Can We Get Another Beatles thread?

Seriously, I've seen around five of them on the first two pages. It seems wherever I go I cannot get away from them. Every time I go to a music store, They get their own section. I go to my friends house, they have to put on a Beatles LP. I can't even get away from it at school. My Social Studies plays the stuff when we're doing our work. 

I despise the Beatles with an absolutely unmatched passion, so I know how you feel. I have no answer to this question; I've also wondered it myself.

I feel about them with the same intensity that Rico feels about Kraftwerk. I'd rather listen to 99% of other music; but if other people like it, whatever.

I heard their music was written by aliens

it's chariots of the gods, man

If people didn't worship them I would like them more.

I first heard the Beatles in 1962 when "Love Me Do" came over on our old radio - every time the Beatles came on again my Mother would call me to listen.

Edited by mystic fred - November 19 2009 at 02:11

Xanthous wrote: Seriously, I've seen around five of them on the first two pages. It seems wherever I go I cannot get away from them. Every time I go to a music store, They get their own section. I go to my friends house, they have to put on a Beatles LP. I can't even get away from it at school. My Social Studies plays the stuff when we're doing our work.  I guess my question is, why do people feel compelled to talk about/ worship the Beatles? I understand their music was a major influence on later Rock acts but come on. Frankly, I don't see much merit in any of their work pre-65 and the later output still isn't as great as people have told me. Can someone just please explain to me the bizarre idol worship that centralizes around these musical figures?

If your concern is the number of threads about the Beatles, it would probably have been better to add your thoughts to an existing thread.

MovingPictures07 wrote: I despise the Beatles with an absolutely unmatched passion, so I know how you feel. I have no answer to this question; I've also wondered it myself. I feel about them with the same intensity that Rico feels about Kraftwerk. I'd rather listen to 99% of other music; but if other people like it, whatever.

Although I don't doubt your sincerity here, it strikes me as an odd sentiment. The Beatles are certainly not above revisionist criticism certainly, and yes, their uber slavish fans who cannot see past the year they split up are just both tiresome and plain vanilla sad BUT:

They single handedly created the platform from which musicians get to write and perform their own material (we take this for granted now) and experiment with equipment, sounds and compositional ideas hitherto deemed 'unviable' in the music industry. Although you could argue that such progression was inevitable in the fullness of time without their presence, I fear it would have taken much, much longer and we would have had to wait for as talented and successful a group (unlikely) to appear before the doors of Prog were finally opened.

npjnpj wrote: There are many reasone for being a Beatles fan (I'm one of them), but the main reason for me is that every single song they made had a fantastic melody. Might seem simplistic, but there's so much of the opposite around, that it warrents an extra mention.   These guys made a strong song melody and then arranged the rest around it.   I have a personal peeve with a lot of bands these days (Flower Kings, I'm looking at you), where someone just takes a number of chords, assembles them in arbitrary order, gives them a rhythm, then takes a few of those chords out, strategically replaces them with ones that sound a bit off, puts in an extra beat here and there, and then...wasn't there something else? Oh yes, they'll probably have to sing something as well. No idea what and how, but just take a few phrases, string them together meaninglessly (don't worry, they'll be interpreted in thousands of different ways) and what....? Melody? What was that again? Oh yes. Well, I dunno, just sing something. Anything at all. You don't know what? Well, just sing along to the chords. There you go, magic!   Hm.... just realized, probably the wrong thread, should have gone in Flower Kings Appreciation.

npjnpj wrote: There are many reasons for being a Beatles fan (I'm one of them), but the main reason for me is that every single song they made had a fantastic melody. Might seem simplistic, but there's so much of the opposite around, that it warrants an extra mention.   These guys made a strong song melody and then arranged the rest around it.   I have a personal peeve with a lot of bands these days (Flower Kings, I'm looking at you), where someone just takes a number of chords, assembles them in arbitrary order, gives them a rhythm, then takes a few of those chords out, strategically replaces them with ones that sound a bit off, puts in an extra beat here and there, and then...wasn't there something else? Oh yes, they'll probably have to sing something as well. No idea what and how, but just take a few phrases, string them together meaninglessly (don't worry, they'll be interpreted in thousands of different ways) and what....? Melody? What was that again? Oh yes. Well, I dunno, just sing something. Anything at all. You don't know what? Well, just sing along to the chords. There you go, magic!   Hm.... just realized, probably the wrong thread, should have gone in Flower Kings Appreciation.

''Every single song'' is a bit off. Need I point out that The Beatles did an Avant-Garde song titled ''Revolution 9''? No melody whatsoever in that. ''Flying'' is an all instrumental track that many oldschool Beatles fans hated due to it's lack of melody. ''The Continuing Story of Bungalo Bill'' is a goofy track not aimed at having a proper melody at all, and is just for fun. The melody for ''Because'' is all over the place, and far from fantastic. ''You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)'' is yet another nonsensical track not aimed at true melody, as is ''Dig It'', and countless others that escape my memory at the moment.

Personally, I don't see what's so wrong with a band like Flower Kings OR The Beatles not having traditional melodies all the time. It's part of what Prog is about, and if you find that worth reprimanding artists over, I have to ask, why do you even listen to this genre of music?

Now, I'm not saying the guys bashing The Beatles are correct, either, but come on! The Beatles are primitive musically compared to all that came after them, and insulting a modern prog act because they can't write a pop song is nonsense and far from the point.

If you want to defend The Beatles, that's fine, I defended them too, but don't compare them to full-on Prog music as of they are somehow more deserving of praise because they can write easily-digestible tunes. It isn't fair or accurate. If Prog had been around before The Beatles, they would have done a lot more Prog stuff than they did; because they liked being creative and unusual. Time and circumstance dictated how The Beatles wrote songs; not actual compositional talent.


Edited by p0mt3 - November 19 2009 at 17:12