Beatles-Yes or No

[Bernd]

Hi Guys,

Have been pondering for a while to set this question. And the moment is now I fear, as my system has just been served with a court order to prevent it to sent rude e-mails to the surviving members of the Beatles.

Seriously, they drive me crazy. My wife loves them and I know I am in the minority, but I am sure there must be somebody else who does not digs them at all.
I am not talking about their historical impact, no doubt about that, just that their musical output to me is just pap.
And for some strange reason if you like music you "have to" like the Beatles. If you don't it's almost sacrelige and uncomprehensable to the Beatles fans. And you get glazed over looks of pity and shaking of heads.

So am I alone out here in the Beatles free zone?????

Peace

Bernd

[GMichael]

The Beatles are/were just OK for me. I remember them in the 60's when everyone went crazy for them. And I don't hate them. But I don't idolize them either. Plenty of fair music IMO. I pop them in from time to time but they never get played more than once in a few months.
Add the Stones, The Who and The Doors to that same list for me. They were OK, but I never saw why everyone thought they were so great.

[Bernd]

I remember the going crazy too. And can even understand that. It's just that the almost worship like behaviour, to my mind for just ok stuff, leaves me puzzled.
You see I like the Doors and the Stones, but the fab four........

Peace

Bernd

[Duds]

I can't stand them, and just dont understand the hype.

and you are right, for some reason if you don't like the Beatles, its assumed you dont know jack poop about music.

[Bernd]

I can't stand them, and just dont understand the hype.

and you are right, for some reason if you don't like the Beatles, its assumed you dont know jack poop about music.

Sit down next to me brother.

Peace

Bernd

[GMichael]

I think that some of it has to do with the "love song" theme that attracts so many women to it.

[Resident Loser]

Hi Guys,

Have been pondering for a while to set this question. And the moment is now I fear, as my system has just been served with a court order to prevent it to sent rude e-mails to the surviving members of the Beatles.

Seriously, they drive me crazy. My wife loves them and I know I am in the minority, but I am sure there must be somebody else who does not digs them at all.
I am not talking about their historical impact, no doubt about that, just that their musical output to me is just pap.
And for some strange reason if you like music you "have to" like the Beatles. If you don't it's almost sacrilige and uncomprehensable to the Beatles fans. And you get glazed over looks of pity and shaking of heads.

So am I alone out here in the Beatles free zone?????

Peace

Bernd

...the Stones better...and the Spoonful, and Dylan, and the Byrds, and Canned Heat...HOWEVER...I really came to appreciate the Fab Four much, much later...My first album of theirs was Sgt. Peppers and it was sorta' like required reading, bein' in a band and all, and while it was interesting, I liked the white album better...

Even later came Revolver and Rubber Soul both of which I found to be really good on various levels...I'd heard their contents previously but purchased them late 70s, early 80s???...In fact I recently purchased the Revolver CD at a local Target Store (on sale, of course)...a lost touchstone of my youth? Maybe, but I drop it in my GPX portable CDP ($7USD after rebate) and listen through my $5USD Wal-Mart provided Koss 'phones...I like it through 'phones...absolutely no current production values i.e depth or soundstage, whatsoever...just instruments and voices every which way...double-tracked vocals and various studio trickery...

Anywho, as a musician, I now realize it's really quite difficult to do what they did, regardless of any lack of deep artistic merit or social significance...Is it pap? Well, to some, so is Mozart I guess. I think it was Stravinsky who said Vivaldi wrote the same piece 400 times...everybody's a critic...It ain't really rock, it ain't really pop, it's just The Beatles...

jimHJJ(...and I guess that's good enough...)

[SlumpBuster]

Nope, never got the Beatles. Don't like them and find much of their music grating and annoying. Elenor Rigby, Yellow Submarine and similar rot hurts my ears. I can tolerate 1965 Beatles, i.e. 2 1/2 minute pop jems. But once they grew their hair long and started hang-out with homely chicks with floppy yits... what the hell was that all about? Although Yoko Ono gives great interview. I heard her on Fresh Air last year and it was really interesting.

Now the solo Beatles? Well that is another matter all together, at least when it comes to George and Ringo. "What is Life" is in my top 20 favorite songs of all time, I had loved that song for years as a kid and never knew it was George until college. Ringo Starr's "No-No Song" is similarly great fun, for example. And, the Concert for Bangledesh... wow, that just puts George in a league of his own. Solo McCartney and Lennon I can do without however.

[Bernd]

Hi Jim,

Trust you to put it into perspective. I get all that, it's just the "Blind Faith" display. People go and pay to enter the Cavern Club in Liverpool, and it's not even the original one. How mad is that?
And of course someones pap is someone elses enjoyment. No probs there too.
I am glad you appreciate their music. And yes give me McGuinn, Clark and Hillman any day over McCartney.
I do like the "Concert fo Bangladesh" though. Some fine tunes.
Peace

Bernd

[Resident Loser]

Hi Jim,

Trust you to put it into perspective. I get all that, it's just the "Blind Faith" display. People go and pay to enter the Cavern Club in Liverpool, and it's not even the original one. How mad is that?
And of course someones pap is someone elses enjoyment. No probs there too.
I am glad you appreciate their music. And yes give me McGuinn, Clark and Hillman any day over McCartney.
I do like the "Concert fo Bangladesh" though. Some fine tunes.
Peace

Bernd

...Sir Paul has always been Sir Paul...you can hear it from the first album to his most current release...dare I say English music hall? I mean what is Mull Of Kintyre anyway? I mean musically?

I guess it depends on your age...Most of what was youth-oriented music a priori was two and a half minutes of pablum...adult manufactured and sanitized...beach-blanket bimbo's and Frankie Avalon or Fabian or...so in reality it was simply a changing of the guard and the Beatles were these nice, neat, clean looking fellows who didn't rattle the parent's cages...The Stones were another story entirely...

Frank Sinatra, Elvis...same effect: screaming, pre-pubescent bobby-soxers or whatever...Glenn Miller and the Dorsey's et al were of my parents memories and I'd guess String Of Pearls still ellicits the same feelings now as it did in their youth...

Mine are still more like The Kingston Trio, The Beach Boys, Jan & Dean, The Supremes, The Temptations, Four Tops, Four Seasons and the others previously mentioned...even, lo and behold, classical and opera...I'd been to two opera performances (one at the old Met and one at the new) well before my first pop concert...The Beatles are there, but on the periphery...more or less cultural icons superimposed on the timeframe...yet in reality, part of the soundtrack to my youth...

jimHJJ(...whether I like it or not...)

[MasterCylinder]

Don't you guys know that anyone not worshipping the Beatles is an ignorant as$hole ???

But then again, you had to be there........I'm guessing most of you are too young.

[MindGoneHaywire]

If you don't like the Beatles, it's no skin off my nose & honestly, I don't care. I think there are things going on there that haters might not be hearing, but I'm not willing to be condescending just to get that across. If you don't like it, don't listen. No biggie.

If you do like pop and rock music, then I don't see why one wouldn't want to at least give a fair listen to try to 'get' some of what's going on. Repeated exposure via Muzak in supermarkets doesn't help. Actually listening to the records does.

If I could point to the single most prominent significant musical quality that sets their music apart, for someone for whom the songs simply don't do much of anything, it'd be McCartney's bass playing. Outside of the material itself, it's the single most interesting, innovative, and influential ingredient that's (relatively) easily discerned. But it's actually not that easy, and more likely to be taken for granted. I'm not a big headphones guy, but every time I listen to the Beatles on headphones I seem to hear something I never noticed before, and more often in the bass playing than in any other facet of the music.

There are plenty of people who don't buy into the cult, and that's fine, but there's no need to resort to insults on either side. What I will say is that having George Martin around helped these guys do something that I've only heard one person do better--Brian Wilson. They made music that wasn't all that simple, yet it sounds simple. The early, early stuff is simple enough, until you remember that the classical music critic of London's Times was going on about obscure qualities that the Beatles themselves weren't aware of that he noticed, and that was on their second album, in 1963. And there are sites that undertake a thorough and extensive theory-based analysis using the same criteria that is used to deconstruct and understand classical music. I can try and find a link if anyone actually wants to see this.

I would bring up the point that the early Beach Boys hits are catchy, hooky pop songs that sound awesomely simple, but are anything but. Try to bear that in mind if you give some of this stuff a listen; forget about the hits and how often you've had to hear them, give a record like the White Album a good listen on headphones, concentrate on the bass playing, and then come back & see if you feel the same way.

If it's a matter of them not rocking enough, get a hold of Live At The BBC, or the British edition of an album called Rarities (side 2, specifically), then tell me they didn't rock harder than anyone up to that time. Between the Little Richard covers, B-sides like She's A Woman and I'm Down, Taxman, or Harrison's lead work, especially around the time of Beatles For Sale and Help!, that's just not a reasonable conclusion.

[ForeverAutumn]

I'm staying out of this discussion because I've never owned a Beatles album in my life and all I know of them are the same old songs that get played over and over and over and over and over again. I know that this is not enough knowledge on which to form my opinion.

I do have a question for MGH and MC however (and anyone else who cares to answer)... If I were going to buy a couple of Beatles CDs, should I buy remasters or original recordings. The original recordings are a lot cheaper as the remasters appear only to be available as box sets. Which of their albums are the "must haves"? Thanks.

[3-LockBox]

I can certainly see how one would tire of the Beatles, considering how influencial they were, both musically and culturally. There was a time when you couldn't escape them. And maybe its easy to 'not get the hype', but when you compared what the Beatles were doing back in the '60s to what others in pop were doing at that time, it really wasn't hype.

Now you wanna talk bewildering hype, lets go with the Beach Boys. Sure Wilson was a musical genius, when he wasn't barking at shadows. Or we could talk Byrds and Animals too. Of course there's no denying their influence as well, but sometimes its just a question of being able to listen to an act or not. I have a hard time sitting through an entire album by any of the acts I mentioned in this paragraph.

I listen to the Beatles all the time though.

[MindGoneHaywire]

If, as you say, Wilson was a musical genius, then why is the hype bewildering?

[3-LockBox]

I do have a question for MGH and MC however (and anyone else who cares to answer)... If I were going to buy a couple of Beatles CDs, should I buy remasters or original recordings. The original recordings are a lot cheaper as the remasters appear only to be available as box sets. Which of their albums are the "must haves"? Thanks.

Depends on how involved you want to get. You just start with the last album and work backward, or you could start at the beginning, though I do not care for the "Yeah, yeah, yeah" stuff. I'd start with Rubber Soul. A 'must have'? I think my all-time favorite Beatles album is still, The White Album, their most ecclectic. All of my CDs are first issue, but I was always pretty pleased with the quality of their albums anyway. They seemed to make the transition to CD a lot better than a lot of '60s pop acts. I haven't heard the remasters, didn't know there were any...and I'm not going to buy them.

[MasterCylinder]

wow - Autumn.

"Must haves" ?

That is a tough one.


Early stuff -- Meet the Beatles

Later stuff -- Anything between Rubber Soul and Abbey Road (with one possible exception being Magical Mystery Tour, in addition, Let it Be was not in the true line-up, but a compilation later released).

My two favs -- Revolver and Abbey Road.

[Resident Loser]

...MGH and me in agreement...let's get TtT over here and split a Musketeers bar...

McCartney's bass playing...you betcha'...He was voted, in at least one of the Playboy readers music poll as best bassist...OK, OK not a biggie, but as suggested, listen to his playing...preferably through 'phones...The sound of his Hofner is really nice...

Same with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys...sounds simplistic until you rerally listen...Same day I bought the Revolver CD at Target, I picked up the BBs Sounds Of Summer...With Waldo 'phones and my cheapo CDP and even though many of the cuts are mono, you can hear t'aint so simple...

jimHJJ(...do a BB search at youtube...look for Their Hearts Were full Of Spring...be patient, wait for the performance...)

P.S. A link:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FsBo5j6ip...brian%20wilson

[3-LockBox]

If, as you say, Wilson was a musical genius, then why is the hype bewildering?

note the 'Wilson barking at shadows' comment. And maybe the hype I'm referring to isn't so much the '60s period (when they last mattered), but from the early '70s on. This band has definately rested on its laurels for three decades now, and is still carried by the successes of 40 years ago, and their musical output since the early '70s has been forgettable, if not terrible.

My point was that anyone can pick apart any 40 year old act. Hype? Blame the media, not the people who liked the music. I say I love The Beatles but honestly, I haven't listened to an album of theirs in some time. Or the Beach Boys. OTOH - I can live without hearing anything by The Animals, ever again.

[Resident Loser]

I'm staying out of this discussion because I've never owned a Beatles album in my life and all I know of them are the same old songs that get played over and over and over and over and over again. I know that this is not enough knowledge on which to form my opinion.

I do have a question for MGH and MC however (and anyone else who cares to answer)... If I were going to buy a couple of Beatles CDs, should I buy remasters or original recordings. The original recordings are a lot cheaper as the remasters appear only to be available as box sets. Which of their albums are the "must haves"? Thanks.

...Revolver and Rubber Soul definitely...with the white album you get the sense of who did what, even though the writers were Lennon/McCartney, I think it's a precursor to their solo careers...Abbey Road, fourth in my book...

I'd go for the cheaper ones...as I've said before, they really have no production values insofar as soundstage etc. Target may still have Revolver on sale...

jimHJJ(...you may be pleasantly surprised...)

[MindGoneHaywire]

That doesn't make sense, since mental illness and/or substance abuse adds mystique to perception of an artist (think Keith Richards, Jackson Pollock, Kurt Cobain, Syd Barrett, Hunter S. Thompson, Chet Baker, Bukowski, etc). If anything, that should be the least bewildering aspect of it.

[Resident Loser]

note the 'Wilson barking at shadows' comment.

...ever hear Pet Sounds?...

jimHJJ(...woof, woof...)

[audiobill]

Which of their albums are the "must haves"? Thanks.

I'd start with the following in chrono order:

Meet the Beatles
Rubber Soul
Revolver
Sgnt Pepper's...
The White Album (my all-time fave of theirs)
Abbey Road
and Let It Be

FA -- buy them all -- if any band deserves it they do -- don't think twice -- just go into the store and buy all of the ones on the list above.

Enjoy & let us know what you decide

audiobill

PS., I have the first gen CDs and they sound quite good to these ears

[Resident Loser]

...there ya' go Bernd...threads been jacked by the proselytizers...

Can't swing a dead cat without hittin' a Beatle buff...

jimHJJ(...it's bigger than you feared...)

[3-LockBox]

...ever hear Pet Sounds?...

jimHJJ(...woof, woof...)

Yes. I own it. Wilson had a great ear for melodies and arrangements and was a pioneer in the studio, 40 years ago. In fact I have owned both the first run and the latest re-issue. But as much as I understand Wilson's achievements as a producer, I have a hard time listening to the '60s stuff because of the over use of a certain instrument (which someone told me what it was a while back, but I forgot) that makes some sort of hooting or honking sound that drives me nuckin futs. Wilson's lyrical content is very hit and miss with me as well. Its a love hate thing I have with the BBs.

I like the late '60s output more...I think Feel Flow is the greatest pop performance of all time, musically and production wise. I listen to that song all the time.