In a word…Fuck NO!
What the Beatles did,bouv, was invent not only something new, but better. It was not just a case of ‘something new’.
If you were around then, though, you would have appreciated that ‘something new’. What’s so great about cell phones? Everyones got one. Now.
Also, they were the first band the write there own music which continued to become classics. It’s easy enough to go down to Tin Pan Alley and buy a great song, but to write them yourselves again and again (as hits) is quite a feat.
And they were the one (if not the first) group to write about other stuff other than love and not be political about it (yes, I know they wrote those, too). I mean, back then it was love story after love story. ‘The Fool on the Hill’? there wasn’t a lot of that stuff around before the Beatles.
Maybe they were over-hyped to you, maybe you are too young to get it…but all those fans can’t be wrong.
Wait, I take that back, I just remembered Bob dylan. What was so great about him???
Fizz, I’m glad I’m not the only one to feel that way about Nirvana.
I think one of the Beatles’ biggest influences is their role in creating the music video. Watch the film “A Hard Day’s Night”. Almost all the conventions of music videos are set up in this, and were furthered with Help! and Yellow Submarine.
Talent comes in all kinds bouv. Whether it’s composition of music or the performance of such. Given your definition of what true talent is, I suggest you listen to “Twist & Shout.” They took a song by the Isley Brothers and and performed it better than ANYBODY else. Compare the two versions sometime.
I’m not a musician or in the music industry in any way. The OP asked what is it about the Beatles that was so special. Rather than give my pedestrian subjective preferences, I relayed parts of an essay by music writers who know what they’re talking about. If you want to argue those points with the experts, well, you must know something the rest of us don’t – like how easy it is to create a new genre of music by ‘hitting a few keys at random on a piano.’
BTW: The word is spelled ‘copyright.’ I cited my source, provided a link to the source material (which you must have missed), and no one is making or losing money by its inclusion on this message board. I was actually half-hoping that my bragging-up the site on this board would drive traffic to that site. Win-win.
Sorry to hurt your computer.
Well, where to begin. The thing is that you cannot explain the “it” factor. Which is precisely why those who “don’t get The Beatles”, don’t get The Beatles.
They were the first. In the same way that Elvis was the first. Having been born in 1975, I cannot say first hand what that would have been like, but I know that todays musicians can never parallel the likes of John, Paul, George and Ringo - regardless of how great a performer, writer, musician etc.
I can only make a poor attempt to explain what it is I love about them so much. I guess I believe that a great majority of todays musicians are inspired by The Beatles and so to like comtemporary music is to inadvertantly pay homage to them. Just like a Beatles fan would have to have at least an appreciation if not equal fascination with Elvis’ music. He is the reason John’s mum bought him a guitar.
I have been to Liverpool and done the pilgrimage twice and I cannot help but be moved by the impact they had. It was the music, it was the timing, it was them. There is a statue on a wall in Mathew St where The Cavern Club originally was in Liverpool which says “Four Lads Who Shook the World.” That was it as well. They were lads. Ringo said at the end of Anthology - “We were just four guys who really loved each other.” And you knew they did. They were great mates who loved to play a bit of music and they remained as humble as they possibly could (for 23 year olds that were “more popular than Jesus”) and that will never happen again. The world was a hell of a lot more naive back then it seemed, and those who don’t get it, are probably too cynical to just let it happen.
I mean, I can’t stand Wings and I really am not a big fan of Johns solo career, but there is nothing like The Beatles, and there won’t ever be again. (So Liam Gallagher should really just stop trying.)
And now, 30 years after their last music was recorded, The Beatles are more popular than they’ve ever been. Because all the people who loved them in the 60’s still buy and listen to their albums, but now there are two more generations of kids listening to them. “1” is now officially the best selling album of all time.
There’s never been another performer that has stayed as popular as the Beatles have. And it suggests that they’ll STILL be very popular 100 years from now.
Well, your definition of “art” is lacking in many people’s estimation. No one is saying that creating something, period, is worthy of note. No one cares if I make the biggest sculpture of welded-together hub caps, unless I manage to somehow use hub caps to make something that has actual artistic value, meaning that I had a unique vision that put a new spin on something.
Let’s make an analogy. Why is Rembrandt a genius and Thomask Kinkade a hack? It’s surprisingly similar to the explanation of the Beatles.
Rembrandt is a genius.
Rembrandt made paintings that still hold up as a marvel of technical skill. They look great, and are examples of some of the best of what can be done with a paintbrush.
BUT: That’s not why he’s a genius. He’s a genius because he was (one of) the first to have both the vision and technical skill to accomplish paintings that actually seem to glow while looking life-like and having just plain aesthetically pleasing lines. There’s even more to the reasons for his continuing respect, but we’ll leave it at that.
Thomas Kinkade is a hack
Kinkade is merely churning out opportunistic psuedo-replications of a style that he must have sort of lifted from Rembrandt and Van Dyke. If you don’t know what I mean, go in a bookstore and find one of those page-a-day calendars of his. All the subjects are basically the same, and he’s adding nothing to the technical skill.
If you don’t believe that, go into an upscale mall that has one of his dedicated stores. He’s selling prints that have a very minimal number of actual paint strokes on them.
I have another analogy: The Sex Pistols are geniuses. They took an emerging genre and hit a resonant note of attitude, political statement, and angry sound that’s still pop enough to have sold a million copies.
But: Blink 182 is destined to be at most a musical footnote. They produce very pleasing pop-punk songs, but the path was so very well laid out for them beforehand that it’s not anything remarkable for them to be doing what they’re doing.
Who is considered the greater artist: Beethoven or the great interpretor of his music? You HAVE to say Beethoven. He did the artistic creation. Other people may have had a unique take on it, but it’s obvious that it takes more artistic talent to actually write the music, unless somehow the interpretation is so radical and yet so pleasing that it’s almost like re-writing the piece.
Because a lot, if not most, of the other 60’s acts were influenced by the Beatles, and were fans themselves.
You may not like their music, but you do realize that they were the most popular band, hell, people in the world from 64-70, right? ‘Yesterday’ is the most often recorded song of all-time. ‘Sgt Pepper’ is widely considered the best album of all-time (as is ‘Revolver’).
The Beatles were Pop Music’s equivalent of “The Well Tempered Clavier”.
They quite simply changed every musician’s understanding of what was possible, and exceeded every listener’s expectation of what music could be.
Every significant pop musician (from Hendrix to Sting to Zappa to Costello), and many musicians from other genres (from Bernstein to Miles) has been influenced by their work and their impact upon art and society.
Even if the pop/rock music you like seems 180 degrees away from the Beatles, every subsequent form of pop/rock has been shaped by them.
But aside from all that, they were “the real thing,” the same way that Coltrane was, that Cobain was, that Dylan was, that Hendrix was, that Ella was, that Parker was. People seek out the real things in this world.
You know, I’ve met people who have said, “I don’t like Elvis, Bob Dylan OR the Beatles.”
My reply: “Well, do you like rock music?”
Their reply: “I LOVE rock music!”
Me: “Well, without Elvis, Dylan and the Beatles, rock music as we know it today would not exist!”
Them: “No way!”
::sigh::
Well, there’s not much to add to what the others have said. Having said that, now I’ll bleat.
Yes, furnishesq, the Beatles are that good. The reason they don’t seem that revolutionary nowadays is because pop music is based on the foundation they laid down.
What the Beatles did was take the sound pioneered by people like Elvis and Buddy Holly and build on it, innovating and experimenting in a manner that redefined the frontiers of popular music. Like Sophie said, their influence and their sound has affected every significant popular musician and bled over into other genres as well.
MHO is that the British Invasion might have been the Big British Visit instead if Buddy Holly lived past 1959, but he didn’t. Therefore, the time was right for the Beatles to step into the void and continue the kind of experimentation he was conducting. The Beatles used their “jumped-up skiffle” sound (I forget which critic dismissed them with that phrase, but I like it) to blend R&B, soul, country and “race music” into a package that made a lot of this stuff palatable to a wider audience. That made them popular. The fact that their music sounds great is what made it timeless.
Can you imagine a studio session with the Beatles performing and Buddy Holly producing? Man, when I get to heaven I hope the Righteous Brothers were right. 
Zap!
Other things the Beatles did:
Broke the three-minute barrier. (Prior to “Hey, Jude”, most radio stations wouldn’t play a song if it was over three minutes long. When the Beatles released a seven minute song and told the stations to like it or lump it, most liked it- which opened the way for other artists to break out of the “cut it down to 3:05” mold.)
Introduced the concept of feedback as part of the song- what Hendrix made famous, the Beatles did first in '65 on “I Feel Fine.”
Created music that defied barriers and typing. “Ticket to Ride” is closer to country than most modern country songs. “When I’m 64” isn’t rock by any stretch, but does that make it less of a song?
This post doesn’t address why the Beatles were so good but it might help the atmosphere of this topic.
I saw the Beatles at the Queens Theatre in Blackpool in 1963. My mother was working there at the time and she procured a couple of tickets for myself and a friend.
We couldn’t hear a thing. The audience was mainly teenage girls who started screaming when the Beatles commenced their set and didn’t finish until the concert had ended.
Looking at contemporary footage from Shea Stadium concerts in the US, the same procedure held sway there as well. And everywhere else.
Whenever the band returned to London from an overseas tour there would be thousands of people waiting to greet them from the plane. It was as though the Beatles, through some unknown formula, generated a kind of mass hysteria amongst (especially) young females. These girls really lost control of their emotions.
Of course this was in the earlier days of Beatles hegemony and was a probable cause of their decision to stop touring. They got tired of standing on stage and playing without being able to hear their own music above the screams from the audience.
As the 1960’s progressed so did their music, and the age-group of their aficianados increased commensurately.
No other band has inspired such fan adoration as did the Beatles playing live. No other band has ever got near them.
Why, I don’t know. Bring on a psychologist.
The Beatles were teen idols who wrote good songs and became outrageously popular for reasons that didn’t have everything to do with the quality of their music.
Their attempts at aping American rock ‘n’ roll were pretty weak, as most people would agree (unless they’re unfamiliar with the originals), but they brought a sort of Tin Pan Alley sophistication to their rock ‘n’ roll compositions that set them apart from the more formulaic rock of the late '50s. However, if you listen to early '60s American pop music, particularly teen idol pop, sophistication in pop/rock songcraft was already happening.
The Beatles weren’t the first popular artists to write the majority of their material, but their enormous popularity did create the expectation that rock artists with “integrity” should write their own songs. This development hasn’t been entirely good, IMO, since not many artists can adequately sing, play, arrange and compose all by themselves. And some people may be supremely talented, but in only one or two areas.
The Beatles were really good and really popular, and historically significant thanks to the latter. But why try to make them out to be gods, or the last word in rock music? People who can easily point to one recording group or artist as the absolute “greatest” need to listen to more music!
[hijack]
Ever read the Stephen King story “Then You Know They’ve Got a Hell of a Band” in the SHOCK ROCK anthology?
Very cool story.
Sheri
[/hijack]
Another thing, the Beatles had a lot more personality than other rock groups. They weren’t just one note - they could be neurotic (“I’m So Tired”), maudlin and sentimental (“Martha My Dear”, “I Will”), sly and sardonic (“Piggies”), sophmoric (“Why Don’t We Do It In The Road”), erotically sensual (“Julia”), corny and campy (“Don’t Pass Me By” - “Rocky Racoon”) and bizarre and disturbing (“Happiness is a Warm Gun”)…
And that’s just on one album side!
Most groups don’t have that range in their whole careers. Most rock groups, even good ones, are only one or two dimensional.
AFAIK, John’s mum’s name was Julia. I think it might’ve been about her. Although it is not completely off-base to have an erotically sensual Oedipal song, I’m not sure if I would categorize the song Julia as erotically sensual.
But that is a very good point about the variety in their songs.
True, Julia is the name of John’s mother, but the song is about Yoko. Yoko’s name means “Ocean Child,” a term used in the song.
Well its a love song about both his mum (Julia) AND Yoko (“Ocean Child” in Japanese). Maybe that reveals a bit about John there.
*
Julia, Julia, oceanchild, calls me
So I sing a song of love, Julia
*
I said erotic, because to me, these lyrics are sort of sexual…if you hear the way John sings them. It’s certainly not “Whole Lotta Love”. But it is a very romantic love song.
Julia, Julia, morning moon, touch me
So I sing a song of love, Julia
*
Well, if I’m only the only one who thinks that line is a bit sexual, maybe that reveals something about me :o
I agree with a lot of what you are talking about here, with the exception of a few nit-picky details. Labeling the Beatles as teen idols is largely inaccurate as a the key attributes of what is considered “teen idol” is that they are soley vocalists… they don’t play instruments or write their music. More often or not they are manufactured by the music industry. Literally speaking, if the definition of “teen idol” is “to be the idol of teens” then you would have to include every performer and band up to and beyond Metallica in that classification.
The other point is totally subjective on my part… I have an extensive collection of Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Carl Perkins, Bo Diddley, Coasters as well as the Surf, Motown and Girl Group music that was making their presence known prior to '64. In many cases I feel that the Beatles covers stand up very well. But that is 100% percent subjective on my part and nothing I can argue.
Although I listen to bands dramatically different than the Beatles nearly as much or even more (Squirrel Nut Zippers, Southern Culture on the Skids, Tom Waits, to name a few), I would personally still rate the Beatles as the “greatest” based on the number of factually verifiable achievements they accomplished in their time.)
Finally (at last) I strongly agree the “legend” of the Beatles has steadily inflated since 1970, and that anyone whose musical tastes do not extend far beyond the Beatles is missing out on a whole hell of a lot of excellent music.
I would define a “teen idol” in the late '50s/early '60s sense as a photogenic artist who makes music primarily for the youth market. The Beatles definitely fit this definition in their early days. Some singers (Fabian springs to mind) traded more on their looks than their singing ability, but it just isn’t true to say that, in general, teen idols didn’t play instruments or write music, or even that they were manufactured by the music industry.
Johnny Tillotson was a talented songwriter, as was Dickey Lee (he wrote the country classic “She Thinks I Still Care” for one). In fact, Pat Boone, Ricky Nelson, and a lot of teen idols at least occasionally wrote music, and that was during a time when there was little expectation that vocalists/performers should write music. As I said in my original post, it wasn’t until The Beatles came along that the pressure was put on rock artists to compose their own material. A lot of these artists played guitar on the road, but usually not in the studio (which was often the case even when the vocalist was an excellent instrumentalist, just because of the prevailing major label studio practices of the day).
As for the argument that teen idols were manufactured by the industry, that did happen occasionally (again, Fabian springs to mind) but many if not most of the teen idols (Joe Dowell and Bobby Vee, just to name a couple) set out to become stars and worked their way up or found their breaks just like any other artists.