The Beatles, superficial or fantastic ?

If you want to hear how good the Beatles were get
the Beatles Anthology 3. Here are outakes and
alternative versions that dont appear on studio
albums. It deals with there latter period White Album,
Abbey Road,etc. period. Listen closely as they play
acoustic and improvised versions of hits, change
lyrics and generally goof around. They could have
made about 100 studio albums of great material if
they wanted to take the time. This is an important
document IMO of their unbridled abilites. No other
arists could put together 3 double albums of great
sounding stuff from a psychedelic period around 5
years long that is close to as impressive. Most
outake issues of bands are barely of interest to the
history of rock. They were unrivaled IMO.

For me the Beatles are in league of their own, them and then the rest of music. They are quite simply...brilliant. The greatest and most influencial band ever. The amount and quality of their music in the short span of, what...eight years, is stagering. All modern bands owe something to the Beatles.

whoa, hold on there man, you're calling Paul a great songwriter. See you like the later stuff, ie-Bob Dylan influenced yes?

One of the first "progressive" bands. They explored and
expanded upon all of the existing genres. And did a
masterful job of each.
The timing was brilliant.
I, (that's me, in case you were wondering), prefer the
later albums. The genius of George Martin and his
wonderfull arrangements. The introduction of orchestral
instruments into Rock and Roll, not to mention the
synthesizer ( Townshend did it better).
Three out of four excellent songwriters. (apologies to
Ringo, great drummer an vocal stylist). Groundbreaking
production.
Superfical? I don't thin

Jaap wrote: [QUOTE=maani] Jaap:   I never said that Pink Floyd was'nt inspired by the Beatles, (they were the most influential band in pop-music and in addition they're my all-time favo's) I just said Sgt.Pepper was the figurehead of progressive rock from the 1960's and the whole thing they did before (like Revolver) was the biggest inspiration to prog artists and bands from around 1967. I'll never play down the influence of Sgt.Pepper - it was and still is a brilliant album - but some people seemed to think it came out from nowhere and suddenly introduced progressive rock, in my opinion the album was a peak in the Beatles' career (and music history) which was based on the developments they made before. The "proto-prog" road they were driving during the Revolver and Rubber Soul years were a part of that development towards Sgt.Pepper.

 

Jaap,

Check out my note on Macon's book.  That is his theory about the Beatle's.  They mixed rock and roll with classical and hymm like harmonies. Good read. you should buy it.

 

 

superficial or fantastic

Neither. Great band, but not in my top10. Would definitely make my top100 though.

Reed Lover wrote:

However they were incredibly influencial and as Cert says, you can't just presume that rock music would have evolved the same way without them.

Never said IN THE SAME WAY Reed, probably the evolution would have been slower, probably rock would have turned more closer to  Blues or Jazz and maybe it would have been closer hard rock, because The Beatles and their popularity and their softer earlier tunes worked as a brake for harder forms of rock.

But sooner of later, rock would have evolved, that's afact, no man can stop evolution.

Iván

Maani wrote:

To argue that if The Beatles hadn't been the right group at the right time, somebody else would have been is absurdist in the extreme.  It can neither be proven nor disproven - but I would side against ivan on this point.  (Ivan - no offense here...) As the saying goes: "If the king had wheels, he'd be a wagon."  And...?

No offense taken.

Why absurd Maani? it's a theory, but comming from a man like you who believes in God (As I do), it's hard to believe in a phrase like "It can neither be proven nor disproven."

I believe history and evolution can't be stopped (maybe delayed), things will happen despite the individuals, if society is ready for a change it will take place.

The anti Vietnam movement of the late 60's was a big impulse for psychedelia and rock in general as a way to protest, and even if the Beatles never existed, this movement would have taken place and they would created a musical genre to express what they believed in.

Iván

Edited by ivan_2068

Jaap:

Actually, if Piper was PF's first album, and it was influenced by Pepper (by their own admission), how can you talk about things PF did before Pepper?  Unless you are talking about live stuff, or studio demos.  But then, as noted, The Beatles had already started on the proto-prog road with stuff on Revolver.  And one could (if they tried really hard) make that case that even a track or two on Rubber Soul is proto-prog, thus bringing us back to late 65 early 66.

As for Zappa, he was working on an entirely different set of influences, including avant-garde jazz and neo-neo-classical (Varese, Stockhausen et al).  Sure, he was listening to The Beatles and other, too, but that was only a part of a much larger "world" of music for him.

Cert:

Thank you for your riposte to ivan.  You took the words right out of my mouth (hey, that sounds like a great title for a song! ).  To argue that if The Beatles hadn't been the right group at the right time, somebody else would have been is absurdist in the extreme.  It can neither be proven nor disproven - but I would side against ivan on this point.  (Ivan - no offense here...) As the saying goes: "If the king had wheels, he'd be a wagon."  And...?

As for Dylan, he was important and influential in a completely different way than The Beatles.  He was, from the get-go, overtly socio-political (The Beatles didn't get to that point until late in the game), and he was a folk and "protest" song writer, not a rock musician (until much later).  Did he influence The Beatles?  Perhaps.  Indeed, Lennon credits Dylan with influencing his song Norwegian Wood.  (As an aside, some might even argue that NW is one of The Beatles' earliest "proto-prog" songs - use of non-standard instruments (sitar, flute), non-standard composition, etc.  Does this mean we can go truly absurdist and say that Dylan helped influence the creation of "prog" as well?  Boy, is that a slippery slope...)

If Dylan influenced The Beatles, it was (and I'm not being facetious) in introducing them to marijuana.  no one could argue that The Beatles' didn't change after that point.  But Dylan influencing The Beatles musically?  Not in my understanding of music, or music history.

Peace.

You can argue that the Beatles were the right band at the right time. Short of the Beach Boys, I'm not sure there were any other acts with the breadth of vison that they posessed.

It also helped that George Martin was there to realise a lot of the new ideas and directions they were heading towards.

A wonderful band that were nearly as brilliant as ELO.