Beatles: Classic or Dud?

1)I didn't actually write the original post that started this discussion-- someone (knowing that a)I love the Beatles and b)I would find a[nother] discussion of whether or not they are "overrated" intensely boring) posted under my name as a "joke," I guess. You all seem to be having a fine time with it anyway-- I'd never even looked at this board until a rarely-used mailbox of mine started filling up with responses...

2)Hey there, Jack Cole-- you're wrong about the Beatles, mums & dads and probably any number of other things, but I love you anyway.

I like the Beatles a lot but I never have anything to say about them anymore. It's not that there's nothing new to say about them, I'm just looking for a new angle. I will say that the early stuff is actually quite underrated, and I always feel irritated when someone says that they didn't start being good until Rubber Soul. Then again, I think it's a bit silly to go the complete opposite and claim they never did anything good after Rubber Soul. Maybe the only interesting angle left is "Ringo was the true genius of the group. No, wait, it was Stu Sutcliffe."

A Hard Day's Night is probably the best pop movie I've ever seen.

if nothing else, they were exceptionally and uniquely innovative in SYNTHESIS from the very start, for example of what kind of songs one pop group was allowed to write: they covered a radically broad range, not just of styles in a shallow pick-and-mix sense, but of songs-as-ethos-as-style, and also quite soon began to crossbreed them... this wasn't a small thing, and it's a major reason why they weren't a small thing either

The Red album is a pretty good collection, but the Blue misses the boat in a number of ways. It is missing the following songs from the years it covers: Baby You’re a Rich Man; Lovely Rita; Rain; Paperback Writer [but was this originally released earlier?]; Dear Prudence; I’m So Tired; Julia; Yer Blues; Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey[!]; Sexy Sadie; Helter Skelter; Long, Long, Long; Two of Us; Dig a Pony; I Me Mine; I’ve Got a Feeling; One After 909.

I would be willing to exchange some of those for many of the ones included on that compilation.

And if you have the red and blue albums, you still don't have any of the songs from Revolver, which means you don't really have the best that the Beatles did.

man, it's my birthday today, please don't spoil it!

I think sexy sadie is a beautiful tune and the piano arrangement is too good (wish I had it now so I could go on about this). Karma police has imcromprehensible giberish masquerading as lyrics (this can be a good thing but Thom Yorke lacks imagination to make it good) and the piano in the whole thing is set up to make you feel depressed. Radiohead cry all the way tot he bank...

Yes, the blue album covers the hits, but in doing so it leaves off quite a few of my favorite songs, and includes some I would just as leave not hear again. (In general, I can do without the anthemic late songs like "All You Need Is Love" or "Let It Be," though they have their good points.)

The Beatles legacy was exposed to me during a "Beatles A to Z weekend!!" on a local classic rock station. I made tapes of most of what I heard, starting somewhere in the middle of the B's. With a few exceptions, the early straight-ahead songs have never grabbed me. At this point I have Sgt. Pepper (obviously upgraded to a reissued LP), White Album, Hey Jude, Magical Mystery Tour, Rubber Soul, and two Abbey Roads. I would like to get Revolver, but might be slightly embarrassed to buy a copy.

I find it unfortunate that it's probably the aftershock of all the DUD! screamers which gives rise to my hesitation. There shouldn't be anything wrong with enjoying this band. Good songwriting, interesting studio experimentation, blah blah etc. I am by no means and avid fan, and the records dont often find their way onto the turntable anymore, but still i come down on the side of Classic.

this is just the sort of hysterics that I encounter among Beatles fans that can really put a lot of ppl off. That's before I realised the 'fans' and what the band is are two quite diff things and should be considered separetely. There are no sacred cows, and that includes the Beatles. There is far too much good music that hasn't got the beatles' name attached to it OK!

No.

Nononononononono.

For all my reservatiuons about those boys, they wrote too many absolute classics to be written off as duds. Judging on musical impact alone, the Beatles have inspired far too many other musicians to ever be devalued. Alright, so the White Album is horribly overrated, Let It Be is crap and all the early stuff is bubblegum, it's the stuff like Soul, Revolver, Submarine and Road which gets me going - songwriting like that is never going to stop tickling people, surely.

As for experientation and innovation, The Beatles may not have been as out there as some of their more obscure comtemporaries, but esentially as a pop band, they proved that it was possible to simultaneously push the envelope and write incredible accessible music. A lesson which has invaluable ramifications for pop.

Basically, the Beatles have written some fucking good tunes. I was listening to Paperback Writer last night in fact and that snare crack after the first refrain to bring it in and that high bass trill from Paul is sheer brilliance. The Beatles oeuvre is littered with fantastic musical moments which undergo repeated scutiny without ever shedding their fascination.

Classic.

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.)

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