Beatle bashing is as old as it is mundane. Their popularity is as much
a question of collective taste as it is anything else.
Intellectual analysis of music is so boring and cold. Taste comment:
Lou Reed? Far more pretentious than his talent should allow. But that
is really my personal taste anyway(!). Grouches hate the Beatles. It
has been documented.
Even George Harrison might have agreed with much of what was written
at some point in his post Beatles career. Writers of intellectual
rigor trying to marginalize what is so obvious to millions does not
drown out fact, even if it questions it.
> On Sep 15, 5:32 pm, "RichL" wrote:
>
> > "to see or not to see" wrote in messagenews:1189895077.010233.255120@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...
> > also, david bowie, bruce springsteen, michael jackson, U2, rem, cold
> > play, cranberries, fleetwood mac, and so many one-hit wonders whose
> > one-hits are for all time.
>
> > Michael Jackson???
>
> sure. one of jackson's favorite songs of all time is 'fool on the
> hill'. beatles borrowed from soul and motown, and jackson in turn
> took many melodic elements from mccartney. it wasn't just for profit
> that jackson bought the beatles catalog.
>
> you can find mccartney influences in songs like 'rock with you',
> 'billie jean', and 'human nature'.
>
> also, keep in mind that it's wrong to pigeonhole the beatles as
> representing one method, approach, school, style, etc. what made the
> beatles great was their eclecticism. they were open to everything--
> from soul to country to pop to folk to rock n roll to classical to
> jazz, etc.
> this is what the beatles really represent. the ability and
> willingness to try everything, harmonize countless elements, and
> create something both old and new, both daring and popular. they were
> buiders of bridges. they were more about music than about attitude,
> which is what punk is all about.
>
> so, when people say that beatles are no longer relevant, we should
> ask, 'which beatles?'. there were so many. from 1962 to 1970, they
> changed so much and changed so much of pop music. they was the
> beatles of furious rock n roll, beatles of soul, beatles of folk,
> beatles of romantic ballads, beatles of psychedelia, beatles of raga
> rock, etc. and in every category, beatles took elements from others
> and made them into something uniquely theirs.
> beatles represent a certain artistic spirit than a particular form or
> style of music. they represented the willingness to be openminded and
> bold and original. they also represented feeling no shame for being
> popular. rock n roll started out as a popular art form without
> critics telling us what it was all about. the greatness of 60s rock
> was that critics were irrelevant. the great acts of the sixties were
> great because they genuinely clicked with the audience.
>
> it was with the rise of rock criticism as a trend setting ideological
> movement in the 70s that music came to matter less than attitude,
> mannerisms, and 'commitment'. i will grant that the first half of
> The Clash is genuinely great but most of the rest of their stuff is
> the most overrated crap. overrated largely due to the political stance
> of The Clash--the dull boring dreary anti-americanism.
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