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

So you habitually avoid the well-known to preserve an elitist cool then?

The myth overshadows the music *as much as you let it*. So don't let it. I mean you lot wouldn't NOT buy the new Basement Jaxx just because everyone's pissing their pants about it, would you?

But now it doesn't and it's an "elitist cool" thing?

Which is it!

I dunno...being into music and ignoring The Beatles *because of the myths* is like bothering to go to the Musee D'Orsay but closing your eyes each time a Monet or a Van Gogh was nearby. Like reading Zadie Smith but not bothering with Charles Dickens. You don't HAVE to like the Beatles (in fact there's lots to dislike) but to rule them out completely on these grounds is ludicrous. Maybe there's a ton of myth and fable because they're, you know....good.

How did the Beatles become big in the first place? Through the quality of the songs alone? Through slogging round the UK gig circuit, moderindiebandstyle? Through massive record company promotion? Through originality? Through looks? Through sheer luck?

I know what you mean - the new is always more exciting. But people aren't saying that they are making the choice the way you described. They seem to be saying that buying a Beatles album amounts to giving in to some sort of mass opinion that *must be resisted at all costs*. Or as Matt said : "it feels like walking into a record shop and buying Revolver would be like admitting defeat, like admitting there's NOTHING else I want to buy in the entire shop".

I wonder how much this has to do with notions of personal 'cool'. (I'm not having a pop at you here, Matt)

Btw pop kids get The Kinks or The Small Faces or The Who instead, they're better.

I like dance music mainly, following on from that I like electronic pop music and hiphop, I don't owe the Beatles anything and yes as a point of principle I'm not going to give them anything at this moment in time.

It's not about personal cool, it's just about fairly strong feelings which though not necessarily rational, are very real.

1. I don't like any of their records, and dislike most. The simple early rocky ones are okay.

2. I don't like any of their voices.

3. I have scores of covers of their songs, loads by my favourite singers, and they almost always strike me as the worst track on whatever album they are on - for me, the success rate of Beatles covers seems lower than covers of any other act. This means I'm prepared to say that I don't like them as songwriters either.

4. I almost always resent it when someone is set up as the unquestioned top person, or group in this case, the way that the Beatles are. Any broad poll of the public for favourite group ever, you KNOW they will win it, as surely as Shakespeare is the greatest playwright ever. I resent the way they are built up as greater and more important by orders of magnitude than the Stones, Beach Boys, Who and Kinks, for example.

5. I think they were a terrible influence. I think they led to the idea that an act shouldn't be taken seriously if they don't write their own songs, that crafting proper albums is important, and various other rockist notions. Nothing wrong with writing your own songs, and I know they didn't impose the paradigm so it is somewhat unfair to blame them, but they are at the root of its spread, I think. I dislike Hendrix's music for similar reasons, while recognising that it isn't his fault.

6. I am sick of hearing them. They still crop up pretty often.

7. Contrary to what I think Matt was saying above, they are still prominent in the magazine racks. Q, for instance, make my point 4 for me: their idea of a suitable cover feature would be one album of the Beatles (this issue: The Beatles from march 26th-29th 1966), the whole career of the Kinks or Nirvana, say, or all reggae ever. The Beatles seem to be Q's cover feature at least three months out of every year. (No, I don't buy Q, but it's there in the racks every week for me to see.)

8. The mystification of some people at my not liking the Beatles, as if I am confessing to molesting children or something.

I don't think there is any hipster posing in there. I'm a middle aged guy who goes to work in a suit each day and I love many of the revered giants of music, many of them hopelessly uncool. It's not ignorance or refusal to listen to them in the first place, it's finding their music less to my taste than (literally) tens of thousands of other acts.

I often state that the Monkees wrote none of their songs, didn't play the instruments early on, were TV performers before musicians, didn't produce the records and were as manufactured as Hear'Say - just some of the reasons they were better than the Beatles. That's a joke, but it's also mostly stating my feelings about the matter - but the key missing ingredient is that I like 90% of the songs on the Monkees' first few albums better than any Beatles songs ever. And I think Jones and especially Dolenz were far better singers than any Beatles.

I rather like the live action Beatles films. They seem to me to be almost perfect pop group movies.

Something wrong with this picture.

I'm not familiar with critical history, but how does this work when their first few albums are mostly covers?

I wonder how much this has to do with notions of personal 'cool'. (I'm not having a pop at you here, Matt)

I can see why you think that, but I'm not really sure it is (I wouldn't feel embarassed going into HMV and buying the Rachel Stevens album, so I don't reckon a copy of Abbey Road would cause many problems in that department). I think in many ways the problem is pure familiarity - I very rarely buy records I'm already well-acquainted with. To me, much of the fun of buying a record is in the very thrill of not knowing exactly what's contained within and music I know well I'd be more likely to download or copy off friends. I realise this is pretty unique to me and largely irrational (hence the going to the bar comparison above).

Martin's point #3 is OTM, but (to me) has no relevance to what I think about The Beatles doing songs by The Beatles.

On point #8 - just in case i'm being misunderstood I don't think there's anything wrong with disliking them.

For some reason they seem easier to avoid at the moment, and my irritation has subsided.

OK, so hating on the Fab Four is not a hanging offence but it's also not something I can relate to really. I couldn't give a stuff about over half the Beatles catalogue but of the stuff they wrote that does strike a chord, I recognise genius when I hear it.

It's only been in recent years that I've started to have some perspective and question how good some of the stuff actually is and what my personal opinion on it is disregarding popular critical opinion which i've started to find stifling not just with regards to the Beatles but to all music.

I would say that I love the Beatles, though now i can say that i don't love 'everything' they did which before would have been difficult. I wish I could come to them fresh with no historical perspective to cloud my critical judgement - i wonder then what my reaction would be. Would I enjoy them (or indeed any other band) less without a context to place them in or does this awareness of the history add to the appreciation?

I wouldn't feel embarassed going into HMV and buying the Rachel Stevens album

For the record I would be embaressed to go in and buy the Rachel Stevens record and that's something I need to overcome - I even quite like the single. I am totally hung up on the 'personal cool' thing as Dr. C said. How sad.

Beatle-haters: C. Even if their reasons are bad it gets at something; it's another lens, even if cloudy, to look at this monolithic thing. (this is kind of an iran-contra position I guess)

I think I feel happier about getting into the Beatles now British pop is better than them again.

All of it?

The "they never had a bad song!" thing might also tie in here: you're less discriminating about these things when you're still young and besides you only have *one band* that you listen to. There's not a single Beatles song that I don't harbour at least some fondness for, but if I had gotten into, I dunno, The Chemical Brothers or Pulp or Shaggy when I was nine, I'd probably say the same thing about them.

I like "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and a lot of John Lennon's stuff, but the Beatles in general, leave me cold. And I'm sick of them, and I hated their stupid screaming girl fans, grabbing their hair and screeching (for God's sake, shut up!). There is other stuff from 1964-65 to 1970 that I find a hell of a lot more interesting.

Your mileage may vary.

what should songwriters be writing about nowadays?

This is just silly. You must hate most musicians if you really believe this. (and you don't get much more explicitly political than 'Give Ireland Back To the Irish' anyway).

I like the Beatles, though not as much from Sgt. Peppers on. I don't really like ANY of their solo work, except the occasional Lennon song (I think Plastic Ono Band is way overrated). My recent Stones discovery has made it hard to get into the Beatles mystique much these days. Though I still love Meet The Beatles, Rubber Soul, Hard Day's Night, and most of Revolver.

Does anyone at any given moment think they are wrong about anything?