Do the Beatles get too much credit..

No

Triceratopsoil wrote: ... They were one of the groups that showed other people "hey, you know, it's alright to play whatever music we want" and from that stemmed nearly all later music, popular and less so, even if the bands in question aren't influenced in the slightest by the music of the Beatles.  It was the concept of creativity for the masses that makes them so important

I Am the Walrus pretty much sums up the influence the Beatles have had on me. Without hearing that one song, my musical output (strange as it is) may never had happened.

Obviously starting with Revolver and continuing till the end of the Beatles time together...I always got the impression that they were allowed to be creative. The Beatles and George Martin together seemed to have a lot of relaxed freedom.

Having the opportunity to experiment and try new things without a record executive sticking their 2 cents worth in. Or generally having contrived pointless ideas which are not from a creative standpoint...but more about making crap up. Thoughtless actually.

The Beatles became a band for the industry to exploit and were probably not as overrated as they were overplayed...or perhaps a combination of the two: Radio, television and selling their albums in America was quite a monopoly.

Their songwriting was unusual in the late 60s. It differed from other people in life except for those who outright copied the Beatles or were influenced by them. In one particular case you had a band that sounded a bit like Beatles but were interesting and worthwhile and that band was BADFINGER!!
Regarding the earlier Beatles songwriting style ...it seemed to filter throughout the 1970s with bands like The Raspberries and Cheap Trick...where bands like Heart and 10CC contained that element of Beatle-esq writing.

The impact they had was ridiculously insane! The sound and style of the late 1960s Beatles was yet another extended influence on bands. Many bands were trying to emulate it.

The first time I heard "Strawberry Fields Forever" was when it was first released as a single in America. Hearing then...was unusual! It was very different for those times and it was exciting and greatly enjoyable to play the 45rpm as you'd be thinking while placing the tonearm down: Here's something completely different and in a world of its own"

Years later it didn't feel that way because the radio played it everyday . Then it was smothering. Whatever? That's subjective to degrees...but by the 1980s radio made me sick of Beatles music. I have always owned their entire discography but for years I couldn't force myself to listen to them and often changed the station. Radio took away the enjoyment for me 😆

Logan wrote: ^ Nice post. By the way, when I made this topic those years ago, I was thinking back many years prior to some classes I had in Philosophy dealing with ontology and epistemology and wanting to angle at it from that perspective (the nature of being, the nature of knowing, what is true, what can be known, issues of justified true belief) as well as thinking it might be a bit of fun. I originally had prepared a much longer opening post to start it out and then just went with something of less substance). Turned out to me to be a very entertaining discussion with many interesting perspectives approaching this from different angles and side-discussions.

Fascinating!