The Beatles

[DavidinSouthampton]

I don't want to start a religious debate, but if you don't believe, then the arts and sport are perhaps your only sources of the transcendent. I've never experienced it, but I appreciate that one of the things that the religious get from their belief is a personal understanding of the world that goes beyond the intellectual and physical. By its nature, it can't really be rationalised, but it's hold is so powerful that humans have spent thousands of years trying to understand or define it.

That's music for me. It produces powerful reactions that communicate on another plane and are too nebulous to stand up to analysis. However, the urge to try to understand something so highly cherished is hard to resist, even though we know deep down that its probably insoluble. The religious have been at it for millennia.

Apologies for going a bit into the mystic. I've got Astral Weeks on at the moment, and Van doesn't help.

I don’t know if you’re responding like this because I’m one of those on here who would sometimes defend the idea of faith. But I can get very excited about music and have done since probably around 1960 as a 6/7 year old. I can get very excited about Sport - one football team in particular, which is why I’m on here.

But the religion bit for me is in many ways a way of dealing with the world. I don’t want to start a religious debate either, but I would, for example, disagree strongly with anyone who would say that the Church and politics don’t mix, or who make blanket assumptions against Islam and Muslims

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

And there we have it, a perfect example of how musical taste is completely subjective. I don't understand how anyone can value soul in any sense and then say they like/liked Sgt Pepper, which seems to me an empty, soulless novelty album. I mean, When I'm 64? Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite? Okay, you were 13 or 14. I also loved Cream and both early and mid-period (Mick Taylor) Stones but I know there's no sense expecting our tastes to coincide elsewhere.

It’s too easy to make assumptions about what other people like. People often assume of me because of my age and interests that I will be a massive Led Zeppelin fan. I can’t stand them. Too noisy just for the sake of it for the most part. Queen is a pet hate of mine, too.

 

[Stato]

P.S. You're almost starting to sound like Stato on The Beatles - just saying, friendly like .......

If you read back through the thread, you'll see that Psychobilly stuck his head above the parapet some time before I did. I've had the debate before on here some years back, on other forums and in person with Beatles zealots. It usually ends in the kind of ad hominem you've just posted. Its a weird, but consistent reaction, treating someone just saying that they don't think a particular band are as great as others do as an unforgivable heresy.

As I have said, I don't even greatly dislike them. You should try reading this guy: https://www.scaruffi.com/vol1/beatles.html (If you want to join the PFJ, you have to really hate the Beatles).

 

[Stato]

I don’t know if you’re responding like this because I’m one of those on here who would sometimes defend the idea of faith. But I can get very excited about music and have done since probably around 1960 as a 6/7 year old. I can get very excited about Sport - one football team in particular, which is why I’m on here.

But the religion bit for me is in many ways a way of dealing with the world. I don’t want to start a religious debate either, but I would, for example, disagree strongly with anyone who would say that the Church and politics don’t mix, or who make blanket assumptions against Islam and Muslims

I wasn't aware of your religious beliefs. I was just clumsily saying that we all need a bit of transcendence and that, if you don't have faith, music can be a great place to find it.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

As I have said, I don't even greatly dislike them. You should try reading this guy: https://www.scaruffi.com/vol1/beatles.html (If you want to join the PFJ, you have to really hate the Beatles).

I'm fascinated by how that guy can have spent so long writing so much and missed the point so totally. It'd be almost impressive if it weren't so fundamentally tragic.

 

[Stato]

I was taling to an Irish student of ours on Teams today. She likes her alt.music and her alt.Irish music. I asked her if she liked Thin Lizzy. Never heard of them.

The times they have, er, changinged. Daddy-o.

She's got some treats ahead of her looking through their back catalogue for the first time. My gran had never heard of them either. When my brother asked her for an album for Christmas, she went into the shop and asked them for Tin Lizzy. We giggled when she told us, at that time, completely unaware that the spelling of their name was actually a joke about how Dubliners would pronounce exactly what she had called them.

 

[Stato]

I'm fascinated by how that guy can have spent so long writing so much and missed the point so totally. It'd be almost impressive if it weren't so fundamentally tragic.

I agree with some of what he says and don't agree with quite a lot more. I find the backlash he got very interesting. It seems obvious to me that its impossible to agree a consensus on who was the greatest in any field of art.* Why would so many people would get so irate that somebody holds a view that is different to theirs, when the question is so pointless and the answer so subjective?

* - (Except the slow motion Cruyff turn of course).

 

[Hamilton]

The best management? Brian Epstein? Dearie me, you really haven't read up on Eppy, have you!


P.S. You're almost starting to sound like Stato on The Beatles - just saying, friendly like .......

It’s weird how people both lionize them and hate them in equal measure isn’t it?

They must have done something right (or wrong) to get such a response.

I can play some terrible tracks they wrote and others that are pure genius.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Super Steve Earle]

If you read back through the thread, you'll see that Psychobilly stuck his head above the parapet some time before I did. I've had the debate before on here some years back, on other forums and in person with Beatles zealots. It usually ends in the kind of ad hominem you've just posted. Its a weird, but consistent reaction, treating someone just saying that they don't think a particular band are as great as others do as an unforgivable heresy.

As I have said, I don't even greatly dislike them. You should try reading this guy: https://www.scaruffi.com/vol1/beatles.html (If you want to join the PFJ, you have to really hate the Beatles).

Just read a bit from the link. Lost interest mid way as it's just 'I'm going to do a hatchet job on The Beatles', written sixth former style from one view point.

 

[dejavuatbtn]

Let it be.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

I wasn't aware of your religious beliefs. I was just clumsily saying that we all need a bit of transcendence and that, if you don't have faith, music can be a great place to find it.

That’s fine. I wasn’t taking offence or getting bolshie - just interested.

 

[Super Steve Earle]

Let it be.

To be honest,the article was more a Long and Winding Road and equally dull.

 

[Stato]

Just read a bit from the link. Lost interest mid way as it's just 'I'm going to do a hatchet job on The Beatles', written sixth former style from one view point.

He comes across as a bit annoyed doesn't he? I don't buy all the stuff about prog sound experiments being of more innate value than a decent pop song. Like a lot of rock criticism, he's a bit dismissive of popularity among teenage girls. He goes over the top on his slagging of the Beatles and is essentially arguing that other people should use his measures for what touches them emotionally, an argument that is ridiculous but also a corner stone of almost all art criticism. It's long and gets a bit dull, but its nothing compared to some of the screeds giving the opposite view. I've dipped into some of Ian MacDonald's 'Revolution In The Head' and couldn't believe that anybody could get through more than a couple of pages.

 

[Sid in the Sharknado]

I agree with some of what he says and don't agree with quite a lot more. I find the backlash he got very interesting. It seems obvious to me that its impossible to agree a consensus on who was the greatest in any field of art.* Why would so many people would get so irate that somebody holds a view that is different to theirs, when the question is so pointless and the answer so subjective?

* - (Except the slow motion Cruyff turn of course).

I'm reminded of that line about travel writing, to the effect that "there's no point writing about somewhere you don't want to go to".

Similarly, we ultimately get the music writing we deserve. Nobody ever listened to a song, really liked it, but then read a negative review and changed their mind. If you consistently disagree with a writer you just stop reading them, because there's no point in being told the music you like sucks. On the other hand, if you read positive writing on something you're not into, from somebody who generally agrees with you, it might open your ears to it a little.

If I don't like a band (let's say Radiohead, because I don't like Radiohead), I can spend all the time in the world convincing myself that they're overated, derivative, atonal crap pushed by musos who are so up themselves that they think they've surpassed the pleb concept of a "song". Or I can just accept that me and Thom Yorke aren't on the same plane, and move on. Or or, I can get over myself and take their stuff for what it is, and then I find there's some songs there that I can enjoy listening to, and my world's a little brighter for it.

Realistically, it's rare for anything that a significant number of people like to be straightforwardly bad, which is why good writers generally save the really scathing reviews for stuff like hopelessly misguided reunion albums or unlistenable live recordings.

If somebody don't like the Beatles, in itself a perfectly valid opinion, realistically that isn't because they're derivative, didn't push boundaries, are oversold or any of that, they just don't get the same response as some other people do to them. That's fine. What's messed up is when you start writing reams of A4 on why they're clearly shit and not as good as the bands you like, because at that point you're just fluffing your own ego. Tell people why the music you like is good, not why the music you don't is crap.

That last bit's a general point, not aimed at you specifically.

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

It’s weird how people both lionize them and hate them in equal measure isn’t it?

They must have done something right (or wrong) to get such a response.

I can play some terrible tracks they wrote and others that are pure genius.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes.

Not many bad ones though IMO…..

 

[stewart12]

well I like them

 

[Super Steve Earle]

Prompted by this thread to start watching The Beatles Anthology DVD's. 8 of them + Bonus disc. I'll report back in a long time!

 

[Is it PotG?]

Not read it all but I feel the best description was where is was best to be there at the time that they changed pop music forever, because in hindsight and listening now it's all a bit 'meh'.

 

[Mellotron]

Incredible band.

 

[dangull]

They were only together for 7 years. It would have been interesting to see and hear what their music would have been like if they lasted as long as the Rolling Stones, U2 or Coldplay.
Probably a good reason why they broke up when they did