Is there anyone here who genuinely dislikes or hates The Beatles as a musical entity?

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I like the early Invasion Beatles (up through "I Feel Fine" I guess) and the BBC album that came out with all their R&B/rockabilly covers, but "Rubber Soul" and everything after is unlistenable to me.


Blur were closer to the Beatles stylistically than Oasis, bt no one ever says that. Parklife is very similar to, say Sgt Peppers than Definitely Maybe.

Coincidentally, I dislike the Beatles and don't care about Oasis (love the big coke-album single that starts off with helicopters), but I hate Blur with a surprising passion. Except for "Song 2" which is still kind of fun.

milo z (mlp), Friday, 11 August 2006 14:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Would a boyband have written 'Essex Dogs', however? Blur may have spent the early part of their career as a boyband, but, like the Beatles, they grew up to become a rock group. Horribly oversimplified I know but I hope you catch my drift.

xxpost

Song 2 is one of their worst songs, although I too have a guilty liking for D'ja Know What I Mean (one of the few Oasis songs I can listen to through).

Louis Jagger (Haberdager), Friday, 11 August 2006 14:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Oasis -> McCartney & Ringo
Blur -> Lennon & George

danzig (danzig), Friday, 11 August 2006 15:10 (seventeen years ago) link

found! the person who hates mildly dislikes thinks they were a bit overrated: http://www.scaruffi.com/vol1/beatles.html

fandango (fandango), Friday, 11 August 2006 15:14 (seventeen years ago) link

Well, anybody who could conscionably give Revolver 5 out of 10 is a braver man than I.

Louis Jagger (Haberdager), Friday, 11 August 2006 18:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Was the 60's the last time pop and rock really had equal critical, commercial and artistic status?

Dom said 2002; I'd also add 2003. Also: let's not forget the golden year of 1984.

Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 11 August 2006 19:17 (seventeen years ago) link

I believe pop actually pulled ahead for a few weeks in spring '84. Fortunately, I wasn't around to see it.

Louis Jagger (Haberdager), Friday, 11 August 2006 19:20 (seventeen years ago) link

"fortunately"? Fie on you.

Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 11 August 2006 19:25 (seventeen years ago) link

She's Electric has that Ringo-song vibe

Actually its Funkadelic's 'No Compute'.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Friday, 11 August 2006 19:32 (seventeen years ago) link

Christ, if you scan down that History of Rock Music thing far enough the guy's basic point becomes that the Beatles did not do enough lengthy free-form jams and therefore cannot be considered avant-garde.

I think I am less smart for reading that.

Sean Braud1s (Sean Braudis), Friday, 11 August 2006 19:34 (seventeen years ago) link

John Lennon's freeform jam with a tape-machine near the end of The Beatles doesn't count, then...

Louis Jagger (Haberdager), Friday, 11 August 2006 19:37 (seventeen years ago) link

No offense dude, but terrible thread idea.

deej.. (deej..), Friday, 11 August 2006 20:08 (seventeen years ago) link

The Beatles were a really good rock and roll band. There's plenty of evidence of that on their early records and a decent amount on the later records. I would think that calling them klunky essentially amounts to the position that rock and roll is itself inherently clunky (and therefore that electric blues and country and western is also klunky).

Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 11 August 2006 20:24 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost
the premise of that Italian novel linked above seems to be

them beatles woz shit cos they wusnt CREEM or LED ZEP and they are bestbandzeva they ROXXXXOOOORRRRSS

winter testing (winter testing), Friday, 11 August 2006 20:27 (seventeen years ago) link

I would think that calling them klunky essentially amounts to the position that rock and roll is itself inherently clunky (and therefore that electric blues and country and western is also klunky).

Yes, yes, but are the Beatles crunky?

Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 11 August 2006 20:29 (seventeen years ago) link

no, more clinky rinky dinky

who said we never talk about what music actually sounds like ???

winter testing (winter testing), Friday, 11 August 2006 20:31 (seventeen years ago) link

I must be desperate for ILM action to have opened this thread.

For those who don't know, you can't bring liquids on planes now.

Sir Dr. Rev. PappaWheelie Jr. II of The Third Kind (PappaWheelie 2), Friday, 11 August 2006 20:33 (seventeen years ago) link

For me, the clunky bits come more from some of the "experiments" and music hall stuff than from the rock and roll.

js (honestengine), Friday, 11 August 2006 20:34 (seventeen years ago) link

PappaWheelie, the roffle you provided made it almost worth it.

Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Friday, 11 August 2006 20:36 (seventeen years ago) link

I like both bands but I'm a little awestruck that someone could find the Beatles clunkier than the Velvet Underground.

Sundar (sundar), Friday, 11 August 2006 20:56 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm not a big Beatles fan myself. Agree with the Lex on most points. I like most of the White Album and Abbey Road, but that's about it.

Johnathan Redgers (Pearl Hooch), Friday, 11 August 2006 21:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Ah, I like the beatles but probably own only a few of the albums and don't have any compulsion to listen to them or buy the others.

winter testing (winter testing), Friday, 11 August 2006 21:26 (seventeen years ago) link

they make me feel crazy in a bad way - so yes, i really hate them.

Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Friday, 11 August 2006 21:33 (seventeen years ago) link

do you mean like Charlie Manson?

winter testing (winter testing), Friday, 11 August 2006 21:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Also: let's not forget the golden year of 1984.

New Pop was hated by most critics.

Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 11 August 2006 21:50 (seventeen years ago) link

I dislike the Beatles except for like 4 songs from their psych period.

I understand that they were *objectively* one of the best rock bands of the 20th century. I know they had the *best* songs recorded by the *best* producer with the *best* recording technology of the 20th century. I will not argue that they were a great band.

I had an arguement about whether or not you could dislike the Beatles without being willfully contrarian(sp?) just for the sake of it. The best analogy I can make is that the Beatles are like a soup that you just don't like. I know the soup is kick ass, I understand and respect other people liking the soup because the ingredients are fantastic. I just don't like the soups ingredients and I have no desire to eat that soup.

There is nothing about the people in the Beatles that interests me. I would have no desire to know those people if they were just random people off the street. The only thing that interests me is their marketing, I could take or leave anything else about them.

Disco Nihilist (mjt), Friday, 11 August 2006 22:05 (seventeen years ago) link

I reject your soup analogy.

Public Radio (public_radio), Friday, 11 August 2006 22:13 (seventeen years ago) link

The soup analogy is good. Particularly if its cream of tomato soup, the gloupy orangey stuff made by heinz. Because, I never think "oh yes, I'll have tomato soup today, must have tomato soup today, must stock up on lots of luscious tomato soup because its the best and most tomatoiest thing I've ever tasted". No, I think " tomato soup . s'alright but I had it every saturday lunchtime when I was a kid, and god do I know what tomato soup tastes like..., its fusion food for me all the way. egg and bacon ice cream oh yes indeed". But then you do have Tomato soup, when the kids say " daddy we have to have tomato soup because its the bestest and most tomatoiest thing we've ever tasted " and you realise the kiddies are corrrecto, nothing beats that chord change in "I wanna hold your hand".

winter testing (winter testing), Friday, 11 August 2006 22:40 (seventeen years ago) link

Christ, if you scan down that History of Rock Music thing far enough the guy's basic point becomes that the Beatles did not do enough lengthy free-form jams and therefore cannot be considered avant-garde.

I think I am less smart for reading that.

That's not his point at all and furthermore he's quite OTM in some ways (although obviously naive in others).

I personally can't stand the self-important "deep" lyrics that the Beatles brought to later pop music.

xave (xave), Friday, 11 August 2006 23:24 (seventeen years ago) link

That Scaruffi page is a horrah.

Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 11 August 2006 23:33 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, wow.

Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 11 August 2006 23:38 (seventeen years ago) link

All this, and no mention of John Waters yet.

wrapped up like a DOUche in the middle of the NUT (donut), Friday, 11 August 2006 23:41 (seventeen years ago) link

i wonder if the idiosyncrasities are due to the translation or the original article? anyone read it in Italian? Is it as fruitcaked?

winter testing (winter testing), Friday, 11 August 2006 23:41 (seventeen years ago) link

He's still right about the Beatles' "innovations" having been pursued by others, usually better.

xave (xave), Friday, 11 August 2006 23:42 (seventeen years ago) link

You'd have to be more specific there.

Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 11 August 2006 23:44 (seventeen years ago) link

"the beatles suxxes but elo now theres a band, i mean truly yours, 2095 invented daft punk!!!!!!!1"

wrapped up like a DOUche in the middle of the NUT (donut), Friday, 11 August 2006 23:45 (seventeen years ago) link

xpost scaruffi is

unnamedroffler (xave), Friday, 11 August 2006 23:48 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm not about to go parsing through that garbage again - sorry.

Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 11 August 2006 23:49 (seventeen years ago) link

understandable enough... I think it's pretty clear that the band was (with the exception of the production) drawing on (and diluting) already existing musical ideas from lesser-known bands.

xavier (xave), Friday, 11 August 2006 23:55 (seventeen years ago) link

He's the anti-Geir :D Melody = ALL BAD!

He labours the point a bit but I do find myself in agreement with quite a lot of it in theory (don't own a Beatles record except for a crap tape copy of Red + Blue I never listen to, and I heard Revolver once a long time ago). I think it's a consistent enough argument to be considered at least a little bit seriously.

I think what he fails to grapple with enough is the inevitability of (some) avant movements reaching the mainstream eventually, especially at a time of great(er?) flux like the 60's, and he also skips over the question WHY is white pop music automatically bad? It would seem that way at times through that article. Because it doesn't work for THE STRUGGLE (politically neutral or commercially compromised) and advance the cause of SERIOUS rock music? Okay it's rockism/popism all over again MAYBE. But still, a lot of Beatles tracks (but not all) DO have rather an empty, hollow feel to me and I wonder if he's not OTM at least once somewhere in that piece.

fandango (fandango), Saturday, 12 August 2006 00:02 (seventeen years ago) link

do you mean like Charlie Manson?

You're thinking of The Beach Boys circa 1968

I understand that they were *objectively* one of the best rock bands of the 20th century. I know they had the *best* songs recorded by the *best* producer with the *best* recording technology of the 20th century.

The Drifters were recording on better recording equipment in 1959. Tom Dowd, Atlantic Records' producer who institutionalized the 8track recorder (yeah yeah, Les Paul invented it), was shocked to learn that EMI/Abbey Road was only using 3tracks during The Beatles time.

I personally can't stand the self-important "deep" lyrics that the Beatles brought to later pop music.

Uh, John made a career out of both making up non-sense lyrics for the fun of it, and making lyrics that mock his fans that take his lyrics too seriously. I do realize that followers read too much into it and it spawned crap, but The Beatles themselves aimed to prevent that before it got started.

Sir Dr. Rev. PappaWheelie Jr. II of The Third Kind (PappaWheelie 2), Saturday, 12 August 2006 00:04 (seventeen years ago) link

The issue of "catchy" tunes aside, I don't see how anyone can defend McCartney's profoundly idiotic lyrics with a straight face.

Shoes say, yeah, no hands clap your good bra. (goodbra), Saturday, 12 August 2006 00:28 (seventeen years ago) link

I think it's pretty clear that the band was (with the exception of the production) drawing on (and diluting) already existing musical ideas from lesser-known bands.

"Diluting" argument would need specific examples to be of any potential resonance to me. "Drawing on" argument describes almost all pop/rock musicians.

Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Saturday, 12 August 2006 00:37 (seventeen years ago) link

TS: Bobby Parker's Watch Your Step vs Beatles' I Feel Fine

Sir Dr. Rev. PappaWheelie Jr. II of The Third Kind (PappaWheelie 2), Saturday, 12 August 2006 01:01 (seventeen years ago) link

(and even then, WBobby Parker's Watch your Step vs. Ray Charles' What'd I Say)

Sir Dr. Rev. PappaWheelie Jr. II of The Third Kind (PappaWheelie 2), Saturday, 12 August 2006 01:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Ha, I just came to post that I remember hearing John Lennon say that "I Feel Fine" was kind of based on "What'd I Say," although maybe everybody knows that these days.

Ruud Haarvest (Ken L), Saturday, 12 August 2006 01:08 (seventeen years ago) link

The Italian guy, while attempting to criticize The Beatles, explains why they wonderful and loved:

In their songs there is no Vietnam, there is no politics, there are no kids rioting in the streets, there is no sexual promiscuity, there are no drugs, there is no violence. In the world of the Beatles the social order of the 40s and the 50s still reigns. At best they were influential on the secret dreams of young girls, and on the haircuts of young nerdy boys.

starke (starke), Saturday, 12 August 2006 01:16 (seventeen years ago) link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon's_jukebox

The jukebox's contents cover a ten-year period between Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-A-Lula" from 1956 and The Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream", released in 1966, whereupon Lennon stopped adding to the box. Largely by American R&B artists, they are songs that Lennon admired and many of them influenced his own writing.

Bobby Parker "Watch Your Step" 1961

There was a documentary based on this jukebox. The producers went to all the artists included in the jukebox and spoke with them about influencing Lennon. When they got to Bobby Parker, they opened with him playing the opening riff to Watch Your Step, which of course, is the riff from I Feel Fine.

But yeah, as I was saying, Watch your Step more than ripped off the riff form Ray Charles...the entire song is Ray's blueprint for arrangements during his Atlantic years.

(I also love that John is quoted calling John Sebastian [Lovin' Spoonful] a "damned tunesmith" due to his self-percieved non-songwriting abilities...which the last song on the jukebox of course, spawned Goodday Sunshine)

x-post

Sir Dr. Rev. PappaWheelie Jr. II of The Third Kind (PappaWheelie 2), Saturday, 12 August 2006 01:17 (seventeen years ago) link

In their songs there is no Vietnam, there is no politics, there are no kids rioting in the streets, there is no sexual promiscuity, there are no drugs, there is no violence. In the world of the Beatles the social order of the 40s and the 50s still reigns. At best they were influential on the secret dreams of young girls, and on the haircuts of young nerdy boys.

Why don't we can do it in the road?

Sir Dr. Rev. PappaWheelie Jr. II of The Third Kind (PappaWheelie 2), Saturday, 12 August 2006 01:18 (seventeen years ago) link

I think all of those things are on 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun' alone.

Louis Jagger (Haberdager), Saturday, 12 August 2006 01:20 (seventeen years ago) link


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