Glimmers of Prog: The Beatles

Floydman wrote: Then there is George Harrison Indian songs like "Love You To" and "Within You Without You".

I've got a feeling that it's not as simple as replying "raga" and that you are much more capable of analysing these

Edited by earlyprog - March 11 2010 at 14:29

earlyprog wrote: ^You're right that Strawberry Fields Forever hardly conforms with any conventional genre (hence prog...eclectic prog?). In fact I find it hard to determine the genre of most of their songs and only tried to do it for the proto-prog material on Magical Mystery Tour.   A Day In The Life: The intro is folky and the drone parts point towards space rock or US psyche while (after 2 minutes) there are definite UK psyche parts such as the marching bass part.   Happiness Is A Warm Gun is eclectic prog mixing various genres (folk, R&B, soul, reaggae-ish...rock) and meters.   Revolution #9: musique-concrete - it has a lot in common with Stockhausen's Gesang Der Junglinge, Pierre Schaeffer's Symphonie Pour Un Homme Seule and John Cage's Williams Mix.   Tomorrow Never Knows: raga ala Cage?   Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite: UK psyche   Eleanor Rigby: classical + R&B?

Edited by Floydman - March 10 2010 at 09:26

earlyprog wrote: lucas wrote: Yesterday, I listened to 'the magical mystery tour' album, and I couldn't help thinking how huge their influence was on the development of brit-pop. Apart from some psychedelic elements (which is not wonder given the era it was recorded), and the orchestrations I didn"t see much link with prog.   Of course, there's only proto-prog like Strawberry Fields Forever (US psyche with mellotron), Flying (space rock with mellotron), Baby You're A Rich Man (use of clavioline), I Am The Walrus (UK psyche), Blue Jay Way (space rock) - a series of progressive technological aspects.

Edited by Floydman - March 09 2010 at 10:44

moshkito wrote: The Beatles may have been big, but I think that Frank Zappa will be appreciated way longer ...

slidesandbends wrote: Do you see my point?

not really, no

Still no way I would pay 200+ euros for the beatles remaster box.

What the hell? Are the Beatles Wifes/Widows in a cash dilemma?



Edited by Rottenhat - March 06 2010 at 12:09

To me their greatest experimental song is "Tomorrow Never Knows".  They basically one -upped everyone in rock music with "Tomorrow Never Knows" and that includes Frank Zappa. Instead of the usual backdrop of standard rock instruments they created a backdrop of psychedelic sounds using a series of loops drones, and  electronic effects. I think they even took a segment of "Taxman" and put it backwards on "Tomorow Never Knows".

Even John Lennon had commented what a great guitarist Frank Zappa was ... and I never thought that the Beatles were in it to compete with Frank, or vice versa, although Frank did put The Beatles on when he did "We're In It For The Money" ... complete with cover mock up ... which was exactly what it said ... by that time, The Beatles had sold out for the fame and the money ... they were able to get away some, but by the time when it came to be, it became a Let It Be instead and everyone at each other ... in the end, they could not appreciate and respect each other's musicianship enough to do more with it.

When it all comes down to it, Paul's music went down hill after the first 4 or 5 albums ... kinda ended after "Band on the Run" ... and just a bunch of pop songs! John was trying to be more meaningful about his work, but in the end, I think that even he was tired of the same old thing and having to figure out what next ... George learned a lot from the Beatles and went back to doing songs and a couple of no sense things ... Ringo, an excellent drummer with The Beatles, kinda became the world's worst drummer over night -- maybe the music did not have enough in it and he was too lazy to help make it better ...

I think the combination of the 4 folks made it progressive to a degree, but only to the extent that they wanted to do more with the music than just another pop song ... but when you're that big and that famous and have so much money ... inspiration ... is just another pop song?

Oh well ... so much for learning anything about the music!

I've said before, that I really think that the person that made them "better" was George Martin ... who was someone that really had the music itself as the focal point, away from the personalities and every thing else ...

The Beatles may have been big, but I think that Frank Zappa will be appreciated way longer ... check out Zappa plays Zappa so you can get an idea ... and how much of it has become "prog" ... where Gentle Giant might have been academic and composed, Frank was ... fun!

jampa17 wrote: The Beatles made the strange, risky and unmatchable transition from been completely Pop-y to convert into a great experimental and creative band. From "Love, Love me Do" to Sgt. Pepper there was a total risky transtition that end up well. Shame that not a single pop-rock band have done that since then. The Beatles had the little help of drug abuse during that age... that makes more acceptable the transition without becoming outcast of the media... don't know if I'm making sense at all but... well...

 

I Want You (She's So Heavy)

nuff said

The Beatles made the strange, risky and unmatchable transition from been completely Pop-y to convert into a great experimental and creative band. From "Love, Love me Do" to Sgt. Pepper there was a total risky transtition that end up well. Shame that not a single pop-rock band have done that since then. The Beatles had the little help of drug abuse during that age... that makes more acceptable the transition without becoming outcast of the media... don't know if I'm making sense at all but... well...

Edited by jampa17 - February 26 2010 at 10:40