This. I don’t particularly care for the Beatles myself but I recognize their talent as musicians.
Didn’t we just have this argument with some other asshole?
Jack Batty: not for four or five years probably.
Ambivalid: I feel the same way about Rush.
CheeseDonkey,
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. I would be very interested to hear your insight regarding some of the other famous names in the popular music business.
Can you link me to you insightful thoughts on:
Cole Porter
Stevie Wonder
Irving Berlin
Smokey Robinson
Louis Armstrong
Ella Fitzgerald
Roy Brown
Johnny Mandel
Boz Skaggs
Willy Dixon
McKinley Morganfield
That’s just a start. I’ll come up with more later but I need to know what I should think about those guys because your infinite insight trumps anything that everyone ever thought they knew.
After you set me straight I will ask for more advice. But please, don’t whoosh me with Van Halen or Fleetwood Mac.
but wasn’t their first hit “i wanna be your man” by john and paul?
There is a common tendency in this sort of thread to elevate what the fans of the Celebrated-Band-That-Actually-Sucks do or require, so as to make their behaviour rationally indefensible.
I don’t think any significant amount of Beatles fans worship the Beatles or require anyone to do so. They just very much like the band. But them just liking the band is hard for you to rationally attack. It’s a free country.
So what you do is pretend fans “worship” the band and pretend you somehow “have to” do so also. Because worshipping a band would be ludicrous and forcing you to do so would be an outrageous infringement of your rights.
But frankly exaggerating views and making up threats just so you can be outraged by them is pretty damn silly.
So… CheeseDonkey is a classic rock fan and he hates the Beetles. Oookay… :dubious:
Besides, Beatles fans are cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.
Facts:
- Beatles fans are mammals.
- Beatles fans fight ALL the time.
- The purpose of the Beatles fan is to flip out and kill people.
Beatles fans can kill anyone they want! Beatles fans cut off heads ALL the time and don’t even think twice about it. These guys are so crazy and awesome that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this Beatles fan who was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon the Beatles fan killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a Beatles fan totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.
Sometime after Lennon was killed, within a year or two, Paul objected to the adulation of John, remarking accurately that he could sometimes be quite a swine. It wasn’t really Yoko that broke up the band, it was John refusing to acknowledge that Paul and George were his artistic equals and to get as much input. Listen to “How Do You Sleep Nights” from John solo album. It is picking on Paul for underusing his talents for not writing angst songs like John. The answer from Paul, in good spirit, was “Silly Love Songs”. John really had no business taking that shot at Paul. Is it really a crime to write popular happy tunes?
And to let Yoko take the blame for breaking up the band? Really? She had almost nothing to do with The Beatles breaking up, and John could have more frequently and more forcefully stated that Yoko had little to do with it and that it was his decision, which it was, to go where he had complete artistic control and credit.
Back in the 70s John was my favorite Beatle. But now, he’d be fourth on my list of ones I’d like to know simply because the others were much easier to get along with and not glory hogs the way John was. John was a “difficult” artist. The other three regular blokes when it came to being around people.
It’s not to say there weren’t reasons that John could be a swine, he was in many respects a very unhappy man for long periods during his life, and we are stuck with who we are.
Not necessarily, but releasing Silly Love Songs was a crime against humanity, or at least my sanity.
Well, George and Ringo didn’t rush and join Wings, did they?
That said, I agree that Paul was underrated. There are lots of angsty musicians. There are rather fewer with a strong pop sensibility that can collaborate effectively with other angsty musicians. BTW, does anybody have an opinion of McCartney & Costello? I never got around to listening to that combo.
ETA: Text in last post -126- cribbed from The Official Ninja Webpage: REAL Ultimate Power!!!! , in case some missed the in-joke.
Apparently it was Paul who prevented George from having more than one song per album, until Abbey Road when they all knew it was over.
The Romans gave the English plumbing. In London hotels, they still have it.
I don’t like the beetles. I know who they are. I know why they are famous. At the same time, I’m 27, and so no love for the past gets in there. People who say the beetles ‘suck’ are forgetting that pop music comes and goes…and the beetles are 50 year old pop music that is still popular. That says ‘something’. How many young people could hum “Red Sails in the Sunset”? But everybody can sing Yellow Submarine or Hey Jude. I think ‘Imagine’ is the most offensive, brain dead, naive POS in music, but everybody knows it.
I wasn’t overly impressed.
I applaud your good taste.
I don’t see that this says anything about the music’s inherent quality, though. It speaks to a lot of people, obviously, but that’s irrelevant to assessments of what’s good and what’s not - which, as always, remain subjective.
I applaud your good taste.
It’s not a “beetles” song though.
Which reminds me, when is there going to be a Broadway musical based on Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis? I’ve been waiting ever since Max Bialystok turned it down.
Really? You just figured that out? Card carrying Boomer here–who gave up on Rolling Stone in the very early 1970’s. (In 1969, it still meant something to be On The Cover Of The Rolling Stone; the kid is Shawn Sahm, now carrying on as leader of The Texas Tornadoes.) Well, many of us stopped considering RS to be The Music Magazine; as I mentioned before, they continued to supply fine journalism by such as Tom Wolfe & Hunter S. Thompson.
Crawdaddy started out as a 'zine & continued to explore the intellectual side of the music. Creem was a kick in the pants from The Motor City–later claiming to be the first to use “punk” & “heavy metal.” But neither publication had Jann Wenner’s way with money, so the presses stopped. The Creem online archive has apparently disappeared, alas…
I loved the Beatles & other acts from the day, but I never stopped caring about music; I wasn’t in the mosh pits, but with the other oldsters at the bar. I’m not all that current on What The Kids are Listening To Today but manage to drag myself out to shows from time to time. My current listening stretches back to the Middle Ages & goes farther afield than the UK…
Back when Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers were newish, a friend professed ignorance of their work & complained that he just didn’t care about “this new music.” I was aghast. If ever a band was designed to appeal to Us Old Fogies, it was Tom & Co.
I’ll gladly tell anybody about any of my faves. If they don’t care, I’m not upset…
And that’s the secret to Real Ultimate Beatle Power!
Just watch him!
If anyone starts a thread about Justin Bieber fifty years from now, I will buy you a Lamborgini.
I got your back Cheese. I’ve marked the old calendar for November 29, 2061. One thread about the Justin Bieber coming up.
I want to drive the Lamborgini. And I’ll be 96 years old by then, so you know it’s be a fun ride - with the left turn blinker on the whole time.