Who says it has to be a dynasty in order to be successful or memorable?

I’m just saying, if you put The White Album up next to Houses of the Holy, or The Beatles’ “1” next to Elvis’s “#1 Hits”, I know which ones I’d put on. But YMMV.

I listen to music. That’s how I appreciate it. No matter how complex a song is, if it’s a bad song, it’s a bad song. If I want to know how clever the Beatles were, I’ll read an article. But all the cleverness in the world doesn’t justify Octopus’ Garden (the 60’s answer to Blues Clues) or mawkish dreck like The Long and Winding Road.

I missed this sentence from DeVena’s post first time around:

Nor do people debate the musical significance of most groups of the '60s. But there are plenty of contemporary groups whose significance will debated far into the future. Radiohead, for instance. Eminem. Dr Dre.