A million people could tell me how great they are, I STILL wont like them. That doesnt make me wrong - it doesnt make me right either.
The Beatles do NOT appeal to my personal tastes.
I realize its more ‘cool’ and stuff to be an obessessed fan of the beatles, but I cant muster enough interest either way: they didnt ‘suck’, but they were nowhere as wonderful and earth shattering as everyone beleives either. Pfft. they were just a band.
Oh, and I will not list my favorite bands so they can be picked apart. Insulting my taste in music will not prove your case that the beatles are the be all and end all of music.If they hadnt come along at the precise moment in the sexual revolution and created scores of rabid girl fans…they might have already been forgotten.
I like music from all genres, but I harbor no illusions that anyone I listen to will go down in history as signifigant - its just music.
I was explicitly speaking of his songwriting ability. I knew it was Clapton that played on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”.
Kellibelli: You’re welcome to your own taste - but that doesn’t mean you have to reject the notion that the Beatles actually were revolutionary and extremely talented. For instance, I happen to think that Prince is an extremely talented songwriter and performer, but I don’t own a single one of his albums and probably never will. The music just doesn’t appeal to me.
Just because you don’t like the Beatles does not mean that they were just an average band. It just means you don’t like them. Fair enough.
. . . as well as the guitar solo in “I Call Your Name,” which has a reggae feel and which the band performed that way specifically because they had heard Caribbean music.
Well Omni, I figure they were just a band as in, they are of no greater signifigance to history than any other multitude of musical sources.
They wrote alot, recorded alot… so?
They had huge legions of fans…again…so?
Why is it all these uber-fans are so convinced that the beatles changed music history?
The backstreetboys, or new kids on the block, or Nstink have markedly changed the face of music for the next few generations - why not worship them? Lets face it, pop musice will be of the boy band variety for the forseeable future.
Except for the ‘sexy girl’ acts - a residue of madonna’s influence - and INFLUENCE she did! Remember what she did to fashion for almost ten years? why not worship her?
What about garth Brooks? Talk about prolific! Everything the man touches turns to gold!
The beatles wrote their own songs, thats admirable, but lots of bands write their own material… not so much nowadays, (thanks boy bands! )… but why does everyone thinks they were so great?
They were big sure, but so were the Stones, and they are still putting out albums! And as far as popular and influential bands from england - like it or not, Duran Duran was pretty important! They helped change the look of north american music for the eighties.
I think if you look at the TIME when the beatles first appeared, the way society was changing, it was the PERFECT time for them to appear. A lucky break to be sure. If they had any competition back them, they would not have been so popular. Who was their competition?
There have been lots and lots of bands since them who were popular and influential for their time, but people dont worship them like the beatles. I have never understood that. Nirvana was very popular, changed music profoundly, and they wrote their own stuff… (I dont like them either)
Maybe someone should give me the criteria by which you judge the beatles to be so much more important to history than the stones, nirvana, duran duran, madonna, prince, the backstreet boys, the monkees or anyone else who made music.
First of all, I’m sorry I found this thread so late, considering that the OP opened with a quote from yours truly.
I’ve breezed through the posts so far and, just as I thought would happen, most posters defend the belief that The Beatles were a “great” band. This is certainly in line with their popularity.
As for me, I do not judge art based on popularity. I have my own criteria and, in the case of music, its really as simple as music quality, voice quality, and lyrics quality. I’ve heard pretty much all of the Beatles works several times, and I’d rate them average for music, average for voice, and below average for lyrics. Perhaps if I was born 50 years ago, instead of 30, then the Beatles may have been the best thing around. But I really can’t give them any more credit than most bands around. I think they were lucky and a product of marketing, like Madonna, the Backstreet Boys, or Pokemon or Barney for that matter.
And as for other bands being influenced by them, I don’t think that means much. As much as they were on the radio, it would be pretty much impossible not to be influenced by them one way or another. But if you think about it, all music is influenced by some pre-human from a million years ago banging two rocks together to form a sound. But no one’s saying that he was “great”.
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the group. I’m glad they succeeded. But by my standards, and to answer the OP, yes, they sucked.
It’s hard to overestimate the Beatles, IMO. Here you have a group that, in a few short years, went from “Love Me Do” to “I Am the Walrus”, a considerable musical journey by anyone’s standards. As someone else here pointed out, in that amount of time, most contemporary groups are lucky to have gone from the release of their first album to their third.
In terms of musical achievement, it seems to me that most of the Beatles’ serious rivals are their contemporaries: the Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Clapton bands through Derek and the Dominos, and so forth. Who from the '90s and since are you going to stack up against them? It’s hard to see who in the past decade or so has anything approaching the breadth of musical accomplishment that the Beatles had, and it’s equally hard for me to see that anyone’s had moments of brilliance so great as to render that breadth secondary. I like many bands of the past several years, but after the first album, with its three singles-worthy cuts, it’s another 3-4 years until album #2. By their third album, either they can’t see the cutting edge with a telescope, or they can no longer get anyone interested in their music.
The Beatles weren’t always cutting-edge, of course, but they were always near enough to absorb and incorporate it into their own music, and communicate it to a much wider audience while it was still edgy.
I’m not going to claim that the Beatles are the best band ever, or even of the past forty years; I think that’s extremely debatable. But my opinion is that they’re head and shoulders above every contemporary band.
I’ve always loved the Beatles as a group, and for the craftsmanship evident in their songs, and for the profound influence which they had, but I agree with some of the above comments that there have been better musicians, technically speaking. I certainly don’t agree with those who claim that Lennon was the best rhythm guitarist ever, or Harrison the best lead. I do think that McCartney soared considerably higher on his instrument than the others did on theirs.
Well, because they did, as most historians of popular music will tell you. It isn’t just “uber-fans,” whatever those are. They set a new standard for pop craftsmanship. They became “recording artists,” leaving the touring schedule and working solely from the studio, when such a thing was unheard of. They set earth-shattering record sales again and again.
Er, well, actually, boy-band sales are fading, but that’s neither here nor there. By the time they were 17-18 years old, the Beatles were full-time working musicians, writing a lot of their own material, and touring incessantly throughout England and Scotland. They were playing in Hamburg, entertaining every night, for five, six, ten hours at a stretch. And, in doing so, they became the most successful recording act of all time, and have remained so for nearly 40 years.
Here’s the difference–if you stop 100 people on the street, probably a very small percentage could sing you the chorus of a single Garth Brooks song. I know I couldn’t. But stop those same 100 people, I’ll bet at least half can sing you the chorus of five Beatles songs.
Except for die-hard fans, I doubt anyone knows, off the top of their head, a Stones song recorded since 1982 or so. Maybe that last one, “Love is Strong.” Before that, you’d have to go back to “Tattoo You” for a Stones record with any impact whatsoever. At least the Beatles knew when to quit.
I liked Duran Duran in their time, but to even consider their impact comparable to that of the Beatles is, well, silly.
Um, are you kidding? In 1964? Have you heard of a band called the Beach Boys? Or the Four Seasons? How about a little tiny record label called Motown?
Not to be snide, but maybe you should read a book on rock music history.
Look, in a recording career that lasted from 1962-1970, the Beatles:
–recorded 11 LPs including a double album
–recorded at least 20 45s of non-album material
–recorded at least 4 EPs, also non-album material
–starred in 3 motion pictures and wrote new music for a fourth
–toured the world almost nonstop for four years (1962-66)
–wrote several hits for other artists (including the Stones)
–etc., etc., etc.
PLG - I didn’t mean to imply that those songs were on the White album, but re-reading it, I could see where someone might read it that way.
And my comment about “You Won’t See Me” was semi-tongue-in-cheek. It did predate disco by something like ten years, but does sound very disco-ish… until you get to that time signature change.
Well, in my opinion, yeah he was great; he got the whole musical ball rolling. Why don’t other band’s influences mean much to you? When I band lists their influences, it’s their voluntary disclosure; they name the bands and musicians they’ve admired and in some way have tried to emulate or take their musical knowledge and advance it in some direction. I hear an assload of Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys on the radio; do I consider them an influence? No. Would anyone hearing my music think I’ve been influenced by them? No. But they are played incessantly on the radio. I can reject musical influences as I wish, because I think these bands are crap. The Beatles, from my subjective point of view, are musically good. OK, they don’t play flashy solos or display any sort of godlike virtuosity on their instruments, but you know what? The genre they play in is against this sort of musical masturbation. Sorry. I’m a technique-oriented musician, but Keith Emerson, Yngwe Malmsteen, Neal Peart or whoever would all suck in the context of the Beatles. That’s not the point of their music.
Listen, if approval by their peers is not a good standard of judgment for you, what is? These musicians were not forced to accept them as influences. They accepted them as influence because they thought they were good.
Are you thinking of the right song here? “You Won’t See Me” doesn’t even sound remotely disco-ish, and it doesn’t have any time signature changes, either. It’s in straight 4/4 the whole way through.
I won’t use someone else’s opinion of another band as a standard of judgement. If I do, then I have to accept their opinion of other bands as well. Let’s just say that Thom Yorke of Radiohead proclaims that he was influenced by the Beatles. So I say: “Hey, if Thom Yorke likes them, they must’ve been great.”
Suppose later he says that he absolutely despises The Clash. Does that mean that I can’t view The Clash as a great band anymore? I think that its better for you to form your own opinions based on your own reaction to the art.
I will, of course, go out and listen to bands that my favorite artists like. For example, a few Radiohead members listen to Clinic. So I listened to them and happened to like them. But I’m sure that I won’t agree with them on everything that they listen to.
What I’m trying to do here is to find an objective way to judge a band’s influence and stature in the pop music scene. The only way to do that, I think, is to take the opinions of the artists, critics and other people who have devoted their life and livelihood to music and also, to some extent, the reaction of the general public. If you personally don’t like them, fine. But it seems that if you want to get as objective as possible (which, I understand is impossible in art) then I would have to conclude, given the evidence and the opinions of those who I musically respect, that the Beatles were a great band. This is regardless of your taste. Even if you don’t like rap, you can’t dismiss the contributions of De La Soul, Public Enemy, N.W.A., Arrested Development, etc., into musical culture. And they certainly don’t suck either, whether you like them or not.
By the same token, I don’t think you can dismiss the Beatles.
I’ve always wondered why George didn’t play lead guitar on those tracks though, given they were his songs and he normally played lead.
I do think “Taxman” probably wouldn’t sound as good with George playing lead. In my mind it needs something with a bit of an edge to it, a little rough, and I always think of George’s playing as more lyrical. Kind of like John’s solo in “You Can’t Do That” - rough, but a better fit than anything I can imagine George playing.
It seems like George would have been a perfect fit on WMGGW, though. Was he just being nice to Clapton, or was there another reason for it?
Paul probably said something like, “How about a solo like this?” and George felt Paul could probably play it better than he could. They weren’t above that sort of thing–Paul also played lead guitar on “Another Girl,” “Ticket to Ride,” and, of course, one-third of “The End,” as well as drums on “Dear Prudence.”
At that point, George was a little sick of all the in-fighting in the Beatles, and he felt that his songs were not given the same time and attention as John’s and Paul’s; so he thought that by bringing in Clapton, he could make them work harder on the song and behave in front of the guests, as it were. Oddly, John also says in the “Playboy Interviews” that he felt that Paul sometimes tried (subconciously) to sabotage some of John’s songs when they were recording.
It’s also a shame that Paul isn’t given the credit he deserves for Wings. Sure it wasn’t the same as the Beatles, but there is a ton of invention there. “Uncle Albert” could have been on Sgt. Pepper with high honors.
)… but why does everyone thinks they were so great?