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I'm not talking sales, or charts. I'm talking popularity and infulence. There never has been and never will be a band that is more infulential then John, Paul, George and Ringo. Anyone currently producing commercial music today can trace their infulences back to the Fab Four.
The were bigger than Jesus, and probably still are.
This sort of thing is the reason I act as contrarian against Beatles fans.
I could just as easily argue that anybody producing commercial music today can trace their influences to Buddy Holly, or Les Paul, or Afrika Bambaataa.
However, I'm not going to declare any of the above the greatest band of all time. First, such declarations are impossible to justify. Greatest at being what? Popular? Good? Sexy? Having mod hair? Second, it actually drags discussion down by being vague. What did the Beatles do well? Well, for instance, they wrote their own songs - not the first band to do that by any stretch, but their career definitely helped to shift the paradigm away from the way songwriters shopped songs around to pop acts in the prior decades. Finally, it does kind of shit on other major artists who also evolved music at the same time. There was unfathomable creativity during the 1960s and so many artists, more than we could possibly name, deserve their due credit but sometimes it feels like Beatles fandom drowns everything else out.
Name me one other band that had the monumental infulence that still rings out today. Name me one other group of singer/songwriters that has millions of people salavating over a video game 40 years after they broke up.
Yes, the 60's produced a lot of good and great artists and acts that sometimes get brushed aside when talking about fandom or popularity. But that's exactly why the Beatles stand out. They shine brighter than almost everyone else out of that decade. Every generation has their great musical influences and stars, as far back as Bach and Beethoven and Mozart. Lennon/McCartney will probably be remembered as they are.
I think a game with Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones would probably sell as well as Beatles:RB is going to. That said, the Beatles are way bigger in the collective memory of the world than either of those bands.
On the other hand, in many cases they were the simply the first whites to do something rather than the real firsts.
Ringo was never really a stand out drummer, and while bringing the drums and bass out in the music might bring it inline with more recent stuff, I don't think it'd do a thing to improve it, or make it more enjoyable.
Ringo was not an obvious drummer. He was however fantastic. He was very technical, doing a bunch of small stuff that effected the feel of the song but that you probably wouldn't notice. Most drummers I have talked too confirm that it is easy to play the drum line but difficult to match the feel.
Can we stop all this crap about boy bands and shit? They weren't good at their instruments before going to Germany and playing everyday for years. By the time they had recorded anything they were passable or better. Do you really think they went insane about the ed sulivan appearance just because they looked nice?
The British Invasion surely changed the face of music history, but The Beatles continued to change music and cultural history with nearly every album release. ten years
Improvolone on
Voice actor for hire. My time is free if your project is!
I just really have a hard time describing The Beatles as overrated, even with all the praise heaped on them. They had such a huge influence on everything from songwriting to concert performances to fashion, it's really hard to deny the lasting effects.
Saying the Beatles are overrated is kind of like saying Shakespeare is overrated; it's true, but that's only because it's always considered safe to heap enormous amounts of praise on them, so their acclaim seems to reach a level no body of work could possibly deserve. To say they're overrated should not really be considered a dig against them.
All of the songs they made are enjoyable to listen to. Most seem musically interesting from the perspective of someone who isn't necessarily versed enough to comment with assurance. They sing quite well, usually have interesting or at least fun lyrics, and they generally altered their music as time went on in ways that while not being incredibly radical all the time at least made them worth some continuous attention.
Also not for nothing, but people covering them almost uniformly sound like shit. I think I've heard maybe one decent cover of their stuff from that silly musical, but even that was questionable.
I just really have a hard time describing The Beatles as overrated, even with all the praise heaped on them. They had such a huge influence on everything from songwriting to concert performances to fashion, it's really hard to deny the lasting effects.
Saying the Beatles are overrated is kind of like saying Shakespeare is overrated; it's true, but that's only because it's always considered safe to heap enormous amounts of praise on them, so their acclaim seems to reach a level no body of work could possibly deserve. To say they're overrated should not really be considered a dig against them.
When you really start to study Shakespeare you start to see why so much praise is there. It was really revolutionary work.
Improvolone on
Voice actor for hire. My time is free if your project is!
Popularity definitely deserves its credit. It's a hard line to walk, being interesting and innovative enough to hold peoples' interest for years, while not being so weird or experimental or challenging as to alienate people. It's difficult to appeal to a broad base of people, and that alone deserves respect. That means they've touched on something universal about our emotions; they've managed to tap into what makes us human. But don't get me wrong - a certain amount of their popularity came from being talented, but a certain amount also came from being bland.
There are a lot of musicians out there who are popular by appealing to the lowest common denominator. (I am NOT accusing the Beatles of this, at least not for their entire career.) There are a lot of musicians out there who are amazing but have only a cult following. So popularity alone is not enough to declare somebody the greatest, and while I think discussion of art has much more room for legitimate appeals to popularity than other debates, I still admit that I'm not deeply swayed by such appeals.
I'm going to offer both a criticism and an olive branch. I find that everything the Beatles did prior to Rubber Soul to be mind-numbingly boring and lacking in substance. The flip side is that I recognize that Revolver and forward are some of the finest rock albums ever produced. But their popularity, that you credit them so much for, was forged on substanceless bubblegum pop. They roped in a generation of naive teens, the same people that today would be listening to Jonas Brothers, and then with Rubber Soul took that popularity and went "Don't look now, but sitar!"
That was the criticism. Here's the olive branch: tell me how I'm wrong. What makes the Beatles' early catalog compelling? I mean this honestly: tell me what I'm missing out on.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I will say, though, that the Monkees did not get enough credit. Poor guys. They were pretty fun, and they knew how to play, but they were just so transparently artificial.
I will say, though, that the Monkees did not get enough credit. Poor guys. They were pretty fun, and they knew how to play, but they were just so transparently artificial.
This is also true. Last Train to Clarksville and I'm a Believer come to mind.
I just really have a hard time describing The Beatles as overrated, even with all the praise heaped on them. They had such a huge influence on everything from songwriting to concert performances to fashion, it's really hard to deny the lasting effects.
Saying the Beatles are overrated is kind of like saying Shakespeare is overrated; it's true, but that's only because it's always considered safe to heap enormous amounts of praise on them, so their acclaim seems to reach a level no body of work could possibly deserve. To say they're overrated should not really be considered a dig against them.
When you really start to study Shakespeare you start to see why so much praise is there. It was really revolutionary work.
I have absolutely no argument with you. But I was watching some PBS thing about him a few weeks ago - "Finding Shakespeare" I think it was called - and even though it was interesting, the host kept dropping statements like "the greatest writer of all time in any language" and "so began the greatest acting company of all time" (even though nobody alive has seen them perform) and so on. The gushing over Shakespeare gets so outrageous that we even have a word for it: bardolatry.
Maybe we should coin the term beatdolatry for use in this thread. see how I brought that back on topic?
It's so easy to pick flaws with them and every so often it becomes fashionable to, thier early material is covers, they copied X (or Y or Z), they weren't particularly good guitar player, Ringo wasn't a good drummer, all of Paul's (or John's) lyrics are stupid, it was all down to George Martin's production etc.
Fuck it, the Beatles were ace. And the reason they are ace is that they begat the Beat-Alls PowerPuff Girls episode. Which is superb. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFLZjiYqZBs
That was the criticism. Here's the olive branch: tell me how I'm wrong. What makes the Beatles' early catalog compelling? I mean this honestly: tell me what I'm missing out on.
I mean, Twist and Shout was a pretty awesome song (although it is a cover). Actually, there are a few songs from their early days that are more like sloppy rock than bubblegum pop and those are usually the better ones. Overall though, I agree with you.
Whenever I come across a person who says the Beatles were overrated or that they don't like them at all. I immediately know that the persons musical tastes are pure garbage. I know I won't even have to ask what they listen to, to know it'll be garbage.
The Beatles work covers so many genres that out of all of it, it is impossible not to like them.
For example, Tomorrow Never Knows is a track you could mistake for being made today. It's a track that always reminds me of the Chemical Brothers. (plus it is a great track)
The Beatles were great. Their early catalogue is indeed full of pop, but it was incredibly good pop, and I can certainly dig that.
When their early pop includes Can't Buy Me Love, A Hard Day's Night, Ticket To Ride, Motherfucking Yesterday, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away and Help shrugging it off as insubstantial seems like a gross misjudgement to me.
I just really have a hard time describing The Beatles as overrated, even with all the praise heaped on them. They had such a huge influence on everything from songwriting to concert performances to fashion, it's really hard to deny the lasting effects.
Saying the Beatles are overrated is kind of like saying Shakespeare is overrated; it's true, but that's only because it's always considered safe to heap enormous amounts of praise on them, so their acclaim seems to reach a level no body of work could possibly deserve. To say they're overrated should not really be considered a dig against them.
When you really start to study Shakespeare you start to see why so much praise is there. It was really revolutionary work.
I have absolutely no argument with you. But I was watching some PBS thing about him a few weeks ago - "Finding Shakespeare" I think it was called - and even though it was interesting, the host kept dropping statements like "the greatest writer of all time in any language" and "so began the greatest acting company of all time" (even though nobody alive has seen them perform) and so on. The gushing over Shakespeare gets so outrageous that we even have a word for it: bardolatry.
A lot of this "greatest ever" stuff is all about timing. The type of acting that was before Shakespeare was, well... highly stylized and at least to modern eyes silly. Sure his company didn't practice a lot of the modern day techniques pioneered by Stanislavsky and Strausburg, but the other styles of Shakespeare's time; pageant plays, morality plays... weird stuff (that we would all look back on and say what the fuck is this supposed to be?) performed by non-professional companies. It wasn't until Georg II Duke of Saxe-Meiningen (mid 19th century) was able to spend an unlimited amount of time and money training his troupe that Europe really saw what the future of theatre was. Thats a difference of several hundred years. Thats a looooong time.
Similar thing with The Beatles. Sure when they came over they were just insanely popular with simple songs, but the way that they changed the face of music while still remaining insanely popular is what firmly seats them in the "greatest X evah" categories. I'm not sure something like that can ever happen again what with how connected and shared information and experiences are now a days.
The future of art from where I (and several of my colleagues) see it is in interactivity; a field that few people have made giant steps in.
They managed to get everyone/a large enough main stream audience to say, "Holy fuck, you can do that? That's amazing."
Blue Man Group, Cirque, and Stomp have in a similar but not enough of a revolutionary way to cause this type of shift.
Improvolone on
Voice actor for hire. My time is free if your project is!
Wayne: Hey Tiny, who's playing today?
Tiny: Jolly Green Giants and the Shitty Beatles.
Wayne: Shitty Beatles? Are they any good?
Tiny: They suck!
Wayne: Then it's not just a clever name.
That was the criticism. Here's the olive branch: tell me how I'm wrong. What makes the Beatles' early catalog compelling? I mean this honestly: tell me what I'm missing out on.
The vocals. That was always the best part of the band. The guys, all of them, could sing.
Popularity definitely deserves its credit. It's a hard line to walk, being interesting and innovative enough to hold peoples' interest for years, while not being so weird or experimental or challenging as to alienate people. It's difficult to appeal to a broad base of people, and that alone deserves respect. That means they've touched on something universal about our emotions; they've managed to tap into what makes us human. But don't get me wrong - a certain amount of their popularity came from being talented, but a certain amount also came from being bland.
There are a lot of musicians out there who are popular by appealing to the lowest common denominator. (I am NOT accusing the Beatles of this, at least not for their entire career.) There are a lot of musicians out there who are amazing but have only a cult following. So popularity alone is not enough to declare somebody the greatest, and while I think discussion of art has much more room for legitimate appeals to popularity than other debates, I still admit that I'm not deeply swayed by such appeals.
I'm going to offer both a criticism and an olive branch. I find that everything the Beatles did prior to Rubber Soul to be mind-numbingly boring and lacking in substance. The flip side is that I recognize that Revolver and forward are some of the finest rock albums ever produced. But their popularity, that you credit them so much for, was forged on substanceless bubblegum pop. They roped in a generation of naive teens, the same people that today would be listening to Jonas Brothers, and then with Rubber Soul took that popularity and went "Don't look now, but sitar!"
That was the criticism. Here's the olive branch: tell me how I'm wrong. What makes the Beatles' early catalog compelling? I mean this honestly: tell me what I'm missing out on.
I appreciate the gauntlet thrown down, Feral.
The early Beatles music was bubblegum, yeah. But it was more than "has a good beat I can dance to" type of pop. For some reason it really grabbed at the hind brains of early 60's music fans, not just the kids, but some adults as well were head over heels on this music.
It's not something that's easily explained. I mean, the Beatles were a perfect musical storm. They had good looks, wit, talent, and were wild and crazy- just like their fans wanted to be. It was fun. I dare you to listed to their cover of Twist and Shout without some part of you moving in time. Or I'm Down. Or Help, Ticket to Ride... I really could go on.
My mom was a huge Beatlemaniac. She saw them live at the Hollywood Bowl- she matted the ticket stub and newspaper article together. I would sit for hours listening to records (except Strawberry Fields- when I was a kid, the end freaked me out) and just taking it in. There was a time that you could say a song title, and I could recite the album title and release year- or what the b-side was on the single.
It's so easy to pick flaws with them and every so often it becomes fashionable to, thier early material is covers, they copied X (or Y or Z), they weren't particularly good guitar player, Ringo wasn't a good drummer, all of Paul's (or John's) lyrics are stupid, it was all down to George Martin's production etc.
Fuck it, the Beatles were ace. And the reason they are ace is that they begat the Beat-Alls PowerPuff Girls episode. Which is superb. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFLZjiYqZBs
That's really awesome. Harmonix should've stuck that as one of the extras in Beatles:RB :P
But their popularity, that you credit them so much for, was forged on substanceless bubblegum pop. They roped in a generation of naive teens, the same people that today would be listening to Jonas Brothers, and then with Rubber Soul took that popularity and went "Don't look now, but sitar!"
That was the criticism. Here's the olive branch: tell me how I'm wrong. What makes the Beatles' early catalog compelling? I mean this honestly: tell me what I'm missing out on.
My mom's been asking about The Beatles Rock Band. She says she was very little and remember when she was in the movie theatre watching A Hard Day's Night, not knowing who they were, and they appeared and all the girls around her got up and screamed bloody murder while my mom was freaked out not knowing what the hell was going on.
We don't play any GH or RB games, and the last time I tried to rent a Guitar Hero it "required" a microphone. I'm not singing anything, ever. Not even in the privacy in my own home.
I will say, though, that the Monkees did not get enough credit. Poor guys. They were pretty fun, and they knew how to play, but they were just so transparently artificial.
That was the criticism. Here's the olive branch: tell me how I'm wrong. What makes the Beatles' early catalog compelling? I mean this honestly: tell me what I'm missing out on.
The vocals. That was always the best part of the band. The guys, all of them, could sing.
Although, judging by Tomorrow Never Knows, not on key.
So, the Beatles Rockband.. good? I've never played Guitar Hero or Rockband. I am really tempted to buy it, although I'm on a spending freeze until everything is bought for the new house.
GrimReaper on
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---
I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
Popularity definitely deserves its credit. It's a hard line to walk, being interesting and innovative enough to hold peoples' interest for years, while not being so weird or experimental or challenging as to alienate people. It's difficult to appeal to a broad base of people, and that alone deserves respect. That means they've touched on something universal about our emotions; they've managed to tap into what makes us human. But don't get me wrong - a certain amount of their popularity came from being talented, but a certain amount also came from being bland.
There are a lot of musicians out there who are popular by appealing to the lowest common denominator. (I am NOT accusing the Beatles of this, at least not for their entire career.) There are a lot of musicians out there who are amazing but have only a cult following. So popularity alone is not enough to declare somebody the greatest, and while I think discussion of art has much more room for legitimate appeals to popularity than other debates, I still admit that I'm not deeply swayed by such appeals.
I'm going to offer both a criticism and an olive branch. I find that everything the Beatles did prior to Rubber Soul to be mind-numbingly boring and lacking in substance. The flip side is that I recognize that Revolver and forward are some of the finest rock albums ever produced. But their popularity, that you credit them so much for, was forged on substanceless bubblegum pop. They roped in a generation of naive teens, the same people that today would be listening to Jonas Brothers, and then with Rubber Soul took that popularity and went "Don't look now, but sitar!"
That was the criticism. Here's the olive branch: tell me how I'm wrong. What makes the Beatles' early catalog compelling? I mean this honestly: tell me what I'm missing out on.
Lets be real here. If you don't like the early stuff, nothing anyone says will make you. However they Objectively well crafted.
Overrated or not, The Beatles did one thing that no one else has ever done before or since: they were innovative, excellent and wildly popular all at once.
I work with this waste of skin in an electronics department, and one day I mentioned The Beatles.
"Yeah?" she said. "What songs do they sing?"
I pretty much blathered on like a fan would, probably failing to clarify anything at all. How would you reply, to be as concise and as fair as possible?
You know that scene in the Simpsons where Mr. Burns laughs at something for like three days?
That's what I would do if somebody asked what songs the Beatles sing.
King Riptor on
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
Picked up the remasters of Revolver, The White Album and Abbey Road today. They are superb.
As for The Beatles musical significance, there can be plenty of arguments made for artists who may have been musically more important than The Beatles (eg Miles Davis or Robert Johnson). But their cultural impact was greater than perhaps any artist (musical or otherwise) of the 20th century and it's an impact that's still being felt today and will probably extend beyond most of our lifetimes.
Popularity definitely deserves its credit. It's a hard line to walk, being interesting and innovative enough to hold peoples' interest for years, while not being so weird or experimental or challenging as to alienate people. It's difficult to appeal to a broad base of people, and that alone deserves respect. That means they've touched on something universal about our emotions; they've managed to tap into what makes us human. But don't get me wrong - a certain amount of their popularity came from being talented, but a certain amount also came from being bland.
There are a lot of musicians out there who are popular by appealing to the lowest common denominator. (I am NOT accusing the Beatles of this, at least not for their entire career.) There are a lot of musicians out there who are amazing but have only a cult following. So popularity alone is not enough to declare somebody the greatest, and while I think discussion of art has much more room for legitimate appeals to popularity than other debates, I still admit that I'm not deeply swayed by such appeals.
I'm going to offer both a criticism and an olive branch. I find that everything the Beatles did prior to Rubber Soul to be mind-numbingly boring and lacking in substance. The flip side is that I recognize that Revolver and forward are some of the finest rock albums ever produced. But their popularity, that you credit them so much for, was forged on substanceless bubblegum pop. They roped in a generation of naive teens, the same people that today would be listening to Jonas Brothers, and then with Rubber Soul took that popularity and went "Don't look now, but sitar!"
That was the criticism. Here's the olive branch: tell me how I'm wrong. What makes the Beatles' early catalog compelling? I mean this honestly: tell me what I'm missing out on.
Lets be real here. If you don't like the early stuff, nothing anyone says will make you. However they Objectively well crafted.
That's it, basically. The early stuff was just extremely well crafted pop music for the time. So much so that most of it still stands up today, half a century later.
That said, I'm not nearly the fan of the early Beatles as I am the later stuff. Once they stopped being defined by pop music and started defining it, that's when they really got worth listening to.
It's not something that's easily explained. I mean, the Beatles were a perfect musical storm. They had good looks, wit, talent, and were wild and crazy- just like their fans wanted to be. It was fun. I dare you to listed to their cover of Twist and Shout without some part of you moving in time. Or I'm Down. Or Help, Ticket to Ride... I really could go on.
Something that I've always wanted to ask some assembled fans.
My Favorite Beatles album, hands down, no question is Help!. Most of the Beatles that I listen to is from that album. I don't dig the stuff with citars, and heavy drug use, and hippies (not that I have much against any of those things, Hell, I listen to my fair share of Joplin, and more than my fair share of Cream).
Am I alone in this? Most of the Beatles fans I know in my life love the later Beatles stuff, but I love Help!, Please Please Me, Rubber Soul, Revolver (which is right there on the line, right?).
DrLoserForHireX on
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
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On the other hand, in many cases they were the simply the first whites to do something rather than the real firsts.
Ringo was not an obvious drummer. He was however fantastic. He was very technical, doing a bunch of small stuff that effected the feel of the song but that you probably wouldn't notice. Most drummers I have talked too confirm that it is easy to play the drum line but difficult to match the feel.
Can we stop all this crap about boy bands and shit? They weren't good at their instruments before going to Germany and playing everyday for years. By the time they had recorded anything they were passable or better. Do you really think they went insane about the ed sulivan appearance just because they looked nice?
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
Thats it.
Thats the mind blowing part of it.
The British Invasion surely changed the face of music history, but The Beatles continued to change music and cultural history with nearly every album release.
ten years
Also not for nothing, but people covering them almost uniformly sound like shit. I think I've heard maybe one decent cover of their stuff from that silly musical, but even that was questionable.
When you really start to study Shakespeare you start to see why so much praise is there. It was really revolutionary work.
Paul was the walrus (or was he?)
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Popularity definitely deserves its credit. It's a hard line to walk, being interesting and innovative enough to hold peoples' interest for years, while not being so weird or experimental or challenging as to alienate people. It's difficult to appeal to a broad base of people, and that alone deserves respect. That means they've touched on something universal about our emotions; they've managed to tap into what makes us human. But don't get me wrong - a certain amount of their popularity came from being talented, but a certain amount also came from being bland.
There are a lot of musicians out there who are popular by appealing to the lowest common denominator. (I am NOT accusing the Beatles of this, at least not for their entire career.) There are a lot of musicians out there who are amazing but have only a cult following. So popularity alone is not enough to declare somebody the greatest, and while I think discussion of art has much more room for legitimate appeals to popularity than other debates, I still admit that I'm not deeply swayed by such appeals.
I'm going to offer both a criticism and an olive branch. I find that everything the Beatles did prior to Rubber Soul to be mind-numbingly boring and lacking in substance. The flip side is that I recognize that Revolver and forward are some of the finest rock albums ever produced. But their popularity, that you credit them so much for, was forged on substanceless bubblegum pop. They roped in a generation of naive teens, the same people that today would be listening to Jonas Brothers, and then with Rubber Soul took that popularity and went "Don't look now, but sitar!"
That was the criticism. Here's the olive branch: tell me how I'm wrong. What makes the Beatles' early catalog compelling? I mean this honestly: tell me what I'm missing out on.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
This is also true. Last Train to Clarksville and I'm a Believer come to mind.
Maybe we should coin the term beatdolatry for use in this thread. see how I brought that back on topic?
It's so easy to pick flaws with them and every so often it becomes fashionable to, thier early material is covers, they copied X (or Y or Z), they weren't particularly good guitar player, Ringo wasn't a good drummer, all of Paul's (or John's) lyrics are stupid, it was all down to George Martin's production etc.
Fuck it, the Beatles were ace. And the reason they are ace is that they begat the Beat-Alls PowerPuff Girls episode. Which is superb. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFLZjiYqZBs
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
I mean, Twist and Shout was a pretty awesome song (although it is a cover). Actually, there are a few songs from their early days that are more like sloppy rock than bubblegum pop and those are usually the better ones. Overall though, I agree with you.
The Beatles work covers so many genres that out of all of it, it is impossible not to like them.
For example, Tomorrow Never Knows is a track you could mistake for being made today. It's a track that always reminds me of the Chemical Brothers. (plus it is a great track)
Tomorrow Never Knows
---
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When their early pop includes Can't Buy Me Love, A Hard Day's Night, Ticket To Ride, Motherfucking Yesterday, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away and Help shrugging it off as insubstantial seems like a gross misjudgement to me.
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A lot of this "greatest ever" stuff is all about timing. The type of acting that was before Shakespeare was, well... highly stylized and at least to modern eyes silly. Sure his company didn't practice a lot of the modern day techniques pioneered by Stanislavsky and Strausburg, but the other styles of Shakespeare's time; pageant plays, morality plays... weird stuff (that we would all look back on and say what the fuck is this supposed to be?) performed by non-professional companies. It wasn't until Georg II Duke of Saxe-Meiningen (mid 19th century) was able to spend an unlimited amount of time and money training his troupe that Europe really saw what the future of theatre was. Thats a difference of several hundred years. Thats a looooong time.
Similar thing with The Beatles. Sure when they came over they were just insanely popular with simple songs, but the way that they changed the face of music while still remaining insanely popular is what firmly seats them in the "greatest X evah" categories. I'm not sure something like that can ever happen again what with how connected and shared information and experiences are now a days.
The future of art from where I (and several of my colleagues) see it is in interactivity; a field that few people have made giant steps in.
They managed to get everyone/a large enough main stream audience to say, "Holy fuck, you can do that? That's amazing."
Blue Man Group, Cirque, and Stomp have in a similar but not enough of a revolutionary way to cause this type of shift.
Wayne: Hey Tiny, who's playing today?
Tiny: Jolly Green Giants and the Shitty Beatles.
Wayne: Shitty Beatles? Are they any good?
Tiny: They suck!
Wayne: Then it's not just a clever name.
The early Beatles music was bubblegum, yeah. But it was more than "has a good beat I can dance to" type of pop. For some reason it really grabbed at the hind brains of early 60's music fans, not just the kids, but some adults as well were head over heels on this music.
It's not something that's easily explained. I mean, the Beatles were a perfect musical storm. They had good looks, wit, talent, and were wild and crazy- just like their fans wanted to be. It was fun. I dare you to listed to their cover of Twist and Shout without some part of you moving in time. Or I'm Down. Or Help, Ticket to Ride... I really could go on.
My mom was a huge Beatlemaniac. She saw them live at the Hollywood Bowl- she matted the ticket stub and newspaper article together. I would sit for hours listening to records (except Strawberry Fields- when I was a kid, the end freaked me out) and just taking it in. There was a time that you could say a song title, and I could recite the album title and release year- or what the b-side was on the single.
You could say I was practically born a fan.
That's really awesome. Harmonix should've stuck that as one of the extras in Beatles:RB :P
You can say
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMQvIcVvwK4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDqEwnpI1k4
We don't play any GH or RB games, and the last time I tried to rent a Guitar Hero it "required" a microphone. I'm not singing anything, ever. Not even in the privacy in my own home.
Just wait until The Monkees: Guitar Hero.
Although, judging by Tomorrow Never Knows, not on key.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
You damn kids and your music.
Also, in a moment of Fridge Brilliance, I didn't realize that the name "The Beatles" was clever until I was 10 or 11.
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
https://gofund.me/fa5990a5
You know that scene in the Simpsons where Mr. Burns laughs at something for like three days?
That's what I would do if somebody asked what songs the Beatles sing.
As for The Beatles musical significance, there can be plenty of arguments made for artists who may have been musically more important than The Beatles (eg Miles Davis or Robert Johnson). But their cultural impact was greater than perhaps any artist (musical or otherwise) of the 20th century and it's an impact that's still being felt today and will probably extend beyond most of our lifetimes.
That said, I'm not nearly the fan of the early Beatles as I am the later stuff. Once they stopped being defined by pop music and started defining it, that's when they really got worth listening to.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Cool. This is the sort of commentary I'm looking for.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
My Favorite Beatles album, hands down, no question is Help!. Most of the Beatles that I listen to is from that album. I don't dig the stuff with citars, and heavy drug use, and hippies (not that I have much against any of those things, Hell, I listen to my fair share of Joplin, and more than my fair share of Cream).
Am I alone in this? Most of the Beatles fans I know in my life love the later Beatles stuff, but I love Help!, Please Please Me, Rubber Soul, Revolver (which is right there on the line, right?).
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche