# I don't get the Beatles -- pleas explain **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 3, 2001, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-get-the-beatles-pleas-explain/96611 "2001-12-03T14:15:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@Ross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ross)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-get-the-beatles-pleas-explain/96611/41 "2001-12-05T02:35:32Z")
I think the idea is that they were the best at what they did - or in many cases may not have been the best but won out over others for reasons of fashion or luck which are all but meaningless to us now. Either way their victory became a genuine foundation for what we now call music. Without the Beatles other forms of music literally wouldn’t have existed - and countless others would have been markedly different. That said, they were the first band to have their kind of success (particularly in terms of fan-worship). Other bands who are clearly crap now encounter levels of adulation approaching the Beatles’. But I can’t just accept that they were the first boy band. They developed from their sixties incarnation into a startlingly mature ensemble with astonishing vision. I can only think of a few bands, like Queen, who have since rivalled their “take on whatever comes” talent. The bottom line, of course, is that Lennon and McCartney were Galton and Simpson, Gilbert and Sullivan, Moore and Cook, Simon and Garfunkel. Just one of those uncanny combinations of writers who WORKED. Every such event is worth noting. ---
**Author:** ![Live\_Better\_Electrically](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/46a35a/32.png) [@Live\_Better\_Electrically](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Live_Better_Electrically)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-get-the-beatles-pleas-explain/96611/42 "2001-12-05T03:24:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Ross wrote: > The bottom line, of course, is that Lennon and McCartney were Galton and Simpson, Gilbert and Sullivan, Moore and Cook, Simon and Garfunkel. Just one of those uncanny combinations of writers who WORKED. Every such event is worth noting. My point isn’t that they weren’t good–the OP was about CNN interrupting war coverage to announce the death of one of The Beatles, with the question being whether they were so good that the death of a member would in effect be the most important news item in the world. My argument is that they weren’t that **good** , they were that **popular**. ---
**Author:** ![Live\_Better\_Electrically](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/46a35a/32.png) [@Live\_Better\_Electrically](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Live_Better_Electrically)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-get-the-beatles-pleas-explain/96611/43 "2001-12-05T03:34:12Z")
I meant to write, “They weren’t **that** good, they were that **popular**.” No rock band is **that** good! ---
**Author:** ![23skidoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/f04885/32.png) [@23skidoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/23skidoo)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2001, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-get-the-beatles-pleas-explain/96611/44 "2001-12-05T11:12:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bouv \* > \*\*And how come they are great merely for doing something new? Personally, I feel it is a much greater accoimplishment to take something that has already been done, and become great at that, in my mind it takes more skill. Sure, I can invent a new style of music that is nothing more than me hitting keys at random on a piano, does that make me great? How about instead I learn to play the piano well, and perform all the classical works better than anyone else has. I have not done something new, just done something already done better than anyone else. That seems to take a little more talent, in my opinion \*\* What a stale, boring musical wasteland we would live in if musicians all decided it would be better to ape their forefathers instead of changing music for the next generation. One of the reasons that music sounds so diverse today is because of bands like the Beatles, who showed the diversity of sound that could exist within ONE GROUP. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-get-the-beatles-pleas-explain/96611.md?page=2)