The Beatles

until one wins

no wait this is ilm

they'd all win, ilm sucks

Was gonna say if you think ILM would not choose The Shaggs and Nickelback over the Beatles you have not been paying attention.

from the thread "Jefferson Airplane":

Better than the Beatles.
― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Wednesday, March 9, 2005 11:45 PM (8 years ago)

People who insist that they hate the Beatles - C or D?

The Beatles have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act. According to the RIAA, they are the best-selling band in the United States, with 177 million certified units. In 2008, the group topped Billboard magazine's list of the all-time most successful "Hot 100" artists. As of 2013, they hold the record for most number-one hits on the Hot 100 chart with 20. They have received 7 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and 15 Ivor Novello Awards. Collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people, the Beatles are the best-selling band in history, with EMI Records estimating sales of over one billion units.

ur foolin nobody world, you dont reeeally like them

I think Nate Dogg already beat the Beatles in one such poll.

I really do think the Beatles were uniquely popular - and central to pop culture - for a sustained period of time. There really is almost no act in the same league, not even Elvis maybe (and anyway their music is more interesting). I mean, you brought up Radiohead - go to the mall now and ask every teenager to sing a Radiohead song and hardly any will be able to do it. Perform the equivalent Beatles experiment in 1965 and I won't say EVERY teen can do it but the number is going to be way, way higher. And I bet most of them own at least one Beatle recording. The numbers for MJ in the 80s are closer to Beatles but surely not as high. So in the land of my baseless made up thought experiment anyway, it just makes sense that more people are going to grow up and want to read and write Beatle crap.

This isn't to say that I don't want a Mark Lewisohn for lots of other bands, but the market may simply not be there. Alternately, it may be that the market isn't interested in band crap at all, but can be interested in crap that delves into minutia of stories they already know very well. It turns out that the Beatles happen to be the musical version of this and the Kennedy assassination is the political one, but basically the pop matrix only has room for one band whose propulsive narrative admits of ever more filling-in, revisionism, and reconsideration. The Beatles just happened to get the job, by virtue of all of the above, and the music is solid enough that younger generations don't just tune it out as grandpa gibberish about some oldtimey band they don't care about.

it would be remiss of me to forego pointing out that radiohead are shite, and a muuuch better example of a band popular for reasons of the perceived benefits of fandom vs their actual recorded output, which is totally without merit since 1997

I would read the shit out of a Lewisohn-type book on Zeppelin tbrr. Or Miles Davis.

i've always wanted to read a 'revolution in the head' style book about elvis.

Heck, a book on just the first Miles quintet would be great.

i like the idea of elvis being the 'other' inescapable pop figure because in a way he's sort of the anti-beatles -- instead of this universally beloved band with a very compact, well-documented, and more or less perfect recording career, you have this very polarising figure who's universally familiar and simultaneously loved and sort of held in contempt, who has this huge messy sprawling career that it's almost impossible to make sense of, whose very existence changed the game so much that it's hard to really grasp how his initial audiences saw him. and yet somehow he's still huge.

it's the fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches

Think yr overstating the negative consensus on elvis. Maybe dylan a better pick?

i think the beatles are grebt but i always feel bad for noodle vague when they are brought up

Contrarians oughtnt be pitied it defeats the purpose

go to the mall now and ask every teenager to sing a Radiohead song and hardly any will be able to do it.

Does anyone remember Esther Rantzen's "That's Life" show, they did a vox-pop thing at a shopping mall, getting people to sing a beatles song. Most of them managed "yeah yeah yeah, ooh.." but actual verse lyrics were beyond them

This was 1978 or thereabouts.

I dunno was it full lyrics, but lets not pretend radiohead fare better under that test

contrarian my arse. here it is: the Beatles existed and were v. popular and perhaps their popularity is unique and unprecedented. they made some music which i quite like and some which i don't really. their "importance" feels exaggerated by the fanbase to me, but importance is a bit bullshitty when it comes to art anyway. i often find people who obsess over them to be a bit staid and tedious in their musical opinions. they probably don't need to have 25,000 ilx threads about them. sometimes people pretend you're fronting when you sincerely believe they were far from all that.

there, that's my considered opinions.

OK, my also considered reply.

i often find people who obsess over them to be a bit staid and tedious in their musical opinions.

I do obsess over the minutae, but I do have a wide appreciation and understanding of a large amount of musical styles and suchlike. Certainly not staid. Tedious is in the eye of the beholder, so that's up to you.

they probably don't need to have 25,000 ilx threads about them.

I don't. I have probably about 10.

OK, here it is:

See that carpet you are standing on? That's the Beatles. It covers everywhere. In places it is very thin, almost to the point you cannot see it at all, but it is there.

nah you see that's the kind of overhype that makes me get really hateful about them. i'll give them a part of the carpet but bollocks to this "they invented everything" nonsense

That standard lamp on the table? That's Kula Shaker. There's a corner of the room it lit up at one point, but the bulb does not work any more.

xpost they certainly did not invent everything. You stand on the carpet, the carpet did not invent you.

This metaphor must be tested to the very limit.

i already have been :D

anyway, peace out, enjoy your thing

Oh god yeah.. Some people love only the carpet, they think it is shagpile and lie down on it and never move...

Anyways, it's like a lot of things: To what extent was "Bitches Brew" inspired by the beatles? Very little. But what level of trace element? We can never know.. A bit like "to what extent was wal-mart an influence on "Bitches Brew", and so on..

Most of yr post is fine nv, but lets be real, when you pretend they weren't all that you're fronting and/or wrong.

Reacting to the critical or popular acclaim of an act/artist/group/team/writer/product/weather/philosophical concept can often be understandable but is also always wrong and/or fronting and is 100% worse than any genuine reaction to the thing itself

Also fp'd u

the self-evident all thatness of the Beatles is another one of those stupid bits of hype. i'll take a thousand FPs for my right to say they was nowt special

Self-evident cant be hype, fp'd u again

I agree with every word NV has ever uttered about the Beatles

http://www.enviro-tec.co.uk/carpet%20beetle%203.jpg-for-web-normal.jpg

beatles hatred washes over me anyway but when that person is inevitably all 'but omg the ROLLING STONES, they were FANTASTIC' i'm right yep thanks for playing

don't hit your arse on the way out

I think we can all agree that preferring the Monkees is acceptable though

preferring anything to anything is to be treated with suspicion iirc

The stones are prob worthy #2 tbh

Oasis coulda taken kinks for third but be here now eh

Rolling Stone are #2, too right

(by which I mean they are poop)

i'm not fond but eh, each to their own

it's when stoners are all 'wah beatles are overrated' that o_O walks in and sets up a craft stall

When anyone says anyone is overrated my reaction is usually 'why do you care stfu'

NV and Tom D otm

byrds rule 4ever

my man! throw the beatles down a well imo

I would read the shit out of a Lewisohn-type book on Zeppelin tbrr. Or Miles Davis.

― hashtag sizzler (Phil D.), Wednesday, June 5, 2013 9:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ditto (re: Miles, but the Who instead of Zep).

Lewisohn-type books on Zeppelin exist, but it's just huge tour diaries. Here's another thing to consider: the Beatles didn't tour during the last half of their career, so any book about them will necessarily have to focus on studio crafting for this period. With a Zep book or a Who book or even a Beach Boys book there is lots of tour listings, concert reviews, live photos, promotional posters, etc.

Also, in my experience (basically amounting to having friends tell me about their kids) kids of grade school age still discover the Beatles without parental prompting and are like whoa I found the best music.

― 2 huxtables and a sousaphone (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, June 5, 2013 2:04 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTFM. This is what happened to me. I mean my folks had a few Beatles records and my favorite movie as a kid was "Yellow Submarine" on a bootleg VHS but discovering each of their albums by myself was a life-changing experience.

Thank God I never 'discovered' them

Christopher Columbus discovered 'em