What about The Beatles?
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Other music related lounges
Forum Name: Proto-Prog and Prog-Related Lounge
Forum Description: Discuss bands and albums classified as Proto-Prog and Prog-Related
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=35334
Printed Date: November 28 2024 at 15:12
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Topic: What about The Beatles?
Posted By: Proglodita
Subject: What about The Beatles?
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 16:14
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I was looking at the Beatles discography, the ratings, and, there was a fact that caught my attention: The first six albums don’t reach the 3.5 stars, and only since Revolver there are 4+ stars reviews in average. I’m a fan of The Beatles, but a young one. But I’m sure I agree with the old fans (those who had the luck of saw them born) that their first period is not only “good, but non-essential”. So, why all those 2/3 stars rates? I understand that before Revolver you don’t find any prog at all, but that doesn’t mean the albums are poor. Or it is that I’m a kind of freak who loves prog and also the first period of The Beatles? …by the way, my favourite albums are ------------- P |
Replies:
Posted By: con safo
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 16:16
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While the early Beatles albums are well written pop music.. at that time they were still very much record company pawns.. it wasn't until they started writing the music they wanted to that they really blossomed into something great.
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Posted By: Failcore
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 16:22
| I agree, every Beatles album was crap until Sgt. pepper. |
Posted By: Jon89
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 16:33
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All Beatles albums are either pop or rock and Beatles should not be discussed on this forum. To me Sgt Pepper. is not even prog in any sense of the word. Not even The White Album or Let It Bleed are prog albums. None of their albums are prog albums as far as I am concerned. ------------- jon 89 |
Posted By: King Zappa
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 16:35
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I agree, you are a freak. Though I would go so far as to say that with rare exception they are unlistenable until the White Album. ------------- Good, Better, Best. Never let it rest, Till your Good be Better and your Better, Best |
Posted By: FragileDT
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 16:46
Wow. Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, and Magical Mystery tour are all FAR FAR superior to the white album as far as progressiveness to me. ------------- One likes to believe In the freedom of music But glittering prizes And endless Compromises Shatter the illusion Of integrity |
King Zappa wrote:Posted By: Failcore
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 16:46
| It may not be full-fledged prog, but I think it definitely meets the requirements for proto-prog. |
Posted By: FragileDT
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 16:46
So you guys really think that Revolver was crap? Interesting. ------------- One likes to believe In the freedom of music But glittering prizes And endless Compromises Shatter the illusion Of integrity |
Posted By: con safo
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 16:55
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Revolver is my favourite Beatles album.
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Posted By: MuzikLuva
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 17:06
| As stated earlier, the early albums were pop albums to make money for the record companies. The Beatles were one of the first, along with George Martin, to experiment and get away from the bubble gum rock that was being produced back then. There was no prog movement to speak of until Revolver, Rubber Soul, etc. The Beatles were one of the few groups back then that, because of their popularity and ability to sell records, were actually not only allowed to experiment but, to a great degree, encouraged. There is not one well known prog oriented group that I know of that doesn't throw accolades upon The Beatles for having the balls to make the music that they wanted to make. In many aspects, we might not have the prog music we love so much today had it not been for their lead. Maybe I'm just an old fart, but having lived through that era, here in the U.S. and over in Europe, I have more of an appreciation for that era. It opened up doors in many areas, not just in music, that might still be closed today. If groups like The Beatles or artists like Bob Dylan hadn't used their popularity and their voices back then, you might not have this forum here today to express how much you liked them or they sucked. |
Posted By: MuzikLuva
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 17:09
By the way, Let It Bleed was by The Rolling Stones, Let It Be was by The Beatles and in essence was destroyed by Phil Specter. |
Posted By: Proglodita
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 19:41
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So, it’s like I thought it would be. Beatles fans don’t come to progarchives (I know a couple and they don’t listen much prog), and prog lovers like us have nothing to do with early The Beatles. Maybe I’m extremely open-minded, listening not only prog and classic rock, but tango, blues, classical music, opera, and things like Sinatra, Edith Piaf (I don’t have albums but it’s OK) and Inti-Illimani and other groups from my country.
------------- P |
Posted By: BroSpence
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 19:51
| Rubber Soul was pretty good too, and help. I don't care much for Sgt. Peppers. I mean it was great, but I don't like it as a whole like it is glorified. My favorite is probably Abbey Road. Its perfect. I like the Beatles a lot. |
Posted By: blaughida
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 20:04
Many people on PA listen to a lot of music that is not prog. Your problem may be with wording of the PA ratings system. There are star ratings on a scale of 1 to 5 but the stars mean something specific--5 stars="a masterpiece of progressive music" and 4 stars="An excellent addition to any prog music collection. I think people have trouble with this system both when rating and when looking at ratings of very excellent but absolutely non-prog albums by artists who, like the Beatles, are included on PA because of some of their other work. It may be an excellent, 5-star album if you're writing a review for a general music site, but the PA system requires something to be an excellent progressive album in order to merit 4 stars. A perfect system? No, but I can't think of anything better. |
Posted By: Proglodita
Date Posted: March 10 2007 at 20:07
That's true.
I gave 4 stars to With The Beatles because I think it's an excellent addition. But it's not and excellent addition to any prog collection... ------------- P |
Posted By: Malve87
Date Posted: March 14 2007 at 17:37
Kinda silly sentence, not true at all.
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Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: March 14 2007 at 18:10
------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: The Wizard
Date Posted: March 14 2007 at 18:17
Wow that was the most close minded thing i've ever heard.
Those early songs have a certain magic to them that no open minded music fan can deny. They're amazingly well written songs and there's not a doubt about that. -------------  
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Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: March 14 2007 at 18:38
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I'm quite surprised at the amount anti-Beatles sentiment. As far as their early albums, it depends-- they usually released singles and EPs in Britain which were then compiled onto LPs like 'Please Please Me', 'Introducing the Beatles', etc. The first proper album session was probably Rubber Soul, and all their albums are superior works. A one of a kind coming together of songwriters, they deserve every bit of praise they get.
BTW, I don't know if people realize what an intense, rockin, heavy band they were early on.. completely different from their records. |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: March 14 2007 at 19:02
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Well, I'm not too mad about the first 2 albums apart from the odd track such as "Not a second time". From "A Hard Days Night" onwards there is good stuff to be found on every album, along with the occasional duffer such as Mr Moonlight. Even "Rubber Soul" had "Run for your Life" which Lennon himself hated. However from then on nearly everything they did was revolutionary and superior to anything around at the time and most stuff since. Going by the PA rating system, it is hard even for me to give any of their albums 4or 5 stars. Probably only Revolver and Sgt Pepper are essential in a prog collection as part of the roots of prog. |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: March 14 2007 at 19:05
Sorry, not quite right there. All their British albums were recorded as such (Please Please Me was done in one session). EPs came later and it was their US albums that were put together as different versions from the UK ones. There is no UK Beatles LP called "Introducing The Beatles". |
Posted By: bhikkhu
Date Posted: March 14 2007 at 19:27
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O.K., time for a real Beatles man to be heard.
All of the albums (regular studio, U.K.releases) are worthy to be in anyone's collection. I hate it when the early albums are dismissed as bubblegum (I won't even address the ignorance of calling them crap  ). They were pioneers right from the beginning. When they released their debut, Leslie Gore and Little Peggy march were topping the charts. At the time, this was something completely new.
As to the ratings, here I do it from the perspective of a prog collection. While I would rate most of the albums at five stars on a rock site, here there is different criteria. Most of the early albums would not enhance a prog collection. That doesn't start to happen until "Rubber Soul." It may not be prog, but the roots are there. You don't have to like the Beatles, but to dismiss them is to dismiss the history of music. ------------- a.k.a. H.T. http://riekels.wordpress.com" rel="nofollow - http://riekels.wordpress.com |
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: March 14 2007 at 19:30
Thanks for that correction |
Posted By: mystic fred
Date Posted: March 14 2007 at 19:55
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appreciating any great band's music from 45 years ago is difficult for those music fans who weren't around at the time. I was disgusted with a statement my 25 year old niece came out with recently - saying the Beatles were crap and rap is urban poetry - the Beatles is every bit of urban poetry as rap, BUT YOU HAD TO BE THERE? not really, the magic trancends time...a mark of greatness. The early Beatles albums were the cutting edge of popular musical art at the time, their early work still fascinates me as much as the later albums, though George Martin refers to it as their "bubblegum period", it sounds just as exciting and relevant to me now as it did all those years ago, indeed the mark of greatness. Doesn't anybody wonder why the Beatles are still the world's most popular band 37 years after they split up..? the mark of greatness!!
 Four boys that shook the world....
-------------  Prog Archives Tour Van 
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Posted By: laplace
Date Posted: March 14 2007 at 19:59
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yes. in fact they're so popular than most other bands in the world that people are absolutely sick of talking about them. I bet university students have run out of new beatles thesis angles
------------- FREEDOM OF SPEECH GO TO HELL |
Posted By: Zac M
Date Posted: March 14 2007 at 21:38
I like the Rattles   The Beatles are OK too  .------------- "Art is not imitation, nor is it something manufactured according to the wishes of instinct or good taste. It is a process of expression." -Merleau-Ponty |
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: March 14 2007 at 22:06
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The Rattles?
I only know the Rutles, the British spoof movie about a Beatles-like band. Kind of an early Spinal Tap. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: March 14 2007 at 22:15
I think your argument is a bit misleading. Most ratings I've seen are based on the reviewer's opinion of the album, not on the site's so-called PA requirement. In some of the more iffy "prog" genres (no names, but I like PA's being open to stretching the limits of a very subjective term - i.e. what is prog) the albums are not rated on their proggyness. I mean - proto-prog or prog-related, if it's not pure prog, wouldn't the groups whose albums are found amongst these 2 subgenres be rated lower because of a lesser amount of progness ? Led Zep 4 has some excellent ratings. But it's nowhere as "prog" as , say , Yes "Close to the Edge". Yet, both are mighty fine albums. So to come back to the Beatles early albums - most are great as compared to what was generally available back then, & great , period. And there are more than a few "great" & "timeless" songs on there that were more complex than your average top 40 single, including much jazz & classical outside of avant-garde stuff. Check out some of the better Beatles' guitar transcription books. There's a lot more going on than 3 barre chords or I-IV-V progressions in many of what you might consider "simple" pop tunes. And please don't dismiss it all as being the work of artists who were directed by the "MAN". Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr wrote what they wrote. Read their biographies - they deliberately tried to write a hit single but a few times, & realized that forcing it didn't work any better than letting it flow naturally. Of course, we could start disqualifying some of the early "true" prog groups, as much of their music could now be considered "simplistic" compared to some of today's more "technically " advanced musical wizards.  So maybe our priority should be to establish an objective scale of prog, based on ? ! :: - + = ?@$^#%&(*)????, so as to re-evaluate ALL the music we have included on this fine site as to how it measures up in our the modern day. |
Posted By: Zac M
Date Posted: March 14 2007 at 22:18
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Ugh, I tried to make a really long post and it didn't post, I hate the internet sometimes.... If you can understand German, there's plenty more info out there about the Rattles, who were at first a German version of the Beatles, but later on, they developed into a psych/hard rock band. "The Witch" is probably their biggest hit (at least in EU). Anyways, worth checking out. This was also the band that Achim Reichel and other soon to be famous German musicians made their start in. This is in response to Avatachron or however you spell it btw. ------------- "Art is not imitation, nor is it something manufactured according to the wishes of instinct or good taste. It is a process of expression." -Merleau-Ponty |