Posted on 12/22/2004 11:56:06 AM PST by qam1
Greg Hassall and Charles Purcell do battle over the fab four.
FOR
OK, Ob-la-di Ob-la-da is the most annoying song ever written. And you won't find Revolution No 9 on too many iPods. But how many bands' dud tracks can you count on one hand? The Beatles deserve their place in the pop pantheon. They revolutionised the way pop music was written, recorded and talked about. They were funny, charismatic, hungry to learn and unafraid of controversy. They matured spectacularly over seven tumultuous years, then quit on a high note with the peerless Abbey Road.
They were a genuine band, in that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. The three writers spurred each other on and checked each other's excesses (McCartney's sentimentality, Lennon's bile and Harrison's cod mysticism). In one throwaway B-side, Rain, they created the template for psychedelic Britpop, a genre lesser bands spend an entire career mining. Their refusal to write the same song twice resulted in a catalogue of breathtaking diversity, while producer George Martin gave the recordings a unique, uncluttered sound that refuses to date. And, as the age of the drum solo dawned, Ringo kept it real, underpinning the Beatles' sound with undemonstrative precision.
Greg Hassall
AGAINST
Pretty much everyone in the '60s must have been on drugs - that's the only reason I can imagine why the Beatles were so popular. They had about three decent songs: Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Eleanor Rigby - and that other one, the one that doesn't suck. It's a riddle greater than the pyramids as to why a group of English fops with ridiculous hairstyles could make entire crowds of grown adults faint in awe. John Lennon? A prancing popinjay. Paul McCartney? A ponce. George Harrison? Vanity in the shape of a man. Ringo Starr?
A cool dude - the only one.
OK, so the Beatles recorded on top of a building. Big deal. OK, so they hung out with the Maharishi. Is that supposed to give their dire tunes spiritual worth?
"But they were a major influence in the history of rock'n'roll," some might bleat. Sure they were - but does that mean the baby boomers have to force their boring Beatlemania down our craws year after year, decade after decade?
I'm glad Yoko Ono helped split them up. She's the true heroine of this story. Too bad she's also a lousy artist.
And Wings. Don't get me started on McCartney's sad side project. That's another story.
- Charles Purcell
I remember an interview with Stone Temple Pilots who were all fairly successful in fields like architecture before the A&R guys showed up, they all said they'd taken a pay cut by going full time with the music. It's amazing how the entertainment guys screw over the talent.
Mojo: You ought to check Wilco out. They defy categorization. Some stuff sounds like 1970s mid-tempo rock, then they have all-out country stuff that the Stones would have been proud to record in the Let it Bleed and Goats Head Soup era, then they have stuff that is post-alternative that just goes into their own realm. Great musicianship, songwriting, etc.
I've probably listened to the album The Band over a thousand times, never tiring of it. As someone (maybe Robbie Robertson) once said, "the songs sound like they were written in 1869 rather than 1969." Timeless music.
their respect and love for the music and its history.
Yep, they loved and respected their roots. ....and they never strayed from there for an instant.
I think you are too liberal with the word "half". It is a 9-minute song and at least 7 of those are useless.
I'll check 'em out on I Tunes a little later and get back to you.
No, I didn't see any such claim by you, because it wasn't included in the original post, and when I clicked on 'View Replies' it didn't come up either.
Wilco rules and I'm a big Uncle Tupelo fan, but I can't write off Jay Farrar. I have all 3 Son Volt albums, and I think they're great albums. The Mermaid Avenue albums are excellent. Jay Bennett is a freakin bozo, but damn he is a great musician and an awesome songwriter.
My list points out that radio and charts were dominated by bands that were not rock. I would also take every pre-Wish You Were Here Pink Floyd album over the 1975-2000 albums.
When I discovered the Beatles in 1975, they stood out from the crap I was hearing (yet it was hippest at that point to snub this band that broke up a few years ago and hype their solo material instead).
Even late 70s rock is not so much rock and roll.
The term has been co-opted to mean "cool music listened to by young people" when so little of it has ANY relation to rock and roll.
I need to check out Son Volt more. I don't like Farrar's stuff on the "March 16-20 1992" Tupelo album because it sounds too preachy in a "social justice" sort of way, as though he thinks its 1933 and he's got to save the coalminers from the evil capitalists.
OOh! Sugar Shack - the worst "espresso coffee tastes .... mighty good". Ouch
Bobby Darin is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (despite the fact that he is a Sinatra-esque crooner with a couple novelty songs that young people bought). It would seem that some industry types/critics/historians don't accept him for "what he was".
True formula pop had been around. But the Beatles hit the formula that's still used today, in the world of pop music the Beatles were the screeching emergency brakes on progress and change.
The coalminers song is really awesome, but yeah I agree that the lyrics to that are too preachy. But it's a folk song!
I can't recall anything overtly political in the Son Volt records but I have to admit I wasn't looking for it.
Check 'em out... Trace, Straightaways and Wide Swing Tremolo... 3 great roots rock records.
What is time travel? John Lennon and Bobby Dylan were hanging around together around the time Dylan went electric (see Eat The Document). A song is not written the moment it goes to tape.
I won't say which (if either) is a derivative work but the opportunity is there that either could have heard the other's material in the formative stages long before the street date or public performance.
Paul McCartney dropped in on Brian Wilson during Sgt. Peppers'/SMiLE too.
posts 138 & 139, for the record.
Really...
Well, I'd never heard it before.
Great song and great cover...especially with the little vocal twist they gave to it...
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