Beatles: Classic or Dud?

Beatlemania is not the sole basis for their popularity. Beyond the first four or so albums which were just light boy-meets-girl pop music, they expanded the boundaries of popular music like no one before or since (particularly on Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Sgt. Pepper). They weren't perfect-- hell, the White Album is uneven, and Let It Be is a bit of a letdown-- but they were the most innovative group of their day, by far. Pop music as we know it would not exist without them.

There's a problem with talking about the Beatles and that problem is that every single 'position' you can take on them feels to other readers like exactly that - a position, a critical chessboard tactic. And this includes negative and positive assessments - they've simply been talked about too much! (See the 'reactionary'/'defensive' posts above for an example).

Part of the problem is that 'Classic Or Dud?' is not the same as 'Important Or Irrelevant' "Without the Beatles there wouldn't be pop music as we know it" - well maybe (and it's a big maybe - how many of the Beatles fans here are also 00s pop music fans?) not but that doesn't actually tell us anything about whether the Beatles are good! It's like that amusing series of Kronenbourg adverts rumming in the UK where they suggest that life here would be brilliant if Napoleon had won in 1815 - what if pop music without the Beatles would be better than in the Beatles-world we live in? It's the problem with all counterhistorical arguments - we just can't know! Clearly the Beatles are thunderously important, to pop and to writing about pop - "Rock criticism was invented as a language for talking about the Beatles" as I wrote (completely exaggerating) ages ago.

So what I'd ideally like this thread to be - and keep on arguing if you prefer - is a simple, quiet assessment of what the Beatles mean to each person here - which of their records you own, which you like, which you play a lot, how they've touched you.

Personally I don't own any Beatles, except a couple of MP3s. I keep meaning to buy Revolver because I know I like almost all the songs on that, but I also feel I know them all too well already - there wouldn't be any mystery or excitement or discovery in it. All the other albums I either know I don't like despite a couple of lovely songs - Abbey Road, Sgt Peppers - or don't have that much I care about. And the problem of over-familiarity remains, too. But there are songs I love - "A Day In The Life", "Eleanor Rigby", "For No One", a poppy Harrison one whose name escapes me - and though there are probably as many songs I hate most Beatles music gets an 'oh that's nice'. I don't think they're Dud.

All you can judge them on is the music, and they have a huge amount of tunes which lots of people love, never really cared for them myself much but then I don't dislike them enough to slate them either. They just seem like a great irrelevence to me.

I very much agree, though, with your notion of everyone calmly talking about what the Bs mean to them personally, rather than getting into dull arguments.

PS / as you say, idea that 'Beatles --> pop today' does not necessarily, logically, make them a good thing: in fact this is more 'logical' to me (cos I don't like contemporary music, except Bruce Springsteen) than it is to you (cos you do)?

That said, I hardly ever listen to them, but I own about 7 or 8 of their records - my favorite probably being Revolver. I remember being 13 or so, listening to "Tomorrow Never Knows" on repeat, just being transfixed on the backwards guitar sounds - I even made a tape of myself saying stuff and humming tunes just so I could play the tape backwards (after having hand-wound it mind you!).

Even if people get tired of hearing about their musical influence (which I think is way over-mentioned and over-relied on in critical discourse anyway), keep in mind that they made people really fall in love with pop there for a while, in a way that would stick - despite the later rockist revisionism and extreme canonization, they changed the way people approached popular music by opening them up to love it more and be obsessed by it.

My second CD purchase ever was Abbey Road, and I picked up a slew of their albums that way shortly thereafter, played them to death. But I couldn't imagine constant listening year after year until death - - there's not much I could do that with anyway. The only song that's been running through my head as I type this has been "Nowhere Man," and if that was the sum of their legacy for some reason, there would be far worse fates.

Oh, and: classic. Obviously.

Actually, I'll have to disagree with you on this specific point. "It's My Life" has a crisp, clear sound to it that just seems to rise up and connect -- and feel more electronic and 'of the now' if you like -- while at the same time the weird whale-sound synth bits almost remind me of "Tomorrow Never Knows" for a future time! So there's a bit of inspiration if you like, but also a way in which the past can get drop- kicked forward by someone else. ;-)

A lot of the fans, when they are interviewd on TV, came across as ppl who would ONLY listen to the Beatles and nothing nothing else (there are similarities w/Smiths fans who are caricatured as the sort of ppl who would never touch black music and who have only listened to Morrissey solo albums after the smiths broke up, the sort of ppl who could not handle the concept of 'dance' music).

I avoided the beatles for a long time because I got this idea that I would stop to listen to music and only listen to beatles albums until my dying day (this is before the days when I even knew what free jazz/improv/other musics was BTW).

I finally got round to them when i realized there is just TOO MUCH out there and so i picked up a copy of the white album (borrowed it from the record library). It's a good record, the arrangements on tracks like 'Sexy Sadie' (my favourite on the whole rec) were really beautiful. On the other hand I thought revolution no9 was a dud (a break from the pop norm and something that could have put me off listening to any 'adventurous' music if i had listened to it two years earlier, say) and that 'helter Skelter' was alughable attempt at copying the velvets (did they hear them?) but a nice melody. So overall a mixture of the dud, the sublime and plenty in the middle as well. I taped what i liked (left out six tracks as I recall) before I gave it back. Haven't got around to anything else as this stuff just isn't very important to me (I could get all he beatles recs for free as they are all there in the record library but I really can't be bothered).

At the end of the day I want to be stunned and this is not enough and the cultural importance just isn't there to make it vital, either.

(VU *did* send demo tapes to Brian Epstein. but no one knows if he ever listened to them, let alone passed them on to any of the four)

Is timelessness necessarily a virtue, though? Or less a virtue than a perceived construction? "I hear lots of things that sound like this = it is timeless"...doesn't seem to work for me as well as it might.

Whenever the Beatles come up here, I am hesitant to say anything because part of me wants to make a case for the Beatles which will convince even the most hostile, and part of me sees the utter futility in such an effort. I don't want to deal with the pressure of getting it just right, or of saying something sufficiently novel. But also, my reponse to my favorite Beatles songs is so immediate that I don't feel like being bothered with attempting to point out what there is to enjoy in their music.

I feel that maybe I have been fortunate in that my exposure to their music has been gradual. I guess I would have heard their songs for the first time when I was five; but I didn't hear the "White Album" until my brother bough it when I was in 6th or 7th grade; didn't hear "Rubber Soul" until he bought that a couple years later; and didn't hear "Revolver" until I had graduated from college and was getting high on marijuana for the first time (which, in itself, gave me a fresh take on their music).

I don't listen to them as much as I used to, but I still have the desire to hear their songs from time to time. I think sometimes there is this assumption that very enthusiastic Beatles fans think that everything they did was great, which is certainly not the case for me. On balance though, they are still the stand-out band for me.

jerry garcia's and ghost and kate (i think) to thread!!!

''haha who else wants julio stunned?''

OK OK so i don't need to be 'stunned' but the build up to listening to them just told me that i would be at the time and i wasn't.

The one thing that could be considered massive dud, though, is that after the Beatles started writing all of their own material, it was pretty much expected that new artists would write their own material in order to be considered valid--interpreters need not apply! From that perspective, it's tainted a lot of musical appreciation--"Oh, they just do a bunch of covers = they are untalented!"

i think tom's "complete exaggeration" up-thread re critical language is pretty close to true (i mean, you can factor in the stones and dylan also, BUT beatle-success = condition of possibility for both... )

An old theory applicable to most Beatles fans I know: it isn't simply the exposure that inspires reverence, but how early the exposure takes place. Before becoming eclectic, sometimes before choosing the music they heard, they had committed half the band's discography to memory (Beatle songs double as lullabies for parents who grew up with them).

Ned, I am having this tattooed on my forehead, and if you're honest about your priorities you'll do the same post-haste. :-)

Personally I've always been more of a Stones fan but where would the Glimmer Twins be without Lennon & McCartney? I don't own any Beatles albums except for the red and blue doubles and (for professional reasons) "Live at the BBC", the "Anthology" series and "1", although I know most of the albums. I actually prefer the early, jingle-jangle merseybeat guitar stuff to the later psychedelia efforts. The first singles and albums - up until and including "Revolver" - have a freshness, a manic energy, a dazzlement, if you will, with the form of the pop song and the idea that yes, you could be different and be accepted that have transcended the time since past. If you look at "A Hard Day's Night", you'll find it's a film that very much puts into pictures the entire madness and the enormous realm of possibilities that the Beatles meant.

By the end of that era though I suppose it was becoming a very limited sound and I certainly understand their need to move forward. For me, though, nearly everything from then onwards is more intriguing than interesting and doesn't hold my attention; you can see them stretching but what they're getting out of that is very often meandering. And I still think the Red and Blue doubles are probably the greatest compilations ever done, simply by dint of the enormous amount of good and important music contained therein - they really are the best of the Beatles. Whether the band is still relevant today beyond its historical importance, though, is anybody's guess - and no, I don't think they've been underrated or underexposed (if anything, they have been overexposed thanks to their crafty zeal in milking the catalogue for all it's worth).

but why chris?

That doesn't mean that the question should be answered "DUD!!", of course.

I still think the question probably shouldn't be answered because the responses are much less interesting than the usual c-or-d stuff.

Something that has come up - the Beatles-as-lullabies stuff. My parents owned a couple of Beatles recs and almost nothing else and I did spend a lot of my childhood listening to them, but for me I think that's where the root of my *non* fandom lies - the 'overfamiliarity' stuff as above, i.e. I'd be as likely to want to put on Sgt P as to put on "Puff The Magic Dragon".

I think I will buy a Beatles record. The compilation albums are too expensive though.

tom you should buy RUBBER SOUL first, and listen to it while reading the AESTHETICS OF ROCK and eating smoked oysters dipped in chocolate

sgt pepper = 7th beatles LP out on the 7 june 1967 my seventh birthday DO YOU SEE!! DO YOU SEE!!??

ps anyone who thinks ringo is not a perfect pop drummer is some kind of devolving zappa-fan imo

but when was a classic or dud thread ever any good anyway in terms of saying something that could change your mind in a 180 degree fashion. It can make you think abt soemthing on x artist but really that's as much as you're going to get (most of the time anyway). It's either classic or dud or somewhere in between. There can be some interesting arguments but if you heard an alb and you make up yr mind no thread on x artist will change anything drastically surely.

but I'm not interested in reading about them but i think this is a good replacement for that.

''I think I will buy a Beatles record. The compilation albums are too expensive though.''

You don't have to buy them surely. You can just borrow it from the local library (80p for 2 weeks at mine) and then just copy it onto tape. Most beatles recs should be there (unless you actually value holding them in which case just borrow a few and see which is the best one). I wish they did the same thing w/Sun ra (now THAT would have been worthwhile).

''Julia, my favourite love song of all-time, justifies the purchase of this album.''

At a time I first heard it there this new acoustic movement that NME invented (badly drawn boy etc.). This is surely the sort of thing they were up against. Heard some tracks on the radio and none of the bands came with as good a song.

''i like that song too, tho i think white album is in general a bit TOO diffuse (= they were no longer writing songs to impress/amaze each other, but had actually broken back into their constituent individual parts)''

very 'eclectic' i think...they try to go through a lot of types of arrangements with mixed results. It's part of the flaw and part of its goodness.

That doesn't follow. You could think the Bs were beyond criticism, but still think lots of other pop worth talking about. (My own position is not a million miles from this)

By saying The Beatles are the Best Ever it seems to me that assumptions are being made that what the Beatles were very good at doing - melodies, harmonies, use of the studio - are better or higher qualities than what the Beatles were OK or not very good at doing - 'funkiness' or 'aggression' or arguably lyric-writing, say. It also shuts off the things the Beatles couldn't/didn't do (sample or use computers, for instance). This is kind of what I meant by "rock criticism evolved as a way to talk about the Beatles" (and it's also kind of what is meant by "rockism"). It is a completely reasonable perspective - but not one that's 'beyond' argument.

Saying a question 'shouldn't' be asked is merely suggesting that while the question may be a valid one the discussion resulting is likely to be unproductive.

It's been my experience in talking about the Beatles that nobody on either side is able to muster very convincing arguments. No Beatles hater has ever been able to make me doubt the excellence of "A Day In The Life", just as no Beatles lover has been able to make me want to re-listen to "Hey Jude" and try and find something bearable in it.

(I'm someone who regularly goes back to music with fresh ears after reading about it, btw - I know some of you aren't).

Hmm...I think I have a goal.

So perhaps this is really a sense of the limits of 'C/D', rather than a disagreement re. whether we should talk about the Bs.

Once again, I think I very much agree with you about the typical *pointlessnes* of debates re. Beatles. (Possibly, though, I find all pop debates pointless in a way - no one has ever convinced me of anything in a pop debate, and vice versa.)

Morrissey too - bonus!

>>> inclusivity is too rarely celebrated in pop to kick Carter aside. And besides I love how folksy and rudimentary Carter were - nobody else has ever sounded quite like them.

Your last point is good. But the 'inclusivity' one I don't buy. I feel like there's been loads of it, rhetorically; and when that record came out the gesture already felt very tired *in specifically carter-USM terms*. Maybe I am misjudging here cos of B&S and Murdoch's worthy, dull rhetoric of inclusivity.

>>> THE BEATLES - "For No One"
So, I finally bought a Beatles album. "For No One" is the best track on the patchy Revolver, McCartney's singing on it a measured miracle (I could lose a day in those vowels). Why did everyone rip off Lennon's throaty yowlings and ignore McCartney's proud, stiff-backed regionalism?

'Patchy'? How? I mean, what's Bad on it?

Apart from that, you are on the money - and you are bringing out sth specific that seems almost never to have been raised. The precision, the well-spokenness of Macca (despite his love of Little Richard / sandpaper vox etc) - and the relation (whatever it is) between that and the 'regional' quality: this is a key overlooked issue. It almost deserves a thread in itself.

>>> even if it wasn't Vini Reilly's piano would net it a place on this list.

Yes - the piano is maybe the strongest musical touch of all. Of course, the piano on 'For No One' is crucial too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z2vU8M6CYI

(I'm sure we're all a bit fed up with the Fabs at this point, but it's been quite interesting reading early-ilx having a chew over whether the Beatles are any good or not, whilst some dish out the challops as per)

Not much has changed, but they live under water.

we're at the very tail end of the period when they will be listened to alongside contemporary popular music on the same or at least similar terms. Soon their status will become increasingly like, say, Duke Ellington's: revered in theory but listened to only by oldsters and the minority of enthusiasts prepared to work at breaking down the barriers that makes their music sound dated to most ears.

i dunno about this...

especially with the remasters, i get the feeling that these fellows' records will be accessible for quite a while

Oh that Beatles 3000 thing is HILARIOUS!
"Sgt. Pet Sounds and the Spiders From Aja"

LOL at the joke about the Napster-era mislabeling.

Oxygen and vitamins: Classic or dud?

There's a really good video of "Don't Let Me Down" from the rooftop concert streaming on the iTunes store right now. I guess it's a promo for the Let It Be...Naked release.

lol at the random ilx guy in 2002 dismissing them as 'a very popular skiffle combo.'

lol

Surely that was dave q.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrAdX4O1m4M

"Rock out in comfort"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v--q95oeWU

George Martin's string arrangement on "Eleanor Rigby" is really good. I have loved since I was a little kid how rhythmic the violin section is done, it rocks up pretty good for a string section.

I think that's cos Martin used Bartok st qts as a template.

What would be a good example of a Bartok quartet piece with this feel?

You can hear just the strings here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZA6jtxtTfQ

As someone says in the comments it sounds (in places) quite like Bernard Herrmann's score of Psycho.

George Martin:

I was very much inspired by Bernard Herrmann, in particular a score he did for the Truffaut film Farenheit 451. That really impressed me, especially the strident string writing. When Paul told me he wanted the strings in Eleanor Rigby to be doing a rhythm it was Herrmann's score which was a particular influence.

Geoff Emerick:

On Eleanor Rigby we miked very, very close to the strings, almost touching them. No one had really done that before; the musicians were in horror.

If this is the closest we're ever going to get to a restoration of Let It Be, I guess I'll take it.

Just announced: Peter Jackson’s “The Beatles: Get Back” documentary, featuring never-before-seen footage of the legendary band, comes to theaters September 4, 2020.
Photo Credit: ©1969 Paul McCartney / Photographer: Linda McCartney pic.twitter.com/8BM11NH3Iz

— Walt Disney Studios (@DisneyStudios) March 11, 2020

p excited for this tbh

and I haven't cared about anything Peter Jackson's done in ... 20 years?

Sounds about right!

the WWI restoration footage thing he did was incredible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcgceA64aAI

really looking forward to this

xxxp me too, except They Shall Not Grow Old was pretty good

ha, fuck, beaten to it