They were the breakout group. They were exuberant, charismic- fun!!!
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
I don’t know, man…“Something” and “Here Comes the Sun,” in particular, stand up well to anything in the Beatles’ catalog. Granted, that’s two songs against two dozen classic songs apiece by John and Paul, but clearly he was capable.
Considering what a hard time he had getting his songs recorded (he had to drag Eric Clapton into the studio in order to get the band to take “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” seriously), and how quickly he released a solo record post-Beatles, one wonders how much great George stuff went unnoticed or unrecorded.
[/QUOTE]
I believe in Anthology it’s mentioned that there was quite a bit of heat about Lennon and McCartney not letting Harrison’s songs on the early albums due to quality. Listening to the ones that did get on, I can’t blame them. They liked his Indian inspired stuff much better. Given that there weren’t any great songs on All Things Must Pass, (except maybe My Sweet Lord, and we know about that one. 
) I can’t say he was anywhere close to their level. I’m not fond of Something myself, but Frank Sinatra was, so I’m not disputing its quality.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I think this brings up another point in that, for all their experimentation and pushing of boundaries, the Beatles always kept it accessible. They never got too smart or avant garde for their audience. They never forgot to stay entertaining. Their songs held up as songs first and foremost, not just as clotheslines for the experiments. If you strip away the orchestral and production tricks the songs still work. They weren’t dependent on the production. You can play a simple accoustic and vocal arrangement of “Strawberry Fields” or “A Day in the Life” and the hooks, the melodies, the words, the song structures are all still strong enough to carry the songs.
[/QUOTE]
They managed to also be innovative, and to bring their audience along, while keeping the music accessible enough not to lose their base. Rubber Soul -> Revolver -> Sgt. Peppers -> the singles on Magical Mystery Tour and I Am The Walrus introduced new ways of using the studio and new instruments. Really an astonishing achievement. I don’t know if they drove the environment or adapted to it, but when I remember wandering around the East Village in 1967, in my mind Mr. Kite is always playing in the stores.
The odd thing is that John’s description of it from Anthology was that he found a poster, decided it would be a good song, and gave it to George Martin to find the right music for it. That just doesn’t sound plausible to me - it is too perfect to be that simple.
[QUOTE=Voyager]
Given that there weren’t any great songs on All Things Must Pass, (except maybe My Sweet Lord, and we know about that one. )
[/quote]
What about the title track?
Bob Dylan and THC.
[QUOTE=Doctor Who]
I would pay a lordly sum of money to hear a John-George-Paul-Keith Moon bootleg.
[/QUOTE]
Hmm. Pete Townsand, the lead guitarist, and Roger Daltry, the vocalist, are alive. Paul McCartney, the bassist, and Ringo Starr, the drummer, are alive.
Pete, Roger, Paul, and Ringo. The Beatles Who?
There’s the summer blockbuster tour of 2007. 
[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
Paul McCartney, the bassist, and Ringo Starr, the drummer, are alive.
[/QUOTE]
Paul is alive?
[QUOTE=Voyager]
The odd thing is that John’s description of it from Anthology was that he found a poster, decided it would be a good song, and gave it to George Martin to find the right music for it. That just doesn’t sound plausible to me - it is too perfect to be that simple.
[/QUOTE]
The story is true. Most of the lyrics to the song are lifted directly from a circus poster John bought in 1967.
[QUOTE=Doctor Who]
Finally, he founded the All-Starr band (who I would love to see in concert) and put out several decent albums.
I mean, he’s Ringo. He was never going to put out the sort of profound material that John went on to do. He was never going to put out catchy pop hooks like Paul. And he was never going to put out quality music like George.
But you want to talk about work with what you got? That’s Ringo. He’s still great as far as I’m concerned, and the things he’s done since the Beatles are at least as fantastic in my book as his simple drumming in the Beatles.
[/QUOTE]
I heard an anecdote – and I can’t provide a cite for it – that the Beatles never had to redo a studio take because of Ringo dropping the beat. Nev-er. Imagine being as prolific as Lennon and McCartney, and not being able to put it down on tape, or not being able to capture the golden moments when everything else was right. His Ripkenesque reliability puts him in my Hall of Fame for sure, despite his lack of technical chops.
[QUOTE=Marley23]
What about the title track?
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, I don’t have a guru.
[QUOTE=JThunder]
Paul is alive?
[/QUOTE]
Turn me on, dead man. 
[QUOTE=Autumn Almanac]
The story is true. Most of the lyrics to the song are lifted directly from a circus poster John bought in 1967.
[/QUOTE]
That much doesn’t surprise me - that the music was gotten by Martin (which is not mentioned in the link) does. The poster is actually further from the lyrics than I thought.
[QUOTE=kelly5078]
Starting with “Rubber Soul,” where the two really emerge as individuals, and going back, you see some pulling apart in “Beatles VI” (“Eight Days a Week,” I would say, is pure Lennon)
[/QUOTE]
Actually, that’s Paul’s. (John even credited the song to Paul in his Playboy interview, although he was simultaneously confusing “Eight Days a Week” with Eight Arms to Hold You.) Now “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party”–that’s pure Lennon.
[QUOTE=WordMan]
What type of stuff do you play and what kind of gear do you have? There are a few of us guitar type Dopers…
[/QUOTE]
Blues, classic rock, folk, bluegrass, etc. Basically, if you took Led Zeppelin, Cream, the Beatles, and the blues bands that sparked Clapton and Page, and mixed it all together, that’s my sound. I feel like I was born a few decades too late. I don’t like hardly any music that came out after 1980!
I play a Godin Solidac electric through a Traynor amp, and an Art and Lutherie Folk cutaway acoustic.
I work in a guitar shop, so I even if I can’t afford 'em, I get to play tons of cool guitars.
Thanks to everyone who replied. My curiosity is really more about what makes them so good than what made them so popular. I’m majoring in music, and have taken some theory, but if I had asked my teacher I would have got a strange stare. The Beatles don’t really count to her.
The Beatles did everything Fred Astaire did - only backwards and in high heels.
No, wait, that’s what made Ginger Rogers so great. Sorry.
[QUOTE=Traveling Riverside Bluesman]
Thanks to everyone who replied. My curiosity is really more about what makes them so good than what made them so popular. I’m majoring in music, and have taken some theory, but if I had asked my teacher I would have got a strange stare. The Beatles don’t really count to her.
[/QUOTE]
If what you say about your teacher is true, then that is too, too bad. Her loss.
Folks like **pulykamell ** and **fishbicycle ** know theory better than I do, but from a song-tradition standpoint, the Beatles fused the energy and danger of rock n’ roll, with pure commercial/pop sensibility and technical structure to chording and songcraft, and added a solid dollop of English dance-hall influence - i.e., entertaining the audience must come first - as others have said, the Beatles even at their most experimental kept it accessible (with some exceptions, of course) - that, to me is their dancehall/Hamburg influence.
I am inclined to thing that their commercial/pop mindset is what led them to the more complex chording that emerged in their later songwriting.
Have fun. I would love the thought of working in a guitar store, but try to make due with what I have - a couple of vintage Gibsons and a parts-o-caster Tele…
If you want theory and song deconstruction, Alan W. Pollack’s Notes On… series is probably the best reference you’re going to find. Very interesting read if you’re into this sort of thing.
Thank you! This stuff fascinates me, and I’m not good enough at theory yet to do it my self.
[QUOTE=WordMan]
As with TRB’s comment in this area - I fail to see the significance of it. There are countless examples of seminal artists where the players’ techniques were adequate at best - Dylan, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Iggy and the Stooges, Black Sabbath without even getting warmed up. AND there are countless examples of artists who are profoundly proficient and have had a seminal impact on rock music - Hendrix, Clapton, Zep, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Jeff Beck, Eddie Van Halen, again not even getting warmed up.
Musical proficiency in a technical sense is just not a factor as far as I can tell…
[/QUOTE]
I agree.
While you do have to be good enough on your instrument to be able to express the vision you have, you don’t necessarily have to be technically brilliant. Just good enough, sometimes, is actually good enough.
As far as I can tell, though, McCartney was far and away the best musician among them, and I’d be surprised if he couldn’t hold his own with anyone anywhere.
Holy crap! Are you my long lost twin? I started with the clarinet, then picked up the alto sax over the summer between 7th & 8th grade. Between 8th & 9th grade (I went to a 7-8-9 junior high, as opposed to a middle school, so I may be older than you), I learned to play the bassoon, and started learning guitar around the same time. In high school I also played baritone sax in the “pep band” that played at basketball games. My senior year in high school, I played alto sax in the wind ensemble, bassoon in the orchestra, and guitar in the jazz ensemble. Shortly after high school I picked up the bass guitar (which has since become my primary instrument) and lately I’ve been trying to learn to play the drums.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I think this brings up another point in that, for all their experimentation and pushing of boundaries, the Beatles always kept it accessible. They never got too smart or avant garde for their audience. They never forgot to stay entertaining. Their songs held up as songs first and foremost, not just as clotheslines for the experiments. If you strip away the orchestral and production tricks the songs still work. They weren’t dependent on the production. You can play a simple accoustic and vocal arrangement of “Strawberry Fields” or “A Day in the Life” and the hooks, the melodies, the words, the song structures are all still strong enough to carry the songs.
[/QUOTE]
This is an excellent point, and an important one. I pretty much learned to play guitar when I was 14-15 years old by flopping open my Beatles Complete songbook and strumming along to the songs on the records on my acoustic guitar. And sometimes I would sing and play the songs without the records, and they worked that way. Honestly, I think this is the reason I’m able to fool so many people into thinking I’m a great guitarist When I played along, I didn’t just strum. I was always trying to incorporate the bass and the drums into my guitar playing. It added a groove to my playing that some more accomplished guitarists lack.
I’ve incorporated this principle into my own songwriting (such as it is). Even though I’m primarily a bass player these days, I write everything on the acoustic guitar first. When I’m satisfied that the songs work that way, only then do I think about adding other parts/instruments. This worked out well for me during one performance. I had programmed (on my computer) some elaborate accompaniments for the songs I was going to perform, including drums, bass, lead guitar parts that I was incapable of actually playing myself, keyboards, and some strings and percussion, then burned everything to a CD. When I arrived at the “venue”, their CD player wouldn’t read my CD. I just shrugged and played with just my acoustic guitar, because I knew the songs would still work that way.