47 Miles of Barbed Wire: 6 Reasons the Beatles Did NOT Save Music.
Column, Music | Matt Cibula | September 28, 2009 at 8:52 amMany people will hate on me for this post, but I don’t care. My beef is NOT with the Beatles, a popular beat combo from Liverpool, England, but rather with their lazy-ass fans and humanity’s need to follow the herd. Ugh, hate that. More after this provocatively placed jump.
Here in the United States, the prevailing mass-market narrative about the Beatles is pretty heterogeneous: rock and roll music was awesome, but then Elvis went into the Army and Buddy Holly died and there was a lot of bad pop on the charts and the country was in an Eisenhowerian rut. Then, in 1962, the Beatles sailed the ocean blue, sprung fully-formed from the head of Zeus, and set the world on fire with their magical mystery music! This pretty much led to John F. Kennedy being elected the best president ever (RIP Big Red); Martin Luther King, Jr., making his “I Have a Dream” speech, which ended racism once and for all; psychedelic hippies popping up on every street; and Woodstock, which was awesome, and everyone has a great-uncle who was there and the rain stopped and there were awesome drugs and no rapes at all and it ended the Vietnam War ON THE SPOT, etc. Basically, that’s what it boils down to.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but I hope you know that this is bullshit all the way down the line. I’m not here to teach an American History class, but I can speak to the Beatles thing. I know everyone loves them, and your fave rave Beatle can reveal your personality, and the new reissues of all their albums are setting the world on its ear once more after all these years. But I just feel like I need to say this and get it off my chest: the Beatles were a very good band and did many pretty songs but they are NOT the saviors that everyone now says they were, and here is a short list of why, counting down from #6.
6. Before the Beatles, people expressed themselves about music through dancing. People were busting moves all over the place, even if they weren’t all that good at it. But post-Beatles, it suddenly became good enough to just scream and cry, especially if you were on a TV show. For showing a generation of young women that tears were the new Peppermint Twist, let me say “ew” and “boo.”
5. Have you heard music today? It’s a mess. It’s all over the place, it has no consistency, it makes funny weird squiggly sounds, it does not appeal much to your grandmother. So if that was the aim, a saved sort of music, a sacred thing that helped all the children come together for all time, then let’s just call it: FAIL.
4. Early Beatles stuff was a straight-up rip job from American rhythm and blues music; not just the general sound and tenor of the stuff, but often the actual songs themselves. They idolized a lot of U.S. musicians, not just Chuck Berry and Little Richard but a lot of other ones as well, and had the good grace to be kind of embarrassed that they were able to have massive monster hits by blanding down wild original versions of songs like Little Richard’s “Ready Teddy” and Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Rock and Roll Music.” But most people conveniently forget this and focus instead on Lennon/McCartney as this unstoppable team that originated and innovated and created everything they did from day one — yeah, not so much.
3. Many of the Beatles’ so-called innovations were actually done first by many other people. I wouldn’t dwell on this too much, but the other day some dude (who should know better) twittered that the Beatles invented techno music with “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Again, not so much; I would argue that Spike Jones (NOT the modern director) did this first by using sound effects in the songs, or maybe Les Paul who actually physically invented the 8-track tape machine AND reverb AND delay, or whoever came up with the player piano, invented techno. Same with unified album statements (Frank Sinatra, Charles Mingus, etc.), surrealistic lyrics (about 2,000 different Delta blues singers, Bob Dylan, etc.), and everything else. And there were a hell of a lot of great British groups springing up at the same time, from whom the Beatles stole just as much as those groups stole from the Beatles. If anything, the Fabs were generalists; you could plausibly make an argument that no other act was better overall at ALL the different aspects of being a band, or that the Beatles were smart about being close to the avant-garde edge, or what have you. And they were a very innovative and skillful group. But FIRST to do anything? Naw.
2. There was nothing wrong with American music before 1962, and the idea that the Beatles needed to come save us is extremely offensive. You don’t have to know a lot of history, here, just check the charts. In the year or two before the Beatles broke over here (late 1963/early 1964), we had Little Stevie Wonder and the Angels and the Crystals and the Four Seasons topping the charts, and all kinds of weird burblings from Kyu Sakamota (“Sukiyaki”) and the Singing Nun (“Dominique”) and Jan and Dean’s “Surf City” and “Sugar Shack” and “Hey Paula,” the kind of absurdist novelty stuff that always catches people’s fancy. And that was just the stuff that hit number one on the charts; there was Stax Records in Memphis and Motown Records in Detroit and King Records in Cincinnati, there was the surf stuff out west — and never forget that without the Beach Boys and Phil Spector and Bob Dylan egging them on, the Beatles never would have done anything more complicated than “Help!”
1. Idolize them all you want, but John Lennon and Paul McCartney both tried to de-mystify themselves over and over again, in song (“Glass Onion,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”) and in deed (being assholes). Poor George, always underrated by everyone, including himself, was the most insistent about the end of the monolith…but no one listened. Seeing the Beatles in the Apple ads, or CGI’ed into performing a ghostly concert on Abbey Road for the Rock Band franchise, or even seeing religious people on “American Idol” try to reclaim “Imagine” — an explicitly anti-religious song — as worship music, is pretty hilarious; and it is criminal seeing Lennon, one of the most conflicted and complex people of last century, reduced to a wry Einsteinian figure who said “Peace” instead of “E=MC2.” But to see the Beatles as tragic heroes, bigger than life, etc., is preserving them in holy amber. Keep them if you want, but remember their two top songwriters repeatedly told you NOT TO DO THAT.
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I seem to recall an old Spin article from about 15 years ago or so that was about The Byrds and claimed (with opinionated proof) that they were the most influential band to come out of the 60s.
Me personally, as a Dylan man, I never understood the appeal of the Beatles outside of a couple of songs.
Matt I think you got the Beatles confused with the Rolling Stones I think.
The Beatles from the start were more complicated then their mentors Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and their friends the Rolling Stones. The Beatles would use Bridge: a song’s contrasting section [sometimes called the ‘middle-eight', regardless of the number of actual bars], often beginning in an area other than tonic and usually leading to a dominant retransition. They incorporated classic and world music elements to their songs (which helped the development of prog-rock and baroque pop and art rock. They experimented in the use of rare metric patterns and song structures (which helped the development of prog-rock. Songs like “Norwegian Wood” would include modes like Mixolydiaon and Dorian Modes in one song.‘Love You To’is clearly based on Indian modal practice: the tamboura drones sa and pa (tonic and dominant notes of the mode), the tabla sets forth a sixteen-beat tala (rhythm), the introductory improvisation in the alap follows Indian melodic practice, and as Harrison stated, he was trying to express himself in Hindu terms. This was a new turn for the Beatles and for rock music in general.
As for the Byrds they formed in part because of the Beatles.
If you want to devalue the Beatles go ahead it’s pretty sad IMO. It’s not going to change what these musicians have to say about them.
As for the Byrds they formed in part because of the Beatles.
But in my imagination this whole thing developed and I started mixing up old folk songs with the Beatles beat and taking them down to Greenwich Village and playing them for the people there”.
Roger McGuinn
The Beatles actually egged on Dylan and the Beach Boys first my friend.
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys
“Upon first hearing Rubber Soul in December of 1965, Brian Wilson said, “I really wasn’t quite ready for the unity. It felt like it all belonged together. Rubber Soul was a collection of songs…that somehow went together like no album ever made before”.
Bob Dylan
“They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid. They were pointing the direction music had to go.
Teri: I think you willfully misread me here because you love the Beatles so much, and that’s okay I guess. Never slammed them for not being ambitious or poor musicians or anything, but come on: world music was already in rock and roll from the beginning, and George was hardly the first guitarist to pick up a sitar. And people had been dropping beats and measures right and left for decades before it became significant to do so. But if all you got is the mixtures of different modes on one song here and there then let’s just say that George Martin saved rock and roll and have done with it.
BTW: I did not mention the Byrds or the Rolling Stones because they were both pretty clearly derived from the Beatles template.
And I like your quotes, as it shows that the Beatles were quite influential. But there are plenty of other ones out there about McCartney’s Brian Wilson obsession, Lennon’s Dylan obsession, all of them in thrall to Phil Spector’s production style, etc. I actually think it de-values the Beatles’ contribution to ignore how competitive all these groups were and how much they all learned from each other.
But let me state again: I LIKE THE BEATLES’ MUSIC. THEY WERE GOOD. Just not the only innovators, and didn’t save us from big bad scary Chubby Checker.
Yeah — to be clear, I mentioned the Byrds. Not even because I like them just because reading this piece made me think of that article.
So what happens when you’re the top banana? You’ve gotta whole lot of people trying to tear you down. The facts are I’m not even a huge Beatles fan but they are the biggest influence in both pop and rock music the last 50 years.
To attack the Beatles for not using 8 track recording first is idiotic or not the exact first to come up with a unified musicial statement that was already established in other genres is ridiculous. You might as well attack Brian Wilson and everyone else in rock music because they were not the first either. What I don’t get is why attack the Beatles when you say many of their so-called innovations were done by other people? This could said about any rock and pop musician.
The reason why people call “Tomorrow Never Knows” proto-techno is because the sonunds were created from loops and sound samples just like people do today. The drums and bass are up-front and repetitive just like much of today’s music. This has nothing to with what Spike Jones.
There are so many examples in the Beatles music where they were completely influential and groundbreaking. As to their music you won’t find the psychedelic sound paintings they created in songs like “Tomorrow Never Knows” or “Strawberry Fields Forever”.
George Harrison “Blue Jay Way” wrote a pop tune with a verse that’s based on the diminished (half step/whole step) scale and a chorus based on the Lydian mode. Not really that common for the genre of pop music!.
Even “All You Need is Love” has redeeming musical qualities which goes (7/4 and 4/4 in the verse )and alternating to (4/4 in the chorus). Maybe normal for jazz music but for pop and rock music not really. I think the concept of great pop melodies and doing things that was outside the norm in pop music is why I they were hugely influential.
You won’t find the combined concepts before “I Feel Fine” which uses feedback on a guitar riff. I guess that concept went well. A song that is not popular like “Think For Yourself” is innovative as uses layering of fuzz bass and regular bass right up-front as the same function as if you would use electric guitar and rhythm guiar in a rock song. Listen to a track like “I’m Only Sleeping” instead of regular guitar leads they use backward guitar leads.
The Beatles “The Word” Definitely a forerunner to psychedelia that The Thirteenth Floor Elevators liked it enough to play it in their live sets during 1966.
They influenced the Rolling Stones to write their own songs, the Byrds to go into folk rock and the 12 string jangle sound. Here are some choice nuggets for you. Their songwriting, use of studio as an instrument, and albums as a collective unit was a huge influence on music. Were the Beatles only influence on music? Of course not. Sorry Matt stop hating on the Beatles it’s not their fault.
It should be noted that piece doesn’t try to establish that Beatles weren’t great or even ‘the greatest’ but more about the deification of the band.
When I read this I think that if it weren’t the Beatles it would be SOMEBODY given there lofty position (for similar and different reasons). With that in mind, while we may hate that there is a choice or anointment, if we assume there would be one regardless, we could have done a lot worse.
Matt I understand why some people might not like the Beatles because IMO they are not overrated but overexposed. They can’t be overrated when you have tens of thousands of their songs covered by other musicians.
I would not dismiss “Tomorrow Never Knows” either. You have McCartney instead of using the regular way creating sounds from rock instruments, created a soundscape from loops and samples. Now yeah this was done in musique concrete but not really in rock music. I respect George for putting out something like the classical Indian and pop fusion of “Love You To”. It’s a far cry from “Norwegian Wood” or “See My Friends”. I think you are way to interested in things that other artists were doing and comparing it to the Beatles than actually giving credit for some of the things The Beatles were doing differently in rock and pop music.
Great article. I’m sure John, George, Paul, Ringo and their followers (maybe not fans) would agree with you. I love the Beatles, but I think a lot of fans miss that they were appreciators first and innovators second. Those who don’t get that are, as I think you suggest, Beatle idolaters.
Personally, I’m ashamed of my own laziness as the variety of music I listen to, nowhere matches theirs.
signed,
nowhereman
Before you write think, “what would George give a crap about?”
My bet is half of the arguments involving tonalities and various scales wouldn’t mean a thing to the lads who just played what sounded interesting to them. Why is that some of the people that love the Beatles come across as boring. This should not be!
I think you make alot of interesting points man. And this article has definitely been very popular. But as an AVID Beatles fan, I think what you have to look at is the fact that the Beatles took innovations and ideas that they greatly enjoyed and brought them to the top of the charts…i.e. the indian influence in norweigian wood, the psychadelic sounds of Tomorrow Never Knows.
They also made the distance between America and England seem so much less. After the Beatles, British groups were finally able to have impact over here. And lets face facts, if the Who or Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin didn’t have the Beatles to come before them, would they have been as widely accepted by this country? The most unfortunate thing is that before the Beatles this country was almost as proud as it is now. Nobody listened because they were from Europe. Which is TOTAL bullshit.
Another thing we can be thankful for is that these guys brought Avante-Garde music to mainstream. Which if you like or not, makes the greatest art in music since rock n’ roll was invented. Fuck techno. It means nothing.
In short, the Beatles may’ve destroyed dancing for white people (which they were terrible at), and they may’ve been torn people, and they CERTAINLY ripped off a few artists….but they did this better than ANY BAND in the world. They changed the world, and they won’t be forgotten.
I think poor Matt is still greasing back his grey ducks arse!
Music right before the Beatles was absolute crap…all greasy singers singing schmaltz…all named Bobby….
Yes, in the early days, the Beatles music was influenced by their American heroes, Buddy, Carl, Elvis, Fats, Jerry Lee, Larry Williams, but they progressed very rapidly and their sound changed.
The music sucks today but you can’t blame the Beatles for that. That’s beyond stupidity.
There will always be Beatles detractors. There was then, now, and will be in the future. Regardless of how much they analyze and explain to us why they weren’t so great, the number of record sales speak for themselves. They scored grammys and 3 number one albums releasing Anthology…..demos, live stuff, and stuff that didn’t make it.) They did not invent the change, but they led the way as the representatives of the 60’s. The fact that newer generations are discovering them put them in a class of their own as lasting classic music. Fact is, music sucks so bad today that the RE-RELEASE of the Beatles stuff will probably make the charts. If you think the music of today comes from the Beatles, I dont see the connect.
Bashing the Beatles is never an easy task. I found your arguments weak………..but regarless, they never meant to please everyone, and your opine is respected on that account.
The Beatles ability to incorporate non-rock sources or exotic sources into a pop song was why they sounded different than say blues based bands. Look at “Tomorrow Never Knows” or “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” they used drones from Indian instruments instead of regular guitars. I think “I Feel Fine” might be the first pop song using intentional guitar feedback as a recording effect. They recorded their guitars and vocals using Automatic Double Tracking. The Beatles recorded vocals and guitar backwards, creating volume swells by the use of harmonics and coaxing feedback from other instruments like piano.
The Sgt. Pepper’s structure “overture” and “reprise” at the end, and connecting songs with crowd noises and loops were far different than say so-called unified rock albums that pre-dated Sgt Pepper.
I think the next time the Rolling Stones or the Velvet Underground invent a recording technique it will their first.
Great article, especially since you differentiated between the band/music and the “lazy-ass fans.” That being said, the Beatles and their music have brought joy to millions for years and continue to do so, at an unmatched level. You gotta give props for their diverse appeal.
Don’t complicate it- it came down to a very great look, but as a songwriter, I can say that their chords & MELODY together were absolute MAGIC. Undeniable! Not easily done.
1. All of your premises are nonsense except in Ms. Flaubert’s 6th Grade debate club where it really really got the kids all fired up and stuff.
2. Thanks for mentioning Charles Mingus.
3. Only the Beatles made the White Album, so debate that.
Apparently the Beatles had an influence on jazz musicians also. Some of the examples are like running a track backwards and recording on top of that. Also vocals were run through a Leslie speaker which had never been done before. Nice article on the Beatles influence on jazz musicians.
I’m not even going to address the historical inaccuracies of this article or the way you exaggerate small issues into being the definitive issue of the Beatles career.
There is also the poor analytical arguments you make (Point #5 immediately destroys the premise of your argument by blaming today’s poor music on the Beatles then you move on to state the Beatles didn’t have as big an influence as portrayed – so what’s you position, they DID influence music or in reality just ripped off other musicians?).
Overall, this is a poorly written piece. Your opinions are yours but at least try to convey them in a logical and coherent manner.
Matt
This is an extremely well written and fairly presented piece. As a huge Beatles fan, but one who is more interested in exploring the realities rather than the myths, I commend you.
The convenient popular narrative of their impact on American sociey is quite amusing and any thinking person clearly realizes its far from truth. The status of them as “the only ones that started anything” is equally silly and flawed.
You are damned right that the men themselves were very much in awe of their American forebears in music and very much ready to demistify themselves.
You ALMOST sum it up well with “the Fabs were generalists; you could plausibly make an argument that no other act was better overall at ALL the different aspects of being a band, or that the Beatles were smart about being close to the avant-garde edge, or what have you. And they were a very innovative and skillful group. But FIRST to do anything? Naw. Change anything to EVERYTHING and you got it”
For a counterplay that is not a contradiction I still hold to the words of Richie Unterberger at Allmusic.com who said “. 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.”