talent escapes from London
Let’s face it. The Beatles are the most ludicrously overrated band of all times. What did they do but prance around in tight pants and retarded haircuts?! Oh yes, they wrote overly simplistic infantile school rhymes which then they yelped out like ill cats. Consider:
“We all live in our yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine” Â
“Ob-la-di, ob-lada, Life goes on, bra, la la how the life goes on”
All right, I’ll spare you the rest. It’s like listening to Barney belt out those freakishly annoying tunes.
Most people have been brainwashed into believing that The Beatles actually revolutionized music. Sure, if sugary kiddie pop songs, ala Britney Spears, are your thing, then yeah. No, seriously, they did nothing for music that hadn’t been done already in a much more superior way.
Nonetheless, I like to give credit where it’s due and they did do a few things that influenced mankind (in some way):
1. Emu -Â AKA moptop. For a while there, they conned people into actually believing this was a becoming haircut. Newsflash: a haircut that makes you look like you’re wearing a bowl on your head, makes you look “special” not enlightened.
2. Pop – To say they made rock and roll is like saying President Bush can “make” world peace or utter a coherent sentence. They took rock and roll (which had already been taken from blacks in America and whitened out), bleached it, made it into simplistic nursery rhymes and extracted the raw, the sex, and the passion from it. What was left were syrupy tunes that were politically correct for grandparents and kids to sing along to. Now we have to put up with every other untalented Beatles-imitating freak who’s hell bent on poisoning the air with his screeches and obliterating our eardrums (e.g. Back Street Boys, N’Sync, etc).
3. Overlooking – Because everyone was so focused on these con-artists, the real talent was overlooked. Great songsters and performers like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, The Rolling Stones, Queen, Marvin Gaye, or Bob Dylan.
4. Elevated Hypocrisy to an Art – Lennon in all his obliviousness dared sing about equality “Imagine no possessions…” as he hung his fur coats in the temperature controlled room of his Manhattan mansion.
5. Marketing – An exceptional marketing campaign that can propel the four stooges to the top and keep them there forever, is bound to be imitated. And so now, we have “artists” coming out of our ears.Â
June 10th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
Consumers gave them that power and it is the same bunch of consumers who birthed a generation that allows people like Paris Hilton to release music albums and officially call themselves “musicians”…gag bag? Anyone? I give up!
June 12th, 2006 at 10:21 pm
The problem is neither of you have any context for your viewpoints. You simply had to be in the culture at the time to get it–or have an understanding of it at a depth neither of you seem to display.
Last time I looked Paris Hilton was not a Baby Boomer, nor would anyone with sense argue that she’s typical in any way of BB’s kids. She’s a rich, spoiled brat and kids like that have been releasing music on inherited bucks for decades. The audience for this pap–her album and her “fame” is the current generation. It’s a huge stretch to give a whole generation responsibility for a silly heiress’ behavior.
June 13th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
So because I didn’t live in the 60s, I can’t give out my opinion?
As a student of music, I can tell you that musically (which was the whole point of my posting), The Beatles were, at best, “aiight.” Context, within the era of “make love, not war,” was obviously what made them swell up. That and the fact that humans behave a lot like sheep (i.e. follow what everyone else thinks it’s good regardless of what you think). Otherwise, how can we explain that simplistic infantile songs, could be embraced by millions as message for…for…for what exactly?
Depth of understanding?! If you can point out the musical prowess and exact message of 95% of the songs they wrote (or maybe they just dilly dabbled them during drug overdose sessions?), then you can graduate from sheep.
I also won’t reply to your Paris Hilton comment, because a) it doesn’t make sense and b) you chose to take it out of context (watch out fot those tangents, cowgirl!). The fact remains that The Beatles paved the way for generations of talentless and musically inept people to make it big, whether you like it or not.
June 15th, 2006 at 12:55 am
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So to speak.
June 15th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Ahem?
June 19th, 2006 at 12:48 am
I have come in here a little late I know, but I can’t resist making a comment…
You’re being the typical smartarse, sprouting off about something that you clearly have no idea about… and you don’t even declare yourself…
You tell us that the Beatles only had simplistic songs and you cite a couple of examples. So tell us which group of the same era and genre, POP, that was not being simplistic. What other POP songs from 1966 (Yellow Submarine) and 1968 (Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da) would you put up against the ones you mentioned?
June 20th, 2006 at 5:11 am
Angry,
First, if you’re going to write a comment, at least have the courtesy to finish sentences. All of us are not inside your coconut and are not able to decipher cryptic messages like “and you don’t even declare yourself.” Whatever that means.
I’m not into POP (at least not the musical kind), as stated clearly in my post, so I wouldn’t know which songs in this genre were better than the aforementioned displays of brain malfunction. Maybe you can help pointing out vacuous representations of the genre since you know so much. Nevertheless, at least you recognize that the Beatles were obviously a pop group, not rock as they have foolishly been made out to be.
So, on to your stupid request. I can’t cite pop songs but can cite great REAL rock and roll songs which was again the point of my posting. Namely by any of the artists I mentioned in my post. Did you read it at all?!
For example, ’66 Gotta Get Away, ’66 Lady Jane, ’66 Pain It Black and ’68 Street Fighting Man by The Rolling Stones (let’s not forget ’69 You Can’t Always Get what You Want). Or ’66 Rainy Day Women, ’66 I Want You, and anything else ever written by Bob Dylan. Or ’68 What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (has made a loser out of me), and ’68 To Make Love Sweeter for You by Jerry Lee Lewis. Or ’66 Milky White Way, ’66 Frankie & Johnny, ’68 If I can Dream, ’68 Almost in Love, and ’68 Guitar Man by The King, Elvis Presley. And of course, the entire ’68 album Electric Ladyland by Jimmy Hendrix.
Next time do a little research before you go on sprouting off about something that you clearly have no knowledge about…and you don’t even declare yourself (you should know what this means).
June 20th, 2006 at 10:17 am
I’ll tell you what ‘got on my goat’ with your blog…
You make assertions using emotive terms to disparage a legitimate music form that clearly does not appeal to you. And because of the fact that this style of music was not YOUR preferred style, you denigrate not only the music but also the people who create it and those that enjoy listening to it.
Popular music is music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and mostly distributed commercially.
Therefore Pop Music is a sub genre to Popular Music just as Rock and Roll is.
You’re simply mixing your genres. And to be quite honest, except for the odd line that sometimes comes from those that really have no idea, I’ve never heard anyone say that the Beatles made Rock and Roll.
I was a teenager in the sixties and tended towards the Blues in my music preferences and bought non Pop singles of mostly local Rock and Blues bands. Among the first Albums I bought in the 60s were ‘Rolling Stones (1 and 2)’ ‘Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton’ ‘Are You Experienced’ ‘Fresh Cream’ ‘The Velvet Underground’ and many more, especially local bands, but as you can see hardly a Pop idle among them. My first Pop Star album was the Beatles’ White Album (yes I bought a Beatles album). But despite my musical leanings I coulod still acknowledge Pop and understand it for what it was.
You say you’re a student of music, so surely you understand that music is, and always has been, in evolution and grows with an ever changing emphasis where the edges of each sub genre are blurred somewhat. Therefore don’t get upset when you hear people’s misinformed opinions about music, try and educate them instead.
Cheers.
June 20th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Do you know what the problem with the world is? There’s always a person who wants to be offended. The consequence is that then a thin veil of censorship is extended over every action and word in order to make it PC and pallatable to the sensitive mammals who get their panties in a bunch about everything.
For one, I didn’t insult the stupid Beatles or the people who listen to them but merely stated why they are overrated in MY opinion. If you want to think less of yourself based on you choice of music, that’s your problem, not mine.
For another, EVERYONE has made out The Beatles to be rock and roll. Hell, they’re even inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame (not the pop hall of fame). Look it up. All music is popular. Have you ever heard of unpopular music? How smart of you to encompass rock and roll under the umbrella of music. It’s so much easier to generalize in order to make a point. It probably hurts you to know that if they were singing nowadays, they would be lumped together with Britney Spears and ‘N Sync not Aerosmith. That’s because they were pop entertainers which was one of the points of my post.
And lastly, it’s my blog which means pretty much I have creative license over its content (protected by that little known First Amendment). So, I still think they were hugely overrated and had no musical talent. Welcome to my opinion.
Why don’t you go back to your blog and write about how wonderful they are? I really could care less. I won’t even take up your bandwidth.
Cheers
November 20th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
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