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My dad doesn't like Paul McCartney :(

To each his own, but I can't understand how anyone who cares about music can make the blanket statement that he or she doesn't like the Beatles. What specifically don't you like? Yesterday? Helter Skelter? A Day In The Life? Come Together? They covered such a broad spectrum and you don't like ANY of it?
 
Au contraire, mon frère! Lennon WAS a great rhythm player, but I'm saying when he wrote songs, he paid no attention whatsoever to rhythm STRUCTURE. He had a natural feel for it, so he would switch up any time the mood struck him.

Check out poor Alan W. Pollack, trying to make sense of Happiness is a Warm Gun:

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I think what you mean is that Lennon/McCartney broke free of the "four-bar/eight-bar/12-bar/16-bar" conventions that dominate the Great American Songbook and a lot of early blues, R&B and rock and roll. 7-bar phrases, 2/4 bars in a 4/4 context...they wrote what they felt, and it has an organic flow to it so if you hear it on the radio and are following along, you don't sense the asymmetry unless you are looking for it, or have an inherently analytical ear. Interestingly, Hal David and Burt Bacharach did the same thing in a lot of their tunes, but somehow those odd bars call attention to themselves, to me, in a way that I don't find with Beatles stuff.

Hijack - Public Service Announcement

If you really want to blow your mind, dig on Brazilian tunes in 5 and 7 that are so, so organic and smooth that you don't have any sense that the rhythm is "odd" unless you count for it! Sigh...glorious memories of playing Airto Moreira's "Tambour in 7/4" and watching the woo-woo dancers go with the flow... And look for "Lilia" by Milton Nascimento...beautiful.

And now, back to the thread at hand...
 
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I was a kid when I first heard the Beatles on the radio, it made such an impression upon me that I still remember where I was and what I was doing . They were such a step up from most of the pap and crap that was played on UK radio at the time it was like a breath of fresh air. (Dogies in windows with waggly noses (correction - tail) never really floated my boat even as a young kid!)

This is not to say that I like everything that the Beatles recorded, I like most of the early stuff, but not all of it, and proportionately less as their career progressed.

I consider that The Stones (and to a lesser extent The Who) were following in the Beatles footsteps so although they had some excellent songs they did not make such an impact on me.

I don't believe that everyone should like them, just as I don't get (most) modern jazz (blasphemy I know, I can appreciate all the theory that goes into it but it does nothing for me - sorry guys).
 
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He's a jazz guy (pro dummer) and he doesn't like him or the Beatles at all. Always discredits their efforts as derivative of Motown, says they had ghost writers, and session guys playing their parts, and so on.
Meanwhile I'm rocking out on "Rain", thinking you just have to think the rhythm section in this is brilliant and he doesn't care :(
Is it a jazz guy thing not to care about the Beatles? I mean, jazz is inundated with a amazing musicians. I can see why he wouldn't care too much for pop music, but he seems to like most other things.

My reaction is if so, so what ? Who as a musician of any ilk has not derived or stolen or been inspired or supported by others ? He's free not to like anyone he wants, but his argument doesn't ring true to me.
Buddy Rich was brought up in this thread and he's a good example of someone who was a snob, an elitist, and a miserable condescending person intolerant of anyone beneath his exalted standards. Was he the world's greatest drummer ? probably yes of the ones I've heard. But if music simply becomes a vehicle for self exaltation of yourself and your elite companions while you grind others who you consider beneath you under your heel, what good is it ? It becomes music for the sake of music, and music is an expression of the human experience. And that experience is as varied as the people cultures and lifestyles it relates to, or relate to it.
Sadly,great musical technicians sometimes forget that is more important to relate to people and for them to relate to your music. Do they have the right to invalidate or dehumanize others not in their particular strata ?
No, But they deserve pity for thinking they do. They are missing something as humans.
They also sometimes sadly forget that other forms of music, however humble earthy or seemingly simplistic, are just as valid as theirs. Why would a person be angry or frustrated seeing something that others enjoy , other than envy and ego ? Sad.
 
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To each his own, but I can't understand how anyone who cares about music can make the blanket statement that he or she doesn't like the Beatles. What specifically don't you like? Yesterday? Helter Skelter? A Day In The Life? Come Together? They covered such a broad spectrum and you don't like ANY of it?

The flip side of this is that there are people who claim not to like jazz, which boggles my mind.

There is much facepalm in this thread: the Beatles were savants (nope). Buddy Rich is the greatest jazz drummer ever. (Incorrect!)

PS lots of jazz guys like the Beatles. Grant Green. Larry Coryell. Bill Frisell. I could go on.
 
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The flip side of this is that there are people who claim not to like jazz, which boggles my mind.

There is much facepalm in this thread: the Beatles were savants (nope). Buddy Rich is the greatest jazz drummer ever. (Incorrect!)

PS lots of jazz guys like the Beatles. Grant Green. Larry Coryell. Bill Frisell. I could go on.


You're right. That would've been Gene Krupa.
 
I fully feel The Who are a way better band and one of my favorites. I always wondered why The Beatles received more credit, because they were popular in 1962 and The Who was a few years later in like '65?
Probably better managed, they produced single after single so were always in the UK charts often with one rising, one at the top, and one falling.

The Who were a bit more sporadic as far as I remember with a good single followed by a long gap (but it was a long time ago). In my first band we played a lot of early Who songs, they were usually simpler to play than the Beatles songs.

The Stones did up their game somewhat and started writing their own material (I believe on the advice of the Beatles) and enjoyed a period where they competed with the Beatles record sales wise.
 

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