The Beatles - They fit in where?

moses

Can't We Just Be Nice?
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Younited.7 said:
I think everyone would appreciate the education.

After all, Redcafe is pretty good on that front, isn't it?

(bar the General, Man Utd and Football - although, they have their moments)

The dialogue has been top notch tonight.

Do it.
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Be more opinionated than educational I imagine. Just think it's odd to think that the Rhythm and Bluees of the 50's and 60's have less to do with Jackson than the Beatles.Their early stuff is skiffle, which everyone was doing and even Abbey Road, one of the later 'technical' albums, which I think is their best album in many ways, is loaded with blues riffs ... to me I'd really need to see arguments for as opposed to against. For me it's black american music that gave the Beatles and the Stones their sound, where the Beatles gave it modernity and handed it back I don't see.

They invented modern music with Sgt Peppers is an argument I may have herad before but Pet Sounds is almost out at the same time and although uses less tricks is a better 'studio' album. I hate the songs so for me Peppers is better, but not the amazing album it's lauded as.

Having an open mind, a tech savvy producer and someone else inventing the machines had as much to do with the Beatles as thier genius?

How's that for openers? ... might be a bit vague but as I say don't really know the argument 'for'.
 
Personally I think they're the best band of all time simply because of the sustained brilliance of their songwriting. I don't think they reinvented the wheel when it came to music, and so much of what made them brilliant was peculiar to them that it's hard for bands to use them as anything more than a reference point.

I have no doubt though that without George Martin they wouldn't have become the band they were. For a guy so steeped in the old-school approach/upbringing, he was incredibly progressive and indulged their whims when a lot of other producers would have pushed them towards recording eleven songs like 'Eight Days a Week' per album.

Maybe this is romanticism, but I genuinely don't believe we'll see anything like the Beatles again. Everything was right about them, and the chemistry was absolutely perfect. I think it was Billy Bragg who said "How feckin' good are a band when their third best songwriter is George Harrison? George feckin' Harrison!"
 
Honestly don't get the craze because I'm not from that generation. They're obviously great but why do they really have to be rammed down everyone's throat that they are the best ever, etc. And when people do say they don't like them, the truly hardcores go all defensive.
 
moses said:
Be more opinionated than educational I imagine. Just think it's odd to think that the Rhythm and Bluees of the 50's and 60's have less to do with Jackson than the Beatles.Their early stuff is skiffle, which everyone was doing and even Abbey Road, one of the later 'technical' albums, which I think is their best album in many ways, is loaded with blues riffs ... to me I'd really need to see arguments for as opposed to against. For me it's black american music that gave the Beatles and the Stones their sound, where the Beatles gave it modernity and handed it back I don't see.

They invented modern music with Sgt Peppers is an argument I may have herad before but Pet Sounds is almost out at the same time and although uses less tricks is a better 'studio' album. I hate the songs so for me Peppers is better, but not the amazing album it's lauded as.

Having an open mind, a tech savvy producer and someone else inventing the machines had as much to do with the Beatles as thier genius?

How's that for openers? ... might be a bit vague but as I say don't really know the argument 'for'.
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That's very good.

There's a good video on youtube of Hunter S Thompson (big influence) interviewing Keith Richards saying something very, very similar.

The Beatles were incredible innovators though.

Further to the influence of black American music... The Doors said without The Beat generation they wouldn't have existed. The Beat generation were, in turn, heavily influenced by the proliferation of Jazz and Blues (+ drugs).

It's an intriguing part of modern history (culture).
 
Justin said:
Honestly don't get the craze because I'm not from that generation. They're obviously great but why do they really have to be rammed down everyone's throat that they are the best ever, etc. And when people do say they don't like them, the truly hardcores go all defensive.
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The subtext and context is so important when listening to The Beatles.

In fact, context is everything.
 
The question for me has always been are the Beatles widely regarded as the best ever for their music, or because they were revolutionary? Personally I think the latter and have benefited a great deal from the timing of their arrival on the music scene. Whilst their song writing was obviously superb, in terms of pure musical talent, I don't think they were better than the Stone's.

I say they benefited from timing because the country was crying out for the Beatles, long before the Beatles were even an idea in the heads of Harrison, Lennon and McCartney. I think due to the war, when the Beatles came on the scene we had more people in this country under the age of 21 than we did over the age of 21. Which is mental, really. It's easy to see why a young population fed up perhaps of the likes of Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles took to The Beatles like they did.

That said, obviously a very talented band
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
The Beatles influence on future acts is quite possibly their greatest achievement.

Songs like Penny Lane and Eleanor Rigby have influenced the writing style of a number of bands.

I am the Walrus, Strawberry Fields Forever and Tomorrow Never Knows took sound in a new direction and brought it to the masses in ways that no other group achieved before them.

Rubber Soul captured the sound of the 1960s, a sound that washes over the listener with the promise of a brand new morning all sunshine and dew. The Beatles were a part of a tumultuous era and as musicians and men changed as much as the world did in that short space of time. The interesting part of that is that by the end, they were the barometer of that change. Society reflected back in their music, which is the only possible explanation for their amazing success.
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I made this post in the noobs some time ago.
 
Younited.7 said:
The subtext and context is so important when listening to The Beatles.

In fact, context is everything.
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I'm not sure I follow you- are you suggesting their lyrics are what made them the best ever? It's an argument I have heard many times, and don't agree with. I've yet to read any Beatles lyrics that convince me Lennon was on a pedestal of his own when it came to writing lyrics. There have been a lot of truly outstanding writers in the music industry
 
SmashedHombre said:
I'm not sure I follow you- are you suggesting their lyrics are what made them the best ever? It's an argument I have heard many times, and don't agree with. I've yet to read any Beatles lyrics that convince me Lennon was on a pedestal of his own when it came to writing lyrics. There have been a lot of truly outstanding writers in the music industry
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The subtext of four boys delving deep into their sub-conscious to find rhythms and beats that define the soul of a generation/movement.

The context of politics and the liberal movement. I think it pervades a lot of their lyrics ('Come Together' comes to mind).

I personally think that these are very important. They make the music relevant to me. The profound effects of any piece is felt more strongly through the meta-narrative, as opposed to the narrative, no?

It's didactic and timeless.
 
There were a lot of English groups around the time grabbing all the latest imports from the US and making their own form of R&B - like the Yardbirds, the Animals, John Mayall etc. The Beatles and the Stones were the ones who really managed to develop their own distinctive sound out of it, mainly due to the strength of the songwriters.

Most of the innovators have influences in older music and they appropriate it, and put their own spin on it and create something new and unique.
 
Younited.7 said:
The subtext of four boys delving deep into their sub-conscious to find rhythms and beats that define the soul of a generation/movement.

The context of politics and the liberal movement. I think it pervades a lot of their lyrics ('Get Together' comes to mind).

I personally think that these are very important. They make the music relevant to me. The profound effects of any piece is felt more strongly through the meta-narrative, as opposed to the narrative, no?

It's didactic and timeless.
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Come Together?
 
Younited.7 said:
The subtext of four boys delving deep into their sub-conscious to find rhythms and beats that define the soul of a generation/movement.

The context of politics and the liberal movement. I think it pervades a lot of their lyrics ('Get Together' comes to mind).

I personally think that these are very important. They make the music relevant to me. The profound effects of any piece is felt more strongly through the meta-narrative, as opposed to the narrative, no?

It's didactic and timeless.
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Oh I agree completely that these things are very important in music. I just don't agree the Beatles were unquestionably the best at making music 'relevant'. There are lots of bands that speak to their fans through their lyrics, be it narrative or metanarrative. I mean is Come Together really lyrically a better metanarrative song that Heroin by The Velvet Underground for example?

What I do agree with though is that it is the Beatles that started it all, and for that they should rightly be regarded as amongst the best.
 
SmashedHombre said:
Oh I agree completely that these things are very important in music. I just don't agree the Beatles were unquestionably the best at making music 'relevant'. There are lots of bands that speak to their fans through their lyrics, be it narrative or metanarrative. I mean is Come Together really lyrically a better metanarrative song that Heroin by The Velvet Underground for example?

I think the wider implications of the song are far more 'important'. But we're more individualistic nowadays - 'Heroin' may be more relevant. I retract that...

The Beatles wrote that hit for a charity gig if i'm not wrong. If i am then i stand to be corrected.

Craft is another things altogether. But it is subjective, like beauty (although beauty is supposed to be found predominantly in symmetry, 'wabi-sabi' is a Japanese thing - beauty in imperfection, i think).

What I do agree with though is that it is the Beatles that started it all, and for that they should rightly be regarded as amongst the best.
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I think The Beatles started something. A trend - four boys and a microphone... Westlife... Boyzone... Take That and the archetypal, marketable all-boy band. The number may be incorrect. They were also fantastic musicians with politically relevant music (circa: 'Civil Rights').

We can look further into history to find the roots of The Beatles though...

Jazz and Blues (which they were admittedly, in rhythm, often playing). The notion of poetry over music was generally a new one as well. The 'Beat' poets and other contemporaries paved the way/coined the idea. I'm sure they had their roots/influences in Jazz and Blues, which in turn, is indebted to gospel. There's a big ideological circuit-board.

Something to ponder over my next joint...
 
Younited.7 said:
I think The Beatles started something. A trend - four boys and a microphone... Westlife... Boyzone... Take That and the archetypal, marketable all-boy band. The number may be incorrect. They were also fantastic musicians with politically relevant music (circa: 'Civil Rights').

We can look further into history to find the roots of The Beatles though...

Jazz and Blues (which they were admittedly, in rhythm, often playing). The notion of poetry over music was generally a new one as well. The 'Beat' poets and other contemporaries paved the way/coined the idea. I'm sure they had their roots/influences in Jazz and Blues, which in turn, is indebted to gospel. There's a big ideological circuit-board.

Something to ponder over my next joint...
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Yeah no I just picked that song at random because it was the first metanarrative song that popped into my head, it's also superbly written. It's just one song thought, there are thousands of others that do cover the 'wider picture', if you like, from a score of different bands. But in temrs of the prose of the song and the lyrics and message they portray, Heroin is just as superb as most Beatles tracks.

No doubt the Beatles started a lot of today's music, but that was my argument. That perhaps they owe some of their popularity to their influence as opposed to their music itself. I love the Beatles for giving us rock and roll in the 60's, and subsequently all of rock and rolls offshoot genre's, which basically make up my music collection now in 2009.

As far as I understand it The Beatles basically took the influence and message of the Beat poets, put it to the back drop of Rhythm and Blues and then modified and evolved it, if you like, with their own style and genius. Thus giving the world rock and roll
 
Youngie said:
Just saw Neil Young's rendition of 'Day in the Life' at Glasto on tele.
What a Fecking song!!!!
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He played it as his encore when I saw him live earlier this year. I was with two massive Beatles fans, it blew their fecking minds.
 
moses said:
Be more opinionated than educational I imagine. Just think it's odd to think that the Rhythm and Bluees of the 50's and 60's have less to do with Jackson than the Beatles.Their early stuff is skiffle, which everyone was doing and even Abbey Road, one of the later 'technical' albums, which I think is their best album in many ways, is loaded with blues riffs ... to me I'd really need to see arguments for as opposed to against. For me it's black american music that gave the Beatles and the Stones their sound, where the Beatles gave it modernity and handed it back I don't see.

They invented modern music with Sgt Peppers is an argument I may have herad before but Pet Sounds is almost out at the same time and although uses less tricks is a better 'studio' album. I hate the songs so for me Peppers is better, but not the amazing album it's lauded as.

Having an open mind, a tech savvy producer and someone else inventing the machines had as much to do with the Beatles as thier genius?

How's that for openers? ... might be a bit vague but as I say don't really know the argument 'for'.
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What the feck does race have to do with this? So I guess country and gospel had nothing to do with modern pop music then eh?
 
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