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The Beatles are fucking shit

Started by syntaxerror, February 22, 2014, 06:53:39 PM

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checkoutgirl

Quote from: NoSleep on February 23, 2014, 05:11:12 PM
Stockhausen, Music Concrete etc. Always one step behind.

Give me some more, come on.

Wow, you're coming off like a right twat. Maybe the argument is over the use of the word 'innovate'. Can we at least say the Beatles were artistically ambitious and did some interesting stuff in the studio? No?

Oh well.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Petey Pate on February 23, 2014, 05:59:06 PM
Most of those have nothing to do with their actual music, which is what was being discussed.  No one denies that they were innovators, just that those innovations were in areas related to how music was presented and packaged rather than the music itself.

Whether they were the best at employing the studio techniques mentioned is obviously a matter of opinion.  Real history isn't as subjective.

Yes, the music in a Hard Days Night is shit isn't it? Had nothing to do with its success.


And they wrote that entire album themselves, quite unusual for a boy band.

So the Beatles might not have been the first band to use a mellotron on a record, but they took it and went and wrote fucking Strawberry Fields Forever on it. That's why they were so good.

And I suspect that's the reason why they get credited with so much stuff because even if they didn't do it first, they did it better. Long after many other experimental tracks have sunk into obscurity, people still play Tomorrow Never Knows now and are inspired by it, because its a great song.

NoSleep

Quote from: biggytitbo on February 23, 2014, 06:24:41 PM

And I suspect that's the reason why they get credited with so much stuff because even if they didn't do it first, they did it better. Long after many other experimental tracks have sunk into obscurity, people still play Tomorrow Never Knows now and are inspired by it, because its a great song.

FFS, biggy; they get credited because they were well known and marketed. Time has revealed the true innovators rather than them having "sunk into obscurity". The same has been said of Picasso jumping in on every new painting movement, so they weren't even the first to do that.

biggytitbo

Tomorrow Never Knows doesn't sound like it was made yesterday because of marketing.

NoSleep

Quote from: checkoutgirl on February 23, 2014, 06:15:26 PM
Maybe the argument is over the use of the word 'innovate'.

I think I've made that clear enough.

NoSleep

Quote from: biggytitbo on February 23, 2014, 06:43:42 PM
Tomorrow Never Knows doesn't sound like it was made yesterday because of marketing.

Neither does Terry Riley's work from before TNK. But he didn't have (nor, perhaps, desired) the marketing.

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: biggytitbo on February 23, 2014, 06:43:42 PM
Tomorrow Never Knows doesn't sound like it was made yesterday because of marketing.

I'd say the marketing that has led to the unwarranted continuing lionisation of the Beatles, which in turn has led to popular music being stuck in the past, is exactly why it sounds like it was made yesterday.

madhair60

You'd have to be a right cunt to say that The Beatles were shit.  Obviously nobody actually thinks that, so... you know, it's pretend.  Good thread.

biggytitbo

Quote from: NoSleep on February 23, 2014, 06:47:46 PM
Neither does Terry Riley's work from before TNK. But he didn't have (nor, perhaps, desired) the marketing.


Bollocks. No amount of marketing would have made Terry Riley as popular or well known as the Beatles. On the same album they did tomorrow never knows is Eleanor Rigby and For No One and Here There and Everywhere, whilst they were also releasing stuff like Paperback Writer and Rain as singles. They were doing innovative popular music in lots of different genres, that more than marketing is why there still so lauded today.

NoSleep

That doesn't stop Riley's work sounding as fresh today as when it was made, which, I thought was your original point. I realise you may not have heard his music or even heard of him before by your assessment of his work, which has continued to progress in a way that none of the former Beatles work could compare. I don't think his artistic credentials come in question; he didn't play in "genres", he created them.

Regarding this "different genres" the Beatles played in; they were masters of pastiche and could afford to spend as much time to polish those pastiches, but they really aren't that versatile. It's all within a narrow set of parameters of what is allowable to make their marketable product; their late 60s output isn't even at the forefront of popular music anymore, despite appalling attempts to rewrite the history of music/crowbar their name into every assessment of popular music. For instance that Kerrang top 100  Metal albums of all time has The White Album in there (????) on account of a single track (Helter Skelter), whilst neglecting to include Hendrix's Axis: Bold As Love from a year before that includes the first fully formed metal track amongst other tracks with far more suitable credentials as a genuine game-changing album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdRT9XaPHqc&feature=player_embedded

The Beatles made some decent tunes, that's not in dispute; but it needs to be put into perspective. The problem for me is more about the claims some of their fans (a particularly rabid bunch) and the lazy music press rely on. Peculiar how heated people get when you tell them to stick to what actually happened.

pillockandtwat

I think the best thing the Beatles may have done was to appear as cardboard cut-outs in the lower section of a vertically-extended Robin Reliant in the first ten minutes of Peter Jackson's Bad Taste.

I prefer Elvis although it's Apples and Oranges, really. Different things. Never liked the Beatles that much, and sometimes loathed them. The Yellow Submarine movie haunted me as a young boy. There was something powefully melancholy about it, I thought. Terrifically sad. Saw it many times as a child and never since.

Had Elvis not tragically died on the john in a big nappy I might have despised him to much too see the actual music. This may very well have been what happened with the surviving Beatles.

biggytitbo

And what happened is they were simultaneously innovative and the most popular band at the same time, in  a way very few other acts ever achieved. And they did it all in 7 years to boot.

daf

Pro Beatle or Blue Meanie, I think we can all agree on the fact that 'Ringo's Rotogravure' is a magnificent album title. [nb]Peace & Love, Peace & Love, and no more autographs you Bastards![/nb]

NoSleep

Quote from: biggytitbo on February 23, 2014, 08:24:51 PM
And what happened is they were simultaneously innovative and the most popular band at the same time, in  a way very few other acts ever achieved. And they did it all in 7 years to boot.

Tell me about this innovation, biggy. You repeat the word but you need to specify what the innovations were. They used ideas from elsewhere (the underground clubs of London that they frequented, for example) and broadcast them to a much wider audience. That isn't innovation, it's popularisation.

But they couldn't really keep up with the competition and gave up. Nothing any of them did after was in any way innovative either, unlike, say, Miles Davis' career that saw him change the face of jazz several times over a span of four decades; that's 40 years, biggy, at the top of the creative game.

Johnny Yesno

Yeah, but Miles Davis could only do jazz. The Beatles could do loads of styles.

lazyhour

Quotein·no·vate
[in-uh-veyt]
verb (used without object), in·no·vat·ed, in·no·vat·ing.
1.
to introduce something new; make changes in anything established.

So the claim that the Beatles were innovative in their field - chart-bothering pop music - is entirely reasonable. Innovation doesn't (have to) exist in a vacuum, and incorporating pre-existing ideas into something different quite clearly counts as being 'innovative'.

As has been said a couple of times in this thread, the innovation came from introducing something new to pop songs, be it tape loops, deliberate feedback, unusual time signatures, or whatever. The music of the Beatles made changes in something established.

I think John Lennon seems like a right fucking cunt and The Fabs often annoy me - I can find their music claustrophobic, smug and strangely creepy - especially Sgt Pepper. I love loads of Macca's post-Beatles output, though, so what do I know?

Edit: As my girlfriend has just pointed out in discussing this subject, innovation is not the same thing as uniqueness.

Talulah, really!

Quote from: NoSleep on February 23, 2014, 08:46:49 PM
innovative either, unlike, say, Miles Davis'

Miles Davis? You having a giraffe?

QuoteIn 1972, Davis was introduced to the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen In 1972?! Beatles were ripping off Stockaitkenwaterhosen in the 60s mate, the 60s, not 197-bloody-2 by Paul Buckmaster, leading to a period of new creative exploration. Biographer J. K. Chambers wrote that "the effect of Davis' study of Stockhausen could not be repressed for long... Davis' own 'space music' shows Stockhausen's influence compositionally."[43] His recordings and performances during this period were described as "space music" by fans, by music critic Leonard Feather, and by Buckmaster, who described it as "a lot of mood changes—heavy, dark, intense—definitely space music."[44][45] Both Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way feature "extended" (more than 20 minutes each) compositions that were never actually "played straight through" by the musicians in the studio. Instead, Davis and producer Teo Macero selected musical motifs of various lengths from recorded extended improvisations and edited them together into a musical whole that exists only in the recorded version.Wot! Like Beatles did with Strawberry Fields Forever, years earlier. Bitches Brew made use of such electronic effects as multi-tracking, tape loops, and other editing techniques.Like Beatles did[46] Both records, especially Bitches Brew, were big sellers.Ohhh, commercial Starting with Bitches Brew, Davis's albums began to often feature cover art much more in line with psychedelic artLike Beatles did with Sgt. Pepper or black power movements than that of his earlier albums.

Space Music? Invented on 1965s Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass "Swinging on Mars" album.

biggytitbo

Quote from: NoSleep on February 23, 2014, 08:46:49 PM
Tell me about this innovation, biggy. You repeat the word but you need to specify what the innovations were. They used ideas from elsewhere (the underground clubs of London that they frequented, for example) and broadcast them to a much wider audience. That isn't innovation, it's popularisation.

But they couldn't really keep up with the competition and gave up. Nothing any of them did after was in any way innovative either, unlike, say, Miles Davis' career that saw him change the face of jazz several times over a span of four decades; that's 40 years, biggy, at the top of the creative game.

2 of them had a public feud in music across several albums for 3 years after they split up, which is pretty innovative. Plastic Ono Band is one of the most challenging albums ever released by a star as big as Lennon. McCartney went lo-fi and homespun, upsetting the critics but making his early 70s work incredibly influential decades later. McCartney was never interested in changing the world or changing the face of music after the Beatles, he just wanted to make some nice tunes that people would like, and he did, scoring numerous number 1s after 1970 and still getting number 1s 20 years after he started.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: NoSleep on February 23, 2014, 07:37:01 PM
Peculiar how heated people get when you tell them to stick to what actually happened.

Or when someone's being a complete dick.

NoSleep

Quote from: lazyhour on February 23, 2014, 08:59:18 PM

As has been said a couple of times in this thread, the innovation came from introducing something new to pop songs, be it tape loops, deliberate feedback, unusual time signatures, or whatever. The music of the Beatles made changes in something established.

I'll give you tapelooping but the feedback thing was a direct steal from somebody in their own field who didn't have access to recording at that time. That's just tough shit for The Who, really and a(nother) cunty move on John Lennon's part (like Elvis' version of Hound Dog). I think you'll find that the unusual time signature were creeping into pop music via Bacharach (who the Beatles were definitely listening to) although Sound Of Music is some pretty innovative modern pop songwriting dating back to the 50's (as John Coltrane highlighted with his version of My Favourite Things). Regarding stealing, The Beatles, and Bacharach; there was the story Dionne Warwick told on her TOTP special, about how two of the Beatles came to one of her shows and taped it for George Martin, thus being able to preempt her own (brand new) version of Anyone with Cilla (Dionne spits on the floor) Black's in the UK.

QuoteI think John Lennon seems like a right fucking cunt and The Fabs often annoy me - I can find their music claustrophobic, smug and strangely creepy - especially Sgt Pepper. I love loads of Macca's post-Beatles output, though, so what do I know?

They just seem a bit rhythmically polite and plodding for my taste. It is smug, twee and plodding; an acceptable face for British pop and the establishment.

Check out the Isley's original of Twist and Shout, where there's tons more twist and less of the awful shouting of the Beatles cover:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cTaqn8_gMR0

[/quote]

Quote from: Johnny Yesno on February 23, 2014, 08:58:11 PM
Yeah, but Miles Davis could only do jazz. The Beatles could do loads of styles.

Miles Davis was style.

biggytitbo

Dickie Davis was better than Miles Davis.

Queneau

Quote from: imitationleather on February 23, 2014, 03:46:59 AM
Those old men you get at Wetherspoons would always come up to me and talk about the record and I wouldn't have a clue what they were on about but I'd be polite and make up some stuff.

Which I'm sure they agreed with.

I honestly have never gone further than a few Beatles compilations or best ofs, so I have absolutely no idea if they ever made a good solid album. One day I may find out.

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: NoSleep on February 23, 2014, 09:22:29 PM
Miles Davis was style.

Yeah, but only one. There were four Beatles therefore four times as many styles therefore four times better. That's how it works.

Talulah, really!

Yeah but Stevie Vai plays all styles even Tijuana brass.

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: biggytitbo on February 23, 2014, 09:24:10 PM
Dickie Davis was better than Miles Davis.

Keith Lemon is better than John Lennon.

NoSleep

Quote from: biggytitbo on February 23, 2014, 09:19:35 PM
McCartney went lo-fi and homespun, upsetting the critics but making his early 70s work incredibly influential decades later.

I wonder how much advice he got from Daevid Allen (of Soft Machine; resident band at the Speakeasy, where the Beatles hung out) about setting up a home recording system, given that there had been talk of the two working together? Allen had been tapelooping onstage at the ICA in the early 60s, when he shared a bill with William Burroughs. He also created The Switch Doctor (played on Radio 3) in 1965 entirely with his own recording equipment rather than use the BBC radiophonic workshop, which I think a lot of the other contributors to the same series had opted to do.

Then there's R. Stevie Moore, Peter Hammill, Todd Rundgren, Frank Zappa; all of whom made music at home on their own gear. McCartney was not the only one, but once again, he had the publicity.

biggytitbo


NoSleep

McCartney's your Coldplay; music for people who aren't really music fans. You should get out a bit more.

Queneau

Quote from: NoSleep on February 23, 2014, 09:37:24 PM
McCartney's your Coldplay; music for people who aren't really music fans. You should get out a bit more.

Because going out is definitely the best way to enjoy music. Well, unless you go to a gig. But they are ALWAYS full of cunts.

wosl

Quote from: NoSleep on February 23, 2014, 09:32:56 PMThen there's R. Stevie Moore, Peter Hammill, Todd Rundgren, Frank Zappa; all of whom made music at home on their own gear. McCartney was not the only one, but once again, he had the publicity.

I think Rundgren's write everything/sing everything/play everything efforts have been pretty well lauded over the years (and rightly so).  I don't think you could say he's suffered unduly in the shadow of McCartney.