The Beatles...really?

[rarisgod]

Before I begin, I don't dislike the Beatles at all. I do enjoy their music. But they have such high recognition, even in today's society, and I just have to start up a discussion to talk about this...

Some people would say that The Beatles are the greatest musicians of all time. For example: Greatest Guitarist?
The hype they generated during their existence certainly would support this, however if you look at people getting similar (but obviously nowhere near) hype, you'll find Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus.

I disagree. Does anyone think that they should be classified as "one of the greatest groups of musicians of all time" or were they very overhyped?

As I said, I like their music. I just don't see why, even still today, they are regarded as highly as they are.

[MatticusMania]

Originally Posted by rarisgod

Before I begin, I don't dislike the Beatles at all. I do enjoy their music. But they have such high recognition, even in today's society, and I just have to start up a discussion to talk about this...

Some people would say that The Beatles are the greatest musicians of all time. For example: Greatest Guitarist?
The hype they generated during their existence certainly would support this, however if you look at people getting similar (but obviously nowhere near) hype, you'll find Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus.

I disagree. Does anyone think that they should be classified as "one of the greatest groups of musicians of all time" or were they very overhyped?

As I said, I like their music. I just don't see why, even still today, they are regarded as highly as they are.

I think the reason that the Beatles are still so highly regarded is pretty simple. They seem to have set the bar, and set the bar fairly high, for most genres of modern rock. Take a listen through their catalog and you can really find it all.

[tycobb73]

Simple:

They did things that no one else was doing at the time.

They did things that the masses loved.

These 2 things taken together.

You can hear B sides that are only recognized by true fans in commercials. Their music is all over. If you're not a true fan, you won't recognize it most of the time. Take this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyVSKydUxKk

That was a huge hit in the 90s and the bridge is clearly lifted from Glass Onion. I recognized it right away. Their music is everywhere, more places than you can imagine if you listen.

And some of it is about timing. They came along as the sexual revolution was happening. I remember for my social psych class I had to read a paper about how they affected the sexual revolution and the sexual revolution affected them.

[BassesForTheWin]

my friend and I argue on this all the TIME! I love The Beatles, they're probably my favorite Group of all-time.

But here's how I think of it, with out the Classic 3 (The Beatles, The Who, and Pink Floyd) we wouldn't have half the music music we have today

[JimK]

Originally Posted by rarisgod

...however if you look at people getting similar (but obviously nowhere near) hype, you'll find Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus.

Sometimes hype is there because there's no real/true substance.
Every so often, there are surprises & the hype gets exceeded. Just recently, IMO, Stephen Strasburg exceeded all his hype.
True, The Beatles seemingly had everything going for them...IMO, they delivered the goods.

Sometimes, I think some critics of The Beatles never got past A Hard Day's Night. Revolver is a pretty bold statement for that time...it just wasn't 3 chords & a song. Sometimes, it was 1 chord & a sound collage.

[Evil Undead]

I can see why the Beatles are regarded so highly, but personally I don't like them or their music. It's just not for me. Not that it's not good, because of course it is, but it's not something that I enjoy.

Please don't flame, just being honest!

[Alex E]

From interviews I've seen, all four Beatles said they were not the greatest musicians going, then or now.

However, listen to the strength of their melodies and the cleverness of the musical hooks. A strong melody is what gives the music its staying power.

You are right about saying how Miley Cirrus and others now, as well as a band like say... Duran Duran in the 80's, created so much hype. Where is Duran Duran's music now? I don't hear it. I'd venture to say they won't be playing Cirrus' music in 5 to 10 years due to the lack of strong melody and not much in the way of musicianship.

What I find very interesting was the pace that all groups had to record at in the 60's. Due to budget constraints, they were not granted the comparatively huge amount of time that later acts were given.

Contrast Hotel California, Rumours and others great albums of the 70's, where those groups had somewhere in the area of 1 year to record their albums, with Rubber Soul being written and recorded in less than 2 months. I think that number is actually about 1 month, but my Beatles history memory is fuzzy on that. At any rate, imagine how an already very good album in Rubber Soul could have benefitted with an extra half year, at least, of re-recording guitar, bass, drum parts, etc.

Sgt. Peppers, which took 6 months to record, was considered an extremely long and outrageously expensive project at the time. That's funny, when you think of it taking my beloved Eagles 2 years to finally finish The Long Run.

Things changed very much in the industry and the Beatles were the chief reason. If their music is timeless now, one might wonder what they would have accomplished without the time-crunch pressure imposed upon them in the 60's. For that matter, all the great acts of the 60's just were not given the amount of time to produce that acts were given 10 years later and beyond. And yet, the music from that era is still fantastic.

[BassesForTheWin]

@Evil Undead

thank you for being honest and sincere, unlike my friend who just says "They Suck!" when he dont know **** about music exept modernday Metal and modern day rock.

[Phalex]

There is a great deal of difference between rock and roll music before Sgt Pepper, and rock and roll music after Sgt. Pepper.

They single bandedly changed the course of popular music.

Love em or hate em, where we are today can be traced back to where they went with their music back then.

[dougjwray]

Originally Posted by rarisgod

Before I begin, I don't dislike the Beatles at all. I do enjoy their music. But they have such high recognition, even in today's society, and I just have to start up a discussion to talk about this...

Some people would say that The Beatles are the greatest musicians of all time. For example: Greatest Guitarist?
The hype they generated during their existence certainly would support this, however if you look at people getting similar (but obviously nowhere near) hype, you'll find Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus.

I disagree. Does anyone think that they should be classified as "one of the greatest groups of musicians of all time" or were they very overhyped?

As I said, I like their music. I just don't see why, even still today, they are regarded as highly as they are.

I think this is one of the best attempts to explain it all. It's the first two paragraphs of their Allmusic bio, and it's written by Richie Unterberger.

"So much has been said and written about the Beatles -- and their story is so mythic in its sweep -- that it's difficult to summarize their career without restating clichés that have already been digested by tens of millions of rock fans. To start with the obvious, they were the greatest and most influential act of the rock era, and introduced more innovations into popular music than any other rock band of the 20th century. Moreover, they were among the few artists of any discipline that were simultaneously the best at what they did and the most popular at what they did. Relentlessly imaginative and experimental, the Beatles grabbed a hold of the international mass consciousness in 1964 and never let go for the next six years, always staying ahead of the pack in terms of creativity but never losing their ability to communicate their increasingly sophisticated ideas to a mass audience. Their supremacy as rock icons remains unchallenged to this day, decades after their breakup in 1970.

Even when couching praise in specific terms, it's hard to convey the scope of the Beatles' achievements in a mere paragraph or two. They synthesized all that was good about early rock & roll, and changed it into something original and even more exciting. They established the prototype for the self-contained rock group that wrote and performed its own material. As composers, their craft and melodic inventiveness were second to none, and key to the evolution of rock from its blues/R&B-based forms into a style that was far more eclectic, but equally visceral. As singers, both John Lennon and Paul McCartney were among the best and most expressive vocalists in rock; the group's harmonies were intricate and exhilarating. As performers, they were (at least until touring had ground them down) exciting and photogenic; when they retreated into the studio, they were instrumental in pioneering advanced techniques and multi-layered arrangements. They were also the first British rock group to achieve worldwide prominence, launching a British Invasion that made rock truly an international phenomenon."

[jmorbita]

Don't really know much on the subject, but I think, like it or not, they influenced more people that anybody else did. They also were great together, writing great songs.
I don't think there is such a thing as "greatest musician", but they were certainly the most infuential band, and they continue to influence musicians all over the world, even 40 years after they disbanded.

[M0ses]

Originally Posted by Alex E

Sgt. Peppers, which took 6 months to record, was considered an extremely long and outrageously expensive project at the time. That's funny, didn't it take my beloved Eagles 2 years to finally finish The Long Run?

You're right, that's just crazy. Led Zeppelin I was recorded (obviously not written) in a single day.

[tZer]

I am continually amazed by what the Beatles as a whole did and I've been listening to them since I was a kid in grade school in the 70's. Just when you think you "know" them, you dig up a new song from a B side and suddenly you're reintroduced to them all over again.

If you were to make a blow by blow comparison to any other artist or group of their time and evaluate who was hitting all the right notes, you'd find very few, if any who could stand toe to toe with the Beatles.

Songwriting, production, instrumentation, musicianship, diversity, poetry, spirituality, social consciousness, pop-culture awareness, intellectualism, imagination, humor... on and on and on... the Beatles were are rare amalgam of brilliantly creative and dynamic personalities who coalesced into a singularity that no other group has been able to imitate or emulate since.

But the paragraphs Dougjwray provided from the bio pretty much said all that already - so +1 to that.

[sarcastro83]

Originally Posted by tZer

... the Beatles were are rare amalgam of brilliantly creative and dynamic personalities who coalesced into a singularity that no other group has been able to imitate or emulate since...

By jove, I think he's got it...

Basically this. This explains everything.

[dougjwray]

The constant comparisons to contemporary teen-pop people especially kills me because the Beatles, while not trained musicians, were serious. Two examples out of hundreds would be McCartney bringing in his homemade tape loops to add to "Tomorrow Never Knows", or Lennon's constant experiments with recording vocals. George Martin, their producer, was a great help in translating their inspirations into reality (e.g. putting notes on paper for classical session musicians to read, or identifying the orchestral instruments that McCartney heard for a specific song), but he was *not* analogous to, say, Justin Bieber's producer! With the Beatles, you had the first example of the artist coming in and "stealing the tools"-- using (and abusing) the equipment at Abbey Road to get new sounds. I don't think Miley Cyrus has ever done that.

[onestring]

Whether or not they are great musicians is debatable to many. But they exemplify a band doing service to the song. That's something a lot of people talk about but that few bands really do.

They invigorated popular music. Look at the charts from the years before they came out, and check out those songs. The early 60s were pretty damn bland except for some surf stuff.

Listen to popular song structure in the 50s and early 60s. They broke a lot of molds for pop songwriting.

Listen to their first album and last. Name one other group that evolved that much in under seven years (or another group that put out thirteen albums plus in that period).

They changed the way a recording studio was used. Entirely.

Don't forget they were also personalities and not just musicians-everybody knew all their names and had favorites. They were like four different Elvises in one band. As individuals, they had huge cultural impacts in the 1960s.

Sometimes I listen to a Beatles record and am not wowed. Sometimes I listen and they are the greatest band that ever lived. It's all context.

[Alex E]

Originally Posted by onestring

Whether or not they are great musicians is debatable to many. But they exemplify a band doing service to the song. That's something a lot of people talk about but that few bands really do.

They invigorated popular music. Look at the charts from the years before they came out, and check out those songs. The early 60s were pretty damn bland except for some surf stuff.

Listen to popular song structure in the 50s and early 60s. They broke a lot of molds for pop songwriting.

Listen to their first album and last. Name one other group that evolved that much in under seven years (or another group that put out thirteen albums plus in that period).

They changed the way a recording studio was used. Entirely.

Don't forget they were also personalities and not just musicians-everybody knew all their names and had favorites. They were like four different Elvises in one band. As individuals, they had huge cultural impacts in the 1960s.

Sometimes I listen to a Beatles record and am not wowed. Sometimes I listen and they are the greatest band that ever lived. It's all context.

very well said!

[Steve Dixon]

good god man... If I had a dollar for every time I read a thread on an internet forum saying EXACTLY what you said, I'd be a millionaire

so you don't particularly like or 'get' The Beatles?

no-one cares... I mean, NO-ONE

we've heard it before

hundreds of times

AND its little brother 'I don't get what's so special about Jaco'

[dougjwray]

Originally Posted by Steve Dixon

good god man... If I had a dollar for every time I read a thread on an internet forum saying EXACTLY what you said, I'd be a millionaire

so you don't particularly like or 'get' The Beatles?

no-one cares... I mean, NO-ONE

we've heard it before

hundreds of times

AND its little brother 'I don't get what's so special about Jaco'

And its little sister, "Why don't I like Fender basses?"

[tZer]

Originally Posted by Steve Dixon

good god man... If I had a dollar for every time I read a thread on an internet forum saying EXACTLY what you said, I'd be a millionaire...

I agree - but in the OP's defense, a thread like this opens up the opportunity to explain to someone who doesn't get it a way to get it.

If, after reading many of the posts from those of us who do get it, he still doesn't get it - then it's not his to be gotten (yet).

But if he does end up having his mind opened - maybe it will open the door to a HUGE world of music for him to discover anew even if he does feel like he's already heard everything they have to say.

I know that for me, I continually hear new reasons to be thoroughly impressed by the Beatles and I don't anticipate that every stopping. To me, that's the mark of a transcendent band - one that you can listen to for decades, if not centuries, and continually hear something new.

For those of us who do get it, the Beatles are a never ending source of inspiration that doesn't wear out because we've gotten older or our skills have improved or our tastes have evolved. No matter how I've grown as a musician or a listener of music, there's always something new and useful for me in what the Beatles did.