my meaning was what either rocked (some short ones there) or were long, intricate songs.
in this thread i was adding that comment (that there were albums) to the list because the album was to be listened to as a side and was done so in the home or on progressive rock stations on the FM band. i deleted the thought before posting. the list is a comparison of style and taste of the groups.
i went to lists of music for those years and picked what were big for the groups by year. they were a top 40 pop group and their hits show it.
i stated that their music was the only input from them when i cited that. the fact that their music could be successfully marketed to an unsophisticated musical audience does relate to the musical quality.
I haven’t read the responses yet, but I can put myself in the category of “didn’t like” purely because I hadn’t heard them in 1964 with the same ears I did some time later. My tastes were already pretty much “jazz only” by then, and even though some of my earlier favorites in the RnR genre included Elvis, Buddy Holly and Ray Charles, I was not a fan of rock groups as such.
It took hits of theirs to convince me they were special and I have dozens of their songs on my All-Time Favorites list.
The main point I want to make is that I didn’t NOT like them, either. Just apathetic to them in their early days.
The were the single most influential group in rock history, who also had pop success, artistic success, and financial success. The two statements are not exclusive.
It’s obvious you didn’t live through this time frame, and obvious, too, that you think The Beatles “don’t rock,” which is a foolish statement if ever there was one. And apparently, you think that “long, intricate songs” are somehow superior to short rock and pop songs by default. This is similarly nonsensical.
This statement makes it even more obvious that you didn’t live through this era. If you truly believe that The Beatles were seen solely as a Top 40 pop group, you need to start reading more and better books than you’ve been reading. And again, you cherry-picked. The “Penny Lane”/“Strawberry Fields Forever” single charted #1/#8. The “All You Need Is Love”/“Baby You’re a Rich Man” single charted at #1/#34. Are you arguing that “All You Need Is Love” was “big,” but the earlier single wasn’t?
Beatles music was liked equally by listeners with “unsophisticated” (whatever that means) and “sophisticated” musical tastes…something you would know if you had lived through the era. Fact of the matter is, The Beatles were loved by the overwhelming majority of those who listened to rock music during their lifetime as a recording group. How do you figure that being loved by so-called “unsophisticated” listeners somehow negates the approbation of “sophisticated” ones?
By the way…you’ve never actually HEARD The Stones’ version of “Come On”…have you? I notice you didn’t quote the portion of my post in which I compared it to “She Loves You.” (Nor did you quote my statement about every single artist on your list giving credit to The Beatles, who in one way or another made them all possible.)
Next time, try knowing a little more of what you’re talking about, and having that knowledge come from experience and listening rather than “lists.”
In particular, the Stones’ cover of the Temptations’ “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” should be taken out and shot. Everytime I hear it, as I punch the button to change the station, I wonder why the hell anyone would play the Stones’ version instead of the original. The fact that the Stones’ version is the only version “classic rock” stations play discredits the genre all by itself.
As of 50 years ago today, I was an 8 1/2 month old fetus, so it wasn’t something of interest to me at that time, and my parents don’t really remember it either, for obvious reasons.
To this, I’ll add that while most of the groundbreaking artists and groups were making a hell of a lot of music in the 1964-68 period, way more than anyone expects out of a band nowadays, the Beatles’ output in the period is insanely huge, even by the standards of their contemporaries. And, as you say, each album broke new ground; they never coasted.
Meant to add this to the earlier post but missed the cut-off.
So you pit one Beatles single from 1967 (and not their best one by a long shot) against three albums, and yet somehow neglect to mention Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band from that year?
You pit one Beatles single from 1968 (and not the “biggest” one by any measure, which was “Hey Jude”) against an all-album roster of competition, and again conveniently overlook The Beatles (The White Album)?
My advice: stop posting in this thread before you make yourself look any more foolish than you already have.
I was a sophomore in high school in the fall of ‘64, and had just moved from a good sized city to a small town (3,000 people). I was an outsider. The Beatles were outsiders (well, sort of - at least in my mind) especially in a place where the only music seemed to be country music. So I liked them for that. Did I embrace them immediately? No not really. It was not until their film (Hard Days Night) came out that I became a FAN! It was like nothing I had ever seen, heard or felt. And since then…so many of the milestones of my life were done to Beatles’ music.
Late in that sophomore year, I got my first job - a DJ on the town’s only radio station. Two hours twice a week, I had a rock 'n roll program. The station played MOR (middle of the road) and country sets all the other times. But on Tuesday and Thursday evenings you could hear rock ‘n roll with “TV on the Radio.” The only rule the station manager gave me, "None of that stinkin’ Beatle music!" which also included stuff from the Stones, Animals or similar groups.
The positive side was that I got to take home all of the records sent to the station that I wasn’t allowed to play. It was great for dances I worked.
i never said that. there are a number of short songs in the list done by others than the Fab Four. they are different and have their own qualities.
Nights in White Satin is an intricate song. You Really Got Me is a simple short song lyrically and musically but it does rock.
the fact that a cartoon show was successfully marketed to preteens and early teens showed that their music was pop fluff.
it’s true i shouldn’t just copy the list of songs without having listened to them first.
i got the list, created by others, of popular songs in a year. it didn’t list every song in that year by any group. i did not go to databases of airplay or revenue. i did not develop any entries of my own. i picked songs that illustrated the point that while other people rocked or had sophisticated music the Fab Four had Top 40 fluff.
By omitting the Beatles’ own more sophisticated efforts, and cherrypicking only one of their weaker singles, year by year? Among the crowd around this board, that’s going to be taken as a confession that you had no idea of how to really support your point so you just grabbed whatever was lying around that looked like it agreed with you.
When I honestly, truly, have no idea what I’m talking about you know what I do? Nothing. I don’t post on that subject. I just don’t get why others don’t do this.
the list was of popular songs or albums in each year, written by others, of which i picked some. i added none. it wasn’t done as a large research project, it was some data to make a point in an earlier thread. i don’t think any of the data is in error.
it doesn’t matter if the list i got data from did not include all the works from each group.
if the Fab Four released it then it is their taste and talent they were showing.
it shows the Fab Four were releasing Top 40 pop fluff while other groups released hard rock/blues or had developed and produced sophisticated album music.
It shows that you don’t know the genre or the music catalog. (Or how to use your shift key, it’s a bit annoying, BTW.)
You have the ignored the sophisticated, complex, and groundbreaking Beatles albums released in the same years as they also released more straightforward pop tunes. But they released a lot of music, appealing to a variety of audiences. If you can’t acknowledge that and explain how your position can survive that then your argument is bankrupt. And you won’t be able to because your argument is bankrupt.
