Quote Originally Posted by BradH
Whether the alternatives are "exponentially greater" is a highly debatable can of worms. I would argue that they are not.
You misunderstand, not greater in quality (which is subjective anyway, I agree and I wouldn't open that can of worms ), but exponentially greater in quantity of good musicians...perhaps I didn't explain clearly - I went in reverse, so I had the luxury of listening to time's greatest bands from early 2000's back, before I ever took the Beatles seriously...and in so doing, I wasn't comparing them to just the pre-1960's stuff, or the Beatles-era peers, but to everything before, during, and after the Beatles. There's been a helluva lot of good music the last 50 years and IMHO some of what Rock evolved into is better than some of what it used to be. Not that the old stuff doesn't retain its charm.

That's probably because I put a high premium on innovation, possibly too much, and nobody, nobody, pulled ahead of the crowd in their time farther than the Beatles. There's not even a close second. But you bring up a great point about subjectively listening to music within its timeframe. It's an extremely difficult thing to do for someone coming along later. It doesn't come naturally to go back and listen to, say, older jazz and automatically understand who was really good, who were the innovators and who were the followers. In fact, by the early 70s, the Beatles were considered old-hat for the vast majority of teenagers who were wowed by Alice Cooper or Black Sabbath.
I can't argue your first statement, but you don't need to be a Beatles fan-boy to see they dominated their era...
Judging from that statement, I would say you would have to realize the bar had not been raised at all.
A little condescending...
Relatively speaking, the competition to the Beatles is much stronger if we expand the time period to include subsequent decades, rather than restrict it to the time they were active. Music became far more diverse. Simple math..there's just more good music to choose from so the Beatles get less play time at Kex mansion. That brings the average up, raises the bar...History has a great bias when it comes to music...few remember all the crap that also ran with legends of any particular era, so when someone samples the past, they're generally only sampling the survivors, the artists whose music endures.

Also, I don't believe Rock reached its peak with the Beatles and that everything since has been 2nd best to their works. In terms of the number of hits, albums and success they had, there aren't many who could compete quantitatively or qualitatively.

No. I listen to classical music and, in fact, that's exactly my situation with Beethoven. I recognize and acknowledge the impact but I don't understand it because I don't understand his music.

See the difference? It's not just a matter of semantics
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No, I'm sorry, I don't see what your point in all this is other than to dictate to me what comments I can make.
You started this by ordering that I "stop with this "I appreciate how significant they were" crap."
I am afraid you continued by invoking some requirement to understand their music at some arbitrary level before having any moral authority to comment on their contribution to music..."If you don't understand how good they were as just four guys with musical instruments then you won't really understand why they were influential." That's BS. I'll appreciate what I wish, for whatever reason I choose. I don't believe I have to understand why they were influential to know that they were in order to give them that respect, even if I do understand why they were influential.

For the record, again, I have stated I like them somewhat, enough to pay for their music and continue to spin it on occassion. I've stated "but I like other bands more.."
The disconnect is that you have implied I don't understand their impact on music...guess I'm just not fit to join the club. Why can't I like the Beatles, like other bands more, and understand why they were influential? And how much I have to like the Beatles before I can understand why they were influential...Do they have to be in my top 10 favorite bands of all time? My top 5? What's your benchmark here so I know what I have to do to reach the appropriate level of musical enlightenment?

Half the problem is realizing that something is great, in part, because it simply didn't exist before it existed.
Hells Yeah! And this is a big reason I can respect what they did...though I may prefer other musicians, I recognize they were pioneers and that rock as I know it today wouldn't have evolved into what it is without them.

It's tough to get the full artistic and emotional impact of something when it was new by looking backwards through history and comparing it to a newer guitarist who used more distortion or a newer drummer who played faster or whatever. I see people do that all the time and they miss the point.
On this we can agree...in an unfair way, it becomes "less original" when you hear their art in the works of other musicians first, even if chronologically they were the original. Actually, that was my point.
The thing is, Beethoven doesn't have a ton of cultural baggage surrounding his legacy and the Beatles do, so I'm always disappointed and a little suspicious when people feel they have to acknowledge the legacy even though they don't like the music.
You're probably right here, but to this guy the image and cultural stuff is completely a non-factor. I don't put much value on that stuff for current music, well I suppose on some level we all do subconsciously, but I can only evaluate the music because I don't have the luxury of living through the times to use the culture to put the music into perspective. Which furthers my point - without the context of the culture of the day, it's harder for me to like them...but there's lots of other music from decades ago that I don't need cultural context in order to get in to.