Early Beatles--great! Later Beatles--mediocre.

Cafe Society
1

Some of you were itching for a Beatles debate thread, so here it is. I think my own perspective on the Beatles tends to be a little bit uncommon: I love them up to (and heartily including) Help. I only like a few songs after that.

My wife and I were in a curry shop in Japan recently that has only the Beatles as their BGM. The song “Roll Over Beethoven” came on. I had pretty much dismissed this in my mind as just a fun, competent cover–but in reality that song is absolutely smokin’! Lennon was just a great singer.

I love the Beatles in their non-pretentious, teeny-bopper-pleasing, non-drugged-out mode. And the album Help, my favorite by them, seems to capture them right at the turning point: more sophisticated, more creative, more fun–but not yet with the vices that would appear on Rubber Soul.

If someone wants to argue that the early albums aren’t great (and not all of them are great qua albums), that’s fine. But I’d like to take a look at the overpraised later albums and see if they measure up. The versions we’ll be discussing are the original UK versions, BTW. I’ll list the songs I like and then explain why the album overall is a failure.

Rubber Soul (1965)
“Norwegian Wood”–A-. This song is already a little too arty and pretentious for the Beatles’ own good, but it does have an unforgettable melody and is built nice and neat.

“In My Life”–A. Just a great song.

The rest of the album is music hall corn (“Michelle”), arrogant, pretentious crap (“Nowhere Man”), or things too awful to describe (“The Word”). The real frustration, though, is that there are songs in there that come close to making it, but don’t (“Drive My Car”). I also read a review on Amazon that pointed out something interesting: After Rubber Soul the Beatles would never be a real rock band again, and hardly a band for many albums. They devolved into mere artistes but, frankly, did not have the stuff to pull it off, except on occasion.

Revolver (1966)
“Eleanor Rigby”–A-. Here we have Paul as an effective solo act: just he and a string quartet. It’s a pretty well-made song, but still with that pretentious edge.

This album is a big ol’ pretentious pack of absolute crap. Where the tunes are good, the overall effect is McCartney corn (“Here, There, and Everywhere,” “Yellow Submarine”). BTW, I don’t hate corn in general, when it’s done well; I just really hate Beatles Corn. When the tone is hard and right (“Taxman”), the music just isn’t there to back it up. “I’m Only Sleeping” is another frustration in that regard.

I won’t claim that there is artistry and creativity at work on Revolver; there certainly is. Put simply, it is an album I pick up, thinking, “There ought to be something good on this”; but when I look at the list of songs, there isn’t anything I feel like listening to (“Rigby,” of course, is all wore out, although I don’t blame the song itself.)

Sgt. Pepper’s (1967)
“With a Little Help from My Friends”–A-. I like Ringo’s singing on this song and the overall laid-back feel of it.

I find myself having the same issue with Pep that I have with Revolver: although I recognize that there are some good tunes and whatnot in there, none of the songs alone does it for me. Again, I can’t say that there isn’t incredible creativity and innovation at work there–there is, and I admire it. But the end product just simply isn’t that great.

Is it that I’ve just heard the songs too much? I don’t think so. Let’s take another album from the same year: Pices, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.. I’ve heard every song on that album a dozen times, some quite a few more when I watched the original Monkees TV show. But a song like “Love is Sleeping” still gives me chills. Pep just seems flat to me.

Exception: Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
This is actually a good album. The CD (= original American version) has more songs than the original British version; singles were appended to an EP, according to www.allmusic.com. This may have worked in the disc’s favor, as there are lots of goodies on here. “I Am the Walrus” is an A+ masterpiece. I love the dissonant hell of “Blue Jay Way.” “Penny Lane” is Sgt. Pepper’s-type song, only done successfully. This album does contain, however, McCartney’s worst embarrassment of all time: “Your Mother Should Know.” Egad!

Have you seen the movie, though? Egregious trash.

The White Album (1968)
“Back in the U.S.S.R.”–A. Fun tune.
“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”–B+. Stupid but fun. Highly original sound. Paul seems incredibly stoned.
“Martha My Dear”–A. Great song. Paul finally makes the music hall thing work with a sophisticated melody (cool piano, too).
“Birthday”–B+. An original tune that comes together.
“Yer Blues”–A. Makes me wish Lennon was strictly solo at this point. Pretty rockin’ cool.
“Helter Skelter”–A. Makes me wish Paul was solo, too. This is rocking, original, and hard. Creative.
“Revolution 1”–B+. Doesn’t quite come together, but a good tune and good Lennon singing.

On a normal album the above would be enough to make it good. But the White Album is two records long and full of the most execrable crap imaginable. Sometimes the raw, unformed sound works quite well, as in “Helter Skelter,” but for the most part this is a collection of garage band doodlings. Sorry, I like Harrison as much as the next guy, but “While My Guitar” gently weeps is simply retarded.

Yellow Submarine (1969)
The less said the better.

Abbey Road (1969)
“Come Together”–A. I dig this one.
“Something” and “Here Comes the Sun”–both A+ Harrison masterpieces.

I’ll admit I don’t own this album, one reason being that when I was buying my Beatles CDs this had very little on it I felt I needed to hear, and what I had heard and liked I had already heard a million times. Does anyone argue that this one isn’t mostly just lackadaisical filler?

Let It Be (1970)
“Get Back”–A. Good tune.

I don’t own this one, either. The trouble with the last two albums is that the Beatles were just making studio confections and not really playing with each other. There simply isn’t the life you’ll find on their early albums.

BTW, I have Help on right now, and it’s just a great album for the most part. Now someone could argue that the early albums are full of covers and filler. That’s true. I won’t apologize for the covers; they’re often great. The filler is there, admittedly.

But I’m not really arguing the early Beatles albums are better than the later Beatles albums. I’m arguing something a little different:

  1. The later Beatles albums are way overrated. Way overrated.
  2. The early Beatles music was real, heartfelt, unpretentious, original, enjoyable, sound, complete, and–this is the biggest difference–playable live. In contrast, the later music is pretentious, concocted, often half-baked despite its originality, and–again most important–not playable live, or, in any event, not music that actually was played live, since the Beatles didn’t tour.

There’s no question, as I noted above, that there are good Beatles tunes after Help. But, overall, I find the second half of their career to be a big disappointment.

2

I love their first two albums. I don’t really like the albums between With the Beatles and Rubber Soul, but they have some great songs. And then Rubber Soul and after I love all the albums.

Obviously, I disagree with you. They were great all throughout their career, I think. I really like just about every song on their Rubber Soul and beyond albums.

I personally don’t think they were really pretentious either, they were just trying out all kinds of different stuff.

3

Okay, I’ll admit, it would be more fun to go to an early Beatles concert, to feel the energy of the crowd. About the closest I’ve come is Dashboard Confessional (and were all the musicians playing with him Chris Carrabba, you bet it would be just as emotional as beatlemania.)

However,

:dubious: :dubious: :dubious: And just what exactly were the early Beatles albums??? Granted, if I were just exposed to them today as examples of early-mid-60’s rock n roll, I’d prefer them to, say, your average Motown hit of back then. But I could say the same for any British Invasion group, too. *

But as it stands, their early albums are just as overrated (and overplayed) as their later ones. In fact, I think all of their albums are equally overrated. It’s just that the middle albums (I can’t decide if Help! or Rubber Soul is their first “middle album”, but Sgt Pepper and MMT were their last ones,) are IMO better than the early ones, so just as (un)deserving of the higher level of praise!

In other words, I agree the later and mid-beatles albums are overrated, but I like 'em anyway.

Early beatles, on the other hand, I don’t mind if I never hear, ever again. Sure, i’ll agree the music is fun, unpretentious, and original – but it’s gone far past the point where hearing them again is enjoyable.

I’ll agree with you, though, that their later pieces are pretentious crap without much to show for it (although some of my favorite beatles tunes are from that era, the crapitude of Let It Be and hey Jude more than make up for Across the Universe and Here Comes the Sun.)

*a lot of it had to do with how the Merseybeat made more effective use of recording technologies to achieve a cleaner, less muddy sound. Or I may be wrong on it and it was just a difference of style, but the effect, tight and clean versus muddy and ponderous, was real.

4

Sure, I’m not saying that the Beatles in their early period were that much better than other Invasion bands. I like a lot of that music, even stuff that tends to get get pooh-poohed, such as Freddie and the Dreamers (I would say their song “Early in the Morning” is one of the most perfect rock songs every put on a disc).

On the other hand, by the late 60s there were a lot of bands doing stuff just as creative or more creative than the Beatles. But doing it better. So, I find the early Beatles not to be overrated, but the later Beatles to be so.

I don’t agree, as the focus on early Beatles work tends to be on the singles, not the albums. If anything there are many early songs that are underplayed and virtually unknown.

Sure, a lot of stuff has been done to death by oldies stations. Not the songs’ fault, though.

5

Lennon was a great singer indeed, but he wasn’t singing Roll Over Beethoven. That was Mr. Harrison.

Other than that, I pretty much disagree entirely with your analysis. Each album has its own strengths and weaknesses. Part of the reason I love the Beatles is because I can get everything I need from them. A rockin’ little R&B combo? Yep. Meaningful lyrics? Yep. Experimentation with music from around the world? Yep. Drugged-out hippies? Yep. Production so overblown it’s almost brilliant? Yep. Production so subtle that you can find something new to love every time you hear it? Yep. There wasn’t anything they couldn’t do, and I don’t think there was anything they didn’t do.

Their entire career is brilliant because it wasn’t in a vacuum. 1965, when Help was released, was a very different year than 1968, which was very different from 1970, musically, politically, and socially. I am not saying that you shouldn’t have a preference of an album or era over another. I find I cannot have a preference, because I love them all for different yet equal reasons. However, there is no arguing with personal taste. I am saying that discounting fully half of their career because you think it is pretentious is a mistake. Could the White Album afford to lose some songs? Oh, it would make a BRILLIANT single album…but the full White Album can tell you so very much about the band as a collective, the men as individuals, the lives they led, and the world they were living in. Did Sgt. Pepper’s work as a concept album? No, but they all admit that idea fell apart after the third song. Listen to the production value of the songs. Did Rubber Soul get a little corny in places? Sure thing. But look at what they were doing. They were in transition, all young men, the oldest only 24, on top of the world, the most powerful group in the world–what does that do to the music?

What you hear on the early albums was the result of literally years of work. They played in Liverpool and Hamburg for 6 years before getting a break. And they played long hours in Hamburg…8 hour sets. Every night. Did the same thing in Liverpool, to some extent. The early albums reflect the style they forged from almost unimaginable hours of practice. You’re hearing a refined rock combo, and that worked for whenthey just wanted to be a rock combo. But they never stopped working, never stopped pushing themselves, even when their trial by fire was over, and I think it’s unfair to discount their later endeavors.

6

The Beatles were much better after they started taking drugs.

7

I stand corrected! I think it’s a great vocal job. I just listened to it on vinyl.

My respect for them extends throughout their career. I just don’t find that the material usually comes together on the later albums. The didn’t sell out; they didn’t lose their groove. What happened is that they stopped playing together as a band, and on the later albums it was essentially solo projects. And these included mostly experiments that didn’t work out. Kudos to them for trying, and sometimes succeeding brilliantly, but they certainly weren’t a band in the same sense as they were on the early albums; that spirit is gone, or, to put it another way, “This Bird Has Flown.”

It’s not just pretentiousness. It’s a lack of wholeness on a lot of songs.

Collective? These were basically solo-made pieces, right. Oh, sure, sometimes George would play guitar for one or the other.

You seem to concede the point here a little. That’s why I like Help so much: it’s the peak. You get some of the later sophistication without the pretentiousness, but you get them playing as a real band. Thereafter comes the transition, but it was a transition to nowhere, since by the time they would be able to get things to work, they were already not a band any more. Question: Why did Lennon and McCartney always share song credits until the bitter end? They hardly even worked together any more.

Precisely. It’s great, real rock and roll. The practice and the energy all comes through.

Not discounting them–just saying that, all in all, it’s mediocre music. I certainly have respect for the men. They went on to do cool solo stuff, too. Harrison especially was yet to bloom.

8

Actually, I think drugs were part of the problem.

9

Wow… I totally dig the later Beatles. I find their early stuff too pop-y for my tastes, but I still love it. I love most of the stuff they did (except some of the very obscure, strange sounding stuff, like when they were messing around with backwards stuff and tracks on top of other tracks, people talking in the background, etc.). I didn’t get a full appreciation of their earlier stuff til I really got to know their more psychedelic stuff. I feel like their later work gave them a more unique sound.

My favorite albums and favorite songs from them:

Rubber Soul: Nowhere Man, I’m Looking Through You, In My Life, **Norwegian Wood **(great stuff!)

Revolver: I truly love just about every song on this album, although I could do without Tomorrow Never Knows
**
Abbey Road: All of it! It reminds me of Dark Side of the Moon, the way it’s all put together, kind of like a series of short plays that all tie together in some way. My favorite is You Never Give Me Your Money
**
I could live without Yellow Submarine. But I’d never give up The White Album! I also like a lot of the tracks on the Anthology albums, like Baby’s in Black.

In terms of their earlier stuff, I love Help, and A Hard Days Night.

I could go on and on, but I’m just too tired to type.

I can’t resist throwing this in though…
I love Paul!
oh god… i’m so embarrassed now.

10

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

11

I think even at their most ambitious, the Beatles were among the least pretentious musicians ever. With the exception of some of Harrison’s spiritual epics and the occasional summer-of-love-era Lennon piece, the Beatles didn’t aspire to make Grand Statements, and their stylistic experiments were not expressions of overweening self-importance; they were the natural outgrowth of two very eclectic and musically curious composers, who grew up listening to every kind of popular music available to them, from rockabilly, country and R&B to show tunes, Sinatra and big band. (The only music they tended to dislike was jazz, precisely because of the pretentious snootiness of the people who played and listened to it.)

Beyond that, I loathe the Marsh/DeRogatis wing of criticism that finds some kind of holy simplicity in three-chord bash-em-ups whilst relegating any attempt to stretch and grow musically into the trashcan of “pretentiousness,” a word that gets flung around widely but with little precision. What the hell is “pretentious” about “Eleanor Rigby”? The chords are among the simplest of any Beatles song, the lyrics not too far removed from a typical “social conscience” narrative folk song (of the kind Dylan evokes in “Hattie Carroll”), the melody striking but in no way avante-garde. Or should pop musicians just keep away from strings and stick to their guitars?

12

Not at all. There are only three songs I can think of off the top of my head that didn’t have the input of all four of them in the studio when working on The White Album. Why Don’t We Do It in the Road did not have Lennon on the track, Revolution 9 was just John and Yoko, and While my Guitar Gently Weeps features Clapton on lead instead of George or Paul (Paul does take over lead guitar duties when George doesn’t want to for whatever reason. He played lead in Ticket to Ride and Taxman.) In that same era, THe Ballad of John and Yoko only featured John and Paul, but a handful of songs does not mean they didn’t work together. Were they branching off continually with their own interests during that era? Of course. But that does not mean they didn’t work in the studio together when it was time to work.

That really wasn’t the case either, and I think if you listen to their solo records (especially the earliest ones) you’ll hear it wasn’t the case. They both had their own unique styles, but listen to their sound without each other and you’ll hear everything you need to know about how much they worked together. They both contributed ideas from lyrics to production on each other’s songs. John may not have written Yesterday or Here, There, and Everywhere, but he was the one that Paul brought the songs to when they were finished. They balanced each other throughout their careers; Paul took the edge off John, John hardened Paul a bit.

Also, they promised each other they would always be credited as a team. It was a pact they kept, though other than a handful of songs, I can’t think of reading or seeing anything that indicated they stopped working together.

I can understand why you liked the rock n’ roll. Shoot, everybody likes to rock out. I bought the Anthology mainly because I loved to see the concert footage of “Long Tall Sally” and “Rock and Roll Music” and the like. But they didn’t stay a simple “R&B Combo” to quote Paul. If you look at their later music and judge it on the basis of what they were before, well…I don’t think that works. They evolved past that point and that doesn’t make the later music worse (or really even better), it just makes it different with a different yardstick.

13

I was actually at the Beatles’ last concert, SF’s Candlestick Park, August 1966. I was 10. The Beatles played for maybe 1/2 hour, no more. Most of the concert consisted of the supporting acts - Shirelles, the guy that sang “Sunny, yesterday my life was filled with rain”.

The stadium was not sold out.

14

The Beatles have been debated to death on the boards and I realize there’s no sense in a long winded post trying to convince you that you’re wrong. You don’t appreciate their music. I do. That’s fine.

The thing that bothered me most about your diatribe though was your inclination to brand anything they did that wasn’t ‘pop’, and label it as pretentious. In particular you call Revolver a ‘big ol’ pretentious pack of absolute crap’. I’m curious as to what your definition of pretentious is. Is it pretentious because it isn’t what you like…or because it didn’t sound like what The Beatles had done before…or because it didn’t sound like what anyone else had done before? Personally I find John’s songs on Revolver among The Beatles best work, She Said She Said and And Your Bird Can Sing in particular.

If you want to argue that Revolution 9 is pretentious crap, that’s fine. I can understand that. However a band’s desire to experiment with different instruments, arrangements and studio techniques is not by definition pretentious as you imply.

Also, I’m not sure why we should take your sweeping criticisms of their last two albums seriously when

And I’m not sure how you can say:

when you have already told us you own neither of them and couldn’t be bothered to listen to them.

And lastly in answer to your question about Abbey Road, I’ll wager that most Beatles fans would agree that it is decidedly not “mostly just lackadaisical filler”. In particular the stretch from Mean Mr. Mustad through The End was among the best things they ever committed to vinyl. Although I find that people’s opinions on these songs tends to be different depending on whether they’ve heard them or not.

15

Great musicians often go beyond their fans - look at Dylan, as another example. Have you read Anthology? The Beatles were a great rock band, but not as great as their fans thought. They mention how they gave up even trying in stadium concerts, since the screaming overwhelmed the feeble amps available in those days. They also made their sets shorter and shorter. They went about as far as a two guitar, bass and drums band could go, and then, instead of repeating themselves, went beyond.

My sense from the OP is that he isn’t old enough to have listened to the albums when they came out, and understand their context, and how the albums from Rubber Soul and beyond revolutionized rock. Another thing I got from Anthology is that the Beatles grew up before rock, when Paul would learn music hall songs from his uncle. (or some relative - I forget.) They encompassed more of the musical tradition than many do today. Your Mother Should Know is a failure, but Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and Rocky Raccoon are great. I find the last four tracks of Pepper’s (starting with Lovely Rita, Meter Maid) exciting almost 40 years after I first heard it - the switch of styles between the connected songs is a true tour de force. Yeah they had failures, how could you not when you go out on a limb like that? And I bet what each person considers a failure differs - I despise She’s Leaving Home myself.

Sure, Let it Be is a mess. I haven’t heard the version without the strings, but I have a bootleg of it with some of the un-Spectored songs, and even The Long and Winding Road (my least favorite Beatles song) is better sans treacle. But remember, Abbey Road was done later, and the last half of side two is them just playing together, which shows you how good they still were.

And if you doubt the Fab Four, just compare them to the Stones. Always and forever a rock band, tbe Stones lost their way without the Beatles to copy from or differentiate themselves from.

16

No longer are the Beatles down to earth, talking about “another girl” or “a ticket to ride.” No, now they’re going for meaning. BTW, I’m not saying that all their songs are pretentious after Help; just that pretentiousness does damage to a lot of songs. And yes, the term is vague, but to me it means presenting oneself as accomplishing something one is not, such as reading a poem one thinks is meaningful when it’s really just drivel.

Well, I pointed it out as a good song. Here’s the problem: the Beatles as preachers, communicators of Big Truths. “All the lonely people”: Paul is not himself a victim of lonliness; no he’s studying the cause, telling us what’s what. “He’s a real nowhere man,” unlike us, the Beatles. Etc. And they do seem to take themselves awfully seriously most of the time, too. (“Glass Onion” is somewhat of an exception, but still not a good song.)

17

This is extremely bizarre: the OP states he doesn’t like many Beatles songs after Help! and then rattles off 18 (eighteen) songs he gives high marks, presumably skipping non-LP tracks at that.

Are there seriously 19 Beatles songs you can give the same praise to in 1964 and earlier? Can you name 19 Beatles songs off the top of your head before '64? The only one you named is even a cover.

Let’s say there are 20 Beatles songs from before Help! you really, really like… well beyond the stuff you gave As and A+s ( :confused: I never met a single person who would or could, but it’s possible)… wouldn’t that mean at best you kinda like the early and late stuff about the same amount?

18

So your criticism isn’t so much with The Beatles themselves, it’s with songwriters in general? Cuz none of the good ones just write about their trip to Hardee’s on Friday night.

19

Hey there, did you read my post? I said I “loved” their early work and heartily praised the album Help.

You’re going for the easy reply. Pretentiousness isn’t the main problem. Reread. And since when is going through albums and critiquing (and praising) songs a “diatribe”? Reread.

I find them to be songs going for a certain effect and tone–socially with it, knowledgeable, edgy, etc.–and just not succeeding. The music is trying too hard to be cool. Plus, the songs are dull.

Then don’t. I’m not trying to fake knowledge; I admitted I don’t own them.

20

It’s not really bizarre: those 18 songs are a pretty low percentage of the total. Further, I admitted that MMT is a good album (which did include some non-album tracks in its American form).

More importantly, I deny that RS, R, and SPLHCB are good albums. In particular, R is supposed to be a big deal, but I find it not to be. For all these reasons I think it’s reasonable to say that I find the Beatle’s latter half-career to be disappointing.

First of all, Help! is from 1965, so it would be 1965 and earlier. I just listened to that album and Please Please Me from start to finish–and they’re enjoyable start to finish (although I would not claim all the songs are in the A range). Help! alone has 14 songs on it.

Sure wouldn’t. And lest you box me into an opinion I don’t really hold, I don’t dislike the Beatles after 1965–I just think that their career didn’t go where it ought to have gone and that some of the albums are almost entirely boring despite their reputation.