There have been some interesting responses! Thanks for all your opinions, keep them coming!
Do you have any specific memories you’d like to share, related to The Beatles? Here’s one:
I remember when my friend Gordon bought the 45 of Hey Jude b/w Revolution. We took it home and played it, and the B-side seemed to be all distorted. So we took it back and got another copy, which was exactly the same! Guitar distortion like that was uncommon even in 1968. We thought there was something wrong with the record, and so did the guy at the record store!
Knighed Vorpal Sword, there’s an acetate of an earlier mix of Revolution 9 that allows you to hear a lot of things that are buried under subsequent overdubs in the finished version. I’ll bet you’d find that interesting.
I didn’t intend for this to be either a love-fest, preaching to the converted, nor a flame war between people who think they’re relevant or not. I just wondered what you thought.
Hi. Guitar player from a cover band in Brazil talking here. My band plays weddings, proms, private parties, bars, etc. We have a very long repertoire (which cover from waltz & brazilian bossa-nova to Guns’n’Roses & Creed) and we build a different set-list for every night, trying to please that night’s audience mix (in other words: no Nirvana on a wedding, no waltz on a pub).
Guess what band’s songs are there in every set-list, regardless of local, audience age, time of the day, etc? The Beatles. And not just one song, we play at least 4 Beatles songs each night. The audiences always love them.
Proud mildly-obsessive Beatles fan checking in. 37 years old. My sister bought Abbey Road when it came out and I swpied it when she went to college, I think.
I go in Beatles phases. After being turned on by Abbey Road, I was only into the early stuff. Loved it. Then I got into Rubber Soul, then Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, all in order over a period of 3-5 years. After maxing out on Let It Be, I’ve fallen into the middle era, Hard Days Night, Rubber Soul, and Revolver being my absolute favorites.
Two of my happiest Beatlemoments were when I finally bought a copy of the Butcher cover album (already peeled). Had the album in it and everything. It hangs on my wall. My other moment was finally being able to dig up a copy of the Get Back (Pakistani) version of that song.
Best book: Revolution in the Head by Ian McDonald.
Well, this fan was born two years after Lennon died. It’s not my generation. It’s barely my parents generation. (My mom was only eight when they broke up.) I “discovered” them when the Anthology was released, and pretty much spent two years in my own Beatlemania…
What makes me sad about those two years is all the things I collected have somehow disappeared. I don’t know where my posters are (probably here somewhere) and I know my mom as my books (I had many, many books), my movies (I had many documentaries), and a few other collectables. I’d like to get them back, but she probably doesn’t know where they are either.
I disagree. I can’t even stand most of the “music world”. If fact, there’s a poster on this board who claims to hate music. All music. He doesn’t get it. I would be this close to agreeing with him based on the offering of music from my generation. I just don’t like it. And yet, somehow, I restrain myself from jumping into threads about certain bands and trumpeting about how much they suck.
shrug I don’t care what the “music world” does, as long as I can pop in Revolver or The White Album or Abbey Road, or even the Anthology discs, kick back, and rediscover just what attracted me to them in the first place.
Also, by whose standards are we judging the music by? Yours? I like When I’m 64, and I like Yellow Submarine. I’m not going to “admit” they have shitty songs when I can’t even think of one I don’t like. Ok, that’s a lie. I don’t She’s a Woman, for whatever reason. But I’m not going to lecture the world on why they should all hate She’s A Woman just because I skip that track.
I think one thing the Beatles had that helped was a huge, loyal fan base.
The Beatles were free to try any form of music they wanted, and they didn’t have to worrry about fickle fans ignoring them. As Walloon noted, they had a little bit of every style. Few groups can get away with that today and remain popular with their core group of fans.
Just take the song, Yesterday. It crossed over almost every music chart, has been recorded by singers in every language, in hundreds of styles and variations, and even made hard-core parential cynics say, “well, that song isn’t that bad…”
But then you only had to play Revolution and the parents would slam that door again.
The music industry was different then - the Beatles were able to capitalize on the steady income and fan base, and still be free to experiment with various music styles. Sure, not every song is a classic - but I can remember friends being influenced by Beatle songs to go out and find other musicians who played that type of music. The Beatles opened the doors for lots of other musical groups - and helped widden the range of musical tastes for their fan base.
Overrated? Hardly - if anything, I think they are underrated. So much of what they did, which was pretty radical at the time, is still being done/imitated/improved upon by musical groups today.
The Beatles are as meaningful to me today as they were when I “discovered” them at age 13. More so, actually, since I’ve heard more of their music and I like to think, understand them better.
I’m not so much a collector though. I don’t have a lot of Beatle things, and I haven’t read all the books about them. I’ve read and heard enough to understand that they were people like everybody else, with the same faults and weaknesses. I also see that they were able to put their feelings into their music in a way that very few others ever have.
Here’s another personal story. I met my wife because we both collect Beatles bootlegs. I lived in Canada, and I subscribed to an American newsletter, reviewing the latest titles to come out. I had an ad in the classified section, for tape trading, which is what people did before recordable CDs. One day, I got a letter from a woman in Mississippi, and we traded a few times. Gradually, we got to be friends via the post office, and discovered that we had all this other stuff in common. This went on for two years, by which time she had moved back to her native Florida. I will have been here and married six years on May 9th.
I remember when the “Let It Be” box set came out (it was only like this in the UK, Canada, Japan and a few other Commonwealth countries. The US got a gatefold sleeve and a red Apple on the label). One of the guys at school got it, and I would just drool looking at the pictures in the book, and reading the dialogue. I wanted one of these box sets so badly, but my mother said there was no way she was going to spend $7.98 on a record! They regularly go for big bucks in trading circles, and probably on eBay. I haven’t been to the music section of eBay - I don’t even want to know what’s there! What I don’t know won’t hurt my cash flow…
I guess I’ll share my view of The Beatles.
I am 17 years old and have recently discovered just how amazing they really were. I did not grow up with them, despite my parents liking them. For some reason, however, I feel like I heard Penny Lane a lot when I was younger because it just gives me that feeling of nostalgia. Of course I was familiar with Yellow Submarine too.
I used to regard them as just some other safe oldies band that have horribly dated.
So when I got to high school, I was surprised to see them treated with a lot of respect, and thought maybe they weren’t so bad after all. So I decided to give them a chance and bought One. I didn’t like most of it, actually. I tried to listen to it a lot, but the songs just sounded so old.
Between then and about a year ago, the album grew on me a lot until I came to appreciate nearly every song.
So I had a friend burn me a copy of Sergeant Pepper’s, as he said it was the only Beatles album, and I thought it sucked. Most of it was boring, and John’s voice was so annoying on Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. And then somehow that album grew on me as well, and the stuff I found annoying I came to really appreciate.
So since then, I’ve been listening to a ton of their music and seeing why they were so brilliant.
I belive the music does speak to me. I can’t speak for my generation, since I’m really not part of the culture, but their music is plenty relevant. The world hasn’t changed that much since then.
Their musical relevance isn’t limited to the 60’s, I’m Only Sleeping sounds like it could have been released today.
Just so no one thinks I have shallow musical taste, I would say that it’s about the same as most people here. I’m into bands like Echo and the Bunnymen and New Order and other post-punk stuff.
Okay, I’m done. I hope you can excuse the poor writing in my post, but I hope the point comes across that I’m really young and have recently become a fan of The Beatles.
I was 6 years old when the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan. My first exposure to the Beatles must have been in late 1963. Some older girls up the street had some singles, and they would lip synch the records while playing tennis racket guitars - you had to have been there. And then after the Ed Sullivan they were everywhere. I watched the cartoon show, bought the singles (couldn’t get the money for albums), and I even had a Beatles lunch box. A new single release was always a big deal in the neighborhood. So, I guess you could say they were a big part of my youth. By about 1967 the Beatles had moved beyond what a 10 year old kid could appreciate (the exception being Yellow Submarine) and I started listening to some of the crappier British Invasion bands like Herman’s Hermits. I don’t even recall the release of Sgt. Pepper or Magical Mystery Tour. But then came “Hey Jude”. I still remember hearing it for the first time on the Smothers Brother’s Show. I think “Hey Jude” and “Let it Be” were the last two Beatles singles I bought. Then in the 70’s when I became a teenager I got into all the post-Rubber Soul stuff. And I still listen to them. I like to think that they are still relevant apart from their nostalgia appeal.
I saw the Beatles in concert on their last tour in Washington DC. **That makes me cool, no matter what **.
What is hard to believe is that the Beatles made all those amazing records in five years in a concentrated blast of creativity.
1963 Please Please Me
1963 Introducing…The Beatles
1963 With the Beatles
1964 Meet the Beatles
1964 The Beatles’ Second Album
1964 A Hard Day’s Night
1964 Something New
1964 Beatles for Sale
1964 Beatles '65
1964 With the Beatles
1965 Help!
1965 Rubber Soul
1966 Yesterday…and Today
1966 Revolver
1967 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Capitol
1967 Magical Mystery Tour
1968 The Beatles [White Album]
1969 Yellow Submarine
1969 Abbey Road
They put out Help and Rubber Soul in 65, Revolver in 66, and Sgt Pepper in 67. That’s Help, Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Sgt Pepper in TWO YEARS. (I left off Let it Be because it was such crap.)
Yeah, but several of the albums you listed are just compliations of songs recorded for other albums. There UK releases are
Please Please Me
With The Beatles
A Hard Day’s Night
Beatles For Sale
Help!
Rubber Soul
Revolver
Sgt.Peppers…
Magical Mystery Tour
The White Album
Yellow Submarine
Abbey Road
Let It Be
Past Masters 1 & 2
The American label took each album as they released, chopped it up, rearranged the songs, and then split the songs over two albums, for whatever reason. (look at the American version of Rubber Soul. It’s missing some songs and has some fro Help! on it!)
I don’t really know why, but it’s always annoyed me to see the “bastard” albums listed in their discography.
I still love the beatles as well.“help” is the most favorte although “strawberry fields forever” and “fool on the hill” are near the top.I never did like the the whitle,or anything later.may the yellow subamarine sail on forever!
I remember growing up listening to the Beatles. I wanted to hear Yellow Submarine every night before I went to bed and I remember my mom always playing Lovely Rita for my friend Rita from down the street. It was not the music of “my generation” and barely the music of my parents’ generation; my mom was 5 when they broke up. But until I was 10 or so, they were one of the few bands I knew existed. I do really like their stuff, and I think it is still relevant today. How much impact they’ve had is hard to measure. Direct impact, I doubt very much. But they influenced some band, who influenced some other band, who then influenced the groups of today. I also think they had an impact on making people more open to different styles of music. They were pretty radical in their day. I will admit, they have their bad songs. Well, maybe not bad, I am not the right person to judge. But definitely songs I don’t like (Michelle comes to mind immediately). But all in all they were and still a great band.
I wasn’t born until the 80s, but they still mean a lot to me.
This girl I had a crush on in high school was an obsessive Beatles fan, and I learned to play guitar partly to impress her.
First song I ever learned: Blackbird.
So it is partly sentimental reasons I like them, and partly the fact that they are great song writers and musicians and their records are awesome.
I’m me. I’m not allowing or forbidding anything. I’m saying what I think, and I think that a hell of a lot has happened since the Beatles, and the music world should look to the future rather than dwell in the past.
Naaw, I saw Missy Elliot on there once, and she’s still making some of the most creative pop around.
I don’t know which generation you belong to, but such a statement suggests there’s a lot of music produced by your generation that you haven’t listened to.
I usually avoid doing so. If this was a thread titled the “Beatles are so great,” I would have skipped it. If this was a thread titled ‘Is “Let It Be… Naked” better than “Let It Be”’ I wouldn’t have jumped in to say “they both suck!” But this thread asked for thoughts on whether I “still listen to The Beatles… think they’re important to music today… hate them because they’re overplayed on the radio…[or] couldn’t get into them.” I responded to that. If this thread was asking for people to have a big group hug about how great the Beatles are, I wouldn’t have posted my opinion. But there’s no reason for you to get pissy just because I think the world’s moved on since 1970.
You can listen to what you want.
Yes. Of course I’m going to judge them by my standards. Whose standards should I judge them by? Rory Calhoun’s?
I never called on you to “admit” anything. I was giving my opinion. I don’t like the Beatles, but I can still form a balanced opinion on their songs. I don’t care to listen to, say, And Your Bird Can Sing, but I can still recognise that it’s a well written pop song, well crafted, well produced and pretty advanced for it’s time. I can see that its style has influenced many bands since, including many that I like to listen to. By the same standard, I consider Yellow Submarine to be a silly novelty song, Taxman a rocker that couldn’t kick it as hard as the Who or the Rolling Stones could, Good Morning a chirpy piece of silliness vapid enough to have come out of the mouth of Britney Spears, and Dr Robert to be a Beatles-by-numbers pop song, the sort they had already exhausted a few records previous. That the record from which these songs are drawn is meant to be a fan favourite, yet seems to have so many gaping holes in it says to me that this band isn’t the hot shit they’re reputed to be. Particularly when compared to someone like Wilco, whose previous record had not one bad track on it. And I’m not singling out Wilco. Elvis Costello, The Clash, The Pixies, Radiohead, Nirvana - all have released complete albums without one substandard track. I’m sure you’ll maintain that Revolver doesn’t have substandard tracks, and you’re welcome to. But, that’s not the way I see it.
I disagree. There are a heap of bands around today that are big Beatles fans, and that’s reflected in their music.
They used to do, up until I was about 11, and found other kinds of music I liked a lot better. This would be generally due to listening to what my parents listened to. I started ‘proper’ school, found a bunch of people that could turn me on to other stuff. Beatles get left behind, then I got sick of my brother playing them to death and everybody saying the were/are the best thing ever.
That’s answering the OP. I’ll back gex up on what he said there because threads on the Beatles for some reason always turn into ‘they’re the best band ever how dare you say otherwise they’re responsible to everything you listen to’, as we’ve had in various other recent threads.
Other music is out there. And, Walloon, ‘Tommorow never knows’ is in no way Electronica. I suggest you find out what that particular pigeonhole of music means.
Ah, gex - you had to wade in, didn’t you? Gex and I have had many back-and-forths about this very topic on the board and off.
Bottom line: The Beatles are super relevant today - listen to most rock/pop bands today and even some hip hop - Grey Album anyone? - and you can find a link back to the Beatles. You can’t release the album #1’s and watch it become the top seller of the year just a couple of years ago and question their relevance.
Whether or not you like them is a whole 'nother matter. I love 'em - my fave band, period. Gex tends to think of them as influential but not all that great - to each his own.
btw, 41 years old, remember the news about them breaking up, remember where I was when Lennon was killed, but didn’t really get into them until my late 20’s/early 30’s…