The Beatles Band • Page 14

It's one of my favorite albums of all time, so my favorite song is a 29-way tie between every song that's not "Revolution 9".

 

Gently Weeps is what made me a fan so that will always be my favorite, but USSR, I’m So Tired, Julia, and Helier Skelter are all among my favorites as well.

 

These Esher demos are so damn cool

 

How do you respond when someone calls The Beatles overrated? Do you think they are? I see it come up in music discussion groups I am in every so often, and while it's partly just to troll, I have a feeling plenty of people do think they are indeed overrated.

 

I think some people think they're overrated just because they don't like their music. But I think they forget to realize that most of the music they DO like was probably directly influenced by The Beatles in some way. So yeah, maybe The Beatles isn't everyone's cup of tea, and maybe some of their stuff hasn't aged super well because the production/recordings sound "old," but there's no denying the band's direct influence on popular music as a whole.

I mean, if it wasn't for Rubber Soul, we would have never gotten Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys. And if we never got Pet Sounds, we wouldn't have gotten Sgt Pepper. And if we never got those incredibly influential bands/records, who knows where we'd be right now?

 

Yea I think the thing with the Beatles is I could see how someone might think they’re overrated if they’re just directly comparing them to every artist that has been around since them - I mean not every single Beatles song is something special in that regard, and then they have some downright goofy songs too. But what is being overlooked by those people is just the enormous overall impact they had on music and society as a whole. And I think another thing that deserves factoring in is how much they did in such a short time.

 

Yeah, within 10 years right? Just insane... So much growth in such a short period, to put it lightly.

 

To call The Beatles "overrated" is to not know musical history. To "not like" their music is another story.

 

exactly.

 

I love the Beatles a lot. but I definitely can see a good case for them being overrated precisely because of music history, or at least overrated in proportion to a lot of other figures of the time. like, obviously they wrote incredible songs and obviously their influence is immeasurable, but so much about the Beatles was a symbiotic relationship between so much other music, them drawing inspiration from so many other artists as often as people did from them. i just feel like if it's a question of influence that it should be going in every direction of that web of influence and not disproportionately to the Beatles, specifically because that web includes a significant amount of black artists. they were brilliant but they weren't brilliant in a vacuum is all I'm saying and defaulting to the Beatles as having the most amount of credit or influence is as ridiculous as it is giving any individual catalog that distinction. it's missing the forest for the trees imo

 

granted it's a big fucking tree

 

Anyone who says The Beatles are overrated gets an immediate eye roll from me and an immediate lack of interest in hearing their other opinions. What a boring thing to say.

 

i mean, it's gotta be one of the oldest contrarian takes in pop music, right? neither is a particularly interesting opinion to have it's like the same discussion every time I've heard it

 

they’re a good band imo. jmo.

 

I mean, I hear you but all music is symbiotic and none of it is created in a vacuum. The reality is, a lot of today's music IS directly traced to the Beatles, specifically. Not necessarily because their music itself was that much better (because that's of course subjective), but rather because their mass popularity (as a great case of early boy band hysteria, tbh) made so many others want to emulate them. It was lightning in a bottle. It's also true that they owe their start to the catalogs of Black artists who will never get their due, and that's a conversation that always bears having and isn't had nearly enough. But it feels disingenuous to posit that The Beatles' specific sphere of influence doesn't eclipse most if not all other artists from that time.

 

i guess the exchange of influence part probably does read more as sour grapes and does come down to specific taste more than anything. I was thinking of it from the perspective of (personally) not seeing a clear through line of musical successors in the present that are as obviously trying to draw influence from them, but you're right, there's more to their influence than just that anyway. my b

 

Hey, we all see things differently. And I think today, it's harder to see the direct impact they had on modern music because we're a few sources removed and we don't have the cultural context for how all-encompassing they were. But even though it started in outright appropriation (intentional or not, they - like Elvis - made Black music "acceptable" by putting white faces on it and that's always going to be a part of their story) the legs from their catalog extended FAR beyond their tenure as a band.

No matter who someone's influences are, one of their influence's influences (or however many generations back you need to go) was probably The Beatles, even if it was a single song. It's really wild, actually.

I really liked these pieces I read on it the other day. Inspired by the movie Yesterday, but has to do with what we're talking about.

What if The Beatles never existed?
Can a Beatles Fan Believe in ‘Yesterday’?

*edited for some pretty egregious typos, my apologies

 

thanks for these; I read and enjoyed the RS one previously but I like Sheffield's writing and I think I got more out of it framed as a response to this than I did when I originally read it as just a Yesterday review. the GQ one had that particularly interesting section distinguishing between a good song and a good record and how the movie hews towards the experience of the former, and my initial position definitely feels like a cynical outgrowth of the former. especially bc (as you said) influence doesn't have to be direct and conscious which is something I should've considered more, too

 

I completely agree, like good for you for having a contrarian opinion about a band that had an impact on modern music that few acts have achieved. Saying something like “They were just an above average pop band” is very backhanded and totally dismissive of what they accomplished. As a side note, those people also seem have some very boring tastes to boot.

 

“Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void, it is shining” may just be my favorite Beatles lyric. Tomorrow Never Knows is hands down my favorite Beatles song.

 

Especially because The Beatles pretty much contain multitudes. They have so many styles and eras even in their relatively short career.

 

There's not a single artist that ever has created and released as much quality music in as as little time as they did, that's a fact that no one can dispute

 

While I do think that's correct, I don't think it's 100% indisputable. You could put up the Kinks ('64-'74), Neil ('66 with Buffalo Springfield through '76), Dylan (a couple different ten-year periods, but I'd probably say '65-'75), and maybe even the Stones ('66-'76 or maybe '72-'82).

The biggest difference is how varied Beatles albums are from the their start compared with the last 3 or so years...and of course the fact that they stopped at a certain point and never stuck around to get bad / bad reviews.

 

Also in the running (though The Beatles still take it) is Stevie Wonder from Signed, Sealed, Delivered through Hotter Than July

 

Bowie from Hunky Dory through Scary Monsters, anyone? unparalleled run of music