# What do you think about The Beatles? Were they that great?



## C95




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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

I used to be crazy about the Beatles before I got into classical music. They were by far my favorite band and I listened to them daily. Now I still like their music but I only listen to them maybe once or twice a year. I seem to be almost always in the mood for something else.


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## Barbebleu

Yes.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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## starthrower

I think they enjoyed their tea.


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## Bulldog

Yes, they were great. I was a young teenager when the Beatles came on the scene, and their music was like a breath of fresh air after listening for years to stuff like the Beach Boys etc.


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## Dan Ante

Yep they were good, unfortunately disbanded just as their music got really interesting.


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## Pugg

I inherited all their albums on Vinyl, like the Sgt Peppers.


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## schigolch

I like a lot, a lot of their recordings.


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## starthrower

Dan Ante said:


> Yep they were good, unfortunately disbanded just as their music got really interesting.


They broke up at the right time. It would have been a drag if they went out after a lousy album. Abbey Road was a great farewell.


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## Manxfeeder

I agree they were great. I'm not sure they were "good." I don't like to listen to them because their voices didn't match very well, and John's voice makes me tired. I think the best versions of their music were done by other artists doing their songs as a cover. Having said that, I do like the way the bass was played, whether it was Paul on the recordings or some nameless studio guy.


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## hpowders

No doubt about it, the Beatles were great. Song writing geniuses plus a great band. They helped get me through the painful 1960's.

To this day, I consider Sgt. Pepper to be on as inspired a level of musical creativity as anything the greatest classical composers ever wrote.


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## Marinera

Manxfeeder said:


> I agree they were great. I'm not sure they were "good." I don't like to listen to them because their voices didn't match very well, and John's voice makes me tired. I think the best versions of their music were done by other artists doing their songs as a cover. Having said that, I do like the way the bass was played, whether it was Paul on the recordings or some nameless studio guy.


It is amazing how differently people hear the same thing, because I've always liked the way their voices harmonized together.


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## mmsbls

I suppose there could be some definitions of great that would not apply to them, but all the normal ones apply. I wonder how many who actually grew up listening to them would say they weren't great?


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## DavidA

I was never a fan but they were very good at what they did


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## Pugg

mmsbls said:


> I suppose there could be some definitions of great that would not apply to them, but all the normal ones apply. I wonder how many who actually grew up listening to them would say they weren't great?


Very wise words.


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## Manxfeeder

Marinera said:


> It is amazing how differently people hear the same thing, because I've always liked the way their voices harmonized together.


You're not alone. I have a friend who is a very successful prog rock composer/musician, and he absolutely loves the Beatles. I just have to nod my head and say, "That's nice."


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## hpowders

Marinera said:


> It is amazing how differently people hear the same thing, because I've always liked the way their voices harmonized together.


Same with me. I love their blended sound! Proves the maxim- the whole was greater than the individual parts.


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## Art Rock

hpowders said:


> Proves the maxim- the whole was greater than the individual parts.


The same holds for their creative forces. To my taste, none of them came even close to the level of the band after they went solo (well, for Ringo that was not so surprising).


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## Manxfeeder

You have inspired me to revisit them. I'm listening to the remastered Abbey Road on Spotify with headphones. It sounds a lot better now than it did on my old stereo. I can hear the influence it had on prog friend's music. 

I guess after all these years, it's time for me to do a re-evaluation.


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## starthrower

The Fab Four were great blokes as well. They were so young to be dealing with a ridiculous amount of fame, fortune, adulation, and pressure, but they seemed to remain grounded as individuals, and they had a great sense of humour.


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## bharbeke

The Beatles have some great songs, some absolute trash, and a lot in between. There are definitely bands I like more (Scorpions are one).


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## SixFootScowl

The seem to have been very talented with a knack for catchy tunes. I was never a fan to collect albums, but would enjoy what came up on the radio.


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## Jay

I rarely listen to them ( I'm more likely to reach for the Stones), but I think it's incontestable that they were "great."


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## jacq

The bass was never played by 'some nameless studio guy'.
It was Paul and sometimes John or George.


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## Strange Magic

A wonderful group. Their rapid musical evolution was amazing to experience at the time, triggered to a certain extent by their contact with Bob Dylan. I especially enjoy their psychedelic, druggy, dreamy songs. Plus their overall breadth of output--most other groups at the time were working one particular musical seam--the Stones spring to mind, Beach Boys......


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## Strange Magic

jacq said:


> The bass was never played by 'some nameless studio guy'.
> It was Paul and sometimes John or George.


Paul was a key part of a group of top-rank bass-playing lead singers: Jack Bruce, Sting, Geddy Lee, (Suzi Quatro?).


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## starthrower

Strange Magic said:


> Paul was a key part of a group of top-rank bass-playing lead singers: Jack Bruce, Sting, Geddy Lee, (Suzi Quatro?).


...Greg Lake, Peter Cetera, James Dewar (Stone The Crows, Robin Trower)


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## hpowders

Art Rock said:


> The same holds for their creative forces. To my taste, none of them came even close to the level of the band after they went solo (well, for Ringo that was not so surprising).


Yes. They were only terrific as a foursome. Paul, to me, as a solo act, was the most disappointing.


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## Simon Moon

As to whether the Beatles were great, I believe in many respects, yes.

But it's almost impossible to not include George Martin in the equation, when talking about their greatness. Especially in the later, and more innovative, part of their career.



starthrower said:


> ...Greg Lake, Peter Cetera, James Dewar (Stone The Crows, Robin Trower)


John Wetton...


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

I don't know if I would call them great. They were good. Certainly left a huge mark on the music. I suppose a lot of it has to do with experiencing them when they were new and fresh. But coming along later, you have to look at it more from an academic perspective, because in the modern context they aren't as impressive.


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## mmsbls

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> But coming along later, you have to look at it more from an academic perspective, because in the modern context they aren't as impressive.


I'm not disagreeing, but could you just say a bit more about how in the modern context they aren't as impressive?


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## Dan Ante

I quite liked ABBA actually.....


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## Manxfeeder

jacq said:


> The bass was never played by 'some nameless studio guy'.
> It was Paul and sometimes John or George.


I added that caveat because I haven't studied them to know for certain. Thanks for clearing that up. Paul was an interesting bass player.


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

mmsbls said:


> I'm not disagreeing, but could you just say a bit more about how in the modern context they aren't as impressive?


Some music is timeless and always appears impressive, regardless of the setting - like Bach. The Beatles now seem dated. A band like the Beatles, were they to launch right now, probably wouldn't be that impressive. But in their day, in their time, they were. Nostalgia, I'm sure, plays a large role in how they are still viewed so favorably. I'm not saying that they are bad - a lot of their music is still enjoyable. But if the Beatles were a 21st century band, we wouldn't be having this discussion.


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## Sloe

Dan Ante said:


> I quite liked ABBA actually.....


I prefer the ABBA you can eat:










The Beatles made some good songs and their film Help is really funny.


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## mmsbls

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> Some music is timeless and always appears impressive, regardless of the setting - like Bach. The Beatles now seem dated. A band like the Beatles, were they to launch right now, probably wouldn't be that impressive. But in their day, in their time, they were. Nostalgia, I'm sure, plays a large role in how they are still viewed so favorably. I'm not saying that they are bad - a lot of their music is still enjoyable. But if the Beatles were a 21st century band, we wouldn't be having this discussion.


Do you think all 1960s bands would be unimpressive now? What makes 21st century bands so much better than earlier ones? I don't really follow contemporary popular music so I can't really compare to the 1960s - 1980s bands I knew. Do you think any popular music would stand the test of time?


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## Dan Ante

Sloe said:


> I prefer the ABBA you can eat:


No comment ............


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## Strange Magic

What is the test of time? Nowadays everything is archived; everything is accessable. Millions still listen to Doo-***, to Elvis, to John Lee Hooker. I like to hear a good Four Aces song now and then: Perfidia, Heart and Soul, Love is a Many-Splendored Thing. Musically, Everything is Now Now!


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

mmsbls said:


> Do you think all 1960s bands would be unimpressive now? What makes 21st century bands so much better than earlier ones? I don't really follow contemporary popular music so I can't really compare to the 1960s - 1980s bands I knew. Do you think any popular music would stand the test of time?


I'm not saying that contemporary music is superior. Some music is timeless, some is a product of its time, some is important to the development. I don't care for much 21st century popular music. I honestly like the Beatles more than most 21st century pop music. But what I am saying is that the Beatles stood out in their time. They wouldn't stand out now.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> I'm not saying that contemporary music is superior. Some music is timeless, some is a product of its time, some is important to the development. I don't care for much 21st century popular music. I honestly like the Beatles more than most 21st century pop music. But what I am saying is that the Beatles stood out in their time. They wouldn't stand out now.


Why wouldn't they stand out now? Their music is certainly more interesting than almost everything non-classical contemporary I've heard. Certainly their music would not be the music they wrote in the 60s but one would think it would be of similar quality. Can you give examples of bands that stand out now but the Beatles wouldn't?

I do agree with your comment that their music sounds dated, unlike Bach's, as your example, but I think that is true of all non-classical music.


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

I don't think anything any of them did after the Beatles ever rivaled what they did as the Beatles, so I don't know that they would have still written music in this day and age. All I do know is that they were a musical phenomenon of their particular time, and that isn't to be diminished. But they are not a band of any other decade. You can speculate that they would have written stuff in this era that would have been equally ground-shaking, but I am judging them on the music they did write, not what I think they might have written.


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## millionrainbows

If you don't think The Beatles were great, there's something wrong with you.

.







_Ali versus Morgan Freeman_


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## Vaneyes

Did someone say ABBA?


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## lextune

Yes. They were great in every sense of the word.


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## Ingélou

Yes, I think they were 'great' in the sense of original and musically talented. 

I was a gawky young teenager when they started & I had a huge crush on them - I loved their melodies & the way it all fitted together - but I went off their later stuff as I buckled down to my O-levels & reverted to my normal staidness - I was born middle-aged and am only now reaching my prime. 

I still don't like the psychedelic stuff much, but I have to admit it is their best work & very creative.


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## nikola

The Beatles were great (if we don't count first 5 albums), but ABBA were even better, musically way more complex, creative and substantial.
If someone can't hear that I can only feel sorry for them.


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## Bulldog

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> Some music is timeless and always appears impressive, regardless of the setting - like Bach. The Beatles now seem dated. A band like the Beatles, were they to launch right now, probably wouldn't be that impressive. But in their day, in their time, they were. Nostalgia, I'm sure, plays a large role in how they are still viewed so favorably. I'm not saying that they are bad - a lot of their music is still enjoyable. But if the Beatles were a 21st century band, we wouldn't be having this discussion.


If the Beatles were a 21st century band, they wouldn't be writing the same music they wrote in the 1960's or 70's. So, your argument holds no merit to me.


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## Bulldog

nikola said:


> The Beatles were great (if we don't count first 5 albums), but ABBA were even better, musically way more complex, creative and substantial.


You and I must reside in different galaxies. I never thought much of ABBA's music; I didn't hear anything new in their music and found most it on the boring and derivative side.


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## nikola

Bulldog said:


> You and I must reside in different galaxies. I never thought much of ABBA's music; I didn't hear anything new in their music and found most it on the boring and derivative side.


They were mixing more melodies one over the other and they made probably the most complex development of melodic structures ever in pop music that even The Beatles never did. 'The Name of the Game', 'Mamma Mia' just to name few and almost whole 'The Visitors' album. If you can't hear that and if you can't hear that they were able to compose brilliant songs with brilliant hooks, you certainly must be from different galaxy. Many professional musicians from this galaxy appreciate the brilliance of Benny and Bjorn songwriting.


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## Vronsky

I was never a big fan of The Beatles. They're OK, but I think they passed me. I like the Manchester scene, with Joy Division, The Smiths, Magazine, New Order etc.


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## Bulldog

nikola said:


> Many professional musicians from this galaxy appreciate the brilliance of Benny and Bjorn songwriting.


I never said that many don't appreciate ABBA or that ABBA was not tremendously popular. I only offered my personal opinion after you gave us your personal opinion of a comparison between ABBA and the Beatles.


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## nikola

The Smiths... oh... they were great at making "non-songs" without any melody or melodical structure whatsoever. I would consider an insult to compare such pure crap with The Beatles who were actually pretty much able to be creative and compose actual songs. 
Joy Division were more interesting... New Order... ain't New Order the same thing as Joy Division? I don't know... I never found any meaning in their music. I guess it's just not for me.


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## nikola

Bulldog said:


> I never said that many don't appreciate ABBA or that ABBA was not tremendously popular. I only offered my personal opinion after you gave us your personal opinion of a comparison between ABBA and the Beatles.


Your "personal opinion" is something that you consider to be true, so there is no need to pretend that we actually care for other people "opinions".

From objective point of view, ABBA made more complex, multilayered and 'complete' songs, while The Beatles were more experimenting with styles and sound. Though if there were no McCartney, I think there would never be The Beatles greatness since he was responsible for probably 80% of their best songs. 
Lennon's songs sucked mostly in first half of their career. Later he became better.


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## Bulldog

nikola said:


> From objective point of view, ABBA made more complex, multilayered and 'complete' songs, while The Beatles were more experimenting with styles and sound. Though if there were no McCartney, I think there would never be The Beatles greatness since he was responsible for probably 80% of their best songs.
> Lennon's songs sucked mostly in first half of their career. Later he became better.


You're just loaded with opinions. Moving on, which McCartney songs are your favorites?


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## premont

nikola said:


> The Beatles were great (if we don't count first 5 albums), but ABBA were even better, musically way more complex, creative and substantial.
> *If someone can't hear that I can only feel sorry for them*.


I am grateful for your sincere empathy :tiphat:


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## Strange Magic

nikola said:


> The Beatles were great (if we don't count first 5 albums), but ABBA were even better, musically way more complex, creative and substantial.
> If someone can't hear that I can only feel sorry for them.


I am among the multitude who cannot hear that, and I demand that you feel sorry for me! By the way, I have always liked ABBA. And to deal with another issue, if anyone cannot tell the difference between Joy Division and New Order, I can only feel sorry for you. BTW I like them both, just like the Beatles and ABBA.


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## nikola

I do actually feel sorry for you guys... for all deaf people from nursery home I feel sorry


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## nikola

Bulldog said:


> You're just loaded with opinions. Moving on, which McCartney songs are your favorites?


Many of them especially since Rubber Soul album.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Strange Magic said:


> I am among the multitude who cannot hear that, and I demand that you feel sorry for me! By the way, I have always liked ABBA. And to deal with another issue, if anyone cannot tell the difference between Joy Division and New Order, I can only feel sorry for you. BTW I like them both, just like the Beatles and ABBA.


I like ABBA too (and some other disco music). And I just learned that New Order used to be (for the most part) Joy Davison. I just had my first listen to Joy Davison and immediately thought "Hey, this voice sounds like New Order"


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## nikola

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> I like ABBA too (and some other disco music). And I just learned that New Order used to be (for the most part) Joy Davison. I just had my first listen to Joy Davison and immediately thought "Hey, this voice sounds like New Order"


ABBA are not disco music. Anyone who were listening to his albums knows that... oh well...


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

nikola said:


> ABBA are not disco music. Anyone who were listening to his albums knows that... oh well...


Pop, europop, pop rock *and disco* are the genres associated with ABBA.


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## Dan Ante

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> I like ABBA too (and some other disco music


When Were ABBA disco music? they were a pop group when I was a lad.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Dan Ante said:


> When Were ABBA disco music? they were a pop group when I was a lad.


Voulez-Vous, Super Trooper are disco songs. So is The Visitors. Two of those made the top Billboard disco charts.

But they obviously had many songs that weren't disco. Anyway, I don't wanna derail this thread into a discussion whether ABBA was a disco band or not.


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## nikola

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Voulez-Vous, Super Trooper are disco songs. So is The Visitors. Two of those made the top Billboard disco charts.
> 
> But they obviously had many songs that weren't disco. Anyway, I don't wanna derail this thread into a discussion whether ABBA was a disco band or not.


'Voulez - Vous' could be... 'Super Trooper' not so much. 'The Visitors' albums definitely not. The only album with some disco songs could be 'Voule Vous' but they were always actually pop, not disco. 
They also made 'So Long' and 'Rock Me' and few others rock songs, so they could be rockers too.
Well, Elton John also made a few country songs, but we don't see him as country musician because of that.


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## EarthBoundRules

Obviously they were great to some people, since they're so popular. Do I especially like their music? Barring a few songs, not really. But I used to be a huge fan a few years ago. My tastes just changed.


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## Bulldog

nikola said:


> Many of them especially since Rubber Soul album.


Greater specificity would be appreciated.


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## Casebearer

Let's forget about the Beatles and Abba, both not that interesting on the whole, although they deserve some credit.

Let us enjoy and talk about other four-piece bands like The Feelies, yeah!!!!:devil:


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## nikola

Bulldog said:


> Greater specificity would be appreciated.


One of my most favorite is "For No One". It clearly shows his skills as composer. It's almost in the talking intonation without anything over the top. You simply can't imagine any 'diva' today singing something like that... Beyonce, Aguilera, etc... they all scream like they are raped by bears. Awful. Even if there are decent melodies, they are lost in self-importance.

There are many other brilliant McCartney songs. 'Let it Be' and 'Hey Jude' are classics and pop masterpieces. 'Penny Lane' and 'Hello goodbye' are fun, yet musically great. 'Eleanor Rigby' is great too. 
'You Won't See Me', Michelle (even though it's co-written by Lennon) and many other songs actually shows him as pure talent at songwriting. 
'Helter Skelter' was great for first 'punk' song ever and it could be great if it ended there, but it didn't because untalented pricks thought they don't need talent to make crappy music 10 years later.
Many other great songs by McCartney too... no need to name most of them.


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## SixFootScowl

Ok, see post below. I thought I edited and instead made a new post.


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## SixFootScowl

Whoops, right thread, wrong post. Or rather, wrong post, right thread. No. That doesn't sound right either. Wrong post, wrong thread. There that is better, but so negative. Well this is a good thread anyway, just nothing to post here for a replacement, so wrong post deleted but good thread anyway.


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

nikola said:


> One of my most favorite is "For No One". It clearly shows his skills as composer. It's almost in the talking intonation without anything over the top. You simply can't imagine any 'diva' today singing something like that... Beyonce, Aguilera, etc... they all scream like they are raped by bears. Awful. Even if there are decent melodies, they are lost in self-importance.
> 
> There are many other brilliant McCartney songs. 'Let it Be' and 'Hey Jude' are classics and pop masterpieces. 'Penny Lane' and 'Hello goodbye' are fun, yet musically great. 'Eleanor Rigby' is great too.
> 'You Won't See Me', Michelle (even though it's co-written by Lennon) and many other songs actually shows him as pure talent at songwriting.
> 'Helter Skelter' was great for first 'punk' song ever and it could be great if it ended there, but it didn't because untalented pricks thought they don't need talent to make crappy music 10 years later.
> Many other great songs by McCartney too... no need to name most of them.


Ah yes, those classics, now enshrined in elevators and telephone waiting music! They are good music, but you all are living with a certain amount of nostalgia that clouds your judgement of these works.

As to the blanket condemnation of punk as crappy music, while I won't defend all of the genre, I would ask whether you have ever taken the time to listen to such groups as the Clash? Sure, their early stuff is, well, early. But by the time of London Calling? After all, the Beatles had their period when they were putting out stuff like Love Me Do and I Want To Hold Your Hand - is the lyric writing there really so much more superior to anything that the tongue-in-cheek Ramones wrote, or the chord progressions any more complex?


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## Strange Magic

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> Ah yes, those classics, now enshrined in elevators and telephone waiting music! They are good music, but you all are living with a certain amount of nostalgia that clouds your judgement of these works.


Ah, nostalgia! I'm always engulfed by a wave of nostalgia whenever I hear the music of Bartok. Even stronger listening to Brahms--he died back in the 19th century. And Bach--so long ago! But seriously, talk of nostalgia where it concerns music is lost on me--as an active listener to all sorts of music, I've found that the music is always now, alive as I'm experiencing it. No wave of nostalgia listening to the Beatles, or Billy Idol, or Bartok, Brahms, or even Old Man Bach. We often use the idea of nostalgia to explain to ourselves why we no longer listen to/care for the musics of our past selves, but then hear or think of it again, or to faintly damn someone else's reference to or preference for something we have "outgrown". This not to say that our tastes don't change, but is there some reason why--if we're invoking nostalgia for the music of yesteryear--we don't similarly use the term when talking about classical music? But maybe it's just me: just not the nostalgic type.


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## nikola

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> Ah yes, those classics, now enshrined in elevators and telephone waiting music! They are good music, but you all are living with a certain amount of nostalgia that clouds your judgement of these works.
> 
> As to the blanket condemnation of punk as crappy music, while I won't defend all of the genre, I would ask whether you have ever taken the time to listen to such groups as the Clash? Sure, their early stuff is, well, early. But by the time of London Calling? After all, the Beatles had their period when they were putting out stuff like Love Me Do and I Want To Hold Your Hand - is the lyric writing there really so much more superior to anything that the tongue-in-cheek Ramones wrote, or the chord progressions any more complex?


Wrong, because I'm not connected to The Beatles whatsoever with nostalgia. I started to listen to their albums in last few years, so it seems to me that you're trying to input something in me. Don't be naughty.

I actually can't say that I was ever indrawn into music because of nostalgia. All my life I hated most of the commercial music and I especially hate today's commercial music. I also hate many genres and I hate what other people like to listen. I hate most of jazz, metal, hip-hop, pop, rock, blues, gospel, classical, folk.... I hate everything. I also love many things from most of those styles... excluding metal and hip-hop. I was always listening to what I found good to my ears.

Well, punk isn't the worst musical crap that exist, I must admit that. Certainly they were better than The Smiths... sometimes even more fun, energetic and bold in trying to sound really bad. I guess they're proud that some people call them crap cause after all they're punk and we know what Dirty Harry was doing with punks.

Considering complexity, The Beatles were much more melodic and mostly brilliant because they were able to compose memorable songs (simple or complex), but I agree that the beginning of their career with first few albums is actually really mediocre.


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

Punk was more a response to the over-wrought nature of rock at that point in time - self-important musicians performing arena rock that was really just over the top. At the risk of being beaten up about this, I would compare it to the reaction to baroque opera that led to classical era opera, where they were less hijacked by the virtuoso prima donnas.

I wouldn't dream of putting anything into you.

There is plenty of music - punk, rap, etc. - that is complex, and melodic, and memorable. My simple point in all of this is that the importance of the Beatles lies not so much in how their music sounds incredible in any era (totally subjective) so much as what an important factor they were in the development of the progression of pop/rock music IN THEIR TIME. You all act like I am trying to do something I am clearly not doing. I'm not trashing on them. Take somebody from Mars, with absolutely no experience with earth music, drop them into the present, give them a selection of music to listen to, including the Beatles, and I doubt they would say at this point that their music stands out. But put them in their historical context - play for them the music that immediately preceded the Beatles, and then the Beatles, and suddenly their significance becomes apparent. This has nothing to do with how you personally feel about the Beatles.

The Walkman had an incredible role in how we listen to music - the notion of making music portable. If you put it together with a modern iPod, though, it is not very impressive.

So quit trying to take offense where none is intended. Go and listen to your Beatles and Abba to your heart's content. Me, personally - I'd rather end it all than subject myself to a mixture of Dancing Queen and Love Me Do.


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

Strange Magic said:


> Ah, nostalgia! I'm always engulfed by a wave of nostalgia whenever I hear the music of Bartok. Even stronger listening to Brahms--he died back in the 19th century. And Bach--so long ago! But seriously, talk of nostalgia where it concerns music is lost on me--as an active listener to all sorts of music, I've found that the music is always now, alive as I'm experiencing it. No wave of nostalgia listening to the Beatles, or Billy Idol, or Bartok, Brahms, or even Old Man Bach. We often use the idea of nostalgia to explain to ourselves why we no longer listen to/care for the musics of our past selves, but then hear or think of it again, or to faintly damn someone else's reference to or preference for something we have "outgrown". This not to say that our tastes don't change, but is there some reason why--if we're invoking nostalgia for the music of yesteryear--we don't similarly use the term when talking about classical music? But maybe it's just me: just not the nostalgic type.


Were you personally alive to listen to Bartok while he was alive? Or Brahms? Or Bach? I somehow doubt it.

What about with the Beatles, or Billy Idol? I still listen to music of my youth, and think fondly of it - even though others who didn't find it quite unremarkable. Even my classical music preferences, I believe, are heavily influenced by the classical music that my father would play while I was growing up. It has nothing to do with outgrowing anything. But most people are influenced by the things they experience throughout their lives - how that is such a controversial thing to say escapes me. I still have a soft spot in my heart for Neil Diamond and Kenny Rogers, in spite of the fact I don't like either genre in which they belong, for the simple fact that it reminds me of my youth. Whether they are great musicians is irrelevant. Apparently you have such an amazing ability to control your subconscious that you are impervious to such things - good on you.


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## Strange Magic

Maybe you should read my post again.


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## EdwardBast

Lennon/McCartney was a great song writing team. Harrison had some good efforts as well. George Martin was a talented arranger and more. As players, The Beatles were mediocre. Except for Ringo. He sucked.


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## nikola

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> Punk was more a response to the over-wrought nature of rock at that point in time - self-important musicians performing arena rock that was really just over the top. At the risk of being beaten up about this, I would compare it to the reaction to baroque opera that led to classical era opera, where they were less hijacked by the virtuoso prima donnas.
> 
> I wouldn't dream of putting anything into you.
> 
> There is plenty of music - punk, rap, etc. - that is complex, and melodic, and memorable. My simple point in all of this is that the importance of the Beatles lies not so much in how their music sounds incredible in any era (totally subjective) so much as what an important factor they were in the development of the progression of pop/rock music IN THEIR TIME. You all act like I am trying to do something I am clearly not doing. I'm not trashing on them. Take somebody from Mars, with absolutely no experience with earth music, drop them into the present, give them a selection of music to listen to, including the Beatles, and I doubt they would say at this point that their music stands out. But put them in their historical context - play for them the music that immediately preceded the Beatles, and then the Beatles, and suddenly their significance becomes apparent. This has nothing to do with how you personally feel about the Beatles.
> 
> The Walkman had an incredible role in how we listen to music - the notion of making music portable. If you put it together with a modern iPod, though, it is not very impressive.
> 
> So quit trying to take offense where none is intended. Go and listen to your Beatles and Abba to your heart's content. Me, personally - I'd rather end it all than subject myself to a mixture of Dancing Queen and Love Me Do.


The main purpose of music is to enjoy in it and to enjoy in it you simply must have a talent to write a song with interesting chord/harmony/melody structure and you must know how to correctly develop the main idea of it. There are no genres that are making good music. There are only musicians who are able to make good music. And there are musicians who are making crap. Some genres are more open to digest crap than some other genres. 
And yes, The Beatles and ABBA were able to make brilliant music, especially ABBA. I'm not even that crazy about The Beatles.
The term "good song" is actually not such mystery and subjective thing. ABBA, that is considered by most snobbish and tone deaf people to be sacharine, cheesy and simplistic pop music, is still today very popular for one and only reason - they made brilliant songs. At the same time they were listenable, catchy, yet more complex than most of pop music of their and our time. They weren't pretentious, so they seemed "simple", but the reason why people still love to listen to their music is because their music is brilliant, effective, memorable, emotional, catchy.
So, if you put someone from Mars here, they would probably recognize the difference between ABBA's music and some generic crap from The Weeknd. If you can't hear the difference, then the problem could be in the lack of your abilities to recognize song that is composed by someone who actually has a talent.
Trying to banalize good music simply because you're not able to hear why it is good is actually not so much valid argument.


----------



## Ekim the Insubordinate

My but you all are a touchy lot ready to find offense wherever you can. You can have your ABBA. I wouldn't put them in the same ranking as the Beatles. They had no lasting impact.

Some bands are popular in their time, but then their influence drops precipitously afterwards - this is how I would classify ABBA. Others have only a minor following in their time, but have a lasting impact - a band like the Velvet Underground might be considered along these lines. And then there are the rare bands that are both popular in their time, and have a lasting impact - the Beatles would fall in this category. That, I think, is their greater contribution to the music - not necessarily any one song being spectacular, but in the way they were able to push the evolution of rock and roll.


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## nikola

I officialy feel sorry for you now too.
Anyone else?


Anyone?

I mean, is there anyone else, so I can feel sorry for them too?


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## Woodduck

The Beatles were the sensation of my generation. I couldn't have cared less about them - I was listening to Tchaikovsky and Beethoven - but later I came to understand their talent. The only thing that could make me nostalgic for them is the melodically feeble stuff that popular music is offering now. I heard a bit of what just won Adele a Grammy and had to run to shut the radio off or else run to the bathroom. "Hello"? Goodbye.


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## Manxfeeder

Woodduck said:


> "Hello"? Goodbye.


Is that an intentional quote of a Beatles song?


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## Marinera

Woodduck said:


> The Beatles were the sensation of my generation. I couldn't have cared less about them - I was listening to Tchaikovsky and Beethoven - but later I came to understand their talent. The only thing that could make me nostalgic for them is the melodically feeble stuff that popular music is offering now. I heard a bit of what just won Adele a Grammy and had to run to shut the radio off or else run to the bathroom. "Hello"? Goodbye.


Not a fan of Adele, but I am in minority here, many of my friends rave about her voice and singing. Some of what I've heard was too calculatedly soppy and laced with some sob story for impact. Don't know about awards song though.. ok just googled, 'hello' reference makes sense now..not good.


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## znapschatz

For me, the Beatles were magic. At first, I thought they were no better than okay, but sat up and took notice with _Revolver_. Something clicked, and I became a fan on the spot, went back to their earlier recordings and forward as they continued to evolve, and just loved them all, even their early hard rock club music. I never bothered to analyze any of it, just took it in. I like other groups of the time, but still think they were the greatest among their contemporaries, and their music holds up for me today.


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## KenOC

I still consider Revolver the most impressive of the Beatles' albums -- which is not to denigrate the others. Strong ideas, strongly put forward, instantly memorable. In fact, in those terms, kind of like Ludwig van!


----------



## Dan Ante

EdwardBast said:


> Lennon/McCartney was a great song writing team. Harrison had some good efforts as well. George Martin was a talented arranger and more. As players, The Beatles were mediocre. Except for Ringo. He sucked.


You live dangerously eh  Might be best if you go into hiding for a while


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## norman bates

starthrower said:


> The Fab Four were great blokes as well.


Actually I've read many times comments of persons saying that John Lennon was a horrible (and quite violent) person. I've never read a lot about it, so I haven't a personal idea, but to me it's more strange to read your comment because it seems that the majority of people have very a different idea.

Anyway: in the context of rock music they were good songwriters (and I really like certain songs they wrote), but I'd definitely would not spend the label genius for any of them.


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## elgar's ghost

During his time both with the Beatles and after Lennon could certainly be a rum piece of work - he could be selfish (his abandonment of wife Cynthia after becoming infatuated with Yoko didn't seem to be handled with much dignity, even if the marriage had gone stale by then), boorish (the arrogant 'do you know who I am?' response to a complaining bargirl when he was showing off with muso chums in L.A. during the 'Lost Weekend' when he was temporarily estranged from Yoko) and hypocritical (he left the Beatles in Sept 1969 killing them as a band but was not averse to them staying together on paper as a business entity so they could keep on raking it in).

Sure, Lennon was chippy and capricious but I'm not sure about violent, though - I suppose all members of the band had to occasionally look after themselves during their tough apprenticeship in Hamburg and there were dark rumours that it was a physical attack by Lennon on Stuart Sutcliffe which may have triggered the latter's fatal brain injury in 1962 (apparently Lennon was jealous over Sutcliffe's German girlfriend) but it's unlikely.

I heard that Ringo packed the best punch anyway...


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## Strange Magic

@elgars ghost: Yet another proof that musicality is not necessarily linked closely in the brain with other, more warm and fuzzy attributes.


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## Guest

The Beatles were magic for me also. I was a kid when Beatlemania was at its height. I remember watching them on Ed Sullivan the first time they were on. I have two older sisters so, of course, we had to watch it. Then I remember piling in the family car with siblings and other kids from the neighborhood and going to the Gratiot Drive-In to see "Hard Day's Night" and "Help." I would always laugh when they showed footage of girls in the audience at Beatles shows crying. I know two people who went to see the Beatles when they toured through. They said the band may as well have mimed playing and singing because you couldn't hear a note. The next morning your ears were ringing not from high volume music but from shrill teenage girl screams and shrieks. One of them said that he saw several girls just lose control of themselves and start peeing. It wasn't that the johns were backed up--although they probably were--it's that the girls were so overcome by the sight of the Beatles that they would scream themselves into a frenzy and pee.

Beatles songs are kind of the soundtrack of my childhood. To this day, "Penny Lane" reminds me was Christmas 1967 because my oldest sister got the single for a Christmas present and she played it all morning long. I remember it had a photo of the band in their Sgt Pepper's uniforms. I remember every weekend, they would unveil the new #1 song on "American Bandstand" and it was almost always a Beatles song and my sister would scream and I'd be like, "What are you screaming for?? They win every week!" I remember dancing in the living room with some schoolmates to "Anytime At All" and "She's a Woman" right after school when I had the house to myself cuz me mum was working at the time. We'd put on my sister's Beatles records and dance. Sometimes we'd play air guitars and air drums and pretend we were the band.

I suppose if I had been older, I would have found the whole thing completely silly and dismissed it but being a child just made it magic. Beatlemania was terribly fun for me and all kids my age. It was a magic time. Even that idiotic Beatles cartoon they showed every Saturday morning. I watched it even though I could see even at that young age how completely stupid it was. I learned some years later that the Beatles themselves hated it. How could you not?

It left a legacy. I remember some years ago, I was playing guitar at an open mic doing obscure 60s songs for a crowd of 20-somethings. "Play some rock and roll!" one said. "Okay," I said, "but this is rock and roll from 1964" and I launched into "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You" and they started singing along and doing the background vocals (with less than stellar results). How could I know when I first heard that in '64 that I would play it for a bunch of kids in 2011 who weren't even born then and they would know it by heart?


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## norman bates

Victor Redseal said:


> The Beatles were magic for me also. I was a kid when Beatlemania was at its height. I remember watching them on Ed Sullivan the first time they were on. I have two older sisters so, of course, we had to watch it. Then I remember piling in the family car with siblings and other kids from the neighborhood and going to the Gratiot Drive-In to see "Hard Day's Night" and "Help." I would always laugh when they showed footage of girls in the audience at Beatles shows crying. I know two people who went to see the Beatles when they toured through. They said the band may as well have mimed playing and singing because you couldn't hear a note. The next morning your ears were ringing not from high volume music but from shrill teenage girl screams and shrieks. One of them said that he saw several girls just lose control of themselves and start peeing. It wasn't that the johns were backed up--although they probably were--it's that the girls were so overcome by the sight of the Beatles that they would scream themselves into a frenzy and pee.


I wonder if there's any psichiatric study about that hysterical behaviour. I don't think it was about the music.


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## starthrower

norman bates said:


> I wonder if there's any psichiatric study about that hysterical behaviour. I don't think it was about the music.


The reason The Beatles quit playing live. Nobody was listening to the music, and they couldn't hear themselves on stage. I was into the Monkees at the time. I liked their sense of humor. I didn't listen to the Beatles until the 70s. And I preferred Chicago and the Carpenters most of the time.


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## nikola

Same thing was happening with Backstreet Boys, N'Sync and many boy bands during 90's. I guess it has something with being a young insecure female, hormones, sex, love for horses, being horny, sex, hysteria and sex with horses.


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## Guest

Definitely gender-driven. You never see large numbers guys screaming and crying and peeing when they see their favorite band or movie star or whatever. Although I suspect a couple of guys here whenever they see a picture of Beethoven. And this phenom was global! 

I remember seeing an interview with Julia Roberts and she was talking about making a movie with Denzel Washington and each actor had his or her own trailer. She said whenever Denzel left his trailer, there were dozens and dozens of women stading outside who would scream his name, jump up and down, cry, faint, throw themselves at him, etc. But whenever she left her trailer there would be this handful of guys saying, "Hey, baby! Come on over here and talk to us for a minute! Hey Julia, come here, baby!"


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## SixFootScowl

starthrower said:


> *The reason The Beatles quit playing live*. Nobody was listening to the music, and they couldn't hear themselves on stage. I was into the Monkees at the time. I liked their sense of humor. I didn't listen to the Beatles until the 70s. And I preferred Chicago and the Carpenters most of the time.


Additionally, I heard they were doing things in the studio recordings that just could not be replicated in a live concert.


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## elgar's ghost

I thought I'd while away part of the morning putting together my own 2-hour compilation of my favourite Beatles tracks from 66-70...

1. Paperback Writer (2:26)
2. Rain (2:59)
3. Taxman (2:39)
5. Eleanor Rigby (2:06)
6. She Said She Said (2:37)
7. For No-one (2:00)
8. Tomorrow Never Knows (2:59)
9. Penny Lane (3:00)
10. Strawberry Fields Forever (4:05)
11. With A Little Help From My Friends (2:44)
12. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (3:28)
13. A Day In The Life (5:39)
14. All You Need Is Love (3:57)
15. Magical Mystery Tour (2:48)
16. I Am The Walrus (4:35)
17. It's All Too Much (6:25)
18. Lady Madonna (2:16)
19. Back In The USSR (2:43)
20. Dear Prudence (3:56)
21. Happiness Is A Warm Gun (2:43)
22. Blackbird (1:41)
23. Why Don't We Do It In The Road? (2:04)
24. Birthday (2:41)
25. Yer Blues (4:01)
26. Long Long Long (3:04)
27. Cry Baby Cry (3:02)
28. Hey Jude (7:11)
29. Revolution [single version] (3:21)
30: Get Back (3:09)
31. I Me Mine (2:26)
32. Don't Let Me Down (3:18)
33. I've Got A Feeling (3:38)
34. Let It Be (4:03)
35: Ballad Of John And Yoko (2:59)
36: Come Together (4:20)
37. Something (3:03)
38. I Want You (She's So Heavy) (7:47)
39: You Never Give Me Your Money (4:02)
40: Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End (5:12)


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## SixFootScowl

One beatles song I like more than any other is Come Together. Love the lyrics.


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## bestellen

I like the Manchester scene, with Joy Division, The Smiths, Magazine, New Order etc.


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

Joy Division/New Order were perhaps my favorite bands during my teenage years, and I enjoyed the Smiths quite a bit. Never much cared quite the same for Morrissey's solo career. Wasn't as great without Johnny Marr accompanying him.

I still listen to these bands. Joy Division is still great to listen to, all these years later. Early pioneers of the goth movement, without being goth themselves. Peter Hook's base is just iconic. Closer and Power, Corruption & Lies get constant rotation on my iPod.


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## EdwardBast

starthrower said:


> The reason The Beatles quit playing live. Nobody was listening to the music, and they couldn't hear themselves on stage. I was into the Monkees at the time. I liked their sense of humor. I didn't listen to the Beatles until the 70s. And I preferred Chicago and the Carpenters most of the time.


The way I heard it, they toured Japan after Magical Mystery Tour (or was it Sgt. Pepper?), and Japanese audiences, being as polite as they are, refrained from the 130 decibel screaming the band was used to. Consequently, The Beatles actually heard themselves (Fates forfend!) trying to perform music they had not a chance of pulling off, realized they stunk live, and went back to their existence as an occasional hot-house recording combine.


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## nikola

bestellen said:


> I like the Manchester scene, with Joy Division, The Smiths, Magazine, New Order etc.


So, we have a clone here:



Vronsky said:


> I was never a big fan of The Beatles. They're OK, but I think they passed me. I like the Manchester scene, with Joy Division, The Smiths, Magazine, New Order etc.


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## elgar's ghost

EdwardBast said:


> The way I heard it, they toured Japan after Magical Mystery Tour (or was it Sgt. Pepper?), and Japanese audiences, being as polite as they are, refrained from the 130 decibel screaming the band was used to. Consequently, The Beatles actually heard themselves (Fates forfend!) trying to perform music they had not a chance of pulling off, realized they stunk live, and went back to their existence as an occasional hot-house recording combine.


I think that was actually in the summer of 1966 not long after _Revolver_ was released (none of the _Revolver_ material was played anyway). I'm more inclined to think that it was the **** the Beatles had to put up with from the bent Marcos regime during the Philippines leg of the tour which may have helped force their hand. Their last ever 'proper' gig was at San Francisco's Candlestick Park the same year. I saw a photo which showed the backline the Beatles were using at Candlestick and although it looked more impressive than what they used at Shea the year before, it was still totally inadequate for a venue of that size.


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## Dr Johnson

Whatever anyone thinks of The Beatles I recommend having a look at Revolution in the Head by Ian Macdonald. It is worth it for the introduction alone.


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## DeepR

I don't care much for The Beatles. I think it's mostly a generational and nostalgic thing. I grew up with 80s and 90s pop music and I do have a soft spot for some of that. 
But even I must recognize that the Beatles are better music than today's pop [email protected]


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## znapschatz

norman bates said:


> Actually I've read many times comments of persons saying that John Lennon was a horrible (and quite violent) person. I've never read a lot about it, so I haven't a personal idea, but to me it's more strange to read your comment because it seems that the majority of people have very a different idea.


When drunk. Sober, he was (relatively) a gentleman; polite, attentive and good company. He should never have been allowed near an alcoholic beverage. It would unlock his inner anguish and transform him into a vile, obnoxious boor. It was especially bad during his breakup with Yoko Ono, but eventually he straightened out.



> Anyway: in the context of rock music they were good songwriters (and I really like certain songs they wrote), but *I'd definitely would not spend the label genius for any of them.*


Nor would I. Individually, none were quite there. Collectively, however, they were a "genius," and I have no explanation for how this could be. Magic, maybe?


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## Strange Magic

znapschatz said:


> Individually, none were quite there. Collectively, however, they were a "genius," and I have no explanation for how this could be. Magic, maybe?


_More Than Human_, Theodore Sturgeon, 1953. Sci Fi. Collectively, a group of individuals form a uniquely gifted new entity, Homo gestalt. The Beatles were clearly foreseen.


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## nikola

DeepR said:


> I don't care much for The Beatles. I think it's mostly a generational and nostalgic thing. I grew up with 80s and 90s pop music and I do have a soft spot for some of that.
> But even I must recognize that the Beatles are better music than today's pop [email protected]


Do you at least know why are they so popular even today? Have you ever heard at least one of their albums? Or do you think that they're nothing more than 'Love Me Do' and "Twist and Shout' songs? 
It's not a generational and nostalgic thing. They were actually making something that nobody else did till then... they were experimenting with genres, styles, sounds, melodies, harmonies, etc. and they were great at it.
They were actually very important and probably the most important for the development of the music, but I guess that some people are probably too lazy to educate themselves and to realize WHY are The Beatles considered to be the most important band of 20th century. It wasn't because girls were screeming and peeing themselves on their concerts. If that is why they are popular, then N'Sync or Backstreet Boys would be also considered to be great just like The Beatles.
So, when you guys say "nostalgia", I guess that you all think that we all here are at least 70 years old. I was born 10 years after they were disbanded and I also didn't mostly realize why they deserve so much attention. 
But then, I decided to LISTEN TO THEIR ALBUMS, so I could finally realize why they were and still are so important. 
So, I guess that some of you here, before judging The Beatles based on "Love Me Do" song, could actually listen to their albums from the 2nd half of their career.


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

nikola said:


> Do you at least know why are they so popular even today? Have you ever heard at least one of their albums? Or do you think that they're nothing more than 'Love Me Do' and "Twist and Shout' songs?
> It's not a generational and nostalgic thing. They were actually making something that nobody else did till then... they were experimenting with genres, styles, sounds, melodies, harmonies, etc. and they were great at it.
> They were actually very important and probably the most important for the development of the music, but I guess that some people are probably too lazy to educate themselves and to realize WHY are The Beatles considered to be the most important band of 20th century. It wasn't because girls were screeming and peeing themselves on their concerts. If that is why they are popular, then N'Sync or Backstreet Boys would be also considered to be great just like The Beatles.
> So, when you guys say "nostalgia", I guess that you all think that we all here are at least 70 years old. I was born 10 years after they were disbanded and I also didn't mostly realize why they deserve so much attention.
> But then, I decided to LISTEN TO THEIR ALBUMS, so I could finally realize why they were and still are so important.
> So, I guess that some of you here, before judging The Beatles based on "Love Me Do" song, could actually listen to their albums from the 2nd half of their career.


Well - after accusing us of making assumptions based on no knowledge, you then make assumptions about us without knowledge.

I have not listened to every single song on every single album the Beatles ever released, but I have heard a significant amount of their music from their entire catalog. My comments about nostalgia were not based on "Love Me Do." I'm not going to know the more obscure songs, but if you were to list off the critical songs from each of their albums, I can almost guarantee I would be familiar with them.

But your championing of ABBA also makes me question a lot . . .


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## SixFootScowl

If I recall correctly, the Beatles were as popular as Bob Dylan for a while there. But then they broke up and it was over.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

I think a lot of credit needs to go the George Martin


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

The author of "A Game of Thrones?"


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> The author of "A Game of Thrones?"


Really!

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&...Ak84OhYePc21cpHHg&sig2=lTQa9FJcdX6e8Bo_wWhkGg


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

It was a joke - the author of "A Game of Thrones is also George Martin - but he has the middle initials R. R. as well in his name. I do know of whom you were referring.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Was getting worried there......................


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## znapschatz

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> I think a lot of credit needs to go the George Martin


That's true, also sometimes called The Fifth Beatle. He was a brilliant arranger, a huge talent, but in any of his "solo" work, or arrangements for other performers, that Beatles spark just isn't there. Just like the other individuals who made up the Beatles phenomenon, the whole exceeded the sum of its parts.


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## Guest

What I admire about George Martin, besides his talent, was that he took no money from the Beatles phenomenon. They offered to cut him in a number of times but he refused and remained on a fixed salary from EMI. He said he didn't want people thinking he rode on the Beatles' coattails. He almost replaced Ringo in the early days. He thought Ringo's drumming was too rough for studio recordings although it would be okay for ballrooms. So when the Beatles recorded their first single "Please Please Me" b/w "Love Me Do" he brought in Andy White to play drums and had the band re-cut the songs, relegating Ringo to tambourine and the like. Ringo was crestfallen and decided to leave. George liked Ringo and decided to release the single with White playing drums on "Please Please Me" and Ringo on "Love Me Do." That was just enough to mollify Ringo into staying. To Martin's surprise, "Love Me Do" hit bigger than "Please Please Me" and George never tried replacing Ringo again. Today both versions of these songs are floating around without credit given to White so it's hard to know which version you may have in your Beatles collection--maybe both.


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## starthrower

I just looked it up, and read just the opposite. White played on Love Me Do, and Ringo on Please Please Me.


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## Guest

I don't believe that to be the case because George was lukewarm on "Love Me Do" but he really thought "Please Please Me" would shoot through the roof. But on the initial release (and these may be two separate releases instead of one--they say different things in different interviews) "Love Me Do" with Ringo hit higher. Or maybe "Please Please Me" with Ringo hit higher but I think George wanted Andy White on "Please Please Me" because this was going to be the breakthrough song and he wanted them to put their best foot forward and George was afraid Ringo was too heavy-handed. 

Most pop and rock of that time used light drums and jumpy beats and Ringo pounded heavy-handed blues beats because he liked blues. John and Paul encouraged it because they hated 50s greaseball drums in their songs. They wanted something new, something different and Ringo's drumming gave it to them but George Martin didn't understand that at the time. He thought if people heard Ringo on records instead the ballrooms, they won't like it but he was proven wrong. But he was happy not to replace Ringo. It wasn't something he wanted to do.


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## starthrower

Here's a site where you can do some research. https://www.beatlesbible.com/

https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/love-me-do/

https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/please-please-me/


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## Guest

I was just going through Bob Spitz's book. He doesn't say who played drums but he does say "Please Please Me" hit a lot bigger than "Love Me Do" and that each was its own single so I'm wrong on that. I was going off Hunter Davies' book but I can't find it at the moment. That one was nice because it has all the singles and albums listed but I haven't read it in years so maybe I confused the information.


----------



## nikola

Ekim the Insubordinate said:


> But your championing of ABBA also makes me question a lot . . .


It makes you question if you may lack certain capabilites to hear music?


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## doctorjohn

Pugg said:


> Very wise words.


George martin made them great, without him they would have been very ordinary compared to bands such as The Kinks


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## Guest

One bit of information I have never been able to find is like a piece of a missing jigsaw puzzle. I pieced it together from Spitz's and Davies' books as well as interviews with Paul. Maybe one of you has it. It goes like this:

Shortly after arriving in Hamburg, Paul's guitar--a cheap Rosetti, according to Paul--fell apart. The bar where they played had an old piano on the stage and so Paul started playing that in lieu of having an axe. He started to get decent on piano and decided to make it his regular instrument. However, everyone in the band--even John--was fast coming to the conclusion that Stu was no good. He never really played bass, he mimed it and kept his back to the audience so that they couldn't see he wasn't really playing. His bass was a Hofner President, I believe. He won an art contest and got a goodly amount of money so John and Paul talked him into buying the bass because the band needed a bassist. It looked something like this:



















This photo taken in Germany shows Paul with another guitar but it's actually John's. He let Paul pose with it because Paul had no axe at the time:










During their gigs, they had these spots for Stu to kind of solo but Stu frequently missed the cues and his solos were terrible. John was Stu's friend and the only reason Stu was still in the band was because John refused to kick him out. But even John was realizing Stu wasn't up to the job. After Stu missed another cue one gig, an exasperated Paul yelled something at Stu. Stu said something back and Paul shot back with something else. Pete Best heard the exchange but couldn't make out everything that was said but was pretty sure that Paul's retort mentioned Astrid, whom Stu was in a relationship with. Stu threw down his bass and he and Paul went at it--onstage in front of a crowd. John signaled to George and Pete to just keep playing.

When the band next met for practice, Stu brought his bass but announced he was leaving the band. The others tried to talk him out of it. Paul tried to placate Stu saying we was just a couple of blokes blowing off steam--no big deal. But Stu said he wasn't mad about that and it wasn't why he was quitting. He said he knew he wasn't any good. He wasn't a musician. He was an artist and it was time to get back to his art. He wanted to stay in Hamburg and marry Astrid and work as an artist. He missed it and needed to get back to it. He said the band probably would have made it already if they had a decent bass-player. It was a moment of truth none could deny. Stu then handed his bass to Paul telling him he could play it until they found a new bassist but he told Paul not to re-string it for left-handed play.

Here's where the story gets sketchy:

Paul was apparently playing Stu's bass upside down at gigs but how long he did this, I don't know. It must have been quite a short while because, to my knowledge, there are no photos of Paul playing Stu's bass. According to Paul, after a few gigs, he asked John when they were going to start auditioning for bass-players as he was anxious to get back to the piano. John simply said, "You're the bass-player. We don't need a piano-player." Paul said he would get a new guitar then. John said they didn't need three guitarists--two was plenty. What they need, John said, was a bassist and since Paul had no axe then he needed to get a bass.

Paul said later in interviews that the birds never looked at the guy playing the bass and only screamed sighed for the guitar-players and he didn't want to play bass. "Why don't you play it?" Paul said to John, "You're as good on it as I am." John used to play Stu's bass a bit and sometimes even did for a song a two at gigs and, according to Paul, John was pretty good. But John said he'd just bought a brand new Rickenbacker and it made no sense to spend that kind of money on a guitar and then not play it. So Paul said, "Why not George then? He's pretty good on it too." John said they needed George on lead and reminded Paul of the disaster they had when he tried to play lead onstage. Paul said his fingers tended to end up under the strings rather than over them and that's what got George into the band--he could play leads onstage and neither John or Paul could. John then told Paul not to try to get George or Pete on his side saying he'd already spoken with them and they agreed that Paul should be the bassist.

Paul still resisted and John told him point-blank that if he would not play bass then they would have to find someone who would and there would be no place for Paul. It was mostly a bluff on John's part. He didn't want Paul to leave and start a rival band. But Paul was a perfectly adequate bassist and there was no reason he shouldn't play it. Paul took John's bluff seriously and decided, "Okay, then, I'm the bass-player."

He said he would have to get his own bass and give the other one back to Stu. He went to Hessy's music shop in Hamburg and saw a violin Hofner bass in the window. Paul needed a lefty bass but couldn't find one. He figured he'd have to play a righty upside down but he didn't want one that "looked daft" when turned upside down. Paul wanted a P-bass and knew they made lefty models but they were too expensive and there was no way he was going to find a lefty in Europe.

But this violin bass could be turned upside down and who would notice? Plus it was cheap, affordable. So he bought it. So here's the missing info: _Who modified Paul's bass for left-handed play?_ Both Pete Best and Tony Sheridan said Paul had it modified and that Hofner did not make lefty models in those days. So who did it? And when did he do it? If it had taken a while then there should be a few photos of Paul with Stu's bass but I do not believe there are any. The earliest photos I can find that show Paul as bassist show him with his modified Hofner. Did someone at Hessy's do the work or did they refer Paul to somebody? If so, whom?









I don't know if this is the earliest photo but it's one of the earliest and as you can see, Paul's bass has been fully modified into a lefty. The pickguard and controls have been remounted and the holes filled in. It looks to be quite a professional job. WHO DID IT???? I have never read an interview where Paul talks about this. If i ever met him, it would be one of the first things I would ask him: Who modified your Hofner and when? How long did it take? Were you playing Stu's bass in the interim and for how long? Did you manage to find a lefty Hofner somehow?? Btw, George is holding a Gretsch black Duo Jet which was the exact same model as Cliff Gallup in the Blue Caps. George idolized Cliff's playing and bought one advertised in the papers. To the best of my knowledge, he kept it until the day he died.


----------



## Guest

Another question I have about this bass is what happened to it. One source said it was stolen. But Paul said it wore out and wouldn't stay in tune so he ordered another from Hofner and specified it to made left-handed.









This photo was taken in '63 and shows Paul's new Hofner (the pickups are spaced farther apart). Paul stopped using the Hofners altogether after the Beatles stopped touring. He had received a Rickenbacker the year before from Mr. Rickenbacker himself. He decided to start using it and used it on all the subsequent Beatles albums. But he used the Hofner again for the Rooftop Concert. Supposedly, this one was stolen after that gig.

In the late 80s, he met with Elvis Costello and they decided to collaborate. Costello said he wanted Paul to use his original Hofner. Paul said it's been in the closet since '63 and didn't work anymore. Costello told him to fix it because he wanted that bass. Paul pulled it out and had it refurbished and used it. So if it had been stolen as one source said, Paul would have had no Hofners--both being stolen. So, apparently, he still has the original Hofner but his new one was stolen.

But who modified the original?


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## znapschatz

Thanks, Redseal, this is interesting stuff. As huge a fan as I am, I have never been moved to dig into the Beatles’ personal or professional doings, but I’m glad there are some folks around who do have that inclination.


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## Pat Fairlea

I am of the generation that grew up with the Beatles. Their music did nothing for me at the time, and still doesn't. Looking back at that era, the only group whose music has stayed with me is The Kinks. Sorry, Beatles fans, that's just how it is.


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## Ekim the Insubordinate

I have not done a scientific study of it, but in my experience, most fans of 60s rock and roll - whether they grew up with it or not - seem to be biased towards that decade producing "great" and "the best" music, and most everything else since has been crap. They are not unfamiliar with hyperbole.


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## starthrower

I would say those same people, whoever they are, extend that "great" period in to the early 70s. 1966-1974 or so seems to be the "golden era". And by the late 70s the record companies didn't want any experimentation. They wanted nothing but million selling chart busting albums. Some of the punk and new wave stuff from that period was pretty good, but it soon turned into the blow dried pretty boy bands of the early 80s. Duran Duran, Wham, and others of that ilk. That's when I dropped out and got into jazz and classical. And creative rock music went underground, and has stayed there ever since.


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## SixFootScowl

starthrower said:


> I would say those same people, whoever they are, extend that "great" period in to the early 70s. 1966-1974 or so seems to be the "golden era". And by the late 70s the record companies didn't want any experimentation. They wanted nothing but million selling chart busting albums. Some of the punk and new wave stuff from that period was pretty good, *but it soon turned into the blow dried pretty boy bands of the early 80s.* Duran Duran, Wham, and others of that ilk. That's when I dropped out and got into jazz and classical. And creative rock music went underground, and has stayed there ever since.


Seems what you are describing is closely correlated to commercialism. That is about the time J. Giles went commercial. Album sales rocketed but the music plummeted IMO. ZZ Top when the same way. One thing about Johnny Winter is he avoided commercialism for the most part and as a consequence was relatively unknown to most people who listen to "tunes" on the radio. Besides that blues never was much suited to commercialism as the listening audience is too small for major profits.


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## starthrower

Johnny Winter went from playing stadiums to bars. Same with Robin Trower. But SRV played big venues. He was the new young guy. Johnny did some good stuff for Alligator, and Point Blank records. 

I have no idea what's going on in pop music today? I haven't paid attention for 30 years. Funny how most people won't listen to hardcore blues music, but if you dress it up a bit they bite. ZZ Top's Eliminator is a great example.


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## Casebearer

I think many of us agree that around 1974 music industry took over again to gain control over the mass consumption of music and quality, creativity and innovation were buried. It was one of the most depressing developments in my life.


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## nikola

Commercial music can be great too. To make a commercial success back then you didn't have to sound like Nicki Minaj today. You also don't need to sound like some megalomaniac progressive psychodelic mastur***ion (1966 - 1974) to be great. Talent can show itself in many forms. Overally, commercial music back then through 60's, 70's, 80's and early 90's was better than commercial music in last 20 years which doesn't mean that there are still no great pop-rock musicians and bands even today, but they're mostly not commercial. Today, to be commercial you have to present kitsch and show your big as* on stage. So, instead of Minaj, Rihanna, Miley, Beyonce and other 'divas' I miss good ole times when I could see on TV Elton John, Tina Turner, Billy Joel, etc.


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## SixFootScowl

starthrower said:


> Johnny Winter went from playing stadiums to bars. Same with Robin Trower. But SRV played big venues. He was the new young guy. Johnny did some good stuff for Alligator, and Point Blank records.


I don't know what it was about SRV because he played more blues and still played the big venues. Johnny's stadium days were more rock oriented, though always including some blues, and then he went back to the blues and played bars and other small venues. I remember when Johnny went back to the blues with his album, Nothing but the Blues. That is a great album, but it would not register with the rockers.

Hmmm, where are the Beatles in all this. I know Johnny did a few Dylan covers, and some Hendrix covers, but never a Beatles cover.


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## starthrower

I guess the Beatles weren't an influence on Johnny Winter. I hear their influence in Harry Nilssson. And the Genesis song, Trick Of The Tail. The Byrds were more influential on American artists. Tom Petty is the sound of the Byrds doing Dylan songs.


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## Barbebleu

Pat Fairlea said:


> I am of the generation that grew up with the Beatles. Their music did nothing for me at the time, and still doesn't. Looking back at that era, the only group whose music has stayed with me is The Kinks. Sorry, Beatles fans, that's just how it is.


Different strokes. I love the Kinks too.


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## znapschatz

starthrower said:


> I guess the Beatles weren't an influence on Johnny Winter. *I hear their influence in Harry Nilssson*. And the Genesis song, Trick Of The Tail. The Byrds were more influential on American artists. Tom Petty is the sound of the Byrds doing Dylan songs.


I like Nilsson a lot, but frustrated at his lack of discipline. My favorite of his albums is _Son of Schmilsson_, a mixture of great songs and adolescent joking around, _The Most Beautiful World in the World_ the most egregious example. Brushing aside the b*********, I would nominate this song for national anthem.


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## Art Rock

starthrower said:


> I guess the Beatles weren't an influence on Johnny Winter. I hear their influence in Harry Nilssson. And the Genesis song, Trick Of The Tail.


Fast forward to this century, and Porcupine Tree (possibly the most famous prog band of the last 20 years) showed a conscious or subconscious Beatles influence in this song:


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## SixFootScowl

Barbebleu said:


> Different strokes. I love the Kinks too.


I like early Kinks. Very early Kinks, like late 60s.


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## SixFootScowl

starthrower said:


> I guess the Beatles weren't an influence on Johnny Winter. I hear their influence in Harry Nilssson. And the Genesis song, Trick Of The Tail. The Byrds were more influential on American artists. Tom Petty is the sound of the Byrds doing Dylan songs.


Johnny really tore though Highway 61 Revisited. Here is an early song Johnny wrote in a Dylanesque style:


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## starthrower

Florestan said:


> I like early Kinks. Very early Kinks, like late 60s.


That wouldn't be very early Kinks. More like '64.


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## starthrower

PT never really did much for me, but they do have a lot of fans. I suppose "prog" denotes a sub genre of rock, but it doesn't necessarily mean progressive.


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## SixFootScowl

starthrower said:


> That wouldn't be very early Kinks. More like '64.


I stand corrected and should have looked it up. I remember the only album I had and liked it a lot was one that included a song "Bald Headed Woman."

Early Stones were among my favorite too: Out of Our Heads.


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## Casebearer

nikola said:


> Commercial music can be great too. To make a commercial success back then you didn't have to sound like Nicki Minaj today. You also don't need to sound like some megalomaniac progressive psychodelic mastur***ion (1966 - 1974) to be great. Talent can show itself in many forms. Overally, commercial music back then through 60's, 70's, 80's and early 90's was better than commercial music in last 20 years which doesn't mean that there are still no great pop-rock musicians and bands even today, but they're mostly not commercial. Today, to be commercial you have to present kitsch and show your big as* on stage. So, instead of Minaj, Rihanna, Miley, Beyonce and other 'divas' I miss good ole times when I could see on TV Elton John, Tina Turner, Billy Joel, etc.


I don't agree at all. I think the 80's and 90's were a very low point in (commercial) music. It gradually got - a bit - better after that, although we're not seeing the creative freedom of the 60's and 70's. When you say you miss Elton John, Tina Tuner and Billy Joel on TV I'm very glad I have different reference points in time


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## nikola

Casebearer said:


> I don't agree at all. I think the 80's and 90's were a very low point in (commercial) music. It gradually got - a bit - better after that, although we're not seeing the creative freedom of the 60's and 70's. When you say you miss Elton John, Tina Tuner and Billy Joel on TV I'm very glad I have different reference points in time


We agree that we don't agree.


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## Strange Magic

Casebearer said:


> I don't agree at all. I think the 80's and 90's were a very low point in (commercial) music. It gradually got - a bit - better after that, although we're not seeing the creative freedom of the 60's and 70's. When you say you miss Elton John, Tina Tuner and Billy Joel on TV I'm very glad I have different reference points in time


Please elaborate. I realize that I have terrible taste, and revel in it, but the 80s and 90s provided me with a lot of musical enjoyment (commercial), if we're talking about Journey, Styx, REO Speedwagon, Billy Idol, late Jefferson Starship, lots of others.


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## starthrower

Strange Magic said:


> Please elaborate. I realize that I have terrible taste, and revel in it, but the 80s and 90s provided me with a lot of musical enjoyment (commercial), if we're talking about Journey, Styx, REO Speedwagon, Billy Idol, late Jefferson Starship, lots of others.


Yep! You have terrible taste! Just kidding! But at least Billy Idol was good for a raised Elvis lip. I'll take the Airplane, you can have the Starship.


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## Guest

starthrower said:


> Yep! You have terrible taste! Just kidding! But at least Billy Idol was good for a raised Elvis lip. I'll take the Airplane, you can have the Starship.


Actually Jefferson Starship was not quite the same as Starship. When Paul Kantner left the band he took the rights to use "Jefferson" in the band's name. So they became just Starship and after a few personnel changes, they became a terrible pop Top 40 hits band--"We Built This City" "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" etc. Jefferson Starship was really quite good. Yes, I prefer Airplane but the original Starship did some pretty decent non-commercial stuff. A Jefferson Airplane, btw, is a paper match split down the middle to hold a spliff--a makeshift roach clip.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

I liked Hot Tuna Better


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## Phil loves classical

Strawberry Fields is their greatest and most daring song. Hasn't been one before or since, though some have tried.


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## Strange Magic

starthrower said:


> Yep! You have terrible taste! Just kidding! But at least Billy Idol was good for a raised Elvis lip. I'll take the Airplane, you can have the Starship.


I like both the Airplane and the Starship immensely--one of the great ongoing endless mutations in rock/pop history. Billy Idol's band was one of the tightest ensembles in rock; his drummer must have lost 20 lbs a performance. I affirm that I am easily pleased, and regard it as a great blessing!


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## Strange Magic

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> I liked Hot Tuna Better


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## Strange Magic

Victor Redseal said:


> Actually Jefferson Starship was not quite the same as Starship. When Paul Kantner left the band he took the rights to use "Jefferson" in the band's name. So they became just Starship and after a few personnel changes, they became a terrible pop Top 40 hits band--"We Built This City" "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" etc. Jefferson Starship was really quite good. Yes, I prefer Airplane but the original Starship did some pretty decent non-commercial stuff. A Jefferson Airplane, btw, is a paper match split down the middle to hold a spliff--a makeshift roach clip.


All true. Starship never worked for me; it was the Jefferson Starship that rang my bell and made me want to Ride the Tiger. St. Charles is one of my top ten. My enthusiasm continued right through the final albums up to the split that led to Starship and Paul Kantner going separate ways.


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## nikola

Strange Magic said:


> Please elaborate. I realize that I have terrible taste, and revel in it, but the 80s and 90s provided me with a lot of musical enjoyment (commercial), if we're talking about Journey, Styx, REO Speedwagon, Billy Idol, late Jefferson Starship, lots of others.


It would be more terrible to pretend that you have great taste by listening to some pretentious crap from "innovative" musicians who wouldn't be actually able to compose a quality song even if their life depends on it.


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## starthrower

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> I liked Hot Tuna Better


Check out the full show w/ Jack & Jorma on YouTube. It's great! Jorma is 75 and Jack is 71 or 2. It's the show where Jorma is playing a purple Les Paul.


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## Strange Magic

Jorma Kaukonen definitely goes down in my book as one of the greatest of emotive guitarists. Maybe I'll have to work up my list of Top Five (Ten?).


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## AfterHours

The Beatles were quite good, especially for a pop band (that, as their career progressed, added or dabbled in many other genres). Compared to truly astonishing composers, such as Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Brahms, Wagner, Mahler, etc, they were, of course, rather superficial. Though enjoyable, I do feel they are quite overrated (if they're proclaimed as the "all time greatest" or thereabouts). They lack emotional/conceptual depth in the vast majority of their compositions, and many (mostly less heralded) Rock artists surpassed them in my opinion (if one's criteria is creatively expressed emotional/conceptual depth or similar).


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## PlaySalieri

They were great - best band of all time and I think that accolade will endure.
They were all talented in their own way - even Ringo wrote some good songs - and Harrison wrote the immortal "Something" - a song praised by Frank Sinatra no less. McCartney and Lennon wrote some great solo songs after the beatles. Imagine, Mull of Kintyre and others. But they were at their best in the group - until Yoko.


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## Phil loves classical

Starting with Help! They were great.


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## Pugg

​Coming June, 50 years old.


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## SoleilCouchant

*quickly skims through thread* 

My two cents:

Yes, the Beatles were that great. Very creative, managed to be both innovative, experimental and influential yet massively mainstream and appealing at the same time. Skillz.

And, I love ABBA! People can look down on things, but I agree, there is something SO entertaining and catchy about (a lot) of their music. I love listening to them. Getting up and dancing around to them, all that. And that is a super talent in itself. Benny and Bjorn were doing something right... Play "That's Me" and it's pretty much impossible for me to be able to sit still lol. I love SO many of their songs!! don't hate


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## Phil loves classical

SoleilCouchant said:


> *quickly skims through thread*
> 
> My two cents:
> 
> Yes, the Beatles were that great. Very creative, managed to be both innovative, experimental and influential yet massively mainstream and appealing at the same time. Skillz.
> 
> And, I love ABBA! People can look down on things, but I agree, there is something SO entertaining and catchy about (a lot) of their music. I love listening to them. Getting up and dancing around to them, all that. And that is a super talent in itself. Benny and Bjorn were doing something right... Play "That's Me" and it's pretty much impossible for me to be able to sit still lol. I love SO many of their songs!! don't hate


ABBA gets a lot of scorn from Classic Rock enthusiasts. But I think the song arrangements are clearly way above par than a lot of Claasic Rock songs. The production is too polished and bright for its own good, so it lacks some gutsy soul, which draws way more criticism than it deserves. SOS is a great song.


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## Agamemnon

Yes, the Beatles were genuinely great. And the reason has something to do with classical/serious music! They were of course not musically educated but they were very very open minded musically so they listened to all music: they listened to Bach and to Stockhausen as well. In the pop genre they loved the avantgardists like The Velvet Underground and Captain Beefheart. And of course they listened to non-Western music as well. The Beatles were also very fast learners so everything they heard was integrated in some way into their music. That's why soon the Beatles wasn't just another pop group anymore: their music transcended the pop genre and became the missing link between pop and art!

And of course McCartney and Lennon were an ideal duo for songwriting together because they were so different and therefore could always add something interesting to what the other was doing. So McCartney was great in inventing nice melodies; Lennon was more focused on putting interesting chord progressions under a note. McCartney liked to tell stories (3rd singular) while Lennon sang more about his feelings and experiences (1st singular).


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## Guest

I was reading about the writing of "She's Leaving Home" and it's quite interesting. Paul read about a 17-year-old girl who ran away from home in the _Daily Mail_ and got the idea to write a song about it. The song is a true Lennon-McCartney composition although Paul is the primary force behind the song. He wrote and sang the verses. The choruses were written by John and he and Paul sang them. The verses and choruses go together beautifully.

Mike Leander actually wrote the arrangement for strings and harp. The harpist, Sheila Bromberg, said Paul was difficult to work with because he didn't seem to know what he wanted. She would play different intros and he would go, "No, that's not it." They worked on the recording into for a couple of days doing several takes but at about midnight, one of the violinists yelled out to Paul in the control booth that this would be the last take because they all had gigs to play at in the morning and they all needed to get some sleep. Bromberg said the Beatles gig was sort of a last minute thing but she took it simply because it's not a good idea for a working musician to turn down work or your agent stops calling you. John was also at the session but George and Ringo were not--they had nothing to do with the recording.

Bromberg said when she heard the finished song that she realized that they went with the first take and that they had double-tracked her harp which she thought was clever. Apparently, that's what Paul was looking for.

Whether Paul knew it or not, he knew the girl who had disappeared. She was Melanie Coe. The Beatles had met her in 1963 on some television show where she won some kind of award and Paul presented it to her. Strangely, though, she said she actually barely spoke to John or Paul as they weren't in chatty moods but did spend a great deal of time bantering with George and Ringo.

She didn't know the song was about her until she was in her 20s and her mother told her (she returned home after about 10 days living it up with some guy she met).

"The amazing thing about the song was how much it got right about my life. It quoted the parents as saying 'We gave her everything money can buy,' which was true in my case. I had two diamond rings, a mink coat, handmade clothes in silk and cashmere and even my own car.

"Then there was the line 'After living alone for so many years,' which really struck home to me because I was an only child and I always felt alone. I never communicated with either of my parents. It was a constant battle...

"I heard the song when it came out and thought it was about someone like me but never dreamed it was actually about me. I can remember thinking that I didn't run off with a man from the motor trade, so it couldn't have been me! I must have been in my twenties when my mother said she'd seen Paul on television and he'd said that the song was based on a story in a newspaper. That's when I started telling my friends it was about me."

But it's strange that the two Beatles that got her life so right were the two she barely spoke to some years before and the two she did speak to weren't involved in the writing or recording of the song. As for the motor trade line, Paul explained: "The man from the motor trade was just a typical sleazy character, the kind of guy that could pull a young bird by saying, 'Would you like a ride in my car, darlin'?' Nice plush interior, that's how you pulled birds. So it was just a nice little bit of sleaze."

https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/shes-leaving-home/






Anyway, I think "She's Leaving Home" is a brilliant song. From the first time I heard it as a young lad up to now, I still feel it is one of the greatest pop songs ever written. Just lovely.


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## Larkenfield

Yes. I do believe they were great, and I still enjoy listening to them after many years for a change of pace and to remember how turbulent most of the ’60s and ‘70’s were except for them as a bright spot. They were nice, bright, good-looking, tea-drinking lads (except for their occasional acid trips, lol) with an exceptional genius for song-writing and music; the Stones were louder, used the hard stuff, and the dangerous, evil ones. Lol... Raise your daughters to date Beatle-types and not Stones-types and the world will be a much better place... The Beatle’s music was full of surprises, depth, fun, inventiveness, imagination, wit, revolution, transformation, melody and actual chord changes, honesty, sincerity, and a reflection of the profound changes in their personal lives over the years. The world was mad about them at the time in a good way. But I wouldn’t want to take a ride in their yellow submarine, though I still wouldn’t mind meeting Eleanor Rigby and getting by with a little help from her friends... I greatly admired them as people, especially the quiet one George, but I can still remember exactly where I was when I heard about John Lennon’s death. Like Icarus, he must have flown too close to the sun to be permitted to live. What a waste... what a loss of a genuinely great talent and free spirit... Long live the Beatles! I believe they’ll still be played 50 years from now if the Earth squeaks by and people still exist.


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## haydnguy

I was watching a clip of an interview with George Harrison talking about the "Paul is dead" rumor. He said that they didn't come up with it and didn't know where it came from but they decided to take advantage of it and started putting little "clues" on the album covers/songs. Basically, it was a marketing thing.

The Beatles had good harmony and melodies, they were in a time when experimentation was acceptable so they didn't stay stagnant where every album sounded the same. 

There was a movie theater in my town that was there in 1959 when my parents and I moved there. I don't know when it was built. A bunch on Facebook a couple of years ago all agreed that the longest line they ever saw at that theater was for Hard Day's Night. That line was just incredible.

There have been better talent, Eric Clapton on guitar, etc., but there just wasn't anything like the "total package" that the Beatles were.


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## elgar's ghost

haydnguy said:


> I was watching a clip of an interview with George Harrison talking about the "Paul is dead" rumor. He said that they didn't come up with it and didn't know where it came from but they decided to take advantage of it and started putting little "clues" on the album covers/songs. Basically, it was a marketing thing.


If that was the case I always found this example one of the cleverer ones (assuming it was ever intentional - most of the so-called 'clues' are really stretching it...). For those not sure what I'm on about, this is a still from the _Magical Mystery Tour_, and Paul is wearing a black flower whereas the other Beatles have red ones.


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## joen_cph

C95 said:


>


Frankly, in spite of all the hype, I´ve lost interest in them, though they were of course culturally important. 
Prefer many other artists in that field.


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## Strange Magic

joen_cph said:


> Frankly, in spite of all the hype, I´ve lost interest in them, though they were of course culturally important.
> Prefer many other artists in that field.


You've moved on; lost interest. Due to a peculiarity in my nature, I never move on or lose interest; I just continue to add to the accumulated stockpile of things that please me. The Beatles Live! Just like Bach, dead, but he lives.


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## joen_cph

Strange Magic said:


> You've moved on; lost interest. Due to a peculiarity in my nature, I never move on or lose interest; I just continue to add to the accumulated stockpile of things that please me. The Beatles Live! Just like Bach, dead, but he lives.


Well, I'm from a later generation than them too ...


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## Guest

"God Like Geniuses Standing Shoulder To Shoulder With Bach And Mozart" = *Herman's Hermits
*
"Great" = *The Kinks**
*
"Good" = *The Beatles*

Now that I've settled that to everyone's satisfaction... let's move on, eh? Thanks!

But in all seriousness... unless you actually were fortunate enough to experience "1964" in both it's literal and figurative sense you'll never really know or understand just how profound an experience it was... Nothing was ever the same after that - it was a seismic cultural shift which is still reverberating to this very day.


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## elgar's ghost

Will you stop name-dropping Herman's Hermits in all of your threads otherwise I might have to come over there and commit murder. :lol:


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## Guest

elgars ghost said:


> Will you stop name-dropping Herman's Hermits *in all of your threads* otherwise I might have to come over there and commit murder. :lol:


This will be my 810th post and I'm fairly certain that I've only mentioned Herman's Hermits _maybe_... and I must stress *maybe* a little more than a couple of hundred times or so... A "couple of hundred" is substantially less than 810, my friend, and so you owe me an apology and I would also appreciate your rescinding the death threat.

View attachment 107853


Here's what one of your heroes thinks about Herman -

https://www.villages-news.com/hermans-hermits-singer-recalls-his-underage-drinking-with-john-lennon/

"The story goes like this: It's 1965, and Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits walks into a London bar with John Lennon.

Noone is 17 and too young to drink.

So Lennon tells the bartender, "it's all right, he's with me." There's a two-drink minimum and Lennon knows that Noone can't buy liquor.

"You get two Cokes and I'll get two Bacardis," Lennon said. Then Lennon gave him one of his drinks.
"I was just a cheeky kid and John was a Beatle," Noone said this week in a telephone interview.

Earlier this year, Noone recorded a track called "I Can't Imagine" as a tribute to Lennon. "He was a friend and like everyone else, I admired his music."

It was about 50 years ago that the Beatles, Rolling Stones, the Who and Herman's Hermits dominated the British Invasion of American record charts.

"We were all very popular and we all knew each other and did a lot of things together," Noone said. "It was a very creative time."

The band's sound and style was different than the Beatles, Stones or Who. Those groups were older and had a rougher edge. Noone was just a kid and The Hermits offered a fresh and light blend of pop, rock and English music hall music.

"Their records were smooth, pleasant pop/rock, roughly the British invasion equivalent of easy listening, which set them apart from most of the rival acts of the period," Bruce Eder wrote on allmusic.com.

"We were different from the other groups and that's what I think made us popular," Noone said.

The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Who would eventually fade into long overdue and well-deserved obscurity being reduced to the status of "answers to really obscure trivia questions that everyone always gets wrong" but Herman's Hermits would eventually become known as "*The World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band*".

Editor's Note: don't fact-check that last statement as I'm fairly certain that I'm just making it up.

Thanks!

- Syd.

Additional Beatles/Herman's Hermits anecdotes -

https://www.quora.com/Did-the-Beatles-know-the-group-Herman-s-Hermits-in-England

This quote is true and is taken from the link above -

"Andrew Loog Oldham, former manager of the Rolling Stones, once said: If the Beatles (in the early part of their career) ever looked over their shoulders, it was not the Stones they saw. They saw the Dave Clark 5 or *Herman's Hermits*.

When it comes to popularity charts, Dave Clark 5 and Herman's Hermits were the greatest rivals of The Beatles up till 1966.


----------



## Guest

"No Milk Today" - one of the best songs of the 60s...

...oh, sorry, that was Herman's Hermits.

Yes, they were great - and their music still is. However, surely there were contemporaries who were doing stuff as "ground-breaking" as the Fab Four did on SPLHCB? Or did that whole album really just appear without precedent (though with an enormous contribution from producer, engineer and sessions musicians, of course)?


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> "No Milk Today" - one of the best songs of the 60s...
> 
> ...oh, sorry, that was Herman's Hermits.
> 
> Yes, they were great - and their music still is. However, *surely there were contemporaries who were doing stuff as "ground-breaking" as the Fab Four did on SPLHCB?* Or did that whole album really just appear without precedent (though with an enormous contribution from producer, engineer and sessions musicians, of course)?


Right off of the top of my head -

Freddie and the Dreamers - "King Freddie and His Dreaming Knights"

Herman's Hermits - "Both Sides of Herman's Hermits"

Mr. Acker Bilk - "The Best of Ball, Barber and Bilk (with Kenny Ball and Chris Barber)"

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - "If Music Be the Food of Love ... Then Prepare for Indigestion"

Cliff Richard - "32 Minutes and 17 Seconds with Cliff Richard"

Johnny Hallyday - "Johnny, reviens! Les Rocks les plus terribles"

Bob Dylan - "Highway 61 Revisited"

The Beach Boys - "Pet Sounds"


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## starthrower

Frank Zappa was doing amazing stuff in '66-'67 and he wrote and produced it himself. He didn't need a George Martin.


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## Guest

Sydney Nova Scotia said:


> Right off of the top of my head -
> 
> Freddie and the Dreamers - "King Freddie and His Dreaming Knights"
> 
> Herman's Hermits - "Both Sides of Herman's Hermits"
> 
> Mr. Acker Bilk - "The Best of Ball, Barber and Bilk (with Kenny Ball and Chris Barber)"
> 
> Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - "If Music Be the Food of Love ... Then Prepare for Indigestion"
> 
> Cliff Richard - "32 Minutes and 17 Seconds with Cliff Richard"
> 
> Johnny Hallyday - "Johnny, reviens! Les Rocks les plus terribles"
> 
> Bob Dylan - "Highway 61 Revisited"
> 
> The Beach Boys - "Pet Sounds"


I'd say you've just given me a list of some of the artists around at the the time. Are you seriously suggesting that Freddie and the Dreamers' and Mr Acker Bilk's works were "groundbreaking" in the way that Sgt Pepper was?



starthrower said:


> Frank Zappa was doing amazing stuff in '66-'67 and he wrote and produced it himself. He didn't need a George Martin.


Yes, according to Wiki, Freak Out was an influence on Sgt Pepper - though the reference is thin. Listening to _The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet_ I can hear the possibility of connections easily enough. Unfortunately for Frank, Beatlemania had already taken hold and he was never going to get a look in. Having said that, "Zappamania" was never going to be the same thing. Would he have wanted the acclaim from the mainstream critics?

Curious that _Freak Out _doesn't have a particularly high ranking in 'Best of' lists.


----------



## elgar's ghost

Sydney Nova Scotia said:


> Right off of the top of my head -
> 
> _Freddie and the Dreamers - "King Freddie and His Dreaming Knights"
> 
> Herman's Hermits - "Both Sides of Herman's Hermits"
> 
> Mr. Acker Bilk - "The Best of Ball, Barber and Bilk (with Kenny Ball and Chris Barber)"
> 
> Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - "If Music Be the Food of Love ... Then Prepare for Indigestion"
> 
> Cliff Richard - "32 Minutes and 17 Seconds with Cliff Richard"
> 
> Johnny Hallyday - "Johnny, reviens! Les Rocks les plus terribles"_
> 
> Bob Dylan - "Highway 61 Revisited"
> 
> The Beach Boys - "Pet Sounds"


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## Guest

MacLeod said:


> I'd say you've just given me a list of some of the artists around at the the time. Are you seriously suggesting that Freddie and the Dreamers' and Mr Acker Bilk's works were "groundbreaking" in the way that Sgt Pepper was?


As God is my witness I hereby promise the entire forum past, present, and future that I will never ever under any circumstances whatsoever incorporate "irony" in any post or thread that I shall ever write or reply to as the results of having attempted to do so are so discouraging and disheartening that I'm sorely tempted to never mention the names "Herman's Hermits", "Freddie & the Dreamers", "Mr. Acker Bilk", "Dave Dee, Dozy, Mick, & Tich", "Cliff Richard", or "Johnny Hallyday" in any post or thread that I shall ever write or reply to out of pure unadulterated spite and vindictiveness.... unless provoked into doing so out of self-defense....

Signed, sealed, and delivered..

Sydney Nova Scotia


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## Guest

@SNS

Sorry. Should have twigged. My bad. :lol:

I did think, with your compendious knowledge of the period, you might have attempted a serious answer.

From what I can see, there were a number of artists doing things at more or less the same time. Pink Floyd, for example, releasing _Piper At The Gates Of Dawn _in the same month, and as already indicated, the Mothers releasing Freak Out!

What is claimed as particularly innovative was the use of the studio as part of the creative process (and not merely a place to record a live performance). Is that really the case?

There is also a difference in that other prominent blues, rock and psychedelic artists were still performing live. My sense is that their records intended to capture work that could be reproduced live - and was therefore less innovative in the use of recording and processing tools, whatever may have been groundbreaking about the content..


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> @SNS
> 
> Sorry. Should have twigged. My bad. :lol:
> 
> I did think, with your compendious knowledge of the period, you might have attempted a serious answer.


Listing "Pet Sounds" actually was the serious answer but I didn't realize until I just checked the "Deep Tracks: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" thread that these quotes -

_"In 1966, the American musician and bandleader Brian Wilson's growing interest in the aesthetics of recording and his admiration for both record producer Phil Spector's Wall of Sound and the Beatles' album Rubber Soul resulted in the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds LP, which demonstrated his production expertise and his mastery of composition and arrangement. 
_
_The author Thomas MacFarlane credits the release with influencing many musicians of the time, with McCartney in particular singing its praises and drawing inspiration to "expand the focus of the Beatles' work with sounds and textures not usually associated with popular music". McCartney thought that his constant playing of the album made it difficult for Lennon to "escape the influence", adding: "It's very cleverly done ... so we were inspired by it and nicked a few ideas." Martin stated: "Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper never would have happened ... Pepper was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds.""
_
_"Freak Out! by the Mothers of Invention has also been cited as having influenced Sgt. Pepper. According to the author Philip Norman, during the Sgt. Pepper recording sessions McCartney repeatedly stated: "This is our Freak Out!" The music journalist Chet Flippo states that McCartney was inspired to record a concept album after hearing Freak Out!, considered the first rock concept album.""
_
were not included in the body of the text to help explain the genesis of the album itself and so I must offer you an apology for not having actually answered the question that you posed although in my defense I actually did think that the serious answer was supplied in the relevant thread but it was apparently overwhelmed by the "irony" of the other five selections within a post in an entirely different thread.

Out of respect for MacLeod and his mastery of the Socratic method I hereby officially revoke my threat/promise that I would never mention the names - "Freddy & The Dreamers", "Herman's Hermits", "Mr. Acker Bilk", "Dave Dee, Dozy, Dozy, Mick & Tich", "Cliff Richard" or "Johnny Hallyday" in any post of thread that I shall ever write or reply to and I shall also revoke my threat/promise not to employ "irony"... so from now on every time you're forced to read about "Freddy & The Dreamers", "Herman's Hermits", "Mr. Acker Bilk", "Dave Dee, Dozy, Dozy, Mick & Tich", "Cliff Richard" or "Johnny Hallyday" and/or are subjected to "irony" whether you want to be or not blame MacLeod, eh?

Signed, sealed, and delivered...

Sydney Nova Scotia


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> @SNS
> 
> From what I can see, there were a number of artists doing things at more or less the same time. Pink Floyd, for example, releasing _Piper At The Gates Of Dawn _in the same month, and as already indicated, the Mothers releasing Freak Out!
> 
> What is claimed as particularly innovative was the use of the studio as part of the creative process (and not merely a place to record a live performance). Is that really the case?
> 
> There is also a difference in that other prominent blues, rock and psychedelic artists were still performing live. My sense is that their records intended to capture work that could be reproduced live - and was therefore less innovative in the use of recording and processing tools, whatever may have been groundbreaking about the content..


This idea of "recording studio" as an "instrument" that was intentionally utilized during the recording sessions while legitimate needs to be balanced by the realization that the desire to stop touring was the actual genesis of this concept.

These series of quotes may help to shed light on how this developed...

"Lennon recalled that Rubber Soul was the first album on which the Beatles were in complete creative control, with enough studio time to develop and refine new sound ideas. According to Riley, the album reflects *"a new affection for recording" over live performance*. Author Philip Norman similarly writes that, with the Beatles increasingly drawn towards EMI's large cache of "exotic" musical instruments, and the band's readiness to incorporate "every possible resource of the studio itself" as well as Martin's skills as a classical arranger."

"Two years after the start of Beatlemania, the band were open to exploring new themes in their music through a combination of their *tiring of playing to audiences full of screaming fans*, their commercial power, a shared curiosity gained through literature and experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs, and their interest in the potential of the recording studio.

which leads to this quote -

"The sessions for Revolver furthered the spirit of studio experimentation evident on Rubber Soul. With the Beatles increasingly involved in the production of their music, Martin's role as producer had changed to one of a facilitator and collaborator, whereby the band now relied on him to make their ideas a reality. According to author Richard Rodriguez, Revolver marked the first time that the Beatles integrated studio technology into the "conception of the recordings they made". He views this approach *as reflective of the group's waning interest in live performance before crowds of screaming fans*, "in favor of creating soundscapes without limitation" in a studio environment.[/B] For the first time at EMI Studios, the company's four-track tape machines were placed in the studio's control room, alongside the producer and balance engineer, rather than in a dedicated machine room."

which leads to this quote -

"For *Pet Sounds*, Wilson desired to make "a complete statement", *similar to what he believed the Beatles had done with their newest album Rubber Soul*, released in December 1965. Wilson was immediately enamored with the album, given the impression that it had no filler tracks, a feature that was mostly unheard of at a time when 45 rpm singles were considered more noteworthy than full-length LPs. Many albums up until the mid-1960s lacked a cohesive artistic goal and were largely used to sell singles at a higher price point. Wilson found that Rubber Soul subverted this by having a wholly consistent thread of music. Inspired, he rushed to his wife and proclaimed, "Marilyn, I'm gonna make the greatest album! The greatest rock album ever made!" He would say of his reaction to Rubber Soul: "I liked the way it all went together, the way it was all one thing. It was a challenge to me ... *It didn't make me want to copy them but to be as good as them.* I didn't want to do the same kind of music, but on the same level."

which then leads to this quote...

"In 1966, the American musician and bandleader Brian Wilson's growing interest in the aesthetics of recording and his a*dmiration for both record producer Phil Spector's Wall of Sound and the Beatles' album Rubber Soul resulted in the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds LP*, which demonstrated his production expertise and his mastery of composition and arrangement. The author Thomas MacFarlane credits the release with influencing many musicians of the time, with *McCartney in particular singing its praises* and drawing inspiration to "expand the focus of the Beatles' work with sounds and textures not usually associated with popular music". *McCartney thought that his constant playing of the album made it difficult for Lennon to "escape the influenc*e". adding: "It's very cleverly done ... so we were inspired by it and nicked a few ideas."

Martin stated: "*Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper never would have happened ... Pepper was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds*".

Condensed version of above -

The Beatles no longer wish to tour.

Brian Wilson had little to no interest in touring due to significant mental health issues.

The Beatles release "Rubber Soul" on 3 December, 1965.

Brian Wilson admires/envies the release and vows to equal if not surpass.

The Beach Boys release "Pet Sounds" on 16 May 1966.

The Beatles release "Revolver" on 5 August 1966.

The Beatles release "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" on 26 May 1967.

The Beatles influence Brian Wilson who then goes on to influence the Beatles who then go on to influence everyone else... except for Herman's Hermits...who lead all and follow no one... and oh yeah... the Bee Gees... them too... they also lead all and follow no one...

And so now we're at the point in the narrative where every group everywhere is influenced by both "Pet Sounds" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" to such an extent that they feel compelled to follow suit and create albums which utilize the "recording studio" as "instrument"...

And this is where the wheels fall off...

because after having crafted albums which "utilize the recording studio as instrument" all of the other groups of the time belatedly realize

a.) that they are not in fact "The Beatles" and thus they need to actually get out on the road and tour to promote their newest singles/albums

and

b.) their wives and children have become somewhat tiresome and life on the road while touring is actually kind of entertaining because you get your money for nothing and your chicks for free.

However... and this is important... they suddenly find that they can't recreate their newest singles/albums live because they overdubbed those singles and albums to within an inch of their lives and that they would need to add at least half a dozen plus more musicians to come anywhere near an approximation of what they had accomplished in the studio.

And so they're faced with three decisions -

a.) Don't tour (which because of the need to promote the new release and the continued presence of the really rather tiresome wife and children is not really an option)

b.) Hire enough additional musicians to adequately recreate the dozens of overdubbed vocal and instrumental tracks (which is really expensive because those musicians willing to play for free aren't worth hearing and those who won't play for free can become prohibitively expensive because at the very least you have to pay them musician's union scale - and they kind of cut in on the free chicks action which annoys the original group's drummer and bass player to no end)

c.) Essentially just say "Oh to hell with it" and go out on tour and play versions of the tunes which don't actually sound anything like the recorded ones but everyone is so thrilled to see them live that they don't actually care and quite frankly a lot of the audience members were so wasted that they weren't even entirely certain who was actually on stage at the time... and so everyone went with "c.)"...


----------



## starthrower

Best lists mean nothing. These are the products of magazine editors and journalists. They basically know zilch about music composition, musicianship and album production. It's interesting to note that John and Yoko claimed authorship for one of Zappa's compositions when they produced their Some Time In New York City album. They retitled King Kong as Jamrag. And the improv is so obviously the Mothers directed by Frank with a bit of howling by the talentless Yoko.


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## Guest

starthrower said:


> Best lists mean nothing. These are the products of magazine editors and journalists. They basically know zilch about music composition, musicianship and album production. It's interesting to note that John and Yoko claimed authorship for one of Zappa's compositions when they produced their Some Time In New York City album. They retitled King Kong as Jamrag. And the improv is so obviously the Mothers directed by Frank with a bit of howling by the talentless Yoko.


Here's the interview on video - The naming of the video is spurious...


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## starthrower

Yep! That's the story. But I'm a Beatles fan, and the Fab Four and George Martin along with Zappa and Brian Wilson were the pioneers of album production as art. And Freak Out could've been a lot better but FZ was working with a tiny budget. I think Lumpy Gravy is a lot more impressive, and that album was in the can long before it got released. But to take nothing away from Sgt Pepper because it's a brilliant album.


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## Guest

MacLeod said:


> "No Milk Today" - one of the best songs of the 60s...
> 
> ...oh, sorry, that was Herman's Hermits.


It was written by Graham Gouldman who would later front 10 CC. Gouldman also wrote "Look Through Any Window" and "Bus Stop" for the Hollies and "For Your Love" and "Heartful of Soul" for the Yardbirds. The only time Gouldman ever met Clapton, he said he walked up, introduced himself and offered his hand. Clapton barely shook it and replied that his songs were the reason he left the Yardbirds and then walked away.


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## Guest

haydnguy said:


> I was watching a clip of an interview with George Harrison talking about the "Paul is dead" rumor. He said that they didn't come up with it and didn't know where it came from but they decided to take advantage of it and started putting little "clues" on the album covers/songs. Basically, it was a marketing thing.


The rumor started in Detroit. There was an AM Detroit rock station called WKNR or Keener radio (it used to be WKMH in the 50s and played 50s rocknroll). Keener was owned by Russ Gibb who also ran the Grande Ballroom where the MC5 got their start. One night, some stoned kid called the station and said that Paul was dead and gave them all these clues in the album covers and what not. It generated some buzz among listeners so the Keener staff dreamed up this idea to do a full mockumentary of Paul being dead and used this kid's "evidence" but also had clips of interviews from Clapton and people involved in the Beatles management talking about Paul being absent at major promos and that kind of thing.

It was beautifully put together (I have a recording of it) and sounds real. The mockumentary was aired a few times on Keener and it took off. It went viral before there was such a thing as going viral. Gibb said it was a few days later when news stations from Europe, Japan, South America, Australia etc were deluging them with questions about Paul's death. Even Mike McCartney had to issue a statement that his brother was not dead.

Gibb said once that Paul was scheduled to do a show at Pine Knob (now DTE Music Theatre) in Clarkston, Michigan and his entourage arrived at his house and offered to drive him there to meet Paul and prove he wasn't dead. Gibb explained the mockumentary was just a joke and they never expected it to catch fire the way it did and that he never doubted Paul was alive. He declined their invitation but told them he'd always had the greatest respect for Paul and never meant anything insulting towards him. Gibb said in an interview that he wasn't particularly proud of that stunt. He also said, three different guys have come forward to claim they were the stoned kid who called the station that touched the whole thing off but it was impossible to know which was telling the truth or if any of them were.



> There was a movie theater in my town that was there in 1959 when my parents and I moved there. I don't know when it was built. A bunch on Facebook a couple of years ago all agreed that the longest line they ever saw at that theater was for Hard Day's Night. That line was just incredible.


I remember going to the Gratiot Drive-In just outside of Detroit with my sisters and some of their friends and my younger brother to see "Hard Days Night." I think my mother drove us. I remember the lot was jam-packed. Beatlemania was a blast. I'm glad I was young and naive enough to be swept up in it. It was a lot of fun.


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## Guest

Victor Redseal said:


> It was written by Graham Gouldman who would later front 10 CC. Gouldman also wrote "Look Through Any Window" and "Bus Stop" for the Hollies and "For Your Love" and "Heartful of Soul" for the Yardbirds. The only time Gouldman ever met Clapton, he said he walked up, introduced himself and offered his hand. Clapton barely shook it and replied that his songs were the reason he left the Yardbirds and then walked away.


  I'll call your bit of trivia and raise you this from an article entitled -

"Heirs to The Beatles: the story of 10cc" -

"With their run of hits such as Donna, I'm Mandy Fly Me, The Wall Street Shuffle and Art For Art's Sake and their number one singles I'm Not In Love, Rubber Bullets and Dreadlock Holiday, 10cc were one of the biggest bands of the '70s.

More than that, they remain the biggest Jewish band ever to come out of Britain. There have been many popular solo Jewish stars, from Marc Bolan to Amy Winehouse, but there has never been a more successful rock group comprising Jewish members.

Mostly Jewish, that is. 10cc were three-quarters kosher: Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme were friends who used to rehearse at Jewish Lads Brigade in North Manchester. Godley and Creme later attended art school and Gouldman became a writer of hits for the likes of The Hollies, The Yardbirds and Herman's Hermits.

But it was only when they teamed up with Eric Stewart, formerly of The Mindbenders and singer on their worldwide number one, Groovy Kind Of Love, at the dawn of the '70s, that they became famous as 10cc.

Full article (actually quite entertaining even if I do say so myself) -

https://www.thejc.com/culture/features/heirs-to-the-beatles-the-story-of-10cc-1.39977


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## Phil loves classical

I recall the rock critic Scaruffi saying the Beatles are overrated. The stuff he says is completely fabricated. He says no contemporary musicians respected them, but obviously other contemporary musicians thought highly of the Beatles like B. Wilson, and others that copied their style. One of his arguments was the use of a sitar doesn't make them great, which is true, but he ignores that their music is creative, and not just catchy. He says a lot for a guy with no musical training. Lenny Bernstein admires them as well

http://www.scaruffi.com/vol1/beatles.html


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## deprofundis

fine band later on, but started a bit silly like a boys band, but revolver a good solid album


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## Guest

Sydney Nova Scotia said:


> 10cc were three-quarters kosher: Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme were friends who used to rehearse at Jewish Lads Brigade in North Manchester. Godley and Creme later attended art school and Gouldman became a writer of hits for the likes of The Hollies, The Yardbirds and Herman's Hermits.
> 
> But it was only when they teamed up with Eric Stewart, formerly of The Mindbenders and singer on their worldwide number one, Groovy Kind Of Love, at the dawn of the '70s, that they became famous as 10cc.
> 
> Full article (actually quite entertaining even if I do say so myself) -
> 
> https://www.thejc.com/culture/features/heirs-to-the-beatles-the-story-of-10cc-1.39977


"Groovy Kind of Love" was written by two teenaged girls in high school: Toni Wine and Carol Bayer. Wine went on to co-write the Archies material and was the singing voices of Betty and Veronica. She also co-wrote "Candida" for Tony Orlando & Dawn which was the only song they did that I really, truly liked. Carol Bayer, of course, married Burt Bacharach for a time and had a solo career in the 70s as Carol Bayer Sager.

10CC also recorded under such names as the Ohio Express, Freddie & the Dreamers and Crazy Elephant although they were not the original versions of any of those bands. They had a couple of nice hits from that period--"Sausalito" and "Susan's Tuba."


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## Guest

Victor Redseal said:


> "Groovy Kind of Love" was written by two teenaged girls in high school: Toni Wine and Carol Bayer. Wine went on to co-write the Archies material and was the singing voices of Betty and Veronica. She also co-wrote "Candida" for Tony Orlando & Dawn which was the only song they did that I really, truly liked. Carol Bayer, of course, married Burt Bacharach for a time and had a solo career in the 70s as Carol Bayer Sager.
> 
> 10CC also recorded under such names as the Ohio Express, Freddie & the Dreamers and Crazy Elephant although they were not the original versions of any of those bands. They had a couple of nice hits from that period--"Sausalito" and "Susan's Tuba."


Really first-rate work - my compliments! Did not even have a clue about this -

"After five straight singles co-written and sung by Joey Levine (four of which made the US and Canadian Top 40), Levine grew dissatisfied with the amount of money he was receiving from his production deal, and left Super K Productions in early 1969. The company then turned to other hands to write, produce and perform Ohio Express singles. The Ohio touring quintet was not among them.

After Levine left, The Ohio Express never again made the top 40 in North America, although three 1969 singles made the lower reaches of the US and Canadian singles charts. One later minor hit single, "Sausalito (is the Place to Go)" was co-written and sung by Graham Gouldman, and performed by the four musicians who would later make up 10cc."






""Susan's Tuba" features only Freddie Garrity with instrumentation augmented by members who would form 10cc, including co-writer Graham Gouldman.






"Crazy Elephant was a short-lived American bubblegum pop band noted for their 1969 hit single, "Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'". Crazy Elephant was a studio concoction, created by Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz of Super K Productions, promoted in Cash Box magazine as allegedly being a group of Welsh coal miners. Former Cadillacs member Robert Spencer was widely utilized on lead vocals, though future 10cc member Kevin Godley took lead vocals on "There Ain't No Umbopo", recorded at Strawberry Studios in Stockport, England, and released on the Bell label in May 1970. A touring group was formed later for promotional purposes. The bassist on "Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'" was Gary Gaynor, a local studio musician who also worked with Laura Nyro.


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## Guest

Victor Redseal said:


> One bit of information I have never been able to find is like a piece of a missing jigsaw puzzle. I pieced it together from Spitz's and Davies' books as well as interviews with Paul. Maybe one of you has it. It goes like this:
> 
> Shortly after arriving in Hamburg, Paul's guitar--a cheap Rosetti, according to Paul--fell apart. The bar where they played had an old piano on the stage and so Paul started playing that in lieu of having an axe. He started to get decent on piano and decided to make it his regular instrument. However, everyone in the band--even John--was fast coming to the conclusion that Stu was no good. He never really played bass, he mimed it and kept his back to the audience so that they couldn't see he wasn't really playing. His bass was a Hofner President, I believe. He won an art contest and got a goodly amount of money so John and Paul talked him into buying the bass because the band needed a bassist. It looked something like this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This photo taken in Germany shows Paul with another guitar but it's actually John's. He let Paul pose with it because Paul had no axe at the time:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> During their gigs, they had these spots for Stu to kind of solo but Stu frequently missed the cues and his solos were terrible. John was Stu's friend and the only reason Stu was still in the band was because John refused to kick him out. But even John was realizing Stu wasn't up to the job. After Stu missed another cue one gig, an exasperated Paul yelled something at Stu. Stu said something back and Paul shot back with something else. Pete Best heard the exchange but couldn't make out everything that was said but was pretty sure that Paul's retort mentioned Astrid, whom Stu was in a relationship with. Stu threw down his bass and he and Paul went at it--onstage in front of a crowd. John signaled to George and Pete to just keep playing.
> 
> When the band next met for practice, Stu brought his bass but announced he was leaving the band. The others tried to talk him out of it. Paul tried to placate Stu saying we was just a couple of blokes blowing off steam--no big deal. But Stu said he wasn't mad about that and it wasn't why he was quitting. He said he knew he wasn't any good. He wasn't a musician. He was an artist and it was time to get back to his art. He wanted to stay in Hamburg and marry Astrid and work as an artist. He missed it and needed to get back to it. He said the band probably would have made it already if they had a decent bass-player. It was a moment of truth none could deny. Stu then handed his bass to Paul telling him he could play it until they found a new bassist but he told Paul not to re-string it for left-handed play.
> 
> Here's where the story gets sketchy:
> 
> Paul was apparently playing Stu's bass upside down at gigs but how long he did this, I don't know. It must have been quite a short while because, to my knowledge, there are no photos of Paul playing Stu's bass. According to Paul, after a few gigs, he asked John when they were going to start auditioning for bass-players as he was anxious to get back to the piano. John simply said, "You're the bass-player. We don't need a piano-player." Paul said he would get a new guitar then. John said they didn't need three guitarists--two was plenty. What they need, John said, was a bassist and since Paul had no axe then he needed to get a bass.
> 
> Paul said later in interviews that the birds never looked at the guy playing the bass and only screamed sighed for the guitar-players and he didn't want to play bass. "Why don't you play it?" Paul said to John, "You're as good on it as I am." John used to play Stu's bass a bit and sometimes even did for a song a two at gigs and, according to Paul, John was pretty good. But John said he'd just bought a brand new Rickenbacker and it made no sense to spend that kind of money on a guitar and then not play it. So Paul said, "Why not George then? He's pretty good on it too." John said they needed George on lead and reminded Paul of the disaster they had when he tried to play lead onstage. Paul said his fingers tended to end up under the strings rather than over them and that's what got George into the band--he could play leads onstage and neither John or Paul could. John then told Paul not to try to get George or Pete on his side saying he'd already spoken with them and they agreed that Paul should be the bassist.
> 
> Paul still resisted and John told him point-blank that if he would not play bass then they would have to find someone who would and there would be no place for Paul. It was mostly a bluff on John's part. He didn't want Paul to leave and start a rival band. But Paul was a perfectly adequate bassist and there was no reason he shouldn't play it. Paul took John's bluff seriously and decided, "Okay, then, I'm the bass-player."
> 
> He said he would have to get his own bass and give the other one back to Stu. He went to Hessy's music shop in Hamburg and saw a violin Hofner bass in the window. Paul needed a lefty bass but couldn't find one. He figured he'd have to play a righty upside down but he didn't want one that "looked daft" when turned upside down. Paul wanted a P-bass and knew they made lefty models but they were too expensive and there was no way he was going to find a lefty in Europe.
> 
> But this violin bass could be turned upside down and who would notice? Plus it was cheap, affordable. So he bought it. So here's the missing info: _Who modified Paul's bass for left-handed play?_ Both Pete Best and Tony Sheridan said Paul had it modified and that Hofner did not make lefty models in those days. So who did it? And when did he do it? If it had taken a while then there should be a few photos of Paul with Stu's bass but I do not believe there are any. The earliest photos I can find that show Paul as bassist show him with his modified Hofner. Did someone at Hessy's do the work or did they refer Paul to somebody? If so, whom?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't know if this is the earliest photo but it's one of the earliest and as you can see, Paul's bass has been fully modified into a lefty. The pickguard and controls have been remounted and the holes filled in. It looks to be quite a professional job. WHO DID IT???? I have never read an interview where Paul talks about this. If i ever met him, it would be one of the first things I would ask him: Who modified your Hofner and when? How long did it take? Were you playing Stu's bass in the interim and for how long? Did you manage to find a lefty Hofner somehow?? Btw, George is holding a Gretsch black Duo Jet which was the exact same model as Cliff Gallup in the Blue Caps. George idolized Cliff's playing and bought one advertised in the papers. To the best of my knowledge, he kept it until the day he died.


I finally got a satisfactory answer to this issue I brought up here some years ago. I met some Hofner fanatics online who know everything there is to know about those basses so I posted the question. What they said was a lot of stuff was quoted out of context and people added in nonsense over the years until the story got so garbled no one could make sense of it. First of all, Paul didn't go to Hessy's Music to get his Hofner because he was in Germany and Hessy's is in Liverpool. Paul went to a Steinway store. He saw a Hofner violin bass in the window which was right-handed but he did not buy that one because he needed a lefty. The salesman simply sent off an order to Hofner for a lefty. Many sources say that Hofner didn't make lefties but they did if you ordered one that way. It wouldn't have taken long because the bodies and necks were already assembled. Plus, the Hofner factory was very close to Hamburg making delivery pretty quick. And there you have it! Nobody modified Paul's bass into a lefty, it came from the factory as a lefty.


----------



## Guest

Victor Redseal said:


> "Groovy Kind of Love" was written by two teenaged girls in high school: Toni Wine and Carol Bayer. Wine went on to co-write the Archies material and was the singing voices of Betty and Veronica. She also co-wrote "Candida" for Tony Orlando & Dawn which was the only song they did that I really, truly liked.


I am wrong on this. I did some checking for how Dawn formed. "Candida" was performed by another band. Toni Wine did the backing vocals. Tony Orlando was a record exec who received the song and he wanted to do it. There was, however, a conflict of interest in Orlando singing it but he overdubbed his vocal anyway. The single was released by Bell Records under the name Dawn in order to protect Orlando's identity and keep him from being sued. It became a hit and the label asked Orlando if he thought he could throw a real Dawn band together--just a couple of female backing singers was enough. Orlando had worked as a producer for various labels had worked with two session vocalists--Telma Hopkins and Joyce Vincent Wilson--previously and he called them up and asked if they were interested in forming a real Dawn and they agreed and so they became Tony Orlando & Dawn. So Toni Wine didn't write "Candida" for Tony Orlando & Dawn, which didn't exist yet. She wrote it for a band that was named Dawn in order to get the single out.


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## Red Terror

The Beatles were a great pop band; nothing more, nothing less. And one must admit that there aren't very many pop/rock groups of their ilk in our age. I don't know that the fab four will be remembered a hundred years from now (Zappa certainly will be.) but they surely left quite a legacy.


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## Guest

Red Terror said:


> The Beatles were a great pop band; nothing more, nothing less. [...] but they surely left quite a legacy.


This seems to me somewhat contradictory. As a minimum, a "great 'pop' band" is one that produces great songs for its immediate generation. The Beatles did much more than that in leaving a legacy not just of songs for succeeding generations, but also a legacy in terms of a _cultural _and _musical _impact on broader popular music (including rock etc) and on UK culture more generally.


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## KenOC

Red Terror said:


> ...I don't know that the fab four will be remembered a hundred years from now (Zappa certainly will be.) but they surely left quite a legacy.


Zappa? Zappa who?


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## KenOC

KenOC said:


> Zappa? Zappa who?


Just kidding.










Inspired by


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## Room2201974

Red Terror said:


> I don't know that the fab four will be remembered a hundred years from now (Zappa certainly will be.) but they surely left quite a legacy.


Funny, I heard something very, very similar minus the Zappa, when the Beatles broke up......the one hundred years prediction thing............that is already 50 years in the making.

Centuries mean nothing to songs that cross the Greensleeves Threshold©.


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## Eva Yojimbo

After Bob Dylan they're very close with Iron Maiden for my second favorite artists in popular music, so, yeah, I'd say they were "that great."


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## Eva Yojimbo

Red Terror said:


> I don't know that the fab four will be remembered a hundred years from now (Zappa certainly will be.)


I'm much more inclined to reverse that. I'm quite certain The Beatles will be remembered in 100 years, but I fear for Zappa's legacy.


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## Strange Magic

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm much more inclined to reverse that. I'm quite certain The Beatles will be remembered in 100 years, but I fear for Zappa's legacy.


Off the top of my head, I cannot immediately bring to mind a popular musical biggie from 1919 whose name and music would resonate with any but a small or cult or specialist following. Maybe some WWI songs--"Over There"--would ring bells from seeing documentaries, etc. But, in general, who will be remembered 100 years from now is, for me, pure speculation. The increase in total production and retention of new popular (and every kind of) music threatens to overwhelm all but hyperspecialist enthusiasts and to drown society's long-term ability to retain an enduring shared memory of any particular artist or even movement or school. Both the Beatles and Zappa will thus survive as foci of cults, if one calls such survival.


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## Duncan

Strange Magic said:


> *Off the top of my head, I cannot immediately bring to mind a popular musical biggie from 1919 whose name and music would resonate with any but a small or cult or specialist following. * Maybe some WWI songs--"Over There"--would ring bells from seeing documentaries, etc. But, in general, who will be remembered 100 years from now is, for me, pure speculation. The increase in total production and retention of new popular (and every kind of) music threatens to overwhelm all but hyperspecialist enthusiasts and to drown society's long-term ability to retain an enduring shared memory of any particular artist or even movement or school. Both the Beatles and Zappa will thus survive as foci of cults, if one calls such survival.


1919? - Just off the top of my head... without recourse to research of any kind whatsoever - artists as familiar today as they were a hundred years ago brought to you by an average plain-vanilla garden-vareity Canadian with no particular or discernible musical expertise... whatsoever...

Ben Selvin was in a week by week battle with Henry Burr & Albert Campbell whose respective versions of "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" alternated on the top of the US charts for a combined 23 weeks.

Selvin placed two songs in the top 75; Henry Burr & Albert Campbell as a duo placed two titles on the charts; Henry Burr as a solo artist placed five songs on the charts for a total of seven spaces in the charts.

Al Jolson had three hits on the charts that year.

John McCormack had three hits on the charts that year.

Marion Harris had three hits on the charts that year.

Bert Williams placed four titles in the top 75.

Who can ever forget -

The Waldorf-Astoria Dance Orchestra's rendition of "Beautiful Ohio" which bested the version by Olive Kline & Marguerite Dunlap by 58 places?

Nora Bayes - " How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)"

Yerkes Flotilla Orchestra - "Kentucky Dreams"

Choro do Pixinguinha - "Rosa"

Sergei Rachmaninoff - # 48 on the charts with "Prelude in C Sharp Minor"

Wilbur Sweatman's Original Jazz Band with three singles - "I'll Say She Does", "Slide, Kelly, Slide", and "A Good Man Is Hard To Find"...?

Artist after artist as well-known now as they were a hundred years ago - each of them household names summoned forth just off the top of my head... without recourse to research of any kind whatsoever - brought to you by an average plain-vanilla garden-variety Canadian with no particular or discernible musical expertise... whatsoever...

And the songs! - - Who can ever forget timeless classics such as -

"Take Your Girlie to the Movies (If You Can't Make Love at Home)"

"Ja-Da (Ja Da, Ja Da, Jing Jing Jing)"

"Uncle Josh Sets Up the Kitchen Stove"

"Everybody Wants a Key to My Cellar"






Editor's Note: the above song is not intended as an endorsement of West Ham United...

And on a serious note - special thanks to my friend "Strange Magic" for inadvertently providing me with the subject matter for at least 40 separate threads - "Countdown to the Top 100 Songs for the year..." starting with 1910 and ending with 1949 - Coming soon to a forum near you!

:tiphat:


----------



## Strange Magic

" How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)"

My favorite response to that song title was: "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen the Farm?)":lol:


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## Guest

Strange Magic said:


> all but hyperspecialist enthusiasts and to drown society's long-term ability to retain an enduring shared memory of any particular artist or even movement or school.


Would that include Mozart and Beethoven? I mean, how many people, as a proportion of the general population, have "an enduring shared memory" of these two giants now? Both have left cultural echoes, but their impact has faded as ripples widening in a pond - except for the hyperspecialists, of course.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Strange Magic said:


> Off the top of my head, I cannot immediately bring to mind a popular musical biggie from 1919 whose name and music would resonate with any but a small or cult or specialist following. Maybe some WWI songs--"Over There"--would ring bells from seeing documentaries, etc. But, in general, who will be remembered 100 years from now is, for me, pure speculation. The increase in total production and retention of new popular (and every kind of) music threatens to overwhelm all but hyperspecialist enthusiasts and to drown society's long-term ability to retain an enduring shared memory of any particular artist or even movement or school. Both the Beatles and Zappa will thus survive as foci of cults, if one calls such survival.


Once we get into the 1920s it will be easier given that modern recording started then, and that's generally when jazz and musicals got big. I'd still say the likes of Ellington, Armstrong, Berlin, Porter, Gershwin, and a handful of others are "remembered" despite their centenary coming up. Sure, all of these acts are reduced to "specialized interests" now, but that's what happens to all past culture. When I talk about being remembered, I don't mean being in the public conscious the way a contemporary star is, but merely people knowing of them and probably knowing works by them (even if they couldn't name them).

With The Beatles and Zappa, the former have the advantage of, much like Ellington, Armstrong, Berlin, Porter, Gershwin, et al., making a huge cultural impact. Zappa was always and still is more of a niche interest, and I fear that interest will only shrink as time goes on. Of course interest in The Beatles will shrink as well, but they have an awfully large head start and much more room to shrink before they hit oblivion.


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## elgar's ghost

I can't see the Beatles fading at all - their legacy is just too big for that. In fact, once Starr and (especially) McCartney are dead I think their popularity will hit new spikes for a short time.


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## Strange Magic

For future remembrance, it will be an advantage to have one's music imbedded within some sort of structure--an exoskeleton--to keep its "shape" perceived as alive and vital. One such is the Musical, which will help perpetuate Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, Bernstein, _et al_. Also film--_Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz_. Tribute bands, if they persist, both fueling and the result of popular memory. Programs like T.J. Lubinsky's numberless and essential PBS popular music documentary performances: Disco, Doo-***, Soul, The Fifties, etc. Much of the vast bulk of Rock and Pop lacks that exoskeleton and hangs briefly in the air and the general public mind, then vanishes like smoke (except in the minds and memories of enthusiasts). Suzi Quatro, you live still within me!


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## millionrainbows

C95 said:


> What do you think about The Beatles? Were they that great?


Yes. You are damn lucky, too.


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## norman bates

Mollie John said:


> Choro do Pixinguinha - "Rosa"


this was written in 1917 actually 
(a timeless masterpiece and one of the most beautiful melodies ever in popular music, and in the same year Pixinguinha wrote another timeless masterpiece like Carinhoso)


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## Duncan

norman bates said:


> this was written in 1917 actually
> (a timeless masterpiece and one of the most beautiful melodies ever in popular music, and in the same year Pixinguinha wrote another timeless masterpiece like Carinhoso)


_Actually_ the reference was to its placement on the charts - # 46 in 1919 - not the date of composition -

#46 -Choro do Pixinguinha - "Rosa" -1919 - Brazil 3 of 1919

Nice try though...


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## Luchesi

MacLeod said:


> Would that include Mozart and Beethoven? I mean, how many people, as a proportion of the general population, have "an enduring shared memory" of these two giants now? Both have left cultural echoes, but their impact has faded as ripples widening in a pond - except for the hyperspecialists, of course.


The achievements of Mozart and Beethoven are many many times greater than the Beatles.

I think that in a hundred years what will be remembered about the Beatles is an analysis of why they were so popular at that exact time in the 60s. It's still quite an undertaking to reliably determine why their music is better than other groups at that time. In other words, it's not obvious how their subtle irreverences accomplished so much in the popular listening field. They broke a lot of rules and people really liked that.


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## starthrower

Luchesi said:


> It's still quite an undertaking to reliably determine why their music is better than other groups at that time.


I don't know if there is any way to come to a conclusion of that type? As to their initial popularity, the marketing strategy and promotion was brilliant. I was a few years too young to remember the Ed Sullivan debut, but even as a kid I never liked "I Want To Hold Your Hand". To their credit they kept improving over the years and writing great songs accompanied by interesting and innovative production techniques. The rapidly evolving recording technology made for a very interesting era in pop/rock music. This is one of the historical aspects that will be remembered in the future.


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## Room2201974

Luchesi said:


> In other words, it's not obvious how their subtle irreverences accomplished so much in the popular listening field. They broke a lot of rules and people really liked that.


The Beatles used an expanded tonal palette that exceeded the range of the competition: they were the best modal writers of their day. That's been obvious for 50+ years.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Luchesi said:


> The achievements of Mozart and Beethoven are many many times greater than the Beatles.
> 
> It's still quite an undertaking to reliably determine why their music is better than other groups at that time.


I'd dispute the former and I'd argue the latter is only "quite an undertaking" to those unfamiliar with tremendous volume of literature that's been written on them. You might as well say it's "quite an undertaking" to explain why Mozart and Beethoven were better than their contemporaries as that would make just as much sense.


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## Guest

Luchesi said:


> The achievements of Mozart and Beethoven are many many times greater than the Beatles.
> 
> I think that in a hundred years what will be remembered about the Beatles is an analysis of why they were so popular at that exact time in the 60s. It's still quite an undertaking to reliably determine why their music is better than other groups at that time. In other words, it's not obvious how their subtle irreverences accomplished so much in the popular listening field. They broke a lot of rules and people really liked that.


Note that my point about Mozart and Beethoven was not to compare them with The Beatles musically, but to consider the idea that The Beatles are the equivalent in their field - that is, widely regarded and well known beyond their fans - but also that now, their immediate fan base is more hyperspecialist.

Speculating whether they will still be remembered in 250 years time is pointless.


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## millionrainbows

In their time, The Dave Clark Five were actually a "better" band than the Beatles; they made more money at concerts, they did the jet thing, they made a movie, and did many things better than The Beatles.


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## Larkenfield

Sorry, but I can remember only one song that stands out with the DC5 that I can remember: "Glad All Over". I never considered them in the same league as the Beatles then and I'm unable to do so now, not even close except as a wild exaggeration. Their music wasn't even available for sale between 1978 and 1993 because Dave Clark wouldn't license it. They had 12 Top 40 hits in the UK between 1964 and 1967—not even number 1s. I never would have voted them into the RnRHoF. I thought even Glad All Over was overrated and bombastic with drums... I can't imagine rating them that high but they were a popular band as part of the British invasion. I think some are going out of their way to knock the Beatles with weak and unsubstantial comparisons to provoke controversy. I consider them the greatest, most creative rock band of all time. They had over 27 number one hits and the DC5 had only 1 in the UK and 1 in the US. How this makes them a "better" band, I cannot imagine. And who has seen their movie?—and they couldn't possibly have made more money than the Fab4. The Beatles were a sensation and a cultural phenomenon. They were making money hand over fist... Yes, they were that great... not perfect but overall great. They took enormous creative risks and there was tremendous global interest in them at the time. After the group broke up, it was a tragedy for the world that Lennon got shot.


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## Bulldog

millionrainbows said:


> In their time, The Dave Clark Five were actually a "better" band than the Beatles; they made more money at concerts, they did the jet thing, they made a movie, and did many things better than The Beatles.


They didn't do anything as well as the Beatles.


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## Duncan

Settle this battle first - then worry about who's going to win the war...

It's the "International Battle of the Century" (overlooking for the sake of argument both World Wars One and Two)…

Each will be delivering "their greatest vocal punches"...

Ringo's vocal on "Boys" is more than off-set by the Four Seasons' inclusion of "Peanuts" to ensure that the fight will be fair...

You be the judge and jury...


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## Duncan

millionrainbows said:


> In their time, The Dave Clark Five were actually a "better" band than the Beatles; they made more money at concerts, they did the jet thing, they made a movie, and did many things better than The Beatles.


Millions, I just wanted to reassure you that at least one person got the "jet thing" gag - the Douglas DC-5 - :lol:

No, they actually weren't a "better band" than the Beatles - that's just you being you... Nice try though... :tiphat:

Yes, they probably did make more money at concerts and may have actually made more per record sold than the Beatles did during that specific narrow time frame of '64 to '66 as Dave Clark was significantly more savvy about the workings of the music industry than Brian Epstein ever was - Dave Clark retained 100% of the rights to all of his published recordings.

This is what happened to the Beatles -

1963: In March 1963, the Beatles' debut album Please Please Me was officially released, and Epstein sought a publisher for the songs written by McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. The company that resulted was called Northern Songs, majority-owned by publisher Dick James with Epstein, *Lennon and McCartney, with the latter two songwriters owning 20 percent of the business apiece.*

1965: Northern Songs became a public company, with *Lennon and McCartney each owning a 15 percent stake *and Harrison and Starr splitting a small percentage. Harrison later wrote 1968's "Only a Northern Song" about his dissatisfaction with the diminished cut he received in the deal.

1969: After relations between the Beatles and James deteriorated, James sold his stake in Northern Songs to ATV Music, owned by Lew Grade, and despite Lennon and McCartney's attempts to offer a counter bid, ATV gained control of the catalog. Later that year, the duo sold their remaining shares to ATV, *leaving them without a stake in the publishing of their own songs* (they both controlled their own respective songwriting shares).

Epstein cut a merchandising deal (which covered literally every product with the likeness of one or more of the Beatles upon it) in the US with a 90/10 percentage split... Unfortunately it was the Beatles who were on the receiving end of the 10% and Epstein was absolutely thrilled with that - he would have settled for 5% - a more egregiously incompetent manager could not possibly have existed as literally hundreds of millions of dollars went into the pockets of everyone except those most deserving - the creators of the music themselves.

Yes, the DC-5 did indeed make a movie - "Catch Us If You Can" which appeared in April, 1965... "A Hard Day's Night" appeared in July of 1964. Everyone here can probably recite most of the dialogue from "A Hard Day's Night" verbatim 55 years after its releaase... No one here except me (I'm lying) can recite most of the dialogue from "Catch Us If You Can" verbatim 54 years after its release...

True fact - Dave Clark didn't actually play the drums on their recordings - Bobby Graham did -

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...o-played-on-around-15000-records-1791653.html

The DC-5 had 16 singles chart in the Top 40 in the US - one # 1 - "Over and Over"

24 singles that charted in the Billboard "Hot 100"...

4 albums charted in the top ten in the US...

In the US they were a significant band fondly remembered by an entire generation of fans who bought millions of their records...

Herman's Hermits were even bigger - substantially bigger - than the Dave Clark Five in the US... In 1965 Herman's Hermits sold more records in the world - not just the US - the world - than the Beatles...

The Monkees were even bigger - substantially bigger - than Herman's Hermits in the US... In both 1966 and 1967 the Monkees sold more records in the world - not just the US - the world - than the Beatles...

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is in the US...

No one in the US cares about UK charts - if they did Slade, Sweet, and Status Quo would have been voted in the first year they were eligible...

I would have voted for the Dave Clark Five to be inducted...

The DC-5 weren't the Beatles - so what - who was? - Other, apparently than the Four Seasons? (see above post - and hey, don't forget to vote in the "International Battle of the Century", eh? - Thanks!).

And for the record I actually prefer Mendelssohn to anything that I've written about here.


----------



## Duncan

Duplicate post... multiple windows open - my apologies!


----------



## Room2201974

My mistake in this forum is in thinking that posters who use cultural references will actually KNOW those references.

Obviously, my bad!


----------



## eljr

starthrower said:


> They broke up at the right time. It would have been a drag if they went out after a lousy album. Abbey Road was a great farewell.


Paul has spoken to this and insists they had another Abby Road in them. He has no doubt.

I think their individual work after the break up would lead one to agree that Paul is likely correct.


----------



## eljr

Mollie John said:


> Millions, I just wanted to reassure you that at least one person got the "jet thing" gag - the Douglas DC-5 - :lol:
> 
> No, they actually weren't a "better band" than the Beatles - that's just you being you... Nice try though... :tiphat:
> 
> Yes, they probably did make more money at concerts and may have actually made more per record sold than the Beatles did during that specific narrow time frame of '64 to '66 as Dave Clark was significantly more savvy about the workings of the music industry than Brian Epstein ever was - Dave Clark retained 100% of the rights to all of his published recordings.
> 
> This is what happened to the Beatles -
> 
> 1963: In March 1963, the Beatles' debut album Please Please Me was officially released, and Epstein sought a publisher for the songs written by McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. The company that resulted was called Northern Songs, majority-owned by publisher Dick James with Epstein, *Lennon and McCartney, with the latter two songwriters owning 20 percent of the business apiece.*
> 
> 1965: Northern Songs became a public company, with *Lennon and McCartney each owning a 15 percent stake *and Harrison and Starr splitting a small percentage. Harrison later wrote 1968's "Only a Northern Song" about his dissatisfaction with the diminished cut he received in the deal.
> 
> 1969: After relations between the Beatles and James deteriorated, James sold his stake in Northern Songs to ATV Music, owned by Lew Grade, and despite Lennon and McCartney's attempts to offer a counter bid, ATV gained control of the catalog. Later that year, the duo sold their remaining shares to ATV, *leaving them without a stake in the publishing of their own songs* (they both controlled their own respective songwriting shares).
> 
> Epstein cut a merchandising deal (which covered literally every product with the likeness of one or more of the Beatles upon it) in the US with a 90/10 percentage split... Unfortunately it was the Beatles who were on the receiving end of the 10% and Epstein was absolutely thrilled with that - he would have settled for 5% - a more egregiously incompetent manager could not possibly have existed as literally hundreds of millions of dollars went into the pockets of everyone except those most deserving - the creators of the music themselves.
> 
> Yes, the DC-5 did indeed make a movie - "Catch Us If You Can" which appeared in April, 1965... "A Hard Day's Night" appeared in July of 1964. Everyone here can probably recite most of the dialogue from "A Hard Day's Night" verbatim 55 years after its releaase... No one here except me (I'm lying) can recite most of the dialogue from "Catch Us If You Can" verbatim 54 years after its release...
> 
> True fact - Dave Clark didn't actually play the drums on their recordings - Bobby Graham did -
> 
> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...o-played-on-around-15000-records-1791653.html
> 
> The DC-5 had 16 singles chart in the Top 40 in the US - one # 1 - "Over and Over"
> 
> 24 singles that charted in the Billboard "Hot 100"...
> 
> 4 albums charted in the top ten in the US...
> 
> In the US they were a significant band fondly remembered by an entire generation of fans who bought millions of their records...
> 
> Herman's Hermits were even bigger - substantially bigger - than the Dave Clark Five in the US... In 1965 Herman's Hermits sold more records in the world - not just the US - than the Beatles...
> 
> The Monkees were even bigger - substantially bigger - than Herman's Hermits in the US... In both 1966 and 1967 the Monkees sold more records in the world - not just the US - than the Beatles...
> 
> The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is in the US...
> 
> No one in the US cares about UK charts - if they did Slade, Sweet, and Status Quo would have been voted in the first year they were eligible...
> 
> I would have voted for the Dave Clark Five to be inducted...
> 
> The DC-5 weren't the Beatles - so what - who was? - Other, apparently than the Four Seasons? (see above post - and hey, don't forget to vote in the "International Battle of the Century", eh? - Thanks!).
> 
> And for the record I actually prefer Mendelssohn to anything that I've written about here.


Excellent post!


----------



## eljr

starthrower said:


> I never liked "I Want To Hold Your Hand".


----------



## Larkenfield

Well, who’s the next giant slayer throughout their entire career? Herman’s Hermits? The Monkees as a corporate entity?  They were both riding on the coattails of popularity that the Beatles started. They had talent but they were also greatly financially profiting from the runoff as part of the British invasion. Neither group transcended their times nor transformed pop music in any significant way. Ultimately, they were far more conventional, not revolutionaries. They were clean-cut and non-threatening. The Dave Clark Five charted with a number of albums and singles, but by comparison they weren’t even that successful in their own country compared to the major group that was. In any event, the British invasion was tremendously stimulating, interesting and fun, and I have fond memories of them all regardless of how they charted and how they’re remembered now. It was exciting and hopeful times, especially after the political horrors of the Kennedy assassination that had taken place in 1963. :cheers:


----------



## Luchesi

starthrower said:


> I don't know if there is any way to come to a conclusion of that type? As to their initial popularity, the marketing strategy and promotion was brilliant. I was a few years too young to remember the Ed Sullivan debut, but even as a kid I never liked "I Want To Hold Your Hand". To their credit they kept improving over the years and writing great songs accompanied by interesting and innovative production techniques. The rapidly evolving recording technology made for a very interesting era in pop/rock music. This is one of the historical aspects that will be remembered in the future.


I care about musical analysis not the emotional trappings. Even Goodall's video on how 'great' they were because they saved serious music from the avant-garde's extremes of the time is too full of nostalgia for me.


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## Luchesi

MacLeod said:


> Note that my point about Mozart and Beethoven was not to compare them with The Beatles musically, but to consider the idea that The Beatles are the equivalent in their field - that is, widely regarded and well known beyond their fans - but also that now, their immediate fan base is more hyperspecialist.
> 
> Speculating whether they will still be remembered in 250 years time is pointless.


We can learn from their songwriting. That's high praise after all these years. It wasn't all just exploring and serendipity, but they've said they didn't know that they were 'breaking the rules'. They went with what sounded good, and the competitiveness (John and Paul) was something new, I think. It fit the times.

There's been so much exaggeration about those few years, and what they were doing, and now it's been 'archived' in what authors have published. I think it's better to listen to the interviews of the four and Martin and Emerick.


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## Guest

Room2201974 said:


> My mistake in this forum is in thinking that posters who use cultural references will actually KNOW those references.
> 
> Obviously, my bad!


Obviously....eh?



Luchesi said:


> We can learn from their songwriting. That's high praise after all these years. It wasn't all just exploring and serendipity, but they've said they didn't know that they were 'breaking the rules'. They went with what sounded good, and the competitiveness (John and Paul) was something new, I think. It fit the times.
> 
> *There's been so much exaggeration about those few years,* and what they were doing, and now it's been 'archived' in what authors have published. I think it's better to listen to the interviews of the four and Martin and Emerick.


It's a commonplace that others will always want to ascribe motives, purpose, explanation, regardless of the truth. The media do this particularly well on our behalf. Consequently, the myths, and the exaggeration take hold. Along with the countering view, that it was all just meaningless, serendipity.

I'm currently reading John Peel's (auto)biog and will next read Phillip Norman's _Shout!_, which will be the second book I've read about the story of The Beatles. It will be interesting to compare.

As for MR's ideas about DC5 etc...well, he obviously lives on the wrong side of the Pond.


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## Barbebleu

millionrainbows said:


> In their time, The Dave Clark Five were actually a "better" band than the Beatles; they made more money at concerts, they did the jet thing, they made a movie, and did many things better than The Beatles.


MR, you are hilarious. They may have done some things better than the Beatles with one significant exception. Their music!:tiphat:


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## DavidA

The Beatles. Well they did write the greatest set of songs of the sixties. Lennon was a fraud with his 'instinctive socialism' and his desire to abolish money (he died worth $75 million and had a mansion) but the songs (with the exception of 'Imagine') were good.


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## Duncan

As usual... our heroes have better taste in music than we do - (see Music, Country)

"Dismiss The Monkees as a tedious TV takeoff of The Beatles and you'll find yourself in direct opposition to Mr Harrison, Mr McCartney and Mr Lennon, who all spoke up for their American cousins. The summit between the Pre-Fab Four and the Fab Four took place around the time The Beatles were recording 'Sg. Pepper's…' and inspired Micky Dolenz to pen 'Randy Scouse Git', casting The Beatles as "the four stately kings of EMI".

Mike Nesmith was even in attendance for some of the 'Day In The Life' sessions where he asked Lennon: "Do you think we're a cheap imitation of the Beatles, your movies and your records?" Lennon's reply? "I think you're the greatest comic talents since the Marx Brothers. I've never missed one of your programs." Meanwhile George Harrison said of their self-produced songs: "It's obvious what's happening, there's talent there… when they get it all sorted out, they might turn out to be the best."

https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/the-beatles-loved-the-monkees-and-you-should-too-777226


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## Strange Magic

The Beatles were great, indeed. The question is to what extent their interaction with Bob Dylan was a/the catalyst for their subsequent expansion of themes and forms. Clearly something happened there; was Dylan the Pathfinder showing the Fab Four a way forward? If so, they deserve credit for having the perceptiveness to realize Dylan's gift.


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## Guest

Whilst the OP's question was about The Beatles, it's worth noting in passing that whilst they were the undoubted kings of the 60s, there were many other pop bands contributing to the new generation of music for the young at heart. DC5 already mentioned, The Monkees, The Kinks, Manfred Mann, The Who, The Rolling Stones...

At least, as I indicated earlier, this was what was happening in the UK. I may only have been a child, but with a pop mad mother and three older siblings watching Ready Steady Go, Juke Box Jury, and Top of the Pops, as well as listening to Pick of the Pops on the radio, I could hardly fail to be swept up by their enthusiasm, and come to recognise that the times they were a changing.


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## Larkenfield

DavidA said:


> The Beatles. Well they did write the greatest set of songs of the sixties. Lennon was a fraud with his 'instinctive socialism' and his desire to abolish money (he died worth $75 million and had a mansion) but the songs (with the exception of 'Imagine') were good.


The h*ll he was a fraud--a cynical viewpoint that does not reflect the idealism of the 60s that many held whether deemed realistic now or not, or that knee-jerk trigger word, socialism. What's wrong with Imagining a more peaceful world without war? It has to start somewhere in the mind and enough humans have already been poisoned and devastated by war. It's still all over the news in case anyone hasn't noticed. There was nothing wrong with his song Imagine. He was in a happy time in his life and that's one of the songs he's most remembered for by those who genuinely understood him. At heart, he was not talking political theories. In a more peaceful world he might still be alive and delighting the world with his charm and wit. It's because he had money that he could do the things that were bigger and more meaningful to him than that and dedicate himself to his views at a time when the Vietnam war was still on, though he was talking about peace in an even broader sense than that. He was hardly a fraud for genuine espousing peace. There's still room in the world for the peacemakers, no matter how small.


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## Luchesi

MacLeod said:


> Obviously....eh?
> 
> It's a commonplace that others will always want to ascribe motives, purpose, explanation, regardless of the truth. The media do this particularly well on our behalf. Consequently, the myths, and the exaggeration take hold. Along with the countering view, that it was all just meaningless, serendipity.
> 
> I'm currently reading John Peel's (auto)biog and will next read Phillip Norman's _Shout!_, which will be the second book I've read about the story of The Beatles. It will be interesting to compare.
> 
> As for MR's ideas about DC5 etc...well, he obviously lives on the wrong side of the Pond.


The DC5 might've been a tighter band in the opinion of some young fans. Dave Clark was also a heartthrob, like the other guys. Their song "Because" impressed me the most, but there was never another one like that from them. I was disappointed. They were a louder, driving beat boy band, but shallower. I think the kids accepted that shallowness offset by the lighthearted, innovative drive, and wanted them more for party music anyway. I think the Beatles were the first group to produce songs for listening and reflecting. 'Maybe not, but I can't think of any before that.. That was where Dylan filled the niche, but in the early years he didn't offer much for the music student. The misheard lyrics made him even more interesting, but I don't know if that was intentional on his part.


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## DavidA

Larkenfield said:


> The h*ll he was a fraud-*a cynical viewpoint that does not reflect the idealism of the 60s * that many held whether deemed realistic now or not, or that knee-jerk trigger word, socialism. What's wrong with Imagining a more peaceful world without war? It has to start somewhere in the mind and enough humans have already been poisoned and devastated by war. It's still all over the news in case anyone hasn't noticed. There was nothing wrong with his song Imagine. He was in a happy time in his life and that's one of the songs he's most remembered for by those who genuinely understood him. At heart, he was not talking political theories. In a more peaceful world he might still be alive and delighting the world with his charm and wit. It's because he had money that he could do the things that were bigger and more meaningful to him than that and dedicate himself to his views at a time when the Vietnam war was still on, though he was talking about peace in an even broader sense than that. He was hardly a fraud for genuine espousing peace. There's still room in the world for the peacemakers, no matter how small.


A man who says money should be abolished and then lives in a mansion? Come on, something not quite real about that. 'Imagine' - a song written by a man imagining a world without possessions while sitting in a mansion? The video he shot shows him gliding around his 72 acre estate! :lol: I know all the faithful swallowed it (a good preacher can take them with him) but some us who were around at the time were more cynical of the 'instinctive socialist' worth $75m. McCartney understood the score that's why he joked after Lennon was shot dead, "Now he's become Martin Luther Lennon," as he knew Lennon too well ever to mistake him for a saint. No saint but he wrote some good songs.


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## Strange Magic

DavidA said:


> A man who says money should be abolished and then lives in a mansion? Come on, something not quite real about that. 'Imagine' - a song written by a man imagining a world without possessions while sitting in a mansion? The video he shot shows him gliding around his 72 acre estate! :lol: I know all the faithful swallowed it (a good preacher can take them with him) but some us who were around at the time were more cynical of the 'instinctive socialist' worth $75m. McCartney understood the score that's why he joked after Lennon was shot dead, "Now he's become Martin Luther Lennon," as he knew Lennon too well ever to mistake him for a saint. No saint but he wrote some good songs.


We understand why some shudder at _Imagine_, and then extend the shuddering to include all of John Lennon's thought and works:

"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky"

This makes people's heads explode......


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## Duncan

Strange Magic said:


> The Beatles were great, indeed. The question is to what extent their interaction with Bob Dylan was a/the catalyst for their subsequent expansion of themes and forms. Clearly something happened there; was Dylan the Pathfinder showing the Fab Four a way forward? If so, they deserve credit for having the perceptiveness to realize Dylan's gift.


"Bob Dylan's influence on the Beatles" -

https://www.aaronkrerowicz.com/beatles-blog/bob-dylans-influence-on-the-beatles

"After A Hard Day's Night, the Beatles entered "artistic adolescence", for just as the band grew up as people during their Hamburg residencies, so too the band matured as composers and recording artists from late 1964 through 1965, over which time they released three albums: Beatles for Sale, Help!, and Rubber Soul.

One major catalyst for this artistic maturation was Bob Dylan. The Beatles discovered his music through his second studio album Freewheelin', and they met in person for the first time on 28 August 1964 at the Delmonico Hotel in New York City.

Dylan impacted the Beatles in two primary ways: First, although they had taken Preludin in Hamburg, and had a history with alcohol (with Lennon more so than the others), Bob Dylan furthered the Beatles drug use by introducing them to marijuana. Legend has it that Dylan misheard the lyrics to "I Want to Hold You Hand" ("And when I touch you I feel happy inside, it's such a feeling that my love I can't hide, I can't hide, I can't hide") as "I get high, I get high, I get high". It's called the gateway drug for a reason, and thereafter the Beatles' drug use escalated exponentially.

The second major influence Bob Dylan had on the Beatles was that he freed them from the conventions of pop music. This resulted in an increased use of acoustic rather than electric instruments in Beatles recordings, as well as a dramatic rise in their compositional craftsmanship.

"I had a sort of professional songwriter's attitude to writing pop songs," said John Lennon. "We would turn out a certain style of song for a single... I'd have a separate songwriting John Lennon who wrote songs for the meat market, and I didn't' consider them (the lyrics or anything) to have any depth at all … Then I started being me about the songs, not writing them objectively, but subjectively. … I'd started thinking about my own emotions. … Instead of projecting myself into a situation, I would try to express what I felt about myself. … It was Dylan who helped me realize that" (Anthology page 158).

The difference is clearly discernible in their recorded output from that time. Lennon's "I'm a Loser" off Beatles for Sale, "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" off Help!, and "In My Life" off Rubber Soul are the obvious examples. Though Dylan's influence was most noticeable in John Lennon, Paul McCartney's songs of the same albums show similar progress. Songs like "I'll Follow the Sun" off Beatles for Sale, and especially "Yesterday" off Help!."


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## regenmusic

I think when you take away the idiosyncratic aspects of a genre or sub-genre, you can say you are just left with melody and how that melody is shaded and toned-up. The Beatles music works well translated into different sub-genre, which isn't the same with a lot of music. That's one thing that makes them that great. It's also what they did as solo artists after they broke up.


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## Strange Magic

As far as Dylan's influence on the Beatles, and vice versa, I noted that--big surprise!--there were differences of opinion in the literature on how pervasive/profound were the interactions, with gradation between mind-altering transformation to No Big Deal. My own sense is that Dylan was indeed a major eye-opener for the Beatles; it's hard to imagine his not having an effect upon them at that time--who was like Dylan then?


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## DavidA

Strange Magic said:


> We understand why some shudder at _Imagine_, and then extend the shuddering to include all of John Lennon's thought and works:
> 
> "Imagine there's no heaven
> It's easy if you try
> No hell below us
> Above us only sky"
> 
> This makes people's heads explode......


Shudder? You are joking! But as I said, a good preacher is always able to take his flock with him! Like he did on the 'instinctive socialist' bit imagining a world without possessions while sitting in a huge mansion! Really makes me shudder! :lol:


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## Strange Magic

DavidA said:


> Shudder? You are joking! But as I said, a good preacher is always able to take his flock with him! Like he did on the 'instinctive socialist' bit imagining a world without possessions while sitting in a huge mansion! Really makes me shudder! :lol:


Joking? I think not. My aim is true; the arrow hits its mark.


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## DavidA

Strange Magic said:


> Joking? I think not. My aim is true; the arrow hits its mark.


What arrow? What mark? You, dear sir, are entirely deluded if you think that a multimillionaire writing a song telling us to imagine there's no possessions makes me shudder! I've visited countries where kids are picking rubbish off garbage tips (because they have no possessions) in order to get something to eat and that makes me shudder!


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## Guest

We're all hypocrites, compromised in some way by our lifestyle while at the same time wishing for a better world and not doing every darn thing we can to make it happen.

Meanwhile, back at the music...


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## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> We're all hypocrites, compromised in some way by our lifestyle while at the same time wishing for a better world and not doing every darn thing we can to make it happen.
> 
> Meanwhile, back at the music...


Agreed! Mind you I like the quote adopted by a friend who runs a charity: "We can't change the world but we can change someone's world."


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## Guest

DavidA said:


> Agreed! Mind you I like the quote adopted by a friend who runs a charity: "We can't change the world but we can change someone's world."


Well, I think John Lennon probably changed many people's worlds for the better as a result of his contribution to music.


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## DavidA

MacLeod said:


> Well, I think John Lennon probably changed many people's worlds for the better as a result of his contribution to music.


He brought pleasure to people. Whether he changed their worlds for the better in the long run is, of course, another matter.

*Have you guys seen the movie 'Yesterday'?* I would certainly recommend it especially if you were / are a Beatles fan. I wasn't particularly a fan but really enjoyed it. Danny Boyle on top form.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> We understand why some shudder at _Imagine_, and then extend the shuddering to include all of John Lennon's thought and works:
> 
> "Imagine there's no heaven
> It's easy if you try
> No hell below us
> Above us only sky"
> 
> This makes people's heads explode......


but Euripides said,

"Who knoweth if to die be but to live, and that called life by mortals be but death?"


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## DavidA

Luchesi said:


> but Euripides said,
> 
> "Who knoweth if to die be but to live, and that called life by mortals be but death?"


Typical philosophy. Making things complicated! :lol:


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## Luchesi

Mollie John said:


> "Bob Dylan's influence on the Beatles" -
> 
> https://www.aaronkrerowicz.com/beatles-blog/bob-dylans-influence-on-the-beatles
> 
> "After A Hard Day's Night, the Beatles entered "artistic adolescence", for just as the band grew up as people during their Hamburg residencies, so too the band matured as composers and recording artists from late 1964 through 1965, over which time they released three albums: Beatles for Sale, Help!, and Rubber Soul.
> 
> One major catalyst for this artistic maturation was Bob Dylan. The Beatles discovered his music through his second studio album Freewheelin', and they met in person for the first time on 28 August 1964 at the Delmonico Hotel in New York City.
> 
> Dylan impacted the Beatles in two primary ways: First, although they had taken Preludin in Hamburg, and had a history with alcohol (with Lennon more so than the others), Bob Dylan furthered the Beatles drug use by introducing them to marijuana. Legend has it that Dylan misheard the lyrics to "I Want to Hold You Hand" ("And when I touch you I feel happy inside, it's such a feeling that my love I can't hide, I can't hide, I can't hide") as "I get high, I get high, I get high". It's called the gateway drug for a reason, and thereafter the Beatles' drug use escalated exponentially.
> 
> The second major influence Bob Dylan had on the Beatles was that he freed them from the conventions of pop music. This resulted in an increased use of acoustic rather than electric instruments in Beatles recordings, as well as a dramatic rise in their compositional craftsmanship.
> 
> "I had a sort of professional songwriter's attitude to writing pop songs," said John Lennon. "We would turn out a certain style of song for a single... I'd have a separate songwriting John Lennon who wrote songs for the meat market, and I didn't' consider them (the lyrics or anything) to have any depth at all … Then I started being me about the songs, not writing them objectively, but subjectively. … I'd started thinking about my own emotions. … Instead of projecting myself into a situation, I would try to express what I felt about myself. … It was Dylan who helped me realize that" (Anthology page 158).
> 
> The difference is clearly discernible in their recorded output from that time. Lennon's "I'm a Loser" off Beatles for Sale, "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" off Help!, and "In My Life" off Rubber Soul are the obvious examples. Though Dylan's influence was most noticeable in John Lennon, Paul McCartney's songs of the same albums show similar progress. Songs like "I'll Follow the Sun" off Beatles for Sale, and especially "Yesterday" off Help!."


Tell us what's clearly discernible, if you understand what he's talking about. Critics work their power of persuasion, so now it seems true to me as I think back..

John mentioned in an interview that one of Paul's songs was very bad and then I tended to believe it too. It's a curious phenomenon. When there's no evidence people tend to gravitate this way and that - as they hear different opinions. Like a religion.


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## Room2201974

Strange Magic said:


> As far as Dylan's influence on the Beatles, and vice versa, I noted that--big surprise!--there were differences of opinion in the literature on how pervasive/profound were the interactions, with gradation between mind-altering transformation to No Big Deal. My own sense is that Dylan was indeed a major eye-opener for the Beatles; it's hard to imagine his not having an effect upon them at that time--who was like Dylan then?


By August of 64 who was getting better weed than Dylan?


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> but Euripides said,
> 
> "Who knoweth if to die be but to live, and that called life by mortals be but death?"


Man walks into a tailor's shop in Athens with a pair of ripped pants. 
Tailor looks at pants, says "Euripides?"
Man says "Yes. Eumenides?"


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## arpeggio

The May 2017 issue of BBC Music Magazine was dedicated to Mahler. On page 30 it had the following quote from Paul McCartney:

"I have always adored Mahler, and Mahler was a major influence on the music of the Beatles. John and me used to sit and do the _Kindertotenlieder_ and _Wunderhorn_ for hours; we take turns singing and playing the piano. We thought Mahler was gear."


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## DavidA

Composer Howard Goodall's analysis of the Beatles


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## Strange Magic

Both Buddy Holly and the Beatles acknowledged that the greatest influence upon them were the Scorpions. You can look it up.


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## starthrower

My favorite Beatle is Ringo. He has the healthiest disposition and sense of humor. I doubt he would take any of this stuff seriously.


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## Duncan

Strange Magic said:


> Both Buddy Holly and the Beatles acknowledged that the greatest influence upon them were the Scorpions. You can look it up.


I did look it up... but both Buddy Holly and the Beatles (and myself oddly enough) had no use for the Scorpions once Michael Schenker left.


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## elgar's ghost

Mollie John said:


> I did look it up... but both Buddy Holly and the Beatles (and myself oddly enough) had no use for the Scorpions once Michael Schenker left.
> 
> Strange but true - Michael is Rudolph Schenker's kid brother - 55 years after their founding by Rudolph they continue to play to this very day and are contemplating releasing a new album -
> 
> "In an August 2018 interview with Digital Journal, Scorpions guitarist Rudolf Schenker stated that the band was open to the idea of recording a follow-up to Return to Forever. He explained: "We are still waiting for a moment for inspiration to do another album, like Judas Priest and Metallica did. You have to wait until the time is right." Klaus Meine hinted in May 2019 that "there might be a new album out in 2020".
> 
> Perhaps they may want to consider listening to Mahler's _Kindertotenlieder_ or _Wunderhorn_ for inspiration - look what it did for the Bay City Rollers - "The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World"... Wait a minute... I was fired... f*** them - they suck...


At least the Scorpions would be able to sing Mahler's texts in proper German.


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## Larkenfield

The Beatles remain a pop culture phenomenon:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/10/26/the-beatles-remain-a-pop-culture-phenomenon-even-among-gen-z-fans.html


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## Duncan

There's nothing to see here... keep moving...


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## eljr

Mollie John said:


> There's nothing to see here... keep moving...


where should I go?


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## Duncan

eljr said:


> where should I go?


Depends... Should you stay or should you go?


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## Luchesi

The Beatles would have liked this.


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## Luchesi

starthrower said:


> My favorite Beatle is Ringo. He has the healthiest disposition and sense of humor. I doubt he would take any of this stuff seriously.


I agree. He was slightly older and already better-known in the music scene. They were also lucky to have the influence of Martin. It was good guidance, but not overbearing during their naturally rebellious years.

I'm a musician today because of Bach-Beethoven-Chopin and then Schnabel's left hand, and then some jarring Gould recordings about the same time as the Beatlemania invasion here. Those were all the ingredients I guess I needed for me to put it in the subsequent effort. 'Very lucky.

Kids I had known for years were buying cheap guitars, strumming and singing, and learning to play Beatles songs badly on the piano, as each new album came out. What was different as I look back? Rock and roll was beginning to sound corny and the Beatles sounded less corny, right from the beginning.


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## starthrower

I watch this once a year because it's so enjoyable. And it's really funny when Ringo joins the conversation.


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## Luchesi

starthrower said:


> I watch this once a year because it's so enjoyable. And it's really funny when Ringo joins the conversation.
> 
> [video=yom/watch?v=JQaqcLPAI_s[/video]


Thanks. Ringo loves everyone. And this is another entertaining interview with Ringo;


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