We should give a prize for the silly thread of the year....

The Beatles Overrated....wtf?

DiminutiveRocker said:

Right on. If this doesn't answer Sandino's question about what the Beatles did first, nothing will...

japanrocks said:

That's straight up bullshit. The fact was with a million screaming fans at the height of Beatlemania they couldn't hear themselves play or tell if they were off key or not. By that point it didn't even matter because the fans wouldn't shut up long enough to hear the actual songs they played anyway. Better check your facts!

This thread is funny. Just because u keep saying it does NOT make it true.
If take the Beatles completely out of the equation.....music would be 99.9% exactly the same as it is right now.

Graycap23 said:

um, yeah.. that's a completely ridiculous statement.

yeah, i know its perhaps a bit "premature" of me to agree with this thread since i don't own ANYTHING by these four bugs, I mean Beatles, but the stuff i've heard due to their inescapable ubiquity over the years has NOT compelled me. i so do not feel like i'm missing anything

dannyd5050 said:

you must be on the again

once they got to Japan - where the crowds were quiet out of respect - they could hear themselves - and they admitted they sucked (Ringo actually said it first) so they decided to become a studio act shortly after that

who needs to check their facts?

keep smokin'

japanrocks said:

Source?

japanrocks said:

well, sort of. Their concerts probably weren't great, true, but that is because they were playing to crowds that were too big for the technology.

But they had thousands of people in their fan club before releasing any records. They actually made their early reputation as a live group, and their first albums were basically just live recordings.

NDRU said:

Actually Geroge Martin has said they could play and sing rather well - and that in the early days (as with many other artists of that generation) their albums were simply recordings of performances - then they got more creative and started adding innovative audio effects to their music.

They were probably a decent sounding band in person - but someone said it above - the technology could not accomodate the venues they played during their height (i.e. Shea Stadium).

x
[Edited 7/2/09 13:08pm]

Graycap23 said:

Not true. A lot of musicians would not have even thought of recording music if it were not for the inspiration of the Beatles.

And, the pro fandom and mad respect of the Beatles is a solid mountain you can't fuck with. From Jimi Hendrix opening his first concert in London with a cover of Sgt Pepper, to Prince arranging his album in an interpretation of cinematic, chapter-like variety, to U2 copying the rooftop concert and police shutdown in the film "Let it Be"... The Beatles are a driving force. I wish we had a window to an alternate reality to illustrate this.

It's kind like discounting the Gutenberg Bible, and saying we would still have Stephen King and Harry Potter novels 90% the same today.

Just to give you another example of the BEATLES all powerful influence:

They were the force that pioneered the idea of stadium scale concerts. You cannot even argue that their existence led to the invention of this entertainment event model that is still followed today and is outlasting even the business of selling recordings in these changing times.

"The Shea Stadium concert on August 15 was record breaking and one of the most famous concert events of its era. It was the first concert to be held at a major outdoor stadium and set records for attendance and revenue generation — promoter Sid Bernstein said, "Over 55,000 people saw the Beatles at Shea Stadium. We took $304,000, the greatest gross ever in the history of show business"[1] — demonstrating that outdoor concerts on a large scale could be successful and profitable."

coolcat said:

Cool, thanks for posting this. I had never heard what the story was but I was always curious.

ufoclub said:

U guys can shout this until the cows comes home.....I'm NOT buying it.

Graycap23 said:

You'd have been one of the flat earth people back in the day!

ufoclub said:

the way you act you'd think john lenon, paul mccartney, george harrison and ringo starr were their own engineers, arrangers, record producers, business managers and promoters! you REALLY think they came up with that idea? if so please give me a source.

As for the other person, all you talked about has already been responded to in my previous posts. Honestly guys it shouldn't be this hard for the greatest rock band ever to validate itself. All i want is a simple explanatin of how they changed compositions or instrument playing in western music. Surely if the beatles are the greatest band in history, it should be an easy task to come up with?

ufoclub said:

lol.....I just don't buy into the hype.

Sandino said:

Here as in in depth analysis of just their early work (before they made truly interesting music)
http://www.icce.rug.nl/~s...ords.shtml

"In early performances the Beatles included popular songs from the 40s and 50s. They played rock-n- roll and R&B-based pop songs while they gradually worked on developing a style of their own. Their mixture of rock-n-roll, skiffle, blues, country, soul, and a simplified version of 1930s jazz resulted in several multi-genre and cross-style sounding songs. They admitted their interest in the music of Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Little Richard and other entertainers of the 40s, 50s and early 60s. Beatles' distinctive vocals were sometimes reminiscent of the Everly Brothers' tight harmonies. By 1965 their style absorbed ethnic music influences from India and other Oriental cultures, and later expanded into psychedelic experiments and classical-sounding compositions. Their creative search covered a range of styles from jazz and rock to a cosmopolitan cross-cultural and cross-genre compositions.

They played a wide variety of musical instruments. Initially the Beatles were a guitars and drums band. In the course of their career every member became a multi-instrumentalist. George Harrison played the lead guitar and also introduced such exotic instruments as ukulele, Indian sitars, flutes, tabla, darbouka, and tampur drums. John Lennon played a variety of guitars, keyboards, harmonicas and horns. Paul McCartney played bass guitar, acoustic and electric guitars, piano and keyboards, as well as over 40 other musical instruments. The Beatles were the first popular band that used a classical touch of strings and keyboard instruments; their producer George Martin scored Baroque orchestrations in several songs, such as Yesterday, Eleanor Rigby, In My Life, and a full orchestra in Sgt. Pepper.
Beatles created over 240 songs, they recorded many singles and albums, made films and TV shows. Thousands of memorable pictures popularized their image. In their evolution from beginners to the leaders of entertainment, they learned from many world cultures, absorbed from various styles, and created their own. Their cross-style compositions covered a range of influences from English folk ballads to Indian raga; absorbing from Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Elvis Presley, Everly Brothers, Little Richard, and others. The songwriting and performing talents of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, fused in the Beatles' music. Lennon and McCartney initiated changes in music publishing industry by breaking the Tin Pan Alley monopoly of songwriting. "

AND somethng I didn't even think about:

" Early fans of the Beatles listened to their first albums on (perhaps now forgotten) record players. Few children (early Beatle consumers) had a hi-fi in their home. These were more than likely prohibited from corrupting Dad's console with such "rubbish". The monophonic record player was a small inexpensive unit that could be used behind closed bedroom doors. The sound they produced was somewhat like that of a radio tuned in the AM band during a lightning storm. This was okay then. The high pitched words and harmonies of the Beatles came through. The musical sounds that needed to be reproduced were very simple. As the Beatles music progressed, with the addition of orchestration and sound effects, the record player became more and more unsatisfactory. Today the record player is still sold as a toy for pre-school children. Other children and adults now have access to stereos. Cheap boom-boxes can reproduce sound better today than dad's hi-fi console of yesteryear. This change in technology did not happen merely because the years went by. The technology was created to keep up with challenges the Beatles continually issued with each musical innovation they introduced or inspired others to produce.

Another example of the Beatles' impact on recording technology can be seen in todays digital MIDI and electronic sound effect components. It is startling to consider that when the Beatles disbanded in 1969, the MOOG synthesizer was the most advanced of such items. The Beatles used one themselves on the Abbey Road album. Today it is a relic. With few exceptions, most other artist's experiments with the MOOG resulted in tacky sounds at best, headache material at worst. All the other effects you hear in Beatles music were created using backward tapes, distortion, filters, and unfamiliar musical instruments.

Most of their music was recorded using four track recorders. Multi tracking was accomplished by overlaying new tracks onto existing tracks. The successful result of their pioneering (and those who challenged by these pioneered further development) created the multi-track recording studio, fuzz box, delay unit, drum machine, etc. that are in use today. Really a matter of economics - expensive studio time to pioneer effects, compared to black boxes that can instantly do similar functions. Studio time to layer two tracks of sound over another two tracks of sound, compared to 64 channels of independent sound control that can be added to, subtracted from, and combined in millions of combinations. The desire to multi-track, create unique sounds, and experiment with new instruments was spawned by the creativity of the Beatles work. The audience for these artistic endeavors was also created (perhaps trained) by them. "
[Edited 7/3/09 9:41am]

I love this:

"in late 1965 when the Beatles released their Rubber Soul album (original name The Magic Circle). For the first time in rock album history the artist's name was absent from the cover. In a way this symbolized the removal of the "old" Beatles, protrayed on the Sgt. Pepper's album as wax dummies. They would no longer tour. The studio was the only outlet capable of serving their higher-than-tech musical ideas. Emulators would need to adapt accordingly. "

more here:

http://www.dread.net/~fin...uence.html

Sandino said:

If you don't like The Beatles' music, that's fine. But if you really need mounds of evidence to prove that they were hugely influential in the rock genre and in pop culture, that is just ridiculous You're simply out of touch.

No, not overrated (remember that's in the ear of the listener, and a matter of choice). i believe they broke up too early (and after such a short lifespan too). would've been interesting to hear the Beatles go beyond 1970 that's for sure.

DiminutiveRocker said:

That's exactly right. I'm sorry, but anybody with a rudimentary knowledge of the history of pop/rock music should be aware of the Beatles' influence and huge importance, whether they personally enjoy their music or not.

There's always YouTube but I don't think no one in the risk of their computer crashing will do it for ya, you're on your own.

Ridiculous thread.

how come the naysayers aren't commenting on this:

http://www.icce.rug.nl/~s...ords.shtml

or this:


http://www.dread.net/~fin...uence.html

Dang this thread is still going strong. Oh and my answer is Heck Naw!!! Explanations already given...

TyphoonTip said:

I agree.The Beatles' legacy and amazing success speaks for itself.A thread like this is totally unnecessary.

People are allowed to think The Beatles are overrated, you know.

Moonbeam said:

Yeah that was the point of the thread.

Like I said, if people wanna find out if they're underrated, overrated or rated just right, google them on YouTube and enjoy.

My favorite Beatles song:

Don't Let Me Down