'How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'N' Roll' by Elijah Wald (book review)

LA Times ^ | June 11, 2009 | Erik Himmelsbach

[a fool in paradise]

"This history of American popular music culminates with the splintering of music culture by the Fab Four."

...Critiquing critics

"It is often said that history is written by the victors, but in the case of pop music, that is rarely true," Wald writes. "The victors tend to be out dancing, while the historians sit at their desks, assiduously chronicling music they cannot hear on mainstream radio." It's a valid conceit, yet it's hardly revolutionary. In fact, it was much more clearly articulated 30 years ago, when the sage philosopher David Lee Roth noted: "Rock critics like Elvis Costello because rock critics look like Elvis Costello." Besides, Roth probably had no quarrel with the Beatles. Unfortunately, the title of Wald's book is a thousand-pound gorilla hovering over every page of this "alternative" history of popular music.

The author of books on bluesman Robert Johnson and folkie Dave Van Ronk, Wald takes a mostly reasonable, if contrarian, approach to the nation's musical past. He highlights the push and pull, the market forces and popular trends and not-so-popular technological breakthroughs that forced pop music's evolution. Because the mythology of the rock era tends to suffocate all that came before it, Wald's backroads journey has real moments of enlightenment.

Can you dance to it?

Starting with ragtime, Wald recounts a nascent industry that was built around sheet music sales at a time when a piano was a common instrument in many homes. Eventually, ragtime gave way to jazz, swing and pop, along with advancements such as radio, records and jukeboxes, which musicians and the music business fought every step of the way (a reactionary behavior that still exists, given the music industry's reluctance now to embrace the digital marketplace)...

[goat granny]

If you were a teen in the 50's, Elvis was the first white man to do R & B and made it more than just black music...He was the revolution...

I never liked rock and roll, was strictly into R & B. There was a R & B radio station in Detroit and that was all I ever listen to.. 100% black music...

[allmendream]

Can I be your nephew?

Would be quite happy with ten cases of Blues CD’s!!!

[TheOldLady]

I was born in December 1946 and didn’t really get into music of my own until about 1960. I still have some of those old vinyls and singles kicking around here somewhere. I liked it all, and even though my mom loved Elvis, I liked him too, even if I didn’t really “get it.” I’m so weird that I like C&W too. If it’s music, I like it.

Some things that say they are I don’t consider music these days, but that’s another discussion.

[Peter W. Kessler]

That about sums up my belief, as well.

[TheOldLady]

Ha ha ha ha ha! You’ll have to wait until he collects it all, but that won’t take long at the rate he’s going. And then you’ll have to vulture him until he dies. Then you have to fight off the nieces and nephews. Be warned, I robbed the cradle, and he’s a young whipper snapper of only 58 years.

[cotton1706]

You’d probably like it. It covers music from the ragtime era through the Beatles. I love the Beatles too, but I’m also an early jazz fan so I loved reading the stories which I hadn’t read before. And the book also goes into detail into why the ‘50s had sounds coming from all different directions, with so many musical experiments going on at once.

[wbill]

Beatles. Overrated. FlameRetardantAsbestosSuit.

[PzLdr]

Bob Dylan and “relevance” destroyed Rock ‘n Roll. Rock ‘n Roll is about three things: Getting a girl, getting a car, and getting the girl in the car. All under 3:30.

Two greatest rock songs [noot necessarily within the3 min. 30 sec.parameter]: “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” [Meatloaf], and “Get Out of My Dream [Get Into My Car]” by Billy Ocean.

[Tublecane]

You know, Beatles music may be abstract and “intellectual” at times, but at others, it’s as mindless as anything. You can dance to it. Not to “Yesterday,” so much. But what, was “Yesterday” the first rock and roll ballad? Didn’t Paul Anka, Bobby Vinton, Pat Boone (as the article mentions), The Platters, a thousand Doo-Wop groups, and so on, have a million songs just as sappy?

So, too, can you dance to a whole lot of “critical darlings,” from David Bowie to Talking Heads.

[Tublecane]

“I remember someone talking about the influence that ‘the Velvet Underground’’s first album had on rock music.”

Yes, we’ve all heard “the album that launched a million bands” stuff. i’ll take that as given. Now, don’t you think Elvis, The Beatles, or any number of more popular groups started more? I do.

Then there are people like James Brown or groups like The Ramones/Sex Pistols or Black Sabbath that were influential enough to start a whole subgenre. So why all the focus on The Velvet Underground? They were a nerd’s band. A band for rock critics. Unlike The Beatles, who were a band for everyone.

[Tublecane]

” In my opinion, anyone who likes the Beatles more that the Rolling Stones likes Pop better than Rock”

As if there’s something wrong with that.

[LRS]

It would have been a much more dismal time if not for the wonderful music by so many great bands.

As another one who grew up in that era, the thing I give the most credit to the Beatles, is that they opened the door for the British Invasion, which gave us so much great music from both sides of the Atlantic.

However, I never listen to either their music or the Rolling Stones any more. But I still listen to my personal favorite, the Kinks. Lately, I have been revisiting their early pre Face To Face stuff, and I am still enjoying some their own compositions from the early days. They are like listening to all the other Brit. groups combined...

[Tublecane]

“Beatles. Overrated. FlameRetardantAsbestosSuit.”

If anybody’s overrated, I guess it’s them. Or Elvis. Or Sinatra.

But they’re still great, in an objective sense. Hard to compile a songbook that lagre and that popular in just 6 years.

[allmendream]

Absolutely I consider the Beatles FAR more influential than the Velvet Underground!

It is just I have a greater appreciation for the influence/direction/effect that the Velvet Underground (and especially the Rolling Stones) had on music than that of the Beatles.

Nothing against the Beatles, grew up listening to them and love them. Saw Paul McCartney in concert at the SuperDome around 1992.

[a fool in paradise]

David Bowie + Stevie Ray Vaughn = Let's Dance.

And Pat Boone wasn't rock and roll. Neither was Bobby Vinton. Nor Paul Anka.

Just because the labels TOLD us that Tony Bennett was rock and roll didn't make it so.

Doo Wop wasn't rock and roll either although it's strongest market share was contemporary to rock and roll's first radio success and the two sounds co-existed well.

They try to claim that rap is the new rock. But it doesn't make it so.

The Beatles began as rockers. And then had to tone down the sound and their image to be marketable among the suits.

They weren't known for Motown covers before George Martin got a hold on their career (and that was an improvement over being made to cover things like Sweet Georgia Brown and My Bonnie and Besame Mucho).

By the time they were able to record more than their initial club "hit" songs (songs they wrote and performed live before the record deal), they'd started moving onward to more mature songs that had more poetic lyrics and softer accoustic guitar oriented sounds. "And I Love Her", "Norweigian Wood", etc. Then again, they faced opposition from the music labels from the get go. The first Lennon-Harrison original (released on MGM) was an instrumental (Cry For A Shadow) but they were told that "the guitar group sound is OUT".

George Martin didn't care much for their originals but he saw them as something marketable, they each had a distinctinve look and personality. While he may not initially have had much love or respect for rock and roll, I think that he did come to have an understanding of it with the Beatles and helped shape their albums in a positive way.

But then rock and roll was never supposed to be something you played your whole life.

While the originators (late 1940s, early 1950s) played it for adults in booze fueled bars, dives, and roadhouses, it got co-opted early on.

By the time the Brill Building got involved, the tin pan alley cats were WRITING songs for "the new sound" but they aren't as genuine. They were HITS and pleasant memorable songs, but they were an imitation every bit as we are told the Monkees hits were. And that goes for all of the songs of Leiber and Stohler.

I listen to the Beatles. I think they are among the best songwriting team. I also think that the Rolling Stones are more of a rock and roll band than the Beatles shifted into.

Sgt. Pepper isn't a rock and roll album, much.

But then everyone wants to call EVERYTHING rock and roll because rock is established as "cool" and "youth music" and "Americana".

[a fool in paradise]

Elvis wasn't the first rock and roller or even the first white rock and roller and his 50s records aren't even the best of the era. But he was the lighting rod that helped the sound become established.

Nirvana wasn't the first or necessarily the best either in their genre. But again, it'd be but another esoteric subgenre of sounds if they hadn't hit the charts.

The Beatles sure helped get the industry out of the way of separating the bands from exposure. And many more people started their own bands as a result (even if the intent was NOT to sound like the Beatles).

Too often, the industry tries to dictate the sound rather than taking already blossoming movements and bringing them to the forefront.

[a fool in paradise]

And while many of the British Invasion bands were bringing American blues back to the States, the Kinks were always decidedly British in their approach (at least after they’d gotten beyond the notion of doing covers like Louie Louie and Dancing In The Streets). And again, great lyrical songwriting in Ray’s work.

[a fool in paradise]

Have you seen the documentary series “All You Need Is Love”?

It’s available through Netflix. Reviews say to skip the first disc which is just a summary of the episodes to come in the subsequent volumes (I did skip it).

Each disc tackles one or two genres of music (generally by period).

It is myopic in some parts but there are still great interviews throughout and as the Beatles would say “even when I’m wrong I’m right”. Worth watching even if you disagree with some of the statements made.

Sticker price is upwards of $70 for the set so I keep my eyes peeled for a lower cost option.

I did manage to find the 3 disc Criterion DVD set of Monterey Pop Festival used for around $20 (and no, the discs weren’t scratched). That was another $70 “wishlist” item.

[Tublecane]

“But then everyone wants to call EVERYTHING rock and roll because rock is established as ‘cool’ and ‘youth music’ and ‘Americana’.”

I call anything short and energetic with a back-beat rythm “rock ‘n’ roll” because I’m not a musicologist and am not familiar with the technical requirements.

I of course know where rock comes from—i.e. blues and country-western (but mostly blues)—but cannot rightly distinguish between various blues, r&b, rockabilly, country, and doo-wop songs of the same general era. For instance, when did doo-wop-type singers stop being doo-wop and start being rock/r&b? Are The Platters r&b or doo-wop? Are the Drifters rock, r&b or doo-wop? What is soul music? Is it r&b, jazz, doo-wop, and gospel? If so, when did it stop being all of the latter and start being the former.

Most importantly, if Pat Boone, Bobby Vinton, etc. weren’t rock and roll, what the heck were they? Pop? That’s not very important. Where did the sound come from? Jazz? Well, didn’t doo-wop and r&b come from jazz too?

I think all these labels are far more arbitrary than anyone lets on in casual conversation.

[Tublecane]

I meant to say, “Pop? That’s not very informative”