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resurrection View Drop Down
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Points: 254 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: If The Beatles kept going..Prog?
    Posted: November 14 2010 at 02:54
The Beatles had clearly shown the way, all it took was the next step; the ironic thing about these Prog archives is that the next step was Clouds (actually 1-2-3 had much to do with the beginning of Prog, check the history!). The Clouds Scrapbook is almost a blueprint for Prog (that was picked up by Yes, The Nice, King Crimson). The album contains elements of the Beatles with what would become Progressive Rock woven in. How bizarre that Prog fans do not largely even notice this crucial influence in THEIR genre!
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Points: 8581 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 13 2010 at 18:19
It is my opinion that Paul, having the most powerful ego, would have had them all performing exactly the same music Wings eventually did. JMO

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Points: 741 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 13 2010 at 16:54
In fact I think that Pink Floyd is just like the Beatles but more proggish in their beginnings.
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Points: 741 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: November 13 2010 at 16:53
I think they would but as individuals they didn't jeust like Peter Gabriel stopped having Genesis ideas after Genesis. Surely they would've gotten stranger and getting really into art as they had the image of.
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Points: 67 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 27 2010 at 13:16
Originally posted by himtroy himtroy wrote:

I think they wouldn't continued released 3 minute pop tunes.  Thats how they started, thats how they ended, the songwriting just got more interesting (but still pretty repetitive and dull in my opinion, with a few exceptions).
 
You people are funny as someone like Leonard Bernstein compared their songs to Schubert. The Beatles were pop, they were experimental, they wrote kiddie songs, drug songs and country songs. The Beatles were a band who were not restriced to rock music and hell yeah they were progressive at times.
 

King Crimson's Adrian Belew:
http://crawdaddy.wolfgangsvault.com/...ian-Belew.html

Quote:
Crawdaddy!: Your early influences were the Beatles?
Belew: Oh yeah, absolutely, as a drummer and a singer and a songwriter, and then as a guitarist as well. They were, for me, the whole library of [music] education. I studied their records so hard, from a production standpoint. You know—why did they use these saxophones and what are the harmonies they’re using here, and what is that bass part there and why is this there? It was more than just enjoying them, but of course I enjoyed them too.
Crawdaddy!: Do you have a favorite Beatles album?
Belew: Revolver remains my favorite because that’s the first one where I felt that they stepped outside the normal four-piece band and started experimenting in the studio. That album introduces a lot of things that are firsts. Things like Indian music and orchestras playing with the band and backwards guitar, a lot of things that I still really love.

Crawdaddy!: Your playing style kind of turns pop on its head.
Belew: Well, the idea [in the Bears] was not to write just another 10 or 12 pop songs. We looked at a specific area of, I guess, what would be called avant-garde pop, which the Beatles did. Our examples were songs which were a little more off the wall than the straightforward ones—the “I Am the Walrus” and “Strawberry Fields” or any number of songs that the Beatles did once they really cut loose and began to explore. They were very experimental themselves.
Crawdaddy!: Yeah, I’ve always felt that the Beatles became the first successful prog-rock band. I don’t think many mainstream Beatle fans feel that way, but some of the White Album stuff, and Magical Mystery Tour—it’s very proggy for its time, in my opinion.
Belew: Yes, there is so much in their music that is very avant-garde. Experimental songs, which first began as 20-minute jams, that a prog-rock band might do. I’m thinking of “Helter Skelter”, which I just read was originally a 27-minute jam! They edited that down to a three-and-a-half minute song!



Edited by Floydman - August 27 2010 at 13:17
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Points: 8368 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 25 2010 at 20:14
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

 
I would think that people like John might have wanted to be around Europe a little more,


Do you mean that Lennon might have collaborated on The Final Countdown? As if there was any way that song could be more epic than it already is.
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Points: 17777 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 25 2010 at 20:00
Originally posted by harmonium.ro harmonium.ro wrote:

imo they went from art-rock in the late 60s to pop , blues & rock'n'roll in the 70s, so in no way they could have contributed more to the progressive movement...
 
I'm not sure that is right ... all you have to do is catch the "Let It Be" film, and then listen to Abbey Road, and you know that there is a lot more here than meets the eye, and while they were no longer seeing eye to eye with each other, in the end, they did have a really good understanding and desire to do things with music ... that otherwise might not have been done.
 
However, I do believe, more now than ever, that it was the person of George Martin that helped make their music "bigger" than it really was, specially when all 4 of them on their own ... were not really that good by comparison. Some nice things ... so what?
 
I would think that people like John might have wanted to be around Europe a little more, but he was not musically unawares of what was going on around him and was not exactly insulated in his own world, which is ... what got him in the end ... his desire to be free, even though he was a Beatle! And he had already said in many interviews that he could not be just a person and enjoy life like everyone else.
 
I thought John had the best potential for doing some new and nice things ... however, again, I think he was trapped amidst a lot of people that were not trustworthy and were milking him for his fame and money ... instead of challenging him intelectually and musically. In many ways, Yoko was really good for this, even if considered somewhat naively so, but we have to start somewhere and knowing who you are and what you like and want to do, is one of the first signs for it all. Sadly, he didn't survive it all ...
 
Beyond that, The Beatles were nice and extremely progressive from Sgt Peppers on, although radio did not like it, but when Sgt Peppers hit it big in NY and London, small town and the rest of the world had no choice ... sort of like they had a revolution forced down their throats and a lot of people didn't care for it, or like it! ... and it became the "generation gap" at the time! So, is that progressive? ... depends on where you are mate!
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Points: 8368 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 19 2010 at 16:49
I don't know, I think that their creative energy was kind of used up by the time they broke up. I expect that, had they stayed together, the resulting albums would sound very much like their solo work does. It's unrealistic to expect a band to keep innovating and keep innovating for their whole career. People just aren't built like that. Even some of the msot adventurous bands, like King Crimson, kind of found a sound and stayed there eventually. (Thrak doesn't sound that much different from Discipline.)I think the Beatles had done all the innovating they were going to do.
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Points: 17870 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 19 2010 at 16:20
They would have turned into a punk band...then after that died, only gig would have been to be the Tonight Show orchestra for Johnny Carson.
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Points: 771 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 18 2010 at 13:28
Originally posted by Devonsidhe Devonsidhe wrote:


I seem to remember John saying it as well.  It's been a while but did both John and Paul record a song on their solo stuff against the other?  Wish I could remember which songs they were.
 


"Teddy Boy," for one, is a jab at Lennon.
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Points: 34550 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 18 2010 at 12:59
If they continued, they would have release the first thrash metal album in 1982.

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Points: 1601 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 18 2010 at 12:53
I think they wouldn't continued released 3 minute pop tunes.  Thats how they started, thats how they ended, the songwriting just got more interesting (but still pretty repetitive and dull in my opinion, with a few exceptions).
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Points: 74 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 18 2010 at 01:36
Originally posted by SgtPepper67 SgtPepper67 wrote:

Originally posted by mr.cub mr.cub wrote:

I believe Lennon told the press if they wanted to hear what a new Beatles album would sound like he said look no further than a Wings recording. Not sure if that was a jest on Lennon's part considering his aversion to Paul at the time but I think it is interesting considering the topic


I always thought it was Harrison who said that, and I always had the feeling he didn't mean it in a good way.
 
I seem to remember John saying it as well.  It's been a while but did both John and Paul record a song on their solo stuff against the other?  Wish I could remember which songs they were.
 
Either way, for the Beatles to have stayed together, they would have had to get along which would have made them more cooperative at least.  Considering the different style each member went after the break up, they would have had to be prog just to stay in key with each other.
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Points: 166 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 04 2009 at 18:37
I thought this was kind of a fun idea...

http://www.helium.com/items/1104862-speculating-what-songs-would-have-been-on-the-beatles-next-album

Obviously this can't be really accurate, but some of these songs from the Beatles' first or second solo records, I can see fitting onto what could have been the "next Beatles album"...

1. Instant Karma
2. Uncle Albert
3. All Things Must Pass
4. Imagine
5. Every Night
6. I'd Have You Anytime
7. Love
8. Junk
9. What Is Life

I dunno!
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Points: 4900 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2009 at 17:16
Originally posted by Jozef Jozef wrote:

. . . One can argue it started as early as the White album . . .


I don't even think that's arguable-- they WERE a Prog band by that point in their career. Have you not heard ''Revolution 9''? Hell, they were even Progressive in many ways by the time Revolver came out. And let us not forget they beat The Moody Blues by a few months in releasing the first concept album.

To say they only became merely 'proggish' by their last album, then say that it's only arguable that maybe The White Album was when it began, is being very unfair to them.

Originally posted by Kashmir75 Kashmir75 wrote:

. . .
The Beatles kind of already were prog. If Sgt Pepper, or The White Album isn't progressive, then what the heck is? 


I rest my case.


Edited by p0mt3 - September 15 2009 at 17:23
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Points: 4900 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 15 2009 at 17:10
Well, in my opinion, they DID go Prog. Crossover Prog fits them perfectly, because there are plenty of Space-Rock, Symphonic Prog and RIO/Avant-Prog present in their later works to warrant that. However, there is still more Pop than Prog in their entire catalogue. So Crossover is where I consider them fitting.

It will never happen, though. Why? Because too many people here woul get their panties in a wad if their precious Prog genere were 'tainted' by the fab four. Unfortunate, because listening to tracks like A Day In the Life, Elanor Rigby, Revolution 9, Tomorrow Never Knows, Piggies, Goodnight, Come Together, etc. I can clearly hear the Prog Rock as plain as day.
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Points: 1029 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 14 2009 at 23:10
I think they may well have gone even more progressive, yes. 

Look at sixties Pink Floyd. Or Yes, for that matter. Both, in the late 60s, were playing psychedelic music. By the dawn of the seventies, both had morphed into prog. 

The Beatles kind of already were prog. If Sgt Pepper, or The White Album isn't progressive, then what the heck is? 

If you look at another of their contemporaries, The Who, we have a band which went from Mod rockers, to psychedelia, to rock operas, to disco-ish (the Who are You? era), in the space of a decade. 

So its hard to predict where the Beatles may have gone. One of the most rewarding aspects of following a band's career, is to see how they have changed over the years (unless its someone like AC/DC, who release the same record every time!). Be careful what you wish for, though. It's better the Beatles ending when they did, rather than possibly turning into AOR tryhards had they survived into the 80s!
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Points: 62 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 12 2009 at 10:12
Anything that is pop that is rock related or experimental  with the Beatles migh have started and that includes crossover prog which about half of Abbey Road is. Now that should be put to a poll.
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Points: 3577 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 11 2009 at 16:39
I think that if The beatles kept going, probably they have ended playing some high quality 70's rock stadium music, and at the same time playing some AOR music, too.
 
 




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Points: 2204 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: September 09 2009 at 12:08
I was discussing the same thing with some friends of mine who are big fans of the Beatles. One of them agreed and thought they had the potential. I believe they started to develop a "proggish" sound near the end of the 60s during the recording of Abbey Road and Let It Be. One can argue it started as early as the White album. I think it would have been very interesting had they continued on much longer. 


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