Nobody can really deny how great they were. They changed popular music, moved the space, time continuem, they were awesome.

Every race loves them, every culture, they influenced almost everybody, including rappers.

Worship them. I tend to like their lesser songs:

Tell me Prince isn't influenced by this?

Bangin violin.

I can and will DENY it.

Hey Freaky, do you have a favourite Beatles album?

I can't decide between Revolver or The White Album anymore.

Abbey Road.

Cloudbuster said:

I can't decide between Revolver or The White Album anymore.

Mickey, I knew you'd chime in. Now I am waiting on Gunsnhalen..lol

Music for adventurous listeners

tA

Tribal Records

Love The Beatles.

My three favs are The White Album, Sgt. Peppers, and Revolver.

I do think they are a bit overrated though. Did anyone see that awful list of the 500 greatest albums of all time by Rolling Stones? Such Beatles worship.

smoothcriminal12 said:

Love The Beatles.

My three favs are The White Album, Sgt. Peppers, and Revolver.

I do think they are a bit overrated though. Did anyone see that awful list of the 500 greatest albums of all time by Rolling Stones? Such Beatles worship.

Rolling Stones got a hard on for anything 60's

A rare pop phenomenon that was able to cross into "serious art" territory.

The strength of them over other bands was having multiple songwriters, and writing so many songs they gave some away.

I don't think they singlehandedly changed music, if anything they stole a thing or two from their peers and made hits for themselves. There were just as many influences on them.

But you could go through their back catalog and find a lot to learn from, and lead you to a wide variety of styles. They threw a lot of secret chords and double entendres into their songs that flew over the heads of the censors back then.

Funny. People talk about "Beatles worship" on a forum that discusses Prince's semen.

1ststatestereo said:

Funny. People talk about "Beatles worship" on a forum that discusses Prince's semen.

It's true about the Beatles though. I'd be surprised if I heard a regular person talk about Prince's semen, but not if they were talking about The Beatles' semen.

I dig the Beatles but I do think it is important to remember that they did not exist in a vaccuum. Yes, they were hugely influential but the great thing about the '60s was that everyone pushed each other to be greater. Would the Beatles have made the great leaps they did without their peers nipping at their heels? Probably not. The Beatles pushed others to be great who in turn pushed the Beatles to try to be even greater, that is something that I believe we are missing in music today. Back then it seemed like everything was moving so fast. "Love Me Do" was released in October, 1962 and Abbey Road was released in September, 1969. When you look at the amount of musical growth that they displayed over that timespan it is mind-boggling.

There was also a lot more friendly rivalry, and people weren't so lawsuit happy if someone "borrowed" a melody or two. Beatles dealt with lawsuits at the end of their career, and after they broke up.

The Beatles did cover a fair share of Motown material, so it's a given their fans helped built the Motown empire and lined Berry's pockets. Way more cover songs on the BBC sessions... and of course Motown repaid the favor by covering Beatles songs.

It just seems that from the 1970s to now, there's less patience to support an up and coming artist. BUT the tools needed to record a song are far more accessible and affordable. The tools of social media can make anyone famous (Bieber and Gaga) or infamous (Rebecca Black). If you get your song on a movie soundtrack, that's a sign you're doing pretty well for yourself. If you get a few thousand followers from a festival appearance in front of hundreds of thousands, that's better than trying to get a music video together.

They rolled out 200 plus songs in 7 years, and had said they had another few hundred in the early days that wound up thrown out in the trash. If there was a Beatles "holy grail", those lost notebooks are it. But like I said, 3 songwriters in one band is part of why they were able to write and record so much stuff. McCartney is a natural musician like Prince, so for them to write 3 songs in a day is nothing to them. Dustin Hoffman challenged Paul to write a song out of a newspaper and came up with "Picasso's Last Words" in 15 minutes.

Lennon was a more powerful writer and played with words a lot more. Even though later on they wrote separately, if Paul was struggling with a line, John was there to figure it out. Sometimes he'd tell Paul to leave a line alone, because the words fit, even if it made no sense. John developed his music muscles off of Paul and George. George was hired because he could mimic other guitar styles at a young age.

A lot of the music in '65-66 was incredible. So much exposure to a wide variety of genres. Rock and roll stopped being a fad and became a legit art form.

But just the fact the Beatles toured so much, and still managed to write the songs on Help, Rubber Soul, and Revolver (plus the b-sides) is pretty unreal. It takes most bands months just to get one album out with 12 songs because they get hung up on the small details. Most of your classic songs were recorded in one-two takes. Even Dark Side of the Moon was done in two sessions. Prince has a lot of music that if he's short a few songs, he'll just pull something from the past and revamp it to fit into the new album. Beatles did the same thing from time to time - some of the songs on Abbey Road were from the White Album era. Part of Strawberry Fields Forever had its roots in In My Life.

I think Anthology was well-made, but took way too long to explain why The Beatles were the biggest band in the land. Cliff Richard was a big deal in the UK (and worldwide) except for America, and they charmed their way into living rooms all over America. But it was because the US already had Ricky Nelson, and he filled that void between Elvis & Buddy Holly until the British invasion. It wasn't until the mid 70s that Cliff had any hits in America.

2freaky4church1 said:

Abbey Road.

Good choice!

The Beatles definitely influenced me:

http://soundclick.com/sha...d=10973945

dalsh327 said:

But just the fact the Beatles toured so much, and still managed to write the songs on Help, Rubber Soul, and Revolver (plus the b-sides) is pretty unreal. It takes most bands months just to get one album out with 12 songs because they get hung up on the small details. Most of your classic songs were recorded in one-two takes.

Most albums back then were recorded quickly, and it wasn't unique to the Beatles to release multiple albums a year. At one point James Brown released 5 albums a year, plus non album singles. It slowed down to one a year (on average) in the 1970s, probably the result of multi-track consoles which allowed overdubbing and recording instruments separately, when older music was recorded live with everyone in the room at the same time. Then Thriller started the releasing a lot of singles from one album, making one album last 2 or even 3 years. Previously, on average, 2 or 3 singles were released from an album. Some acts like The Beatles, didn't release songs from albums, and recorded separate songs for singles.

MickyDolenz said:

dalsh327 said:

But just the fact the Beatles toured so much, and still managed to write the songs on Help, Rubber Soul, and Revolver (plus the b-sides) is pretty unreal. It takes most bands months just to get one album out with 12 songs because they get hung up on the small details. Most of your classic songs were recorded in one-two takes.

Most albums back then were recorded quickly, and it wasn't unique to the Beatles to release multiple albums a year. At one point James Brown released 5 albums a year, plus non album singles. It slowed down to one a year (on average) in the 1970s, probably the result of multi-track consoles which allowed overdubbing and recording instruments separately, when older music was recorded live with everyone in the room at the same time. Then Thriller started the releasing a lot of singles from one album, making one album last 2 or even 3 years. Previously, on average, 2 or 3 singles were released from an album. Some acts like The Beatles, didn't release songs from albums, and recorded separate songs for singles.

The Beatles started heavily multitracking in 1966. They stopped touring too. They returned to the entire band recording all at once old style in 1968 for the Let It Be sessions originally titled "Get Back" (get it?

ufoclub said:

MickyDolenz said:

Most albums back then were recorded quickly, and it wasn't unique to the Beatles to release multiple albums a year. At one point James Brown released 5 albums a year, plus non album singles. It slowed down to one a year (on average) in the 1970s, probably the result of multi-track consoles which allowed overdubbing and recording instruments separately, when older music was recorded live with everyone in the room at the same time. Then Thriller started the releasing a lot of singles from one album, making one album last 2 or even 3 years. Previously, on average, 2 or 3 singles were released from an album. Some acts like The Beatles, didn't release songs from albums, and recorded separate songs for singles.

The Beatles started heavily multitracking in 1966. They stopped touring too. They returned to the entire band recording all at once old style in 1968 for the Let It Be sessions originally titled "Get Back" (get it?

The multi-tracking was limited in 1966. They were still using a 4 track. Basically, they had to combine the different tapes together over and over. The more it was done, the more tape hiss was added to the track. If the original tapes weren't saved, then an individual track couldn't be separated later. This happened with Genesis debut album.

[Edited 9/5/11 10:16am]