I’ve read it in articles, seen it on Youtube, and heard it on the radio. I kind of get it, since Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is regularly included on lists of greatest albums of all time, The Beatles were the first Boy Band1, and their early work wasn’t thematically deep.
But why say it in the first place? I really don’t get it. Is it a way of dismissing a band’s musical output? Is it because they don’t want to admit that they secretly enjoy bubblegum pop?2 Is it to sound smart or sophisticated?
Well, stop. Because it’s wrong3, and here are five reasons why.
They spent years perfecting their craft
People are so used to hearing The Beatles referred to as “Those Boys from Liverpool,” but they were only boys from the stodgy middle-aged corporate media perspective. When they landed on American shores on February 7th, 1964, they were all veteran musicians (McCartney 21, Lennon 23, Harrison 20, Starr 23) with almost as many years behind them as they would have ahead of them. Compare this to Harry, Liam and Niall who were 16, and Zayn and Louis who were 17 when they were introduced to one another and formed One Direction.
The Beatles were not assembled by a big corporate sound machine or star-making producer. Paul and John met in 1957, George, a schoolmate of Paul’s, joined them in 1958. From 1960 to 19624 they played with Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe as the house band in Hamburg (48 days at the Indira Club with 4.5 hour sets, 6 hours on the weekend; then 58 nights at the Kaiserkeller with sets lasting as long as 8 hours), as session musicians for Polydor, had frequent performances (almost 300) at the Cavern club in Liverpool as well as gigs whenever and wherever else they could get them. This isn’t to say that modern boy bands don’t work hard (they do), but there’s really no comparison. The final piece fell into place in 1962 when Best was sacked and the highly-regarded Ringo Starr5 was made a permanent member.
Each brought a unique and indispensable aesthetic to the band
Paul is well known for his pop sensibilities and pleasing melodies, John for his sharp wit, aggressive guitar, and dark artistic nature, George for his spirituality and deft, sensitive playing, and Ringo is known for his feel, consistency, and swing. You can’t take any one piece out and still have The Beatles. While Brian Epstein did help define their look early on, and George Martin made undeniable contributions, the sound was their own.
They wrote their own music
Back then, it was a common practice for new bands to start with covers in order to make an immediate impact with known and liked properties, and to have enough songs to fill out a concert, and early on, The Beatles were no exception. However, they pushed very hard to release an original composition, Love Me Do, as their debut single; after its moderate success (rising to #17 on the UK charts), they were able to convince Martin to allow them to follow it up with another original song, Lennon’s Please Please Me. All their #1 hits were originals.
Their early music was innovative and exciting
I’ve already touched on the thematically & lyrically simplistic nature of early Beatles songs, but if artistic merit relied on lyrical content alone, Motzart’s Marriage of Figaro would be considered little more than a silly romantic comedy. To understand how important their early music was, and why it made such a massive impact, all we need is a little context. The Beatles charted their first US #1 hit with I Want to Hold Your Hand, the week of February 1st, 1964. Let’s look at Billboard’s top 10 from the week of January 18th, before the single dropped:
- There! I’ve Said It Again, Bobby Vinton
- Louie Louie, The Kingsmen
- Popsicles And Icicles, The Murmaids
- Forget Him, Bobby Rydell
- Surfin’ Bird, The Trashman
- Dominique, The Singing Nun
- Hey Little Cobra, The Rip Chords
- The Nitty Gritty, Shirley Ellis
- Out Of Limits, The Marketts
- Drag City, Jan & Dean
Now it’s not like the Beatles developed in a vacuum, and perhaps it would be fair to compare them to other bands of the British invasion. But I’m not going to do that. No more than I would gauge Nirvana’s impact on the national music scene by comparing them to the local Seattle grunge bands they came up with. So while The Beatles sound is a blend of several different musical traditions, I Want To Hold Your Hand stands out from what was popular in America at the time. This was followed to #1 by She Loves You, and Can’t Buy Me Love. The next non-Beatle #1? Hello Dolly by Louis Armstrong.
Now let’s look at a boy-band that has been compared to The Beatles, One Direction. Their first album, Up All Night, debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 on March 31, 2012, the first British band to do so. Pretty impressive. Here’s Billboard’s top 10 for the week of March 31, 2012:
- We Are Young, fun
- Stronger, Kelly Clarkson
- Glad You Came, The Wanted
- Set Fire To The Rain, Adele
- Somebody That I Used To Know, Gotye
- Starships, Nicki Minaj
- Turn Me On, Dave Guetta
- Take Care, Drake
- Wild Ones, Flo Rida
- Part of Me, Katy Perry
Now compare those songs to 1D’s first four singles:
What Makes You Beautiful, Gotta Be You, One Thing, and More Than This
I have to admit that before doing the research for this article, I hadn’t really listened to any of the contemporary songs, and was pleasantly surprised. I found every song enjoyable, unlike the oldies from 1964, some of which have aged badly. But I digress.
The point is that there’s nothing about the composition, performance or production of the 1D songs that is particularly ground-breaking. They sound great, to be sure, but they fit right in. You can go from one song to another on the list and have a pleasant listening experience, unlike the train-wreck that’s the top 10 from 1964. The reason is simple… early on, 1D’s songs were written and produced by experienced industry professionals. Today, producers have almost god-like control over what a band or performer sounds like. Their job is to make hits, not revolutionize the industry. And they do… and they don’t.
They were a powerful, creative force from the beginning
Sgt. Pepper was undoubtedly a milestone for The Beatles and for music in general, but implying that it was the moment they went from bubble-gum pop to innovative art is preposterous.
For the sake of argument, let’s write off Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles For Sale, and Help!, which covers January 1963 to August 1965; five albums in a two and a half year period, written and recorded while constantly touring. Think about that for a minute.
But then we come to Rubber Soul, released in December 1965. Recorded in a little over a month, it regularly makes lists of greatest albums. Next is Revolver, recorded from April to June and released in August 1966, an album that many music historians and critics consider to be the best they ever made6. Two critically acclaimed albums written and recorded in a span of less than 9 months. Then in November, when they started recording Sgt. Pepper, a light turned on in their collective heads and they suddenly became artists?
No. Of course not.
Whether it was writing a love song from the 3rd person perspective in She Loves You (also starting the song with the chorus, and ending the song on a major sixth despite the protestations of Martin), using feedback for the hook of I Feel Fine, willingness to experiment with different instruments and cultural traditions, continually reinventing their look, to being one of the first rock bands to create their own record label, they were making bold and innovative artistic choices from the very beginning. As with any artist, they had many creative milestones, growing and evolving over the course of their entire existence as The Beatles, and into their individual solo careers.
7/22/16 Addendum
As another example of early artistry and innovation is a little ditty called “I’ll Follow The Sun.” Written by Paul sometime before 1960, it wasn’t released until 1964 because it wasn’t considered “tough enough” for their early leather-clad image. The song is immediately identifiable as a McCartney composition with it’s sweet, instantly hum-able melody and alternation between major and minor keys during the verses which give way to the major key chorus. Said McCartney for why they chose to release it:
The next [single] had to always be different. We didn’t want to fall into the Supremes trap where they all sounded similar, so we were always keen on having varied instrumentation. Ringo couldn’t keep changing his drum kit, but he could change his snare, tap a cardboard box or slap his knees.7
I understand that it can be hard to hear this song and think of it as something other than “old fashioned,” but it showed a willingness to try different musical styles and deviate from formula… even their own… at a time when most bands are trying to consolidate their fan base with a consistent sound. Have you ever been to a concert and heard someone complain that a song wasn’t performed in the same way as it was on the album?
In Conclusion
Go ahead and make the argument that [Insert Boy Band Here] has a derivative, paint-by-numbers pop sound. You’re probably right. But stop saying they haven’t had their Sgt. Pepper moment yet. Too much is different about how bands are created and too much has changed in the distribution and consumption of music for the comparison to be anything but utter nonsense. And stop shitting on fans because ‘they don’t know any better’—because if you’ve made the Beatles comparison, neither do you.
Addendum: The Elephant in the Studio
A friend of mine dinged me for not mentioning this seminal album by The Beach Boys, or, rather, Brian Wilson with Tony Asher (the rest of the Beach Boys could have been replaced by studio musicians as Wilson demonstrated with his release of Smile in 2004). This album is considered the first concept album, and indeed had a strong influence on the Beatles. By influence, I mean inspiration, because Sgt. Pepper sounds nothing like Pet Sounds (and I don’t say this to knock Wilson, he simply had a different musical aesthetic than the Beatles). But then, Wilson was inspired by Rubber Soul. As I’ve said before, art does not exist in a vacuum. But the reason I went with Sgt. Pepper and not Pet Sounds is not due to ignorance on my part, or musical snobbery, but for the simple fact that no one ever says, “That band hasn’t had its Pet Sounds moment.” Sorry, Brian.
Addendum 9/22: The KOP Curve
If you haven’t seen Ron Howard’s documentary Eight Days A Week, I highly recommend it. One little tidbit they show is the fans of the Liverpool FC (Kopites) singing She Loves You in 1964, the point at which the Beatles were at their most “Boy Band” by today’s standards. I can’t think of another video that so dramatically captures the difference between the Beatles and modern boy bands. Could you imagine the fans at Old Trafford bursting out into What Makes You Beautiful in 2011? Neither could I.
1 I just love unattributed declarations, don’t you? The origins of the ‘Boy Band’ is a bit murky, as is the definition of the term itself. Pop phenomena had come before Beatlemania. There were the teen idols like Fabian, Tommy Sands, and Ricky Nelson, backed by slick marketing and experienced studio musicians; the Doo-Wop groups like The Del Vikings, The Five Satins, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and of course, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons; and then there was the original Superstars like Elvis, and Buddy Holly. But before the teen idols were Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby who ignited the entire “bobby-soxer” craze in the 30’s and 40’s. And before them was the great Enrico Caruso. The focus was either on a single individual, or the band as a whole. Can you name a single member of the Platters? Who Elvis’s drummer was? Name one of the Crickets. You can’t. But almost anyone can name all of The Beatles. This is one of the important similarities between the Beatles and modern boy bands, the intense, almost slavish devotion of fans to each individual member. And the Beatles were definitely one of the first, if not the first band to have this sort of fandom.
2 Sorry, hipster. Modern science says that you do.
3 You have every right to hate a particular band’s music, as well as the right to express that hatred. But fans also have the right to love it without you shitting on them–even if the band is objectively, demonstrably crap. The fans will grow out of it and the band will fade into obscurity without your help. So don’t be a dick.
4 Hill, Tim (2008) John, Paul, George & Ringo: The Definitive Illustrated Chronicle of The Beatles, 1960-1970, Fall River Press.
5 I’m really tired of people writing Ringo off as a joke. Is it because he has a limited vocal range? So did Billie Holiday and Bob Dylan among others, and how many drummers even sing? Is it his lack of soloing virtuosity? There are plenty of skilled drummers who talk about the difficulty of replicating his sound (just watch any Youtube drumming tutorial if you don’t believe me), and many universally acclaimed drummers, like Phil Collins, Steve Smith, Max Weinberg, and Alex Van Halen acknowledge his influence and artistry. I may not know much about drumming, but I’ll defer to the experts.
6. Don’t want to take my word for it? It’s on Wikipedia, so it must be true.
7. “100 Greatest Beatles Songs: 79 – ‘I’ll Follow the Sun'”. Rolling Stone. ISSN 0035-791X. From Wikipedia.
Stop drinking the Kool-Aid 
Thank you so much for writing this very accurate,true article!
This is what I have posted on sites that ludicrously,ignorantly,ridiculously call The Beatles an uncool,stupid,untalented boy band.
The Beatles were *NEVER* a ”boy band”! As a poster Reverend Rock,who is a rock musician,reverend and a big Beatles fan said on a classic rock site years ago,that anyone who knows The Beatles history knows it’s ludicrous to even *suggest* such a thing! And what a huge insult to their enormous talent as true singers,song writers and musicians! The Beatles were a *zillion* times more talented and cool than any stupid,uncool,untalented real boy band!
The Monkees are the first true boy band because they didn’t even start off as a genuine band, they were all musical but they were originally hired as actors to play members of a TV pop rock band for their TV show, they didn’t start off playing together like Paul at age 15,George age 14 and John age 16 playing guitars and singing,then playing a few years later for 8 hours a night in sleazy strip clubs( and The Beatles had sex with many young women groupies,many who were teen girls and strippers) like The Beatles did in Hamburg Germany(or anywhere) for 2 years in a row,taking speed pills to stay awake to do it,and working their a*ses off playing as a real rock n roll band,and then playing successfully in the Cavern club as a real rock n roll band for years by the time they made it big.
And The Beatles wrote and played a lot of great rock n roll and pop rock songs in their early days. John and Paul wrote the rock n roll song I Wanna Be Your Man write in front of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger in 1963 and they were both really impressed that they could just write a song just like that,and it inspired them to start writing their own songs and both bands became good friends from then on. And this song was one of The Rolling Stones first hits.
There is just no comparison to The Monkees etc. A guy so accurately said on a message board many years ago when some idiots called them a ”boy band” that The Beatles were *never* a boy band,not even during their 1963-1965 period. And another guy said a few years after this on another forum,when some idiot said this,that he too once thought the early Beatles were a boy band like NYSNC,or The Back Street Boys,until he got out of 7th grade.
Every time some ignorant person unjustly calls them a boy band,I’m sure John Lennon’s ashes must be turning with outrage.I’m sure he would go on to these sites and say I was *not* the founder and the leader of some f*king,stupid,uncool,untalented, boy band get that through your stupid f*cking heads!
And younger people don’t know what type of music was out in 1963,even though I wasn’t born yet,I know that The Beatles early songs like She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand were hard rock compared to the music out then.There was just Bobby Darin,The Four Seasons,Bobby Vinton and The Beach Boys surfing hits.
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Here is a very good educational you tube video by MeanMr Mayo who is a member of The great Beatles fan site,Abbryd debunking this stupid,ridiculous,ludicrous myth that The Beatles were ever a boy band.
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The Beatles even in their early days were writing and playing on records as well in concerts,both love ballads,and great rocking rock n roll and pop rock songs that they both wrote and cover songs.
They were the greatest *rock* band ever! (NEVER A G*d dam*ed stupid,uncool,untalented boy band!) And I have always loved this great blues rocker by Paul,She’s A Woman.
Except live there isn’t the piano,blending with the great rocking guitars,Paul’s great prominent booming bass,and his great rock vocal! And once again it’s amazing how good they sound on such limited,primitive sound systems of the time and with no feedback monitors so they couldn’t even hear themselves singing and playing,yet they still played and sang great and in sync with each other.
Here is their great April 1965 New Music Express Winner’s Poll concert from April 11,1965.They won three years in a row.And notice that there are men and women of ages in the audience.
Here they performed Paul’s great rocking I Saw Her Standing There in Sweden in October 1963 which The Beatles recorded in February 1963 on their first album Please Please Me which was recorded in just one day.
The Beatles performing their rocking cover of Long Tall Sally with Paul’s great rocking vocal June 1964.
Here in 1964 June in Melbourne Australia they are playing John’s great rock song that they had recorded in February 1964 on their first great early album A Hard Day’s Night.
And here they performed Paul’s very good hard rocking,especially for early 1965,I’m Down at The Ed Sulivian Theatre August 14,1965 one night before their live Shea Stadium performance.
https://vimeo.com/133531241
Here is their even harder rocking performance at Shea Stadium on August 15,1965 than they did on their record version of Paul’s I’m Down. And they did what a great rock n roll band would do,they ended this rock n roll concert with this rocking song.
Here they performed a rocking cover of Dizzy Miss Lizzy with John’s great rock vocal,at the same She Stadium concert.
And what a huge disgusting insult to all of them as very talented musicians,and to John and Paul as extremely talented song composers and great singers,and to John Lennon’s memory and was never the founder and leader of some stupid,uncool,untalented boy band!
If Beethoven,Mozart and Bach had screaming teenage girls in their audiences and they formed a band together they would have been a boy band too right?
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From Me To You,and especially She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand were praised by some music critics even from the beginning,like William Mann of The London Times in December 1963 pointed out their interesting unusual chords and arrangements and London Times music critic Richard Buckle also in late 1963 called John and Paul the greatest composers since Beethoven after they wrote the music for a play Mods and Rockers.
Bob Dylan ,Roger McGuinn of The Byrds as early as 1963 and 1964 pointed out that even in early Beatles songs like She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand had unusual and interesting chords and they arranged them.
Here in this article about The Beatles chords,Bob Dylan is quoted saying what he thought in 1964 about The early Beatles music,he said that they were doing things nobody was doing and that their chords were outrageous,just outrageous and their harmonies made it all valid.
http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME03/Words_and_chords.shtml
Here in Rolling Stone Magazine’s 100 Greatest Song Writers Bob Dylan is number 1,Paul McCartney is number 2, and John Lennon is number 3, Bob Dylan is quoted about a car trip when he heard a lot of Beatles songs on the radio, he said they were doing things and that he knew they were pointing the direction where music had to go.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-songwriters#john-lennon
Roger McGuinn has said that he started to play a 12 string guitar after he saw and heard George Harrison playing in in the A Hard Day’s Night movie.
And John and Paul wrote one of The Rolling Stones first hits the rock n roll song, I Wanna Be Your Man in late 1963 right in front of them. And Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were impressed and said wow,how can you write a song just like that and it inspired them to start writing their own songs.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney were such amazingly talented singer song writers that they were already writing hit songs for other artists as early as 1963 when their own song writing success was getting off the ground,besides The Rolling Stones,they also wrote hit songs in 1963 for Billy J.Krammer and The Dakatos,Celia Black,and Peter and Gordon etc.
Paul wrote his first song at age 14 and was playing guitar,John wrote heavy deep poetry but didn’t start writing songs until he met Paul and was impressed that he wrote his own songs,and he too started to write his own songs at age 16,and they wrote together and never stopped from then on. Paul wrote the very pretty song I’ll Follow The Sun at only 16.Even when The Beatles first came to America in February 1964 many people said how rare it was for *adult* rock n roll bands and solo artists to write their own songs,and Paul and John were already doing this as teenagers in the mid 1950’s.
And even though I wasn’t born yet in 1963 I know what type of music was popular on the radio like you also pointed out,non rock n roll songs like Bobby Vinton,The Four Seasons,Bobby Darin and The Beach Boys surfing hits,The early Beatles songs like She Loves You, I Want To Hold Your Hand and I Saw Her Standing there etc were hard rock for 1963 and ahead of their time.
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The early Beatles lyrics were more simple but a lot of their early music was actually much more complex. Just one of many examples I always loved this very early John song written and recorded in 1962 Ask Me Why.
I have always loved this great beautiful song written by John,with such typical beautiful melodies and harmonies John and Paul usually wrote,and John’s usual beautiful singing voice.And this was amazingly recorded in 1962 on only two track tape! with such limited,primitive recording technology but it of course still sounds great.Except I hate mono it’s limited sounding and only makes their already limited recording technology sound even more limited.I tried to find the stereo version of this song on here but I couldn’t find it.
Here university of Pennsylvania musicologist Alan W.Pollack who did an 11 year extensive analysis of every one of the 200 Beatles songs,analyzes Ask Me Why and explains that it’s structurally complex.
http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/amw.shtml
Here is Alan’s whole Beatles song analysis series http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/awp-notes_on.shtml
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Here is university of Penn graduate,musicologist Alan Pollack’s whole extensive 11 year analysis of all 200 Beatles songs
http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/awp-notes_on.shtml
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Award winning classical composer and music professor Dr.Glen Gass’s Beatles course he’s been teaching since 1982 and he’s been teaching a course in rock music in general since then.
http://courses.music.indiana.edu/rock/beatles.html
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This 1999 review of Mark Lewisohn’s excellent Beatles studio diary book where many of The Beatles recording engineers and tape operators and their producer George Martin are interviewed (and it shows how truly innovative,brilliant and creative especially John and Paul were in the recording studio),The Beatles Recording Sessions titled, Behind The Creative Genius Of A Groundbreaking Band by a musician himself says it all, he says that as a musician he found Mark Lewisohn’s portrayal of The Beatles genius and in parenthesis he says, especially that of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, to be completely thorough and accurate, as well as insightful. He then says if you are to buy any one Beatles book,buy this one.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Beatles-Recording-Sessions/product-reviews/1454910054/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_summary?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=helpful;;
And this reviewer RAS who became a big Beatles fan after he read The Beatles Recording Sessions book,said, I think The Beatles ARE BRILLIANT and he said he despairs what his life would be like without The Beatles!! He said when he first saw the book,he thought oh another garbage Beatles book.
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As The All Music Guide says in their excellent Beatles biography “That it’s difficult to summarize their career without restating cliches that have already been digested by tens of millions of rock fans, to start with the obvious,they were the greatest and most influential act of the rock era and introduced more innovations into popular music than any other rock band of the 20th century.”
“Moreover they were among the few artists of *any* discipline that were simultaneously the best at what they did *and* the most popular at what they did.” They also say as singers John Lennon and Paul McCartney were among the best and most expressive in rock.
Also on an excellent site,The Evolution of Rock Bass Playing McCartney Style by Dennnis Alstrand,Stanley Clarke,Sting,Will Lee,Billy Sheehan,George Martin and John Lennon are quoted saying what a great,melodic and influential bass player Paul has always been.
http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/paulbass.htm
And Wilco’s John Stirratt was asked in Bass Player which bass players have had the most impact on his playing and the first thing he said was, Paul McCartney is one of the greatest bass players of all time,if you listen to what he was tracking live in the studio it’s unbelievable.” “With his tone and musicality he was a huge influence,he covered all of his harmonic responsibilities really well but his baselines were absolutely melodic and inventive.”
http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/15716769/windy-city-wingman-john-stirratt-lays-roots-wilco
In this 2010 interview the blogger says that John Stirratt has an affinity for good melodies so it’s not surprising that Paul McCartney is one of his musical icons and then he quotes him saying that he’s always absolutely in awe of his playing,including Paul’s Beatles years.
http://audreeanne.blogspot.com/2010/02/interview-wilcos-john-stirratt-talk.html
And in an online 1977 Eric Clapton interview,Eric Clapton In His Own Words he says that there was always this game between John and George,and he said partly because John was a pretty good guitar player himself http://www.superseventies.com/ssericclapton.html .He played live with John as a member of John’s 1969 Plastic Ono Band.
And there is a great online article by musician and song writer Peter Cross,The Beatles Are The Most Creative Band Of All Time and he says that many musicians besides him recognize Paul as one of the best bass guitar players ever.He too says that John and Paul are the greatest song composers and that to say that John and Paul are among 2 of the greatest singers in rock and roll is to state the obvious,and that John,Paul and George were all excellent guitarists and that George is underrated by people not educated about music but that Eric Clapton knew better,he also says that both John and Paul played great leads as well as innovative rhythm tracks.
John Lennon co-wrote,sang and played guitar on one of David Bowie’s first hits Fame in 1975 and David invited John to play guitar on his version of John’s beautiful Beatles song Across The Universe.Brain May,Ozzy Osbourne,and Liam Gallagher and many more call The Beatles The Greatest Band Ever.’
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Beatles-are-the-Most-Creative-Band-of-All-Time&id=222245
Also on MusicRadar Tom Petty,Joe Perry and Richie Sambora in What The Beatles Mean To Me all say how cool and great they thought The Beatles were when they first saw them on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964 when they were just teen boys,Richie was only 5.Tom Petty said he thought they were really really great.
Robin Zander of Cheap Trick said he’s probably one of the biggest Beatles fans on the planet.Brad Whitford of Aerosmith said that a lot of that Beatles influence comes from Steven Tyler’s collaborartion with Mark Hudson both whom are absolute Beatles freaks and he said I guess the goal is to try and emulate probably some of the best music of the last 50 years which has to be The Beatles.
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Also in an excellent Beatles book Ticket To Ride by Denny Somach where so many other well known popular respected rock musicians and artists are interviewed about The Beatles praising them including Jimmy Page,Brian Wilson who says he’s always loved The Beatles. And Brian Wilson called John & Paul the greatest song writers of the 20th century on a 1995 Nightline Beatles tribute show,(which had on music artists from every type of music,a young black jazz musician,a middle aged black opera singer,Steve Winwood,Meatloaf,and classical violinist Isak Perleman,who said he plays his children Bach,Beethoven Mozart and The Beatles)and he played With A Little Help From My Friends on the piano and he said he just loves this song.
He also said that Sgt.Pepper is the greatest album he ever heard and The All Music Guide says in their Beach Boys biography,that Brian had a nerveous breakdown after he heard it. Brian also said that when he first heard The Beatles brilliant 1965 folk rock album Rubber Soul he was blown away by it.He said all of the songs flowed together and it was pop music but folk rock at the same time and he couldn’t believe they did this so great,this inspired him to make Pet Sounds.
John Lodge and Justin of The Moody Blues are interviewed in this book and Bill Wyman and Ron Wood says how The Rolling Stones became good friends with The Beatles in 1963 after John and Paul wrote 1 of their first hits,the Rock n Roll song,I Wanna Be You’re Man.
Ron Wood was asked what his favorite Beatles songs and he said there are so many apart from the obvious like Strawberry Fields I Want To Hold Your Hand is one he said he used to like a lot ,and he said he really loved We Can Work It Out.He also says that The Beatles used to have a radio show every Friday where they played live and spoke and he would never miss an episode. He said in fact whoever has the rights to those shows should dig them up,because they are incredible.
Justin Hayward says that the album he always really loved ,and he said it was when they started experimenting with chord structures ,was A Hard Day’s Night.He says they began to move away from the standard 3 chord thing and just went into more interesting structures .He said A Hard Day’s Night was the album for him and their song If I Fell was the song.He said it started in a different key to how it ended up,and it’s a beautifully worked out song and that there are some songs on that album that were very emotional and evocative. He said that for everybody just starting to write songs as he was,it was a real turn on and eye opener.
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Here is a really good July 1976 Rolling Stone Magazine interview with George Martin in which he’s asked about George Harrison who he says is talented but John and Paul are so enormously talented that it was silly to look elsewhere.But it’s obvious George Harrison was even more talented as a song writer and guitarist than most people realize because in this same interview George Martin says that he didn’t give George much encouragement he just tolerated him. And of course John and Paul didn’t give him much encouragement,so he did mostly everything on his own.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/george-martin-recalls-the-boys-in-the-band-19760715?page=2#comments
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Around 2003 I found an online interview with George Martin and he said that even though he has produced many other music artists and he has never had the same success before or after producing The Beatles,he has never known or worked with anyone as brilliant as The Beatles. He was also interviews in the 1990’s on a Breakfast With The Beatles show on a local rock station,and he said that John Lennon and Paul McCartney were incredibly talented people and he said it like he still couldn’t believe it. And he also said they both were extraordinarily talented song writers and great singers.
And in the excellent thorough book by Mark Lewisohn,The Beatles Recording Sessions,George Martin,and so many of The Beatles tape operators and recording engineers are interviewed,(and in the beginning there is a great 1987 interview with Paul McCartney) and they describe in detail how truly innovative, brilliant and creative especially John and Paul were in their amazing 8 year recording career. And there is a big black and white picture of Mick Jagger sitting in between John and Paul in the recording console room listening to the playback of the songs from The Beatles Revolver album.
And my cousin who was born in 1968 who used to be a lawyer,and his brother born in 62 who is still a lawyer,and their sister born in 64,their oldest brother born in 60,and their parents have always been Beatles fans. My cousin born in 68,went to England around 1991 and he told me that he was at a British Museum where the works of Shakespeare,Dickens,Wodsworth and Keats,Lennon and McCartney’s lyrics are right in the same case. And he said the majority of visitors always said,forget the Shakespeare etc,lets go over to the Lennon and McCartney lyrics.
When I once asked him,if he still liked The Beatles he said,best band there ever was.My step cousin born in 1958,said they probably were the greatest band ever.He saw Paul McCartney and Wings in May 1976 in concert when he was 18 and he said it was a great show.
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As The Rolling Stone Album Guide said, not liking The Beatles is as perverse as not liking the sun. And Ozzy Osbourne( he’s been a huge Beatles fan he was a young teen from The Beatles early days,and he picked She Loves You as one of Rolling Stone Magazine’s greatest songs of all time,and Sgt.Pepper is one of hi favorite albums) said not loving The Beatles is like not loving oxygen.
And a guy who runs Keno’s Classic Rock n Roll Site and who runs a Rolling Stones and John Lennon fan site says in his review of The Beatles 1967-1970 Blue Album damn The Beatles were one great group and he said in his great review of The Beatles 1962-1966 Red album, that if you don’t love or at least like The Beatles and their music then you are not a true rock fan and more than likely will never ever get it.
He also says that John Lennon showed on Paul’s rocker Get Back why he should have played lead guitar more often because he did such a good job of it. He also said he played a pretty good slide guitar on George’s For Your Blue and he said John also played one of the first and best acid guitar parts on his great rocker Revolution.
http://www.keno.org/classic_rock/rock_albums_reviews.html
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There is an online interview with Roger Daltry,Roger’s Journey With The Who in The Sun http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/sftw/607170/Rogers-journey-with-The-Who.html and he was asked if The Who had screaming girls at a certain point,and he said after Can’t Explain they did. He said it was the screaming teenage era and every band had them on their way up. He said it was fun at first but the trouble for a performer when you are that young and inexperienced is that you start to judge your performances on the amount they scream,he said it’s nonsense which is why Lennon gave up. He also said that The Who’s manager turned their image overnight from scruffy rockers to Mods.
When The Beatles played live in 1963,64,65 & 66 they only had 100 watt amplifiers,no feedback monitors so they couldn’t hear themselves sing and play,plus the screaming crowds and that’s why they gave up touring.
George Harrison says in The Beatles Anthology video series,that for their August 1965 Shea Stadium concerts, special 100 watt amplifiers were made and that they went up from only 30 watts before. Given how limited and primitive the sound systems were then,it’s amazing they sounded as good as they did live.But it was impossible for *anyone* to sound great on those kind of limited,primitive sound systems of the time.
Former Kiss guitarist Bob Kulick who produced the heavy metal Beatles tribute album, Butchering The Beatles, said he saw The Beatles in concert in 1966 and he said he could hear parts of Baby’s In Black & Paperback Writer and they sounded amazing.
A guy Steve from Canada said on Artist Facts,that he saw The Beatles live in 1966 and The Stones in 1996(and the sound systems by then were a zillion times better!) and he said don’t get me wrong,The Stones were great but they were no match for The Beatles and he called The Beatles The Greatest Band Of All Time.
The Beatles started out playing 8 hours a night in the sleazy strip clubs of Hamburg Germany,taking speed pills to stay awake,wearing tight black leather jackets and pants,smoking and cursing on stage,and had sex with so many young women groupies including the strippers in those clubs,they were successful there. They also played successfully live in The Cavern Club for several years in the early 1960’s.
John and George especially hated Beatle Mania,and George says in The Anthology series, that it took a toll on their nervous systems, they had no life either trapped in hotel rooms most of the time. They wanted to be popular & successful as every band does, but they didn’t want or ask for the hysteria. John says in his 1975 Tomorrow Show interview that the screaming wasn’t doing the music any good,and that things would break down and nobody would know.
The Beatles sound great on their live roof top January 1969 concert in The Let It Be Film, and the sound systems had improved by then,(although still very limited compared to today’s) and there were no more screaming crowds.
Paul was playing guitar and writing songs at 14 and he started soon after his beloved nurse and midwife mother Mary died of breast cancer, and he wrote the beautiful song Let It Be after he had a real seeming dream where he saw her alive again and she told him to just accept things as they are. He says in his authorized biography, that when he woke up he thought how great it was to see her alive again.
And there is this very good article by Collin Fleming from The Atlantic, 50 Years Later: The Greatest Beatles Performance Of All Time
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/10/50-years-later-the-greatest-beatles-performance-of-all-time/280801/
And there used to be the full video of The Beatles February 1964 Washington Colosseum and there were over 1,000 likes and many people were saying what Frank and Jack say to this now only audio version of this concert,( many people on youtube are saying why are many of The Beatles videos gone off of youtube now and some are saying it’s because of UMG_MK and I don’t know what this is.) that it’s amazing that with such crappy sound systems of those days and no feedback monitors so they couldn’t even hear themselves singing and playing and many said they still sound so good and great and some say this Washington concert proves what a great live band they were and before they got so tired of all of the Beatlemania garbage they had to put up with all of the screaming drowning out their great music.
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Many people have said about The Rolling Stones ,that their albums have a few good or great songs but the rest is filler.
But a radio host who was a former DJ once said that The Beatles are one of the only if not only bands that almost all of their songs were great including the album tracks that weren’t released as singles.
On a message board discussion some years ago about what bands and artists people consider overrated,quite a few said The Rolling Stones and some said The Beatles or both,and a guy said if you ask almost anybody in the music business they will tell you that The Beatles were the Greatest Band Ever!
I once spoke to a rock DJ about The Beatles and even though he said they aren’t his favorite,he said nobody can say that The Beatles weren’t great,he said especially John Lennon and Paul McCartney as song writers.
And I once spoke to another rock DJ who is a huge Beatles fan & who has hosted a 2 hour Breakfast With The Beatles radio show for over 20 years & I said that The Beatles work in the recording studio described in details in The Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn,is so impressive & brilliant & he said oh it’s the work of geniuses. I said how can anyone not recognize what extraordinary singer song composers John Lennon & Paul McCartney were? And he said oh you can ask anyone in the music business & they will tell you that.
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Not only did The Beatles give The Rolling Stones one of their first hits with their rock n roll song I Wanna Be Your Man as you know,and they wrote it right in front of them and Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were impressed and like wow how can you write a song just like that and it motivated them to start writing their own songs.
And as I already said The Rolling Stones were good friends with and fans of The Beatles.
Mick Jagger was at 4 Beatles recording sessions and Keith Richards was at 2 of them with him.Also Mick Jagger was such a big Beatles fan that in May 1967 when The Beatles were recording their song Baby You’re A Rich Man he came there and stood on the sidelines to watch and listen to them recording it. His name is also on the tape box and he likely sang at the end verses.In Mark Lewishon’s great detailed music diary book, The Beatles Recording Sessions there is a big black and white picture of Mick Jagger sitting in between John and Paul in the recording console room during The Beatles Revolver recording sessions too.
The Beatles remastered albums sold much more 40 years after their break up than The Rolling Stones remastered albums and they are still together! The Beatles have the best selling album of the last decade with their CD 1.And soon after their music went on iTunes,it went to the top.
And Brian Jones played the saxaphone on the strange Beatles song, You Know My Name Look Up The Number and he and Mick Jagger’s girlfriend at the time Marriane Faithful contributed sound effects on the song Yellow Submarine.
As this guy Sal66 who is also a musician and has also posted on sites debunking ignorant cr*p about The Beatles has rightfully pointed out, The Beatles wrote,played and recorded I Feel Fine (which The All Music Guide says has brilliant,active ,difficult guitar leads and riffs) in the Fall of 1964 which was the first use of feedback guitar on a pop rock record and it also had a prominent guitar riff throughout this very good song almost a year *before* The Rolling Stones’s Satisfaction came out.
And on John’s great Norwegian Wood recorded in the Fall of 1965,George Harrison was the first to play a sitar on a pop rock song and it was released on their great album Rubber Soul in December and then in May 1966 The Rolling Stones song Paint It Black came out with Brian Jones playing a sitar!
And in Paul McCartney’s authorized biography Many Years From Now, Mick Jagger’s former girlfriend singer Marianne Faithful says that she and Mick used to go over to Paul’s house a lot and hang out in his music room. She said he never went to see them at their house they always went to visit him because he was Paul McCartney.She also said that Mick was intimidated by Paul but that Paul was totally oblivious to this.
Paul also says in this book that he turned Mick on to pot in his music room and he said which is funny because a lot of people would assume it was the other way around. Mick Jagger was also with The Beatles in Bangor when they got the call that Brian Epstein was found dead because he went on the train with them with his then girl friend singer Marianne Faithful to see the Maharishi to study meditation that weekend.
Also Mick Jagger is quoted on a Rolling Stones fan site,timeisonourside.com saying that Keith Richards liked The Beatles because he was quite interested in their chord sequences and he says he also liked their harmonies which he said were always a slight problem for The Rolling Stones.He said Keith always tried to get the harmonies off the ground but they always seemed messy.
Mick then says,that what they never really got together were Keith and Brian singing backup vocals and he said it didn’t work because Keith was a better singer and to keep going,oooh,ooh,ooh(he laughs) and he said Brian liked all of those oohs which Keith had to put up with.He also said Keith was capable of much stronger vocals than ooh,ooh,ooh.
On this same fan site Keith Richards is quoted from 1971 saying that The Beatles were perfect for opening doors,when they went to America they left it wide open for them and he said that The Rolling Stones could never have gone to America without them.He also said that The Beatles are so f**king good at what they did.
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Not only is this so ignorant,ridiculous,and false on a creative and musical level,but on their personal level too. I guarantee true genuine boy bands don’t have groupies.
The Beatles had sex with *tons* of young women groupies,many who were just teen girls especially during their touring years of 1963-1966 ironically they did this the most during the joke fake cleaned up image Brian Epstein created for them in their early days.In reality they were like pimps playing the part of priests! It’s no coincidence that in The Beatles Anthology video series that Paul,George and Ringo made,the story that is reported of The Beatles being thrown out of a US hotel in August 1965 because Paul was found in his hotel bedroom with an underage girl, that is included in the first great Beatles documentary from 1982 The Complete Beatles which none of them had any involvement making,is completely left out of The Beatles Anthology.
Paul McCartney also said in Hunter Davies 1968 first edition of the only authorized Beatles biography called,The Beatles, that he had sex at age 15 with a girl who was older and bigger than him,and most 15 year old boys weren’t having sex in 1957,and he said he bragged about it to his classmates the next day and that he was the first one in his class to have sex.Paul also said in this book,that he would go into strip clubs at only 13 and he was the lad in his class that drew nude women.He also got another girl who was his girl friend,pregnant when he was 17 and she was 16,and Paul’s father and her parents wanted them to get married but she had a miscarriage.
Hunter Davies says in his 1985 update of his Beatles biography, that The Beatles were no different from any other rock band when it came to groupies and he said they just had more to chose from. He said it was up to the road manager to say to these young women,you,you and you 5 minutes later which is really sexist and disgusting but it’s totally typical for every rock band which is what they always were.
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This is a description of the 2009 Beatles 3 part radio special of how brilliant and influential The Beatles were from the beginning and it has interviews with Brian Wilson,Tom Petty,Dave Grohl,Slash,Jeff Lynne,Ann Wilson,Nancy Wilson,Peter Asher,Jackson Browne,Bob Seger,T-Bone Burnett,Cameron Crowe,Mika,Mark Ronson,Susan Werner,Rick Rubin,and Joe Boyd.
http://beatlesblogger.com/2009/12/04/new-three-part-beatles-radio-series-here-there-everywhere/
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The description of Ron Howard’s Beatles documentary looks like it’s great,and I really truly hope that this helps debunk this extremely ignorant,ridiculous,ludicrous stupid myth that The Beatles were ever a stupid,uncool,untalented boy band! They were and still are The Greatest *rock n roll,and rock band ever*!
Oh and I hope it deals with how primitive,and limited their sound systems were in those days too,George Harrison said in the Beatles Anthology video series,that special 100 watt amplifiers were built and that they went up from the only 30 watts they had before,they also had no feedback monitors so they couldn’t even hear themselves singing and playing,but amazingly they managed to play in so good and in sync with each other anyway.
And it was amazing they sounded as good as they did live,nobody could have sounded great on those poor sound systems it was impossible. But The Beatles were so great,they would have even sounded good playing out of a cave.
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I also met two people and know a third one who saw The Beatles in concert,one woman and one man who were my high school teachers who saw them in 1966,and the other my second cousin who saw them at the Baltimore Coliseum when she was 16 in 1964,she became a psychologist.They all told me that they were close enough to them to see and hear the The Beatles and that they were great.
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In this 2008 interview asking Keith Richards who the five greatest bands ever are besides The Rolling Stones,he said obviously he put The Beatles in there. This was 6 years of course before he ridiculously criticized The Beatles brilliant Sgt.Pepper album that The Rolling Stones tried but failed to copy and equal.
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In the 2012 Newsweek Beatles special celebrating 50 years since their music came out,Steve Jobs was quoted from Walter Isaacson’s biography as talking about how the band’s approach to recording “refining and refining” influenced his own creative process. He said they were such perfectionists they kept it going and going he said. Steve Jobs said that this made a big impression on him when he was in his thirties.Newsweek rightfully says,that it’s hard to imagine another rock band that influenced the way computers are made just as it is to think of one whose name became an adjective. And Newsweek said and that’s why The Beatles still stand apart.
They quote Steve Jobs saying,”Somebody else could have replicated the Stones,(Newsweek then says,nailing the difference between artists shaped by their times and those who shape them),no one could have been Dylan or The Beatles.”
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In 2010 I read an online article that had an interview with Ernie Isley of The Isley Brothers about a recent tribute to Jimi Hendrix, in which he says that Jimi played for The Isley Brothers & lived with them & that they & he were fans of The Fab Four from the moment they all watched them on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. I always thought that Jimi was only a later period Beatles fan,I knew he played Sgt.Pepper live the weekend it came out,& he played Day Tripper live also,& several people on different message boards said that when he was asked where the direction of music was going,he said ask The Beatles.
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31 year old music and Beatles scholar Aaron Krerowicz plays many instruments & writes his own music too.
http://www.aaronkrerowicz.com/faq.html
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And the really unbelievable thing is that it’s not just some ignorant 13 year old kids calling them a boy band,but I have seen music moderators and administrators on music sites like Rate Your Music and others,saying they were nothing but a boy band, or saying that before Rubber Soul or Revolver they were.
Not only is this an extreme inaccurate insult to the very good musicians they all were, and great singers and song writers John and Paul were,it’s also a big insult to all of their fans who are over the age of 12.
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I meant to include that these moderators and administrators on these music sites are in their 30’s and 40’s!
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Please read all of my great informative posts debunking this beyond stupid,inaccurate,ridiculous,ludicrous nonsense by someone on MTV once again calling The Beatles a ”boy band”. And Ironically both VH1 and MTV have been using Richie Unterberger’s excellent long Beatles biography as their Beatles biography they both used to not have a very good biography of The Beatles.and I wrote to another site can you please remove The Beatles from your 15 Greatest Boy Bands list.
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-beatles-mn0000754032/biography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles
The Beatles own documentary The Beatles Anthology
The great 1982 Beatles documentary,The Complete Beatles
And any great reputable accurate Beatles biography would debunk this ludicrous,stupid myth.
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I have also *never* read or heard any legitimate serious rock or music in general critics and writers describe them this way and for great reasons too!
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Here in this 1971 interview at the Sgt.Regis Hotel John Lennon is asked by the interviewer about him using drummer Jim Keltner and if this was a reflection on Ringo’s drumming.And John said, Oh no I love his drumming. He then said I think Keltner is a bit technically better but Ringo is still one of the best drummers in rock.
http://web.archive.org/web/20080108131358/http://www.geocities.com/wireless_machine/lennon/st_regis.htm
And who did John Lennon use as a drummer on his first brilliant solo album John Lennon Plastic Ono Band when he could have gotten almost anyone who would have jumped at the chance to play on one of John’s albums? Ringo.
And Ringo Star was already a successful drummer in the most popular successful band in Liverpool,Rorry Storm and The Hurricanes when John,Paul and George asked him to join The Beatles.And George Martin didn’t think that Pete Best was that good,and he and John,Paul and George thought that Ringo was much better.
Also Phil Collins and Max Weinberg are both Ringo fans. And Phil Colins ( who has always been a big Beatles fan and he was in the audience in the concert scene in their great movie A Hard Day’s Night at age 13) says he can’t even duplicate Ringo’s great drumming in A Day In The Life. George Martin says that Ringo always had a great feel and ear for a song and that it was his idea to play the tom toms on A Day In The Life giving it a unique percussion sound.
Mark Lewisohn says in his great book,The Beatles Recording Sessions,that on a handful of occasions during all of the several hundred session tapes and thousand of recording hours can Ringo be heard to have made a mistake or wavered in his beat. He then says that his work was remarkably consistent-and excellent-from 1962 right through to 1970.
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Rate Your Music Top 1000 Rock Artists Queen is number 75,The Beatles are so rightfully number 1 !
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/noname219/top_1000_rock_artists/10/
Rate Your Music Top Artists out of over 3,000 The Beatles are once again so rightfully number 1.
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/noname219/top_artists/2/
And on the site Digital Dreamdoor where many musicians are members The Beatles are the number 1 Greatest Rock Artists.
On their 100 Greatest Rock Bass Guitarists Paul McCartney has been number 8 for many years now, John Deacon is number 32.John Paul Jones is number 27,and Bill Wyman is number 95.
http://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_bassguitar.html
Out over 100 Greatest Rock Drummers Ringo Star is number 13, Roger Taylor is number 31.
http://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_drummers.html
Out of 200 Greatest Rock Song Writers John Lennon and Paul McCartney are of course number 1 members of Queen are number 47.
http://digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/best_songwriters.html
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No,The Beatles do need defending because there truly is so much ignorant,inaccurate myths about them,the most ignorant and ludicrous of all,is that they were ever a boy band and they never were not even for half of a second.
Here is a review of The Beatles first album,Please Please Me by a top Epionions music reviewer Scapp70 he says they need defending and he said that he had been reading some really negative things about The Beatles in print and online,and he said it’s just so wild.He said but when you’re as big as The Beatles there is bound to be some negativity out there. He explains how brilliant they were,how they made an amazing amount of great albums in such a short time and why they are rightfully widely considered the best band ever.
http://www.epinions.com/review/musc_mu-81434/2001989951/227863793284
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Those people who hate The Beatles are totally foolish and ignorant! And if you type into google or any search engine, The Beatles are or were the Greatest rock n roll,rock,or just greatest band ever you will find the majority of people still saying this 46 years after they broke up.
And if you type in, I used to hate The Beatles you will find 100’s or more people saying,I used to hate The Beatles but now I think they were brilliant song writers,or now I think they are or were one of the greatest or the greatest band ever. Most of these people said they never even heard most of their great music,and also had heard the beyond ignorant,ridiculous,stupid,ludicrous nonsense that they were ever a boy band.
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not really true at all as Richie Utenberger wrote in his great long detailed Beatles biography for The all Music Guide,the stereotype was that John was the rocker and Paul the balladeer but the truth is they both wrote romantic ballads and ballsy out rock in equal numbers.The truth is though,it was Paul in his early solo and Wings career that was writing and playing the rock and hard rock and most of it was great.
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-beatles-mn0000754032/biography
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It’s not really true at all that Paul wrote more of the love songs and John wrote more of the rock songs as Richie Utenberger wrote in his great long detailed Beatles biography for The all Music Guide,the stereotype was that John was the rocker and Paul the balladeer but the truth is they both wrote romantic ballads and ballsy out rock in equal numbers.The truth is though,it was Paul in his early solo and Wings career that was writing and playing the rock and hard rock and most of it was great.
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-beatles-mn0000754032/biography
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In The All Music Guide’s great review of The Beatles Past Masters album,they say they proved that they could rock really,really hard with their songs I Feel Fine,She’s a Woman,and the peerless I’m Down http://www.allmusic.com/album/past-masters-mw0000691313 all from late 1964 and early 1965.
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In this All Music Guide review of The Beatles early 1963 album,With The Beatles Stephen Thomas Erlewine says at the end of the very good review that still the heart of With The Beatles lies not in the covers but the originals where it was clear that even at this early stage The Beatles were rapidly maturing and changing turning into expert craftsman and musical innovators.
http://www.allmusic.com/album/with-the-beatles-mw0000192941
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And I have been a huge Beatles fan, especially a big highly impressed John and Paul fan since I was 11 and I got my first Beatles book for my 11th birthday,I started collecting their albums at age 9, and I had every album by age 13. I was born after 1964 too. when I was 13 a guy at school who was 2 years older than me,gave me Hunter Davies authorized biography,he was a fan and his older brother was an even bigger fan.I would read that book for hours till 5 in the morning.
Most people I have known all of my life,including my female and male cousins, friends and neighbors know they were brilliant.When I was 11 I had a music teacher who asked us to guess who he was talking about when he said they were geniuses and that they wrote 200 songs,and that most of their songs and albums are great and critically acclaimed in just an 8 year recording career,and I said,The Beatles and he said yes that’s right!
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Many people on different message boards have said the only Rolling Stones song they like is Paint It Black, my first cousin who is a head hunter helping people find jobs,she used to an accountant,and when she was 21 a huge Rolling Stones fan she also had The Beatles Revolver album in her bedroom.
When The Rolling Stones did their Steel Wheels tour in 1989 I asked her if she still liked The Rolling Stones and she said no,but the same year at her wedding shower my male and female cousins were talking about The Beatles who we all love,and my cousin Randi said Oh I love The Beatles.
And when I was going to Paul McCartney live for the first time in 1990 and I was very excited about it,I was going on about how great he,John and The Beatles were and she said OK,I said you said you love The Beatles too and she said hey bottom line they were geniuses!
And I once heard a radio host who was a former rock DJ and he said The Beatles are really like the only music artists who have just about every song they did was great and wasn’t great was still good. He said even their album tracks that weren’t released as singles.
And many people have said it’s The Rolling Stones albums that have just a handful of very good songs and the rest is filler!
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I also met two people and know a third one who saw The Beatles in concert,one woman and one man who were my high school teachers who saw them in 1966,and the other a relative who saw them at the Baltimore Coliseum when she was 16 in 1964,she became a psychologist.They all told me that they were close enough to them to see and hear the The Beatles and that they were great.
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As you already know well,The Beatles revolutionized popular and rock music and were very innovative,prolific and creative,more than any other group. And their great timeless songs are the most covered in music history by everyone from jazz musicians,classical,Motown,rock,pop and even heavy metal recording and playing their great timeless music.
Many academic musicologists and music scholars have done serious
studies,analyses and praise of their great timeless music,like university of Penn graduate musicologist Alan W.Pollack who did an extensive 11 year detailed analysis of every Beatles song.He says he hadn’t even listened to The Beatles in 20 years until they came out on CD for the first time in 1987.He said The Beatles Recording Sessions by Mark Lewisohn was one of the things that motivated him to do his Beatles study.He demonstrates that even though a lot of their lyrics were simple in most of their really early songs,most of their music wasn’t and that a lot of their early songs have as many as 9 chords and interesting and unusual arrangements.Paul’s great rocker,You Never Give Me You’re Money on their excellent amazingly modern sounding rock album,Abbey Road has 21 chords.Here is the link to his extensive analysis
http://www.recmusicbeatles.com/public/files/awp/awp.html
And university of Michigan music professor and musician Walter Everett who wrote the 2 volume,The Beatles As Musicians:The Quarry Men Through Rubber Soul and The Beatles As Musicians:Revolver Through Anthology.And British musicologist and classical composer and music professor (who is dead now)Willifred Mellers 1973 book,Twilight Of The Gods:The Music Of The Beatles,and he also wrote about Beethoven,Mozart and Bob Dylan.
And award winning music professor Dr.Glen Gass who has been teaching a course on what brilliant composers The Beatles were and a rock music course at Indiana University School Of Music since 1982.Dr.Gary Kendall’s Beatles course is the most requested at North Western university ,university of California also has one and Oxford university had a recent Beatles course.
How many serious music scholars and award winning music professors are teaching and writing serious academic works studying and praising what “brilliant” composers The Rolling Stones or any other rock bands were?
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Here is the rocking great Beatles performance of Paul’s I Saw Her Standing There in Sweden October 1963.Notice how quiet the audience was too.
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On Last FM. before Last FM. changed their site and now they unfortunately took off the fan groups,The Rolling Stones only had 80 members and they had 2,000 of their fan group in 2007,The Beatles had over 2,000 which became 18,000 and the average age of fans is 22 more guys than girls and they are from all over the world. In 2006,2007 and 2008 The Beatles were the # 1 most listened music artists on Last.FM and they are very popular on YouTube and Rate Your Music where many male and female fans in their teens and 20’s call them The Greatest Rock Band Ever. They are now the number 1 classic Rock band on there http://www.last.fm/tag/classic+rock/artists and on Rate Your Music,they are the highest rated music artists out of over 3,000.http://rateyourmusic.com/list/noname219/top_artists/
The Beatles are still rightfully regarded by most people,most rock critics,and many other music and rock artists as The most creative,innovative,and prolific rock band ever.
In 1995 25 years after they broke up their Anthology CD’s went straight to # 1 around the world and I heard a rock DJ say that 40% of the people buying them were teenagers,the same exact thing when their 1CD came out in 2000 30 years after they broke,up and in 2009,39 years after they broke up,they were the second biggest selling artists in the last decade,and their 1CD was the biggest selling album. And their music went to the top soon after it went on iTunes.And soon after their music started streaming on Spotify it became very popular and Billboard reported that 65% of listeners are under 34 years old which means they weren’t even born when they broke up in 1970.
The Beatles wrote *plenty* of great rock songs including hard rock on The White Album and Abbey Road and as many have rightfully pointed out Paul invented heavy metal with his 1968 song Helter Skelter and people have also said John’s I Want You She’s So Heavy on Abbey road was also one of the first heavy metal songs.
Even in their early days they wrote some great rockers that were very rocky for the times, as The All Music Guide said,in their very good review of Past Masters Volume 1 that they proved they could rock really really hard,with John’s I Feel Fine from late 1964 which featured the very recorded feedback guitar on a rock song,and Paul’s great blues rocker,She’s A Woman also from late 1964,and what they called the peerless I’m Down which is Paul’s screaming rocker from mid 1965 which they performed even harder rocking, and screaming in August 1965 at Shea Stadium.
http://www.allmusic.com/album/past-masters-mw0000691313
Also John’s You Can’t Do That from early 1964,is a great rock song, so is Day Tripper,Paperback Writer, And You’re Bird Can Sing,Oh Darling,Hey Bulldog, She Said She Said,Taxman, Revolution,Get Back,Come Together etc
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Thanks for all your comments. You have some good ideas, but think it would be more appropriate if you write an article of your own. I would very much like to read it, so get to work!
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NME News
Bob Dylan talks of Beatles friendship
Legend admits: ‘I’m in awe of McCartney’
May 16, 2007
Bob Dylan has spoken in depth about his longstanding friendship with The Beatles and his particular bond with George Harrison.
Talking to Rolling Stone magazine, Dylan talked freely about Harrison’s struggle to find his voice within the songwriting collective of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
“George got stuck with being the Beatle that had to fight to get songs on records because of Lennon and McCartney. Well, who wouldn’t get stuck?” he asked.
Dylan highlighted the writing talents of Harrison, saying: “If George had had his own group and was writing his own songs back then, he’d have been probably just as big as anybody.”
Speaking against popular belief, the singer also denounced any rumors of competitiveness towards Lennon and McCartney, asserting, “They were fantastic singers. Lennon, to this day, it’s hard to find a better singer than Lennon was, or than McCartney was and still is.”
Nodding his cap to McCartney in particular, Dylan concluded: “I’m in awe of McCartney. He’s about the only one that I am in awe of. He can do it all. And he’s never let up… He’s just so damn effortless.”
http://www.nme.com/news/bob-dylan/28350
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