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ANDREWM 
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 Topic: The Beatles Tomorrow Never Knows Progressive?
Posted: February 15 2008 at 10:29 |
What is your opinon of this tune that seems more related to modern dance music than prog to me?
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MHDTV
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Posted: February 15 2008 at 12:57 |
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It's considered one of the first Psychedelic songs.
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Freak yo' swerve
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JLocke
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Posted: February 15 2008 at 14:41 |
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It is absolutely progressive. No one had ever done that type of stuff before. You hear the stories of how the many, many tape loops were held on the end of pencils, stretched around the room in order for the different layers to be properly mixed in. If it hadn't been for innovative song ideas like this, we wouldn't have the music we do today. Truly amazing stuff, when you think about it.
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micky
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Posted: February 15 2008 at 16:33 |
 p0mt3 wrote:
It is absolutely progressive. No one had ever done that type of stuff before. You hear the stories of how the many, many tape loops were held on the end of pencils, stretched around the room in order for the different layers to be properly mixed in. If it hadn't been for innovative song ideas like this, we wouldn't have the music we do today. Truly amazing stuff, when you think about it. |
damn skippy... 
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The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip
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bhikkhu
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Posted: February 15 2008 at 21:45 |
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Absolutely. The beatles may not have been full on prog, but they definitly did prog songs. "Tomorrow Never Knows" could be the best example. Also, take a good look at "Happiness is a Warm Gun."
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Guzzman
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Posted: February 16 2008 at 11:58 |
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Nothing left to say!
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"We've got to get in to get out"
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Roskisdyykkari
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Posted: February 16 2008 at 12:03 |
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Psychedelic? Yes.
Groundbreaking? Definitely.
Progressive? NO!
One of my favorite songs also, but the song is basically just hitting one chord and weird tape effects. I wouldn't call it progressive.
Happiness Is A Warm Gun is definitely more proggier. It's only about 2 minutes long, but the song keeps progressing all the time and there are so many different sections! Not to mention the use of unusual time signatures and even polyrhythms.
A Day in the Life is also a truly progressive song by the Beatles. As well as I want you (She's so heavy).
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And the sand-castle virtues are all swept away
in the tidal destruction the moral melee.
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The T
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Posted: March 25 2008 at 15:15 |
Roskisdyykkari wrote:
Psychedelic? Yes.
Groundbreaking? Definitely.
Progressive? NO!
One of my favorite songs also, but the song is basically just hitting one chord and weird tape effects. I wouldn't call it progressive.
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I don't agree with the NO! If we define progressive as in "in the style of progressive rock giants like Yes, Genesis, etc", well, it's quite impossible as The Beatles' Revolver was released in 1966. Also, it's not symphonic or anything like that. But there's no question that it's groundbreaking, it was extremely important for rock, and if we just go for the meaning of the word , it IS progressive.
Actually, it's the perfect example of pure "Proto-prog".
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laplace
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Posted: March 25 2008 at 15:21 |
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it's prog to me, too. original, uses studio technology to improve the music rather than being carried away by it and not even much to do with traditional song structure... it fits my definition of prog more closely than the music of any band with a name that rhymes with "pavilion"
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The T
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Posted: March 25 2008 at 15:31 |
laplace wrote:
it's prog to me, too. original, uses studio technology to improve the music rather than being carried away by it and not even much to do with traditional song structure... it fits my definition of prog more closely than the music of any band with a name that rhymes with "pavilion" |
 ... as much as I love the pavillion-rhyming band, especially its sea-creature era, I have to agree. The Beatles' work was so groundbreaking. And influential. The other band, while superb, was on the receiving end of the influence transaction...
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BaldJean
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Posted: March 25 2008 at 16:52 |
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I have always said that it was "Revolver" and not "In the Court of the Crimson King" which started prog. lots of gems on this album, "Tomorrow Never Knows" being one of them
Edited by BaldJean - March 25 2008 at 17:01
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 A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta
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Rank1
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Posted: March 26 2008 at 10:04 |
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The Beatles had a innate ability of being pop and experimental at the same time. You have elements of avant. rock, pop, Indian, and musique concrete. What comes out is rhythmic psychedelic rock. The song might be three minutes long so what many of the tracks on Pipers of the Gates of Dawn are shorter than Strawberry Fields Forever. Tomorrow Never Knows was also influential modern dance artists like The Chemical Brothers. Also the Beatles use innovative concepts as backward guitar solos, ADT, vocals through a leslie speaker, backward samples or tape loops and tamboura drones.
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The T
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Posted: March 26 2008 at 15:14 |
BaldJean wrote:
I have always said that it was "Revolver" and not "In the Court of the Crimson King" which started prog. lots of gems on this album, "Tomorrow Never Knows" being one of them
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From what I've heard in rock music (there may be oscure things I haven't), I agree 100%.
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Atavachron
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Posted: March 26 2008 at 15:21 |
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Dance music? Funny, because in many ways it was one of their first true NON-dance tunes
the Beatles were a progressive band till the day they broke up.. the entire catalog, if viewed as a whole, is an astounding and constantly forward-moving display of progression
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JLocke
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Posted: March 26 2008 at 18:45 |
Atavachron wrote:
Dance music? Funny, because in many ways it was one of their first true NON-dance tunes
the Beatles were a progressive band till the day they broke up.. the entire catalog, if viewed as a whole, is an astounding and constantly forward-moving display of progression
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THANK YOU!  Couldn't have said it better myself.
I think the fact that Beatles BEGAN as a mere pop act blinds alot of people to the truth: that what they ultimately became was one of the most, if not THE most influencial rock artists of all time. Even bands like Yes and Genesis were influenced by them,, for Christ's sake.
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Slartibartfast
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Posted: March 26 2008 at 21:32 |
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At the very least you have to say that one has more in common with classic early progressive music than it does with their earlier stuff.
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Chelsea
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Posted: March 27 2008 at 19:55 |
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The album's true highlight is "Tomorrow Never Knows," which was the most radical song recorded in pop music up to that point. John Lennon's voice sounds as if he was high on a mountain top, calling out to anybody who'll listen--or meditate--to his voice. The song has only one chord, but has a swirling soundscape that foreshadows the sampling of late 80s/early 90s hip-hop. The song is comprised of tape loops that were used in a way similar to the modern day use of samples in rap/pop songs. Yes it's not rap or techno but anyone listening the way the tape loops were used know the song was conceptually ahead of it's time.
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jammun
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Posted: March 27 2008 at 20:14 |
Of course it was progressive. The whole damn album was progressive.
But what impresses me to this day, is that there were no computers doing the manipulation. There was no ProTools, etc. Tomorrow is all the Beatles and George Martin sitting in a studio somewhere, playing the music, then actually creating tape loops out of real (reel) tape, splicing and dicing, adding distortion, etc. On probably a four-track machine. sh*t, I have a 16-track digital recorder in my little workshop here at home and I can't even make a decent recording of Love Me Do!
The larger point is that without the Beatles, and their experimentation, and the resulting commercial success, I seriously doubt the record companies at the time would have risked investment in what we now view as truly progressive bands of the time (e.g., King Crimson).
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Certif1ed
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Posted: March 28 2008 at 09:17 |
Progressive, yes - in many ways, the Beatles were the ultimate progressive band. Only one album (A Hard Day's Night) shows little sign of advancement on previous offerings, unless you meanly count "Let it Be", which was a deliberate (and creative) retro-step.
Prog, no.
The techniques used to make "TMK" (some of which are also used on "Rain", "She Said, She Said" and "I'm Only Sleeping") are blindingly progressive and way ahead of their time - but ultimately, the fab 4 did indeed make something more akin to modern dance music than Prog Rock with "TMK".
There is a thriving Progressive Dance set of genres, based on exactly this sort of methodology - except using the far easier to use computer/sampler based setup. The difficulty in these genres is sorting out the few really creative artists (and there are some!) from the copy and paste merchants.
I agree with the above sentiment that the Beatles blazed the experimental trail - because they were in the enviable position in which they could, both talent/creative wise and financially, and happened to be in exactly the right place at the right time - the music scene(s) practically demanded it of them, and their output bridged many gaps. Of course, you couldn't please every Rolling Stone fan...
While Revolver was the album that changed everything, and Sgt Pepper the only one that could possibly top it, Rubber Soul was the album that kicked it all off and started rock music's advancement from pure entertainment to something altogether more "serious". "Octopus' Garden" aside, of course...
Of the tracks on "Revolver", I'd say that "Eleanor Rigby" is probably closest to Prog Rock - I mean, a pop/rock song set only for "classical" instruments but still feels like a Beatles' song, telling a complete story that is dark and completely outside of popular culture, that pulses with alive rhythms and yet maintains the feeling of a string quartet with finely harmonised voices is just something else!
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The important thing is not to stop questioning.
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StyLaZyn
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Posted: March 28 2008 at 14:18 |
Atavachron wrote:
Dance music? Funny, because in many ways it was one of their first true NON-dance tunes
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Oh, I don't know. I envision Deadheads dancing to it when on their mind altering drugs.
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The Beatles Tomorrow Never Knows Progressive?
