What the critics wrote about the Beatles in 1964

[Zorro]

Today, the Beatles hold an exalted place in the history of rock 'n' roll. But 50 years ago, when they first crossed the Atlantic to perform in the United States, the reaction was decidedly mixed. Here is a sampling of what the critics were saying.

Los Angeles Times
Feb. 11, 1964

With their bizarre shrubbery, the Beatles are obviously a press agent's dream combo. Not even their mothers would claim that they sing well. But the hirsute thickets they affect make them rememberable, and they project a certain kittenish charm which drives the immature, shall we say, ape.

William F. Buckley Jr.
Boston Globe
Sept. 13, 1964

An estimable critic writing for National Review, after seeing Presley writhe his way through one of Ed Sullivan's shows … suggested that future entertainers would have to wrestle with live octopuses in order to entertain a mass American audience. The Beatles don't in fact do this, but how one wishes they did! And how this one wishes the octopus would win….

The Beatles are not merely awful; I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are god awful. They are so unbelievably horribly, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music, even as the imposter popes went down in history as "anti-popes."

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-beatles-quotes-20140209,0,1146431.story

Yes, the "establishment" really hated the Beatles at that time. I remember it well.

[Scuba]

1. Was Buckley ever right about anything?

[eShirl]

3. legalization of marijuana

that's about it

[Warpy]

31. Yeah, he chartered a boat to go outside the three mile limit to try it

and pronounced the experience an innocuous one.

In any case, adults are supposed to hate the "noise" that kids listen to starting in their tweens.

I'm surprised they heard anything on the Ed Sullivan Show, the screeches from repressed tweens drowned most of it out.

[KurtNYC]

2. In part it was this kind of stuff that drove rock to new heights

THEY made it political -- one's choice of pop music. THEY set the stage for people to see rock stars as a channel for political dissent. The Buckleys of the media got more people interested than they conn'ed.

Reading this stuff you see the venom -- the bit about "their mothers wouldn't say" it's good" is classlessly below the belt, especially for Lennon who was adopted. And this was for the Buddy Holly-esque early Beatles, let alone the 'sitar playing, I am the walrus, LSD, love is all you need, grow your hair super long Beatles'.

[steve2470]

4. The conservatives have been complaining since Elvis...

Of course, they are almost always wrong. Do conservatives love Nickelback ?

Conservatives: Always On The Losing End of History ©

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

51. I hated Nickelback before I knew conservatives loved them!

[steve2470]

52. actually the more fundy conservatives probably don't like Nickelback...

The sexual themes in their music would be my best guess. Otherwise, Nickelback is pretty much classic rock and roll, which conservatives have gotten used to now after 50 years

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

53. Classic R&R, much of it I like. But Nickelback--no. And when my RW brother-in-law

was very excited for me to watch the video they made with Ted Nugent and other people I can't stand in it, it cemented my dislike for them.

Also:

Mashable notes that Nickelback, from a strictly commercial viewpoint, are actually insanely successful (breakout hit "How You Remind Me" has been spun over a billion times since 2002). But, critics have always despised their paint-by-numbers rock, and soon music listeners joined in on the hate. Mashable consulted with KnowYourMeme.com to trace the very first anti-Nickelback meme back to 2004, when they scored an unflattering entry on Urban Dictionary. From there, it snowballed. Canadian columnist James Fell thinks the Nickelback hate probably originated from a collective lightbulb moment when everyone, online and off, started to realize that the band might not be that good. "The videos, memes and articles that mock the group surfaced on the web just as critics and social commenters began to question the band's originality — a perfect recipe, given the lack of targets at the time, for a new online joke to emerge," as Mashable's Eric Larson put it.

http://www.refinery29.com/2013/09/53158/why-people-hate-nickelback

But hey, fundamentally, it's a matter of individual preference.

[steve2470]

54. yes I find their music very repetitive nt

[WinkyDink]

5. Feh on him!

[napkinz]

23. I wonder if he ever changed his mind.

Buckley died in 2008. I would love to know if anyone ever asked him in his later years if he still held that view.

[arthritisR_US]

28. TY!

[former9thward]

6. Early Beatles music was crap.

Only their later songs were good.

[Logical]

7. Define early. n-t

[former9thward]

10. Before 1967.

[Logical]

12. LOL, Not true. Lots of #1 songs. Successful. n-t

[deutsey]

15. I agree

You can maybe argue that many of the '64 and '65 output was just ok (with a lot of brilliant exceptions), but
'65-'66 saw a huge chunk of the transformational music they created.

[Logical]

18. Very true! n-t

[sweetloukillbot]

19. I used to be in the "post 67" camp

Then I realized that "Revolver" and "Rubber Soul" predated that cut-off, so I changed it to "post Rubber Soul". Then I noticed how good "Help" was, so my cut-off crept earlier. Now I've pretty much given up on setting a time-frame. There music was changing and evolving from the beginning...

[deutsey]

20. Nice summary

You can't really isolate their music into separate blocks. Their music is an all-encompassing evolution. You can't have the late '60s stuff without the seeds of the early '60s stuff, imo.

[sweetloukillbot]

22. Their artistic growth is nothing less than astounding

Three years separate "Twist and Shout" and "Tomorrow Never Knows".

[thucythucy]

27. And "Twist and Shout" was a kick-ass track,

along with "Money," "Long Tall Sally." Hell, even "Do You Want to Know a Secret" had some amazing chord changes.

I think most everything after "Love me Do" was exceptional, especially considering how so much of the top 10 back then was just awful. In fact, I think I can count the number of truly bad Beatles tracks on a hand and a half.

And to think they produced so much great music in only seven years...

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

49. Aside from Love Me Do, all the songs you mentioned were not written by the Beatles.

They did great cover versions, though.

As for their own compositions--I think most were fantastic from the beginning to the end.

[thucythucy]

108. "Do You Want to Know a Secret" was a Lennon-McCartney tune, but yeah,

the rest were covers, and they did do great covers. Some great stuff on the BBC Sessions: "Oh My Soul," "To Know Her is to Love Her," "Soldier of Love"--I could go on and on.

Best wishes.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

128. Yean, sorry, I missed Secret. I love the Beeb sessions. Soldier of Love

is way up there on my list!

[Adrahil]

21. WHAAA!!!!?????

Hard Days Night (1964)
Help! (1965)
Rubber Soul (1965)
Revolver (1966)

Some seriously good stuff on those. I prefer the later stuff as well, but let's avoid crazy talk!

[former9thward]

62. Different people like different things.

[Adrahil]

67. BURN THE HERETIC!!!!!! ;) NT

[former9thward]

69. I am pretty much just ash as it is.

I have been flamed more than a few times.

[A HERETIC I AM]

132. ::::Perk::::

Huh?

What the hell did I do?



Goes with the territory, I suppose.

[Tikki]

8. I will disagree, Sir…"Love Me Do"…

&feature=kp


And a few others were signs of brilliance to come….

Tikki

[former9thward]

11. Well I was a Stones fan.

Back then you couldn't be both --- at least at my high school.

[Tikki]

16. The Stones best song.."Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby(Standing in the Shadows?)

Oh yeah, and "Sympathy for the Devil."

The Rolling Stones recorded some stale stuff, also.

Tikki
Ah, but were you a Mod or a Rocker?

[TygrBright]

40. I was a "mocker." (Name that quote ref!) n/t

[Tikki]

41. Spinal Tap....

Tikki

[TygrBright]

42. Good guess, but not the one I was thinking of.

Think "Beatles-y"

helpfully,
Bright

[Tikki]

43. You are correct...it's from A Hard's Day Night

Now I remember..

Ringo

Tikki

[TygrBright]

44. Right film, wrong character.

It was Ringo's response to the question from the smarmy female interviewer "Are you a Mod? Or a Rocker?"

He thinks about it for a second, then offers: "I'm a 'mocker.'"

Still a fun film.

reminiscently,
Bright

[mimi85]

33. Well you could in my school

and my still best friend were fans of both. We didn't give a shit what the rest of the school thought. We had a good convo about 50 years ago tonight. We even took pics of the TV, don't know what happened to them, too bad. We were on the phone for so long afterwards I remember my Dad telling me to give it a rest. Of course he was uptight about the whole thing. The Stones almost gave him a cardiac! Young lust, not that we were aware of it at the time.

[delrem]

24. NO!

You couldn't have been around then or you'd know that Ed Sullivan's audience were way late for the party.

[Tikki]

29. YES...From 1962…says so on the video…I was 13.

Tikki
ps the video is clips from everything but the Sullivan show.

[edbermac]

35. Their first single Love Me Do was crap, but their 2nd single was Please Please Me.

And that was a kick-ass track, after which they went vertical until they end of their career. Even George Martin called LMD nothing but a riff.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

50. The early Beatles music was fantastic.

Almost all of their songs were at least good, many were and still are great.

[LordGlenconner]

76. I see it differently

I think their late stuff is genius, but the early stuff is not a lot different than boy bands of this era.

But of course music is highly subjective. Most people generally like the earlier stuff more I suppose.

[unblock]

59. "if i fell" is one of the greatest songs of all time.

some of their early cover songs were admittedly uninspiring, but when they did their own stuff, a huge percentage of it was awesome.

remember that most rock bands are lucky to have 2 or 3 tracks on an album that are actually good.

[former9thward]

63. The competition between the Stones and the Beatles made them both better bands.

[unblock]

73. i think lennon and mccartney had enough competition between themselves

although rivals such as the stones and the beach boys didn't hurt.

[WinkyDink]

74. And you would be how old?

[former9thward]

75. What difference does that make?

Music is music.

[malthaussen]

86. You missed a pronoun there.

What you want to say is "I think that early Beatles music was crap."

There is a difference.

-- Mal

[former9thward]

96. No, I know it was.

Maybe for you songs like "I wanna hold your hand" , which any current high school garage band would be embarrassed to sing, are God's gift to music. Not me. To each their own.

[malthaussen]

99. Indeed indeed, to each his own.

Which is why I repeat you should cultivate the pronoun.

-- Mal

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

130. Most current garage bands could not play I Want to Hold Your Hand, nor

many of the Beatles early catalog. The sophisticated chord progressions, superb vocal, intricate harmonies, and excellent musicianship in general are far beyond the powers of many, many bands. You can dislike any music, but when you start pretending it's not what is, you're just being silly.

[former9thward]

134. You are just being silly.

That song has none of that.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

135. It's OK if you can't discern and enjoy those characteristics. Many can.

On the surface "I Want To Hold Your Hand" is deceptively straightforward and regular in design. Its high-level form is a standard two-bridge model with only one verse (and no solo) intervening between the two bridges. Similarly, its phrase lengths appear for the most part to be symmetrically even, and its back-beat for long stretches sounds closer to conservative pop than rebelliously hard rock.

And yet, by the same token, just about everyone of the Beatles' early trademark tricks of the trade is to be found within it: the abrupt syncopations, non-intuitive two-part vocal harmony, falsetto screaming, an occasionally novel chord progression, even some elided phrasing. And of course, don't forget the overdubbed handclaps!

Perhaps it is just this paradoxical contrast between familiar and more daring elements that is at the heart of the song's phenomenal success.

http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/iwthyh.shtml

Before them, pop music might have had its rebellious aspect, but the Beatles opened our ears to a range of sounds both past their prime and revolutionary, unknown to our culture and, in the end, the new definition of it.

It actually started with their first American hits, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You,” in that post-JFK assassination winter of 1964. The hooks and chord progressions were original, the harmonies thrilling without striving for sweetness. Rougher voices would emerge soon enough, but only after John Lennon and Paul McCartney established that you didn’t have to sing super-pretty to be popular.

http://www.pressandguide.com/articles/2014/02/09/life/doc52f5591ecf5de142802974.txt

[Trajan]

102. Well, there's your opinion ...

Just as stinky as everyone else's ...

[former9thward]

117. My flippant comment has generated more replies than anything else I have posted here.

At least we know people have their priorities in the right place!

[Jefferson23]

9. Leonard Bernstein loved them.

Buckley, figures he would say they were god awful. They were too scary for him.

[Jefferson23]

13. All You Need Is Love

.....she loves you yea, yea yea, she loves you yea, yea, yea.

to the Fab Four

[progressoid]

14. My parents (who liked Montavani and Herb Alpert) were cool with them.

Of course they weren't really the "establishment".

[WinkyDink]

25. Well, I was only 14 and loved BOTH the gorgeous Herb Alpert and the Beatles!

[Spider Jerusalem]

17. And meanwhile what at least one serious critic was saying about them in 1963:

Their noisy items are the ones that arouse teenagers' excitement. Glutinous crooning is generally out of fashion these days, and even a song about “Misery” sounds fundamentally quite cheerful; the slow, sad song about “That [sic] Boy”, which features prominently in Beatle programmes, is expressively unusual for its lugubrious music, but harmonically it is one of their most intriguing, with its chains of pandiatonic clusters, and the sentiment is acceptable because voiced cleanly and crisply. But harmonic interest is typical of their quicker songs, too, and one gets the impression that they think simultaneously of harmony and melody, so firmly are the major tonic sevenths and ninths built into their tunes, and the flat submediant key switches, so natural is the Aeolian cadence at the end of “Not a second time” (the chord progression which ends Mahler's Song of the Earth).

Those submediant switches from C major into A flat major, and to a lesser extent mediant ones (e.g., the octave ascent in the famous “I want to hold your hand”) are a trademark of Lennon-McCartney songs - they do not figure much in other pop repertories, or in the Beatles' arrangements of borrowed material - and show signs of becoming a mannerism. The other trademark of their compositions is a firm and purposeful bass line with a musical life of its own; how Lennon and McCartney divide their creative responsibilities I have yet to discover, but it is perhaps significant that Paul is the bass guitarist of the group. It may also be significant that George Harrison's song “Don't bother me” is harmonically a good deal more primitive, though it is nicely enough presented.

I suppose it is the sheer loudness of the music that appeals to Beatle admirers (there is something to be heard even through the squeals) and many parents must have cursed the electric guitar's amplification this Christmas - how fresh and euphonious the ordinary guitars sound in the Beatles' version of “Till there was you” - but parents who are still managing to survive the decibels and, after copious repetition over several months, still deriving some musical pleasure from the overhearing, do so because there is a good deal of variety - oh, so welcome in pop music - about what they sing.

The autocratic but not by any means ungrammatical attitude to tonality (closer to, say, Peter Maxwell Davies's carols in O Magnum Mysterium than to Gershwin or Loewe or even Lionel Bart); the exhilarating and often quasi-instrumental vocal duetting, sometimes in scat or in falsetto, behind the melodic line; the melismas with altered vowels (“I saw her yesterday-ee-ay”) which have not quite become mannered, and the discreet, sometimes subtle, varieties of instrumentation - a suspicion of piano or organ, a few bars of mouth-organ obbligato, an excursion on the claves or maraccas; the translation of African Blues or American western idioms (in “Baby, it's you”, the Magyar 8/8 metre, too) into tough, sensitive Merseyside.

These are some of the qualities that make one wonder with interest what the Beatles, and particularly Lennon and McCartney, will do next, and if America will spoil them or hold on to them, and if their next record will wear as well as the others. They have brought a distinctive and exhilarating flavour into a genre of music that was in danger of ceasing to be music at all.

- The Times (London), 27 December 1963

[RoverSuswade]

36. It was the chord progressions that got me.

We were so used to either the boogie beat or the c-a minor-f-g chord style of the day. When I first heard "I Wanna Hold Your Hand' I was astounded. I went down to the record store and bought it so I could figure out that novel chord progression. Nothing like that had ever come before. Same with 'Elanor Rigby' and 'She's Leaving Home' which featured a plagal cadence at the end. Lennon was quite a genius.

[LiberalElite]

46. I have no idea what this person's talking about but I do know that

"...The autocratic but not by any means ungrammatical attitude to tonality (closer to, say, Peter Maxwell Davies's carols in O Magnum Mysterium than to Gershwin or Loewe or even Lionel Bart); the exhilarating and often quasi-instrumental vocal duetting, sometimes in scat or in falsetto, behind the melodic line; the melismas with altered vowels (“I saw her yesterday-ee-ay”) which have not quite become mannered, and the discreet, sometimes subtle, varieties of instrumentation - a suspicion of piano or organ, a few bars of mouth-organ obbligato, an excursion on the claves or maraccas; the translation of African Blues or American western idioms (in “Baby, it's you”, the Magyar 8/8 metre, too) into tough, sensitive Merseyside. "

is not a sentence.

[CanSocDem]

71. I knew it was 'something'! (eom)

[malthaussen]

88. That's some review.

Would love to know what the boys would have said about it... something piquant, we may be sure.

-- Mal

[NoGOPZone]

94. John said an Aeolian cadence sounded like the name of an exotic bird nt

[delrem]

26. William F. Buckley.

[RKP5637]

32. I use to loathe that pompous asshole. n/t

[malthaussen]

87. You mean you stopped loathing him? n/t

[RKP5637]

97. Oh, oops, nope, loathing still is on! Ohhh, he looked, acted and talked with such a

pompous attitude. I found him so revolting.

[RKP5637]

30. Yep, I recall well too the hatred from the establishment against the Beatles. Those were

some of my early WTFs.

[Adrahil]

61. Kind of funny....

My father-in-law hated the Beatles in the 60's. He called them "long-hairs" and "malcontents" and "delinquents." Now whenever he hears a Beatles song, he starts humming the tune and and remarks on how he always liked those boys.

[RKP5637]

70. LOL! Yep, people change, then look back and "Hey, I always loved them!" LOL!!!

Yep, change is good!

[Manifestor_of_Light]

34. Chet Huntley didn't run the footage of them arriving at JFK Airport

on the evening news because "It wasn't newsworthy."

Many prominent people said they were a fad, untalented, and would not last in the music world.

And they bitched CONSTANTLY about their hair, like it was a mortal sin to be a guy and not have a military buzz cut. Brian Epstein made sure they dressed in matching suits. Astrid Kirchner designed the haircut that was on the front of Meet the Beatles.

Lots of people said "They look like girls" and "They must be a bunch of f----ts with that long sissy hair."

[WillyT]

37. Hey Zorro... For You...

DULink: http://election.democraticunderground.com/10024472893

[Ron Green]

38. Another musical event from 50 years ago:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Funny_Valentine_(album)

Miles Davis' great quintet with George Coleman, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams were three nights away from their Lincoln Center concert that produced two live albums.

I mean, I get the Beatles and all that, saw them live that spring, bought "Sgt. Pepper" at the PX in Korea, grieved when John died and later for George - but the music I still listen to, learn from every time I hear it, is what Miles and other jazz artists were doing at that same time.

What the Beatles did was very fine and catchy pop music. What Miles did was for all time.

[Tom Ripley]

72. +1000

[malthaussen]

89. Eh, I enjoy them both.

I will say the Beatles strike a deeper chord in me.

-- Mal

[Ron Green]

104. They're certainly more accessible

than Miles' group. I agree the Beatles were great pop musicians. But I've kind of outgrown them, as I've grown into what Miles and other great jazz artists have created.
The "music of your youth" thing doesn't really apply if you're listening really closely, IMO.

[malthaussen]

106. Well, for one thing...

... I'm more into bebop than cool jazz, and while Miles straddles both classifications, I think it's safe to say he's more "cool" than bop.

But accessibility is also relevant in that Miles was always pretty famous for kind of an aloof attitude while the Beatles were equally famous for being Everyman. Of course, that has nothing to do with the music, but it can affect the way the musician is regarded.

As for the "music of your youth" thing, well... I cultivated a love of jazz after being a devout Top 40 listener and also digging pretty deeply into the classical wax. You could say the Top 40 came naturally and the rest I had to work at. I appreciate each genre in different ways and in different moods. I'm listening to Hamp right now, but an hour ago I was posting links to the Troggs.

The phrase "I've outgrown them" can come off as a bit elitist, or even snobbish. As if to say, that pop music stuff is okay for you kids (or shall we say, you of less sophisticated tastes), but it isn't really for grownups. I disagree. "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't." I never met a gourmet meal I didn't like, but I am equally happy with hamburger. It is an aesthetic thing, because I do believe we should cultivate our sense of beauty and multiply it, not restrict it, or even "pass on" to different stages and different phases.

And how would you classify a musician such as Rory Gallagher, whom I belatedly discovered a couple of years ago and can't get enough of? Blues, rock, virtuoso musicianship -- and he put on one hell of a show. But he was never Top 40 material. Much as with a great jazz musician, you can listen to ten versions of the same song and no two will be the same. But they will all rock you.

I think too, that there is a difference of "intent" between jazz and pop (to say nothing of other genres). While jazz is a recorded genre, its true greatness is in live performance, when the conditions and crowd and musicians all can combine to create magic. Whereas pop music, though of course it is also performed live, is really intended as a mass-market recorded product. I've always seen it as kind of the difference between theatre and cinema. And while there are certainly theatre snobs who think that the celluloid product is inferior and unsophisticated... well, different strokes for different folks. But best of all, surely, would be different strokes at different times for the same folk?

-- Mal

[Ron Green]

109. Yeah, I realize the "outgrow" phrase sounds

snobbish, and I don't want to be that way. Part of it is my own disappointment at the decline in the quality of popular music over the years: I mean, teenagers used to go out to dance to Duke Ellington's band.
"Rocking" is an important thing, and it's a fun thing, and it's what something outstanding always does to someone's world, you know? But "swinging" is so much more hip, and musical - and whatever Miles and his guys were doing is even beyond that.
The clarity of Mozart, the honesty of Hank Williams, the virtuosity of Mike Marshall - none of this is going to be talked about on general interest message boards, and although I agree that the burger and the halibut ought to both be an option, I'd like to see the fish get a wider audience.

[malthaussen]

115. I'm watching the video right now that was pointed to elsewhere...

... in the thread, and the narrator is doing a good job of explaining why the Beatles are such significant musicians. But I'm pretty sure he isn't going to mention jazz at all, which is a great pity. But jazz would not be greatly relevant in discussing the Beatles... except of course for those jazz musician herbs they smoked.

As for rocking and swinging, I think the former is more visceral and the latter more intellectual, ya know? It's that Divine Chain of Being thing coming into play. The mind is more sophisticated and of greater virtue than the body. The animal is pure instinct and feeling, the angel pure thought. But humans are stuck in the middle. And hence, should have opportunity to rock and swing.

And of course, a classical music snob would dismiss us both as having uneducated tastes.

-- Mal

[wilt the stilt]

105. I like Miles

and of course have a number of his albums along with Coltrane. Here is the difference. The Beatles summed the mood of the country and the world. I have a friend who loves classical and he grew up in the 60's like me. When i talk to him I know he missed the 60's. jazz is a wonderful medium but it didn't really capture the times. It was and is remote. They are the best musicians but they are to themselves.

[Archae]

39. When John made that remark about the Beatles and Jesus...

Conservatives went apeshit.

As is, there still are right-wing preachers yelling and screaming about the Beatles being "Satanic."

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/swanson-beatles-encourage-demonism-paved-way-satanic-pagan-orgy-grammy-awards

[Art_from_Ark]

45. Maybe that's why I never heard anything about the Beatles for a while

I don't remember hearing any of their music played on jukeboxes or radios in my little corner of the Bible Belt (or the Stones, for that matter), even though other British Invasion performers managed to get their records in the jukeboxes and on the airwaves. The only Beatles song I remember hearing in a public place when it was new was "Penny Lane" at the skating rink, although I did have the 45 record of I Wanna Hold Your Hand/I Saw Her Standing There. And our elementary school music teacher taught us Let It Be after the announcement had been made of their breakup. But that's all that I remember of the Beatles while they were together.

Well, that and The Beatles cartoon show, which I got to watch a few times when I was at my baby sitter's house

[Art_from_Ark]

47. Here is Art Buchwald's "cure" for Beatlemania:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=860&dat=19640219&id=55paAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dUsDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7081,1898131

[Cha]

48. "with their bizarre shrubbery".. lol Condesending bullshit..

rofl

"The Beatles have taken the rest of the country by storm, but they didn't fool Paul Petersen, Donna Reed's son on TV. "I can't stand them," he told me, "and I think they are helping destroy the teenagers' image. Adults keep asking me if I like them. When I say no, they ask, 'Then why does my kid pay $5 for their records?' Guess they don't know the disc jockeys are leading their little sheep astray."

jealous much? rofl

[Scootaloo]

55. Well... the Beatles just weren't that good.

Critiquing them on their hair is ludicrous of course, but in terms of their product... Yeah, not much to talk about. They broke very little new ground, their sound was drab and often repetitive and always formulaic, and there were bands both before and after who were just better all-around. The Beatles were an early group in modern rock, and that's notable I suppose, in the same way the Sex Pistols are with Punk and Nirvana with alternative. But "early" doesn't mean "excellent" and it certainly doesn't mean keystone.

The thing is that the Beatles were well-promoted. They were they were the first real "brand name" band, with advertising, packaging, and sales pitches. Since the industry then - as now - equates sales with artistic quality, you get results of music industry-affiliated media consistently ranking the Beatles as #1 artistically, because of their sales... Which fuels more sales, and you see how this goes.

I'm not saying he Beatles are bad. They're not; there are very popular musicians who are bad, like the Eagles or Nickelback, and the Beatles surely outclass them. But the Beatles just aren't that good, either. even for their time - The Rolling Stones outclassed them artistically and the Beach Boys - yes, the Beach Boys - had more collected musical talent (except for the songwriting part, I'll grant.)

Nor am i knocking you if you like the Beatles and own all their albums fresh from the day they were pressed or whatever. I certainly have no room to do so (unless you're a fan of Creed or something, fuck you guys, seriously) and your music is your stuff. I'm just saying that from an artistic standpoint, the Beatles are far from all the hyping htye continue to receive. Good, but not great - just early risers who caught a leg up thanks to heavy promotion.

[napkinz]

58. really???

posted by Dark n Stormy Knight

An excellent, in-depth analysis of The Beatles’ work by the classical composer Howard Goodall.

“Howard is an EMMY, BRIT and BAFTA award-winning composer of choral music, stage musicals, film and TV scores, and a distinguished broadcaster. In recent years he has been England’s first ever National Ambassador for Singing, the Classical Brit Composer of the Year and Classic FM’s Composer-in-Residence. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to music education.”http://www.howardgoodall.co.uk

Description from: http://coto2.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/the-beatles-howard-goodalls-20th-century-greats/

see http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024472893#post14

[Romulox]

66. Almost everything you've posted here is wrong--e.g. "first brand name band", "broke little new

ground", etc.

It's just ahistoric nonsense.

[opiate69]

112. + a Brazilian....

[NoGOPZone]

80. Your post is not ENTIRELY without merit

but you oversimplify your valid point. ANY artist who achieves recognition in popular music is going to be 'well promoted'. Without managers like Albert Grossman, Tom Parker, Peter Grant, Tommy Mottola, among others, where would those artists be?

[malthaussen]

91. You need to cultivate the pronoun, too.

Accepting your disclaimer at the end. But as the first reply to your post indicates, there are professional musicians who disagree with your artistic analysis.

But if you're just tired of the constant hype, it's understandable. How do you feel about Mozart?

-- Mal

[vicman]

56. My own moment with generational disconnect

came when my girlfriend and I went to St. Louis to see the Ramones play, but they cancelled at the last minute. So we went to Forrest Park to the Planetarium to see the Laserium show. Standing in line, some hippie kid who couldn't have been more than a few years older than me started talking to us. When he found out we were there because we couldn't see the Ramones, he said, "Oh, they can't even play their instruments. That's not music, it's just noise." I was taken aback for a moment, but I then i looked at him and replied, "That's what my dad said about The Beatles." The conversation ended.

[vicman]

57. I give up

Alice Cooper said what I was trying to say much better than I ever could.

And I laughed to myself at the men and the ladies
Who never conceived those billion dollar babies

[reformist2]

60. I never think about the Beatles, until someone brings the topic up.

[gollygee]

64. This makes me think of

(I think the Beatles' early stuff is good though.)

[MineralMan]

65. I remember seeing the Beatles in their first appearance on

The Ed Sullivan show. Watching with my parents, sister and brother. We kids were already familiar with them, of course, or their music, at least. We weren't huge fans or anything, but it was part of the music we listened to. I was home for the weekend from my freshman year at college.

Looking at that performance again, 50 years later, I have to wonder why there was the offense taken by the adults of those days. My father commented on their hair, as did many fathers, I suppose, "Those boys need a haircut." My mother said, "Well, I certainly don't understand why all those girls are screaming."

It was interesting. I asked my mother what she had thought of Frank Sinatra as a teenager. "Well, that was different. He was really popular back then." Then she thought about it for a minute and said, "Well, I see what you're saying. I suppose these Beatles are popular with kids your age now."

1964. I was still wearing a crew cut, propped up with "Butch Wax," but things were changing.

[tridim]

79. And 50 years later Beatles/shag haircuts are so common I don't even notice any more.

Even my hair is similar.

[joeglow3]

68. Bleh

As a 36 year, I never much cared for the Beatles. Everyone remembers the huge acts of their youth as THE band.

[wilt the stilt]

107. I understand you don't get it

but they changed the musical world like no other band. Elvis was good for a couple of years but he staryted to make those movies and his stuff was crap. Music had regressed to really bad crap and the Beatles came in and redefined everything. Ebery thing you hear today is because of the Beatles.

[joeglow3]

114. And everything the beetles did was because of someone else

I liked miles Davis.

[wilt the stilt]

118. and I like Miles also

and have plenty of his albums including Kind of Blue. I also really like Coltrane. Neither of them changed the music industry which the Beatles. did.There was or is a course at the University of Rochester Eastman school of Music that focuses on the music from 1964- 1971. This was the only time in the industry that the artists gained control of the medium. Miles or Coltrane never had that impact. Jazz is the best musicians however it is a niche whether you like it or not.

[malthaussen]

120. And I like Beethoven, what's your point?

Does one necessarily exclude the other?

And factually, your statement "everything the beetles[sic] did was because of someone else" is inaccurate.

-- Mal

[napkinz]

121. I like the Beetles and Beathoven!

[malthaussen]

122. They have much in common.

Both can be said to have summarized and completed in their early works what had come before them, and then blazed new trails and changed the face of the music to come.

And they were pretty good musicians, too.

-- Mal

[napkinz]

124. I was just kidding on the spelling of both names

(I'm surprised anyone still thinks it's spelled Beetles ... as the person you responded to spelled it.)

Anyway, another member, Dark n Stormy, recommended this documentary the other day and I've watched it a couple of times since. I have no grasp of music theory but this documentary was very enlightening. It's not just that they wrote great songs. It's how they CHANGED the world of music:

[malthaussen]

125. Yep, I watched that yesterday.

Interesting to hear his take on it. As he is a professional musician, his comments on technical virtuosity have weight.

I think he overstates his case a bit. He doesn't mention jazz at all, and is mostly concerned with the relationship between classical and pop. And I think he slights George Martin -- he only mentions him in passing.

But a good video. I learned things.

-- Mal

[joeglow3]

123. Beetles didn't exist in a vacuum

They were influenced by music before them. What I am saying is that doesn't by default, make those artists great. Just as people being influenced by the Beetles doesn't by default make the Beetles great.

What I am saying is that I loved artists like Pearl Jam and think they, along with Green River and all the other Seattle bands of the late 80's/early 90's transformed much of the rock music we have heard since. We all look at the music from when we were young and have a nostalgia for it. I am not saying it is wrong for you to feel the same about the music from your early life. I am just saying it doesn't make it fact.

[malthaussen]

126. Of course they were influenced by music before them.

Name me an artist who was not. Will you say Beethoven didn't transform classical music, because he first summarized what had gone before?

Suggest you watch the video mentioned in this thread to get the thoughts of a professional musician on how innovative the Beatles (please do note the spelling) really were. I can assure you that my opinion of the Beatles is grounded, not in nostalgia, but in a sense of aesthetics I've been cultivating for a good many years.

-- Mal

[tridim]

77. If that's not a big ol' DERP I don't know what is.

It takes real work to be that wrong.

[napkinz]

78. Leonard Bernstein on The Beatles, The Kinks, and rock music

[MindPilot]

81. Even James Bond piled on.

From Goldfinger:

James Bond: "My dear girl, there are some things that just aren't done, such as drinking Dom Perignon '53 above the temperature of 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That's just as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs!"

[napkinz]

82. another reason to love The Beatles ...

[thucythucy]

127. They also, when asked, refused to play South Africa

because of apartheid.

[napkinz]

131. they also were one of the first groups to speak out against the Vietnam War

August 1966 Press Conference

Q: "Would any of you care to comment on any aspect of the war in Vietnam?"

JOHN: "We don't like it."

Q: "Could you elaborate any?"

JOHN: "No. I've elaborated enough, you know. We just don't like it. We don't like war."

GEORGE: "It's, you know... It's just war is wrong, and it's obvious it's wrong. And that's all that needs to be said about it."

(applause)


http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1966.0822.beatles.html

[JHB]

83. I will never think of "Octopus' Garden" the same way again

Intentionally or not, it's a big middle finger to Buckley

[malthaussen]

92. Good catch!

I'd like to ask Ringo if it was intentional. Alas, at this point in his life, I don't think he'd remember.

-- Mal

[Bongo Prophet]

84. You know who else hated the Beatles?

...not quite Hitler, but the usual cultural element we fight today.

[napkinz]

95. then and now ... the right always DISTORTS to stir up hate

John said the Beatles were "bigger" than Jesus, not better. As he himself explained, he wasn't comparing the group to Jesus.

[malthaussen]

85. Was talking to my mother (age 89) about that yesterday.

She liked the Beatles. She thought their songs were good.

But she still wouldn't buy me a pair of Beatle boots. Said they'd ruin my feet.

-- Mal

[Enrique]

90. 50 years from now, Justin Bieber will be recognized as a genius

and we will all rue what we are saying about him now.

[malthaussen]

93. If true, I'll be glad that I'm dead. n/t

[Enrique]

98. you can still roll over in your grave

[malthaussen]

119. Nope, cremate me and toss me in a dumpster.

But while I'm hanging out in hell, Ol Nick can torture me by making me watch Bieber being given the Medal of Freedom.

-- Mal

[JHB]

100. Even the Flintstones were critics

Them Four Insects and their "bug music", from Jan. 1965

[napkinz]

103. The Mosquitos ruled!

[spanone]

101. saw the beatles live in 64. NOBODY cared what the critics said....NO BODY

we were coming out of the stiffed ass fifties....the media was never going to get it.

the energy was unbelievable....for this teenager

[hatrack]

110. Willaim F. Buckley, who took a shit once a week, whether needed or not

What a tight-assed buffoon.

[chrisa]

111. I love the Beatles. Some of their songs are horrible, imo.

Music is subjective, and I can't stand some of their songs. Others dig themselves into my brain and won't get out for hours.

[malthaussen]

116. Music is indeed subjective.

The Beatles are among a small group of musicians about whom I can say I think they never did a bad cut.

-- Mal

[Omaha Steve]

113. For the working class hero taken by a lone nut with a gun

BIRTH DATE: October 09, 1940
DEATH DATE: December 08, 1980

[Tikki]

129. I was doing really great watching the CBS Special…the 50 years.

It was grand watching all the audience rocking out. They played some awesome renditions and Paul and Ringo…YAY.

But when they showed that brief clip of the Beatles singing on the roof top and there was John as I so remembered him..
I busted out crying, the tears of anger and sorrow.. I must have been holding that anger in for a long while..because I cried off and on that night.


Tikki

[calimary]

133. I remember when Edwin Newman dissed John Lennon just after Lennon's murder.

I was working at NBC Radio at the time and heard the news feed of network features that included one particularly galling Edwin Newman commentary. He couldn't figure out what the big fuss was about John Lennon's assassination. Thought it was a nothing story, hardly worth the coverage it was getting - when it was quite literally an historic, world-class tragedy. The words "…granted, Lennon had SOME talent…"

"SOME talent"!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I was frozen in my tracks. Completely thunderstruck. All I could do was sit there at my desk and gape at the little monitor I had there. I couldn't believe what I'd just heard. I had long admired Edwin Newman as one of the great lions of broadcast journalism, along with John Chancellor, David Brinkley, Sander Vanocur, Walter Cronkite, and Mike Wallace & Morley Safer and company, and even Barbara Walters and Pauline Frederick and Cassie Mackin. At that moment, Edwin Newman dropped off my list, permanently.

And that was well AFTER the Beatles as a band had come and gone. Quite bewilderingly, they STILL weren't getting respect in some quarters.