Do the Beatles get too much credit..

To me, the Beatles were more of a pop hit group than a rock band.  Sort of a skilled boy-band of the 60's; I think they are incredibly overrated, particularly in the singing department.  They had a few innovative tendencies, but to me they will always be second-tier in comparison to the Animals or the Beach Boys.  I will grant that their music has aged quite well from the Abbey Road/Srgt Pepper era (especially compared to Frank Zappa's early work), but all they did was write uncomplicated pop songs.  I've never understood the appeal of albums like "Rubber Soul" or "Revolver," both of which I find incredibly annoying.  Most of their music sounds dated, trite, tacky, peppy, commercialized, and lacking in timelessness.  On the flipside, albums like "Let It Be" are overproduced schlock.  I can't stand the Beatles, or anything they represent.  Even the Bee-Gees and the Monkees are more enjoyable than Lennon and Co. from my standpoint, since they were at least explicitly commercial and didn't try to mask themselves behind cutesy garbage facades like Srgt Pepper.    

Barking Weasel wrote: To me, the Beatles were more of a pop hit group than a rock band.  Sort of a skilled boy-band of the 60's; I think they are incredibly overrated, particularly in the singing department.  They had a few innovative tendencies, but to me they will always be second-tier in comparison to the Animals or the Beach Boys.  I will grant that their music has aged quite well from the Abbey Road/Srgt Pepper era (especially compared to Frank Zappa's early work), but all they did was write uncomplicated pop songs.  I've never understood the appeal of albums like "Rubber Soul" or "Revolver," both of which I find incredibly annoying.  Most of their music sounds dated, trite, tacky, peppy, commercialized, and lacking in timelessness.  On the flipside, albums like "Let It Be" are overproduced schlock.  I can't stand the Beatles, or anything they represent.  Even the Bee-Gees and the Monkees are more enjoyable than Lennon and Co. from my standpoint, since they were at least explicitly commercial and didn't try to mask themselves behind cutesy garbage facades like Srgt Pepper.

Edited by The Dark Elf - February 21 2011 at 17:14

Barking Weasel wrote: ^The only pioneering aspects of the Beatles were manifested in how they marketed themselves (movies, tv, action figures, etc.) and in the innovation of certain recording techniques that they used.  The influence of the classical composers you listed seems negligible, in that the Beatles did not set out to replicate those musical elements in their songs.  They have more in common with Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry (who were more obvious direct musical influences) than with Vivaldi.  Listening to their songs gives me a distinct impression that they were focused less on the music, and more on vocal harmony and pop singing.  In this way, they are incredibly innovative if you are talking about Britney Spears.

Overrated, yes. Even their best albums seem to get elated more than they should.

The Dark Elf wrote: Barking Weasel wrote: To me, the Beatles were more of a pop hit group than a rock band.  Sort of a skilled boy-band of the 60's; I think they are incredibly overrated, particularly in the singing department.  They had a few innovative tendencies, but to me they will always be second-tier in comparison to the Animals or the Beach Boys.  I will grant that their music has aged quite well from the Abbey Road/Srgt Pepper era (especially compared to Frank Zappa's early work), but all they did was write uncomplicated pop songs.  I've never understood the appeal of albums like "Rubber Soul" or "Revolver," both of which I find incredibly annoying.  Most of their music sounds dated, trite, tacky, peppy, commercialized, and lacking in timelessness.  On the flipside, albums like "Let It Be" are overproduced schlock.  I can't stand the Beatles, or anything they represent.  Even the Bee-Gees and the Monkees are more enjoyable than Lennon and Co. from my standpoint, since they were at least explicitly commercial and didn't try to mask themselves behind cutesy garbage facades like Srgt Pepper.       So, I take it you don't like the Beatles?   Your subjective negativity aside, I believe you've missed the boat on this one. When you mention "they had a few innovative tendencies",  I must refer you to the first page of this thread where Floydman documented a long and detailed list of innovations that is incomparable. I might add that Help and Hard Day's Night (and in 1969, Let it Be) were influential in the making of later rock movies and rockumentaries, and the advent of the music video format was profoundly effected by The Beatles' experimental work (starting in 1966 with a promotional piece for "Rain" and brought into further focus with "Strawberry Fields Forever") .   When you say "all they did was write uncomplicated pop songs", are you aware that doctoral theses have been written on the subtle intricacies of "She's Leaving Home" and "A Day in the Life", or that "Eleanor Rigby", composed in Dorian mode with double string quartet,  Is heavily influenced by both Vivaldi and Bernard Hermann? In addition, the influences of composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (whose likeness appears in the back row of the famous photo on the Sgt. Peppers album) is evident in several more avante-garde offerings from the Beatles (Stockhausen was also a notable influence of Zappa, The Who and Pink Floyd).   As far as the Beach Boys, they admitted their innovative Pet Shop Sounds was influenced by Rubber Soul, the Bee-Gees were ardent Beatle admirers and copiers, and The Monkees were literally invented to mimic the Beatles (with Neil Diamond shadow-composing mock Beatles tunes for The Monkees' use).   As far as their music sounding "dated, trite, tacky, peppy, commercialized, and lacking in timelessness",  Beatles music has been played or excerpted by Hendrix, Bowie, Cocker, Sinatra, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Clapton, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Oasis (the Gallaghers being immense fans), the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ozzie Osbourne, The Ben Folds Five, Franz Ferdinand, Fiona Apple, and countless others; in fact, the song "Yesterday" is the most covered rock song in history.   So, is it the Beatles lacking timelessness, or are you simply out of time? I am opting for the latter. By the way, have you heard the Beatles' remastered albums? The entire catalogue sold 3x platinum in the U.S. -- more than 40 years after the albums were first released. I think the Beatles will outlast both of us.

^ I would argue that the Animals singles have aged more gracefully than those of the Beatles.  The Animals were far more rooted in blues/rock than the Beatles, they had a fuller sound than the Beatles did in the early 60's, and Eric Burdon was an immensely talented singer without the pop frills that the Beatles often utilized.  In addition, his version of "House Of The Rising Sun" has reworked lyrics, and the original Animals songs match the quality of their cover songs.

I believe that critical standing is irrelevant, especially if you are talking about the Beatles.  Calling them the greatest musicians ever is ludicrous; they would be nothing without Frank Zappa, The Beach Boys (who had far better vocal harmonies), Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, and numerous other artists.  The Beatles are a corporate wet-dream, a high-charting singles band who make glorified pop music which happened to garner critical respect.  All they were ever about was marketing and image.  They are the precursor to the Backstreet Boys, and are not even deserving of being called "rock musicians."  The "White Album" was the most rock-like album they ever released, but that was an anomaly.  Everything else was simply campy showbiz.  Money talks, quality walks.

The critics these days are all baby-boomers, and remains sentimental about the musical legacy of their own age.  The Beatles were the most acclaimed band of that age, so it makes sense that they anoint the Beatles in such a fashion.  However, that doesn't make their perspective accurate.  If you go back to the 50's, there is much more interesting music to draw from than the Beatles.  Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, etc.  If you go further back, you get Jimmie Rodgers and Frank Sinatra.  Then there is Robert Johnson, blues/folk music, then even further back, there is Bach, Beethoven, Mozart.  Surely these artists are far more deserving of critical acclaim than the Beatles, who are nothing more than a gentrified, corporate pop act?

I've been listening to the Beatles since I was in elementary school.  There has never once been a moment where I thought, "it all makes sense now! of course, its the Beatles who are the greatest musicians ever to walk the face of the earth, they are the holy trinity." 

It makes sense if you subtract Ringo; but in all seriousness, the Beatles adulation has got to stop.  It is bad for our world, and for human society, that we assume such nonsense about the Beatles.  If you like them, that's fine.  I won't go over to your house and deface your precious copies of "Revolver" and "Abbey Road," but please don't try to assert such utter nonsense about the Beatles being the greatest band that has ever lived.  They had a few pleasant songs, but they are by no means the most important group of musicians that has ever lived.       

  

Barking Weasel wrote: ^The only pioneering aspects of the Beatles were manifested in how they marketed themselves (movies, tv, action figures, etc.) and in the innovation of certain recording techniques that they used.  The influence of the classical composers you listed seems negligible, in that the Beatles did not set out to replicate those musical elements in their songs.  They have more in common with Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry (who were more obvious direct musical influences) than with Vivaldi.  Listening to their songs gives me a distinct impression that they were focused less on the music, and more on vocal harmony and pop singing.  In this way, they are incredibly innovative if you are talking about Britney Spears.   Of course you would mention Oasis.  I hate Oasis more than the Beatles, and I hate the Beatles quite a lot.  Oasis is a band with no redeeming qualities.  Along with Weezer.  Fortunately, over half the musicians you listed I can't stand.  Not a good track record for the Beatles I must say, when Ben Folds Five and Franz Ferdinand are your major admirers.   I hate "Yesterday."  What a trite and ridiculous song.  Good thing he "believes in yesterday," because I wasn't so sure it existed.  Good job Paul McCartney, you reminded me to wake up this morning, otherwise I would have been forever stuck without ever knowing how the Gregorian calender functions.   Anyone who wastes eight years writing a PhD dissertation on the Beatles needs to get a life.  Go study a real subject in college, stop harassing your family for tuition money, and learn a trade that is actually marketable in the physical universe.  I have more respect for pole dancers and Las Vegas showgirls than for someone who devotes their life to analyzing Nietzche's influence on Sargeant Pepper, or whatever crass B.S. some academic nobody has dreamed into existence.   The sheeple will buy anything that critics and MTV tell them to buy.  End of story.   Like Jesus, the Beatles are incredibly overrated.  Let's move on with our lives.

Edited by AllP0werToSlaves - February 22 2011 at 12:02

Barking Weasel wrote: ^The Animals were far more rooted in blues/rock than the Beatles

So what?  And you don't find it boring that all these rock bands would be 'rooted' in blues rock while Beatles merrily experimented with sitars, piccolo trumpets and what not?  If eclecticism is so despicable, may I ask what you are doing on a prog forum?

Barking Weasel wrote: Eric Burdon was an immensely talented singer without the pop frills that the Beatles often utilized.

Oh, I see, hating pop on principle, take it elsewhere.  Pop is Britney Spears and pop is also Stevie Wonder. Rock is The Who and rock is also Guns and (f****d up) Roses.  Just because a band plays rock doesn't place it on a pedestal and just because another may slot in pop doesn't make it bad.  And by the way, it is not unreasonable to call Pet Sounds pop, if you want to take this line of argument. 
 

Barking Weasel wrote: I believe that critical standing is irrelevant, especially if you are talking about the Beatles.

Why?  Beatles cannot be evaluated without discussing their influence and importance. 

Barking Weasel wrote: Calling them the greatest musicians ever is ludicrous;

Maybe but that doesn't warrant such an extreme reaction with little basis in fact. 

Barking Weasel wrote:   they would be nothing without Frank Zappa

Why so when Freak Out released only in '66? 

 

Barking Weasel wrote: All they were ever about was marketing and image.

Ermm, mind substantiating that?  Your pronouncements aren't truth, you see, and even if you are only expressing your opinion, you should at least offer some arguments in support of it. Mere repetition is not enough.

 
 

Barking Weasel wrote: They are the precursor to the Backstreet Boys,

Neatly combed hair and boyish looks don't make you a boyband.  Perhaps, YOU can't get past Beatles's image and therefore would want to grudge them credit.

 

Barking Weasel wrote: and are not even deserving of being called "rock musicians."

Are rock musicians so extraordinary and part of so hallowed a club that one must be deserving of being called such?  Again, if AXL can be called a rock musician, I see no harm in calling either of the fab four such, they contributed a lot more to music.

Barking Weasel wrote:   The "White Album" was the most rock-like album they ever released, but that was an anomaly.  Everything else was simply campy showbiz.  Money talks, quality walks.

Just your opinion and sans logic, comes across as incoherent rant.

Barking Weasel wrote:   The critics these days are all baby-boomers, and remains sentimental about the musical legacy of their own age.  The Beatles were the most acclaimed band of that age, so it makes sense that they anoint the Beatles in such a fashion.  However, that doesn't make their perspective accurate.

And, er, what about the musicians?  Are they all and in fact everybody on the planet, with the exclusion of a few privileged souls like Barking Weasel, deluded?

 

Barking Weasel wrote: Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, etc.

And Miles Davis is also much more interesting than your beloved Animals.  What next, compare Beatles to Stravinsky or Bela Bartok to argue that they are overhyped? 

 

Barking Weasel wrote: If you go further back, you get Jimmie Rodgers and Frank Sinatra.

Hold it right there. So a pop SINGER is, in your esteemed opinion, worthier than a band of musicians who could at least write their own music?  Is there any semblance of reason left in this debate?


 

Barking Weasel wrote:   then even further back, there is Bach, Beethoven, Mozart.

Dear me, so you have actually executed that which I proposed in sarcasm?    My dear, how ridiculous can you get?  I don't believe anyone in their senses would actually consider Beatles a greater set of musicians than someone like Bach (though he might like their music, which is his preference and no more) and somebody who does is obviously a fanatic.  One does not go attaching so much weight to such opinions that one pretends that Beatles were just a corporate pop act and disregards their profound influence on rock and pop music.
 

Barking Weasel wrote: I've been listening to the Beatles since I was in elementary school.  There has never once been a moment where I thought, "it all makes sense now! of course, its the Beatles who are the greatest musicians ever to walk the face of the earth, they are the holy trinity."

Same as above.  There will always be fanboys and I will show you equally abominable fanboys of far less significant bands too. It doesn't mean anything and it doesn't mean anybody who so much as praises the Beatles's work is simply taken in by the hype.  That is, to say the least, a very offensive suggestion.

Barking Weasel wrote: but in all seriousness, the Beatles adulation has got to stop.  It is bad for our world, and for human society, that we assume such nonsense about the Beatles.

Errrrrr......WHAT?     

Barking Weasel wrote: They had a few pleasant songs, but they are by no means the most important group of musicians that has ever lived.

They are in my considered opinion the most important group of ROCK musicians yet and I don't think people discuss Beatles in any context other than rock anyway.   Through this thread, arguments have only been made for other bands that were important or to not overestimate Beatles's importance.  No case has been made for any one group that was more important to rock than Beatles. Better? Maybe, but the most influential artists aren't always the ones who make the best music.

No...they are so far ahead of all rock-era acts in cultural and musical importance and it's not even close.

The Dark Elf wrote: Barking Weasel wrote: ^The only pioneering aspects of the Beatles were manifested in how they marketed themselves (movies, tv, action figures, etc.) and in the innovation of certain recording techniques that they used.  The influence of the classical composers you listed seems negligible, in that the Beatles did not set out to replicate those musical elements in their songs.  They have more in common with Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry (who were more obvious direct musical influences) than with Vivaldi.  Listening to their songs gives me a distinct impression that they were focused less on the music, and more on vocal harmony and pop singing.  In this way, they are incredibly innovative if you are talking about Britney Spears.   I'm sorry, but your lack of credible information regarding The Beatles does nothing to bolster your argument regarding the group,  nor does your disregard imply anything but a lack of musical reference. The great Leonard Bernstein said admiringly that Lennon/McCartney were the "Schuberts of our time", William Mann, classical critic of The Times in the 1960s connected cadences present in their compositions to Mahler, and Allen Kozinn, classical music critic of the New York Times, wrote a book about the structure of Beatles compositions. These are classically trained professionals we are referring to who are more interested in symphonies than rock music, but they have no issue referring to the classical references found in Beatles multi-key masterworks.   The use of dominants (chords built on the fifth degree of the prevailing key), carefully ascending or descending arpeggios, the generation of tension and release through resolution, perfect fifth root movements, tritone substitution -- the Beatles had an uncanny knack for putting the perfect chords with the perfect tonality and matching their harmonies with a textbook classicism one would find in Mozart, Brahms or Schubert.   But, as you said "let's move on with our lives", which is exactly what I feel about this conversation, as it is pretty much a dead end. Enjoy whatever it is that you listen to.

It doesn't matter to me what critics think.  Critics are extraordinarily poor at gauging quality, and also at predicting what will sell.  Critics gave Justin Timberlake's "Justified" album four stars, and then went on to write syrupy, pandering, loathsome reviews which dubbed the Beastie Boys' "To The Five Boroughs" a masterwork.  I could care less what William Mann thinks.  Critics also gave Nirvana's "Nevermind" album three stars out of five when it first arrived, but now they regard it as one of the greatest albums ever recorded.  They are ignorant of musical quality; the bottom line is money and chart hits.  The Beatles had many chart hits and loads of money, so it makes perfect sense that the critics anoint them with bouquets of flowers, as if they were Roman soldiers home from war instead of overrated, peppy, annoying schlock minstrels.

From a purely historical standpoint, the argument can be made that the Beatles were important to rock music, as artifacts of a unique cultural age.  However, does that necessarily mean that they are still important, innovative, and exciting in the present era?  Over half their catalog suffers from poor mastering, and is hardly listenable.  Their early hits are practically indistinguishable from one another, and are far from memorable.  "Abbey Road" and "Revolver" are hideously mastered, with searing and annoying vocal lines in songs like "Taxman."  "Sargeant Pepper" contains some of the most trite songs I have ever heard in my life, such as "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," and "When I'm Sixty-Four." 

I can't stand "Srgt Pepper."  "Abbey Road" and "The White Album" are the only Beatles works I even have a mild respect for, although the "White Album" is also poorly mastered and "Abbey Road" is highly uneven.  What most irritates me about the Beatles, however, are the vocal melodies.  They are off-putting, dated, and honestly, the Beatles sound like a bunch of dorky guys trying to ingratiate themselves with the more cool, hip individuals surrounding them.  The Beatles are an annoyance, at least from my standpoint. 

Thankfully, I was not alive in the 60's or early 70's.  But from a strictly post-Beatles perspective, I think they are overrated and I am glad they called it a day back in 1970, instead of polluting the airwaves with further dreck like "Taxman."