Is it time to claim back the Beatles?

[J Patrick]

...no question The Beatles influenced pop music mightily....but their sound is also unobtainable for 99 percent of the musicians I have known....sure we can all knock out some great Beatles tunes....and inspired renditions abound...
but The Beatles sound...their sound on their recordings...nothing really like it..

....folks often point to Pet Sounds as a comparison...yeah it’s unobtanium too....but it’s so different and a singular achievement rather than a body of work...I know I know Brian Wilson wrote some great stuff but he didn’t have the other lads did he??..

....perhaps I have idolized The Beatles without fully appreciating other bands of the era...or any era...but who in such a short span went from Please Please Me to Happiness is a Warm Gun...and a crazy number of other places in between.....?

[TomB'sox]

I will not be able to match the previous posts for details, but I will just say, I think they are the greatest band of all time regardless of the reasons, right place right time and all that. I have said it many times, but you can play many a Beatles song today and they do not sound outdated, it could have been recorded today.

How many songs and bands that are 50 and 60 years away from their recordings can you say that for?

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by TomB'sox

I will not be able to match the previous posts for details, but I will just say, I think they are the greatest band of all time regardless of the reasons, right place right time and all that. I have said it many times, but you can play many a Beatles song today and they do not sound outdated, it could have been recorded today.

How many songs and bands that are 50 and 60 years away from their recordings can you say that for?

Though I agree with your assessment, I find it interesting that my older brother says exactly the opposite any time I mention The Beatles at all. His words are always the same "they sound dated".


He is a few years older than I am and when The Beatles became popular in the US in 1963, he was drawn to the Stones rather than The Beatles. I was 10 years old, and that is about the age that the early Beatles really appealed to. I never understood why all the girls were screaming about them all the time, but I do remember waiting for them to be played on the radio. Our two big Top 40 stations at the time were KRLA and KHJ in Los Angeles. The "Real Don Steele" and Casey Casum were popular DJs, and then we had XERB in Mexico with Wolfman Jack. There were many others, but those stuck out in my mind.

Tony

[H165]

But I can see the seeds of Rap Music in 'Come Together'

LOL - Those full grown plants had been around forever. Here's my all-time favorite rap, released in 1966 (three years before 'Come Together').

More relevant today than when it was released:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=girnJH7tvpM

[RP]

Originally Posted by TomB'sox

...I have said it many times, but you can play many a Beatles song today and they do not sound outdated, it could have been recorded today.

How many songs and bands that are 50 and 60 years away from their recordings can you say that for?

I'd say that is the truly amazing thing about so much of the music that I grew up with is that new generations of listeners as well as oldies like myself still enjoy this stuff...

[jpd]

Originally Posted by TJE"

Is it time to come clean and confess

I confess....they stole a lot of classical riffs too....like Blackbird!

[raysachs]

Originally Posted by TomB'sox

I have said it many times, but you can play many a Beatles song today and they do not sound outdated, it could have been recorded today.

I find that some of their later stuff, when they were more or less three and a half solo artists, actually sounds pretty timeless. There's stuff on the White Album, Abbey Road, Hey Jude, and Let It Be that you could play today and it doesn't sound out of place. But the classic stuff through Sgt. Peppers and Magical Mystery Tour sounds INCREDIBLY dated to me. Not to say it sounds bad, it's great stuff, but it sounds so overwhelming of it's time. The only exception to that is Rubber Soul, which stood out then and now as different from the rest of those albums. I almost never listen to the Beatles anymore, but when I do, it's usually that...

But it's not unique to the Beatles. All of the early Stones stuff, through Satanic Majesties Request, sounds at least as dated. But then after the Stones gave up trying to cop what the Beatles were doing, they made a series of albums so timeless that space aliens will find them in time capsules in millions of years and be amazed by them - "what is this music you speak of - ahhhh yes, rock on baby!" Of course Keef will be around to explain it to them.. Almost anything out of the Sixties (which I consider to have ended around 1968 - everything after that was just the beginning of the '70's) sounds dated now. Except the blues guys - that stuff has always been timeless...

-Ray

[KevWind]

Undoubtedly one of the most iconic and influential bands to come out of arguably one of, if not the most, influential and pivotal pop/rock music era's (the 60's)
That said::: no music modern pop/rock or other wise "owes it's existence" to any one person or group. Music, all music, is and always has been an amalgam of what has gone before, including the Beatles music ....period

[hairpuller]

All you have to do is ask just about any popular musician and they'll tell you how big an influence the Beatles were on them.

Hey, I still play "Dear Prudence", "Mother Nature's Son", "Blackbird", "Hide your Love Away", "Long, Long, Long" almost daily on the geetar! Plus, I still have my Beatles Fan Club card around here somewhere...

Everybody's Got Something to Hide, 'Cept for Me and My Monkey!

scott

[Silly Moustache]

Originally Posted by rokdog49

History says otherwise.
You’ve minimized them. Sure there were any other good bands and many more to come a short time later. So what lasting effect did Gerry and the Pacemakers make on the world of music or anything else? Who even knows or cares who Cilla Black or Freddie and the Dreamers were?
We’re talking impact here, not a bunch of bands who if it weren’t for the Beatles would never had a sniff of fame. They started it...all of it.
I get it. A lot of people didn’t think all that much of the Beatles.
A heck of a lot more did and still do. They are still the most multi-generational music act ever and by a big margin.

With respect, I am not minimised them or their music, or their impact ...on the USA.
You seem to miss my point that they were famous, because they were in the right place (as were many others), at the right time - when Brian Epstein "discovered" them, as he did with many other lasting great musical acts, and the talents of George Martin.

You may not be familiar with the many other totemic British bands and solo singers, that lasted well (and some still perform), but that is simply from your perspective - not all British acts chose to take their music to the USA. .

As I've said earlier in this thread, it seems to me that whilst the Beatles had a considerable impact in the UK (and many other countries), they had a bigger impact on would be musicians in the USA.

Maybe the USA was in a slightly different stage of popular music than was the UK at that time.

[TJE"]

The OP was a bit of silly, jokey question but the varied responses are interesting.

They were obviously hugely influenced by Rock and Roll, but looking at the timeline I think a lot of their later output appeared to come out of nowhere - like Seargant Pepper or Abbey Road - ie to have no obvious precedent - but I you could probably say the same about someone like Chuck Berry.

[boombox]

Originally Posted by TJE"

The OP was a bit of silly, jokey question but the varied responses are interesting.

They were obviously hugely influenced by Rock and Roll, but looking at the timeline I think a lot of their later output appeared to come out of nowhere - like Seargant Pepper or Abbey Road - ie to have no obvious precedent - but I you could probably say the same about someone like Chuck Berry.

I'm not sure about the "later output appeared to come out of nowhere" bit. The Who, The Kinks and Airplane were already experimenting in 1965-6, and The Pretty Things' $.s.d. in 1966 at least co-existed with the Beatles' psychedelic sound of Revolver and beyond. I've seen lots of mentions of the Stones in this thread, but The Pretties were arguably more revolutionary, always on the outside of everything and largely ploughed their own furrow. Norman Smith may have produced SF Sorrow, a rock opera pre-dating Tommy by a year, but you can't put his Beatles and Floyd influence as the main influence on that album.

However, coming from someone whose first LP purchases were The Beatles and The Monkees, I will say IMHO no band will ever top The Beatles: quite simply the greatest, most influential band ever (and that's without considering their solo output), even though I'd say that the Airplane and the Dead are more my personal favourites. It would be fun to see a similar thread in 50 years: which of today's artists could possibly lay claim to the influence those 60s bands have had on music?

[nitram]

Originally Posted by H165

LOL - Those full grown plants had been around forever. Here's my all-time favorite rap, released in 1966 (three years before 'Come Together').

More relevant today than when it was released:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=girnJH7tvpM

Could have been written last night.The guy was WAAAY ahead of the curve.

[raysachs]

Originally Posted by nitram

Could have been written last night.The guy was WAAAY ahead of the curve.

Really? I think that sounds incredibly era-specific (perhaps a more polite way of saying "dated"). I mean, it sounds fantastic (to me), but absolutely sounds like the 60's. LA and SF aren't that far apart and they weren't then either...

[RP]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

As I've said earlier in this thread, it seems to me that whilst the Beatles had a considerable impact in the UK (and many other countries), they had a bigger impact on would be musicians in the USA.

Maybe the USA was in a slightly different stage of popular music than was the UK at that time.

Your perception is going to be different from us in the States and both are valid. Most of us in the States didn't fully appreciate, if at all, Delta Blues until after it was channeled back to us by English bluesmen. I've got to wonder if it's an example of a person's talent being appreciated all over except in his home country...