Zappa was indeed “creative”...but some say so called “modern art” is as well....a talented musician, and his music was fun..but the subject was “over-rated” and Zappa barely makes any charts at all pro or con because he was simply different for the sake of it.
Snobs driven by jealousy will often dismiss those whe are successful..But without exception EVERY professional musican I know LOVES the Beatles....
They all borrow from those that went before and from each other...Crap, Zepplin outright STOLE from Moby Grape and blues artists....Dylan stole...the Stones stole...But I would not suggest that all of these have not been creative.
My hundreds of CD’s and old LPs run the gambit as yours no doubt do...from Western Swing, Big Band, Classical, etc., etc...just NO RAP and NO Opera...sorry the first mentioned is not music and the latter just doesn’t stick to my ribs at all....
Actually Zappa makes a lot of lists for his influence. Because he wasn’t just different for the sake of being different. He was trying whatever he could think of because he didn’t like how narrowly music was defined, he could never understand why nobody had done X before, so he did, and then next week he’d think of a new X. He was also the hardest working guy in music, yeah they always give James Brown that label, but James Brown didn’t release 62 albums in 25 years, all while maintaining a serious touring schedule and an epic groupie habit. A number of his albums fail, that’s the nature of experimentation, but the successes are always fun. And the intricacies of the music means no matter how many times you’ve listened to a particular song it’s got something else to offer you.
Most of the professionals I know don’t really care one way or the other about the Beatles, but find the press incredibly annoying. Van Morrison had a great rant a couple of years ago where he not so patiently explained to the idiot interviewer that music didn’t start with the Beatles and not every who didn’t manage to get a record contract before the Beatles was actually influenced by them. It was beautiful because he accidentally explained exactly what the problem is, it’s not the Beatles, they’re just a band, it’s the worship that’s elevated to the level of ignoring plainly obvious facts, it’s the assumptions by the unwashed that everybody MUST have been influenced by the Beatles. It’s annoying.
I never said the Beatles weren’t creative, actually the opposite, I said repeatedly that the later works were creative. What I was objecting to was one of those typically silly worship statements, the specific claim was that the Beatles were the most creative band in rock history. A claim that’s laughable. The Beatles did a lot of pop music that, if you like that sort of thing, is pretty good, but they never branched out beyond pop music really. Even when they branched out into acid rock they kept close to those pop music structures, acid pop. Creative sure, most creative ever not so much. Really if the Beatles fans could just keep their praise within the bounds of sanity, I don’t even ask for reality just not nuts, it wouldn’t be a problem.
I’ve got some rap. Some of it is actually pretty clever. Totally groove on Sir Mix A Lot, some of the other guys from the early days.