Beatles: Classic or Dud?

i think tom's "complete exaggeration" up-thread re critical language is pretty close to true (i mean, you can factor in the stones and dylan also, BUT beatle-success = condition of possibility for both... )

An old theory applicable to most Beatles fans I know: it isn't simply the exposure that inspires reverence, but how early the exposure takes place. Before becoming eclectic, sometimes before choosing the music they heard, they had committed half the band's discography to memory (Beatle songs double as lullabies for parents who grew up with them).

Ned, I am having this tattooed on my forehead, and if you're honest about your priorities you'll do the same post-haste. :-)

Personally I've always been more of a Stones fan but where would the Glimmer Twins be without Lennon & McCartney? I don't own any Beatles albums except for the red and blue doubles and (for professional reasons) "Live at the BBC", the "Anthology" series and "1", although I know most of the albums. I actually prefer the early, jingle-jangle merseybeat guitar stuff to the later psychedelia efforts. The first singles and albums - up until and including "Revolver" - have a freshness, a manic energy, a dazzlement, if you will, with the form of the pop song and the idea that yes, you could be different and be accepted that have transcended the time since past. If you look at "A Hard Day's Night", you'll find it's a film that very much puts into pictures the entire madness and the enormous realm of possibilities that the Beatles meant.

By the end of that era though I suppose it was becoming a very limited sound and I certainly understand their need to move forward. For me, though, nearly everything from then onwards is more intriguing than interesting and doesn't hold my attention; you can see them stretching but what they're getting out of that is very often meandering. And I still think the Red and Blue doubles are probably the greatest compilations ever done, simply by dint of the enormous amount of good and important music contained therein - they really are the best of the Beatles. Whether the band is still relevant today beyond its historical importance, though, is anybody's guess - and no, I don't think they've been underrated or underexposed (if anything, they have been overexposed thanks to their crafty zeal in milking the catalogue for all it's worth).

but why chris?

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.

There's a really good video of "Don't Let Me Down" from the rooftop concert streaming on the iTunes store right now. I guess it's a promo for the Let It Be...Naked release.

lol at the random ilx guy in 2002 dismissing them as 'a very popular skiffle combo.'

lol

Surely that was dave q.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrAdX4O1m4M

"Rock out in comfort"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v--q95oeWU

George Martin's string arrangement on "Eleanor Rigby" is really good. I have loved since I was a little kid how rhythmic the violin section is done, it rocks up pretty good for a string section.

I think that's cos Martin used Bartok st qts as a template.

What would be a good example of a Bartok quartet piece with this feel?

You can hear just the strings here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZA6jtxtTfQ

As someone says in the comments it sounds (in places) quite like Bernard Herrmann's score of Psycho.

George Martin:

I was very much inspired by Bernard Herrmann, in particular a score he did for the Truffaut film Farenheit 451. That really impressed me, especially the strident string writing. When Paul told me he wanted the strings in Eleanor Rigby to be doing a rhythm it was Herrmann's score which was a particular influence.

Geoff Emerick:

On Eleanor Rigby we miked very, very close to the strings, almost touching them. No one had really done that before; the musicians were in horror.

If this is the closest we're ever going to get to a restoration of Let It Be, I guess I'll take it.

Just announced: Peter Jackson’s “The Beatles: Get Back” documentary, featuring never-before-seen footage of the legendary band, comes to theaters September 4, 2020.
Photo Credit: ©1969 Paul McCartney / Photographer: Linda McCartney pic.twitter.com/8BM11NH3Iz

— Walt Disney Studios (@DisneyStudios) March 11, 2020

p excited for this tbh

and I haven't cared about anything Peter Jackson's done in ... 20 years?

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