I'm not even going to try to tackle some sort of argument about whether or not the Beatles were a good thing to happen to music.

I'll simply state some of the reasons I can think of that I don't like them:

-Their movies
-Beatlemania
-Their jokey songs like 'Yellow Submarine' and 'I Am The Walrus'
-Their accents
-Their hair
-"We're more popular than Jesus"
-etc. etc.


I'll be honest. There's a handful of Beatles covers that I like. I just can't stand them when they're performed by those four.

And the number one reason I probably hate them so much is because 70% of the population worships them, would have kissed Lennon's feet if they got the chance, and declares them as the greatest thing to ever happen to the universe.

Only one of those had anything to do with the music. That's the last thing I have to say on this subject.

I don't equate arrogance and pomposity either, but I was following the Tennesseean's lead. Also, to clarify, I don't think arrogance is a bad thing. You have to have some degree of swagger to be a rock star, and even more to a gigantic rock star. Throw in the way that they just took that sharp turn off the paved road of Pop Music. That took balls. It took extreme confidence. It took arrogance to even think that people would even want to listen to some of the songs they recorded—and this goes double for Mr. Harrison and all the sitar crap.

And for this you are PUNK and COOL and I hope you get run over by a bus.

I'll give you three more reasons why I'm not surprised young'uns nowadays gots no Beatle awareness:

1. What radio stations besides oldies or soft rock play the Beatles anymore?
2. With very few exceptions, their music doesn't show up in commercials.
3. Most "normals" never listen to music released before they were 10.

As I think back to my '70s-'80s mainstream rock radio listening, I never questioned why their music libraries all started at 1963, almost completely ignoring the 10 previous years of rock and roll.

Inevitable irrelevance.

i think you're allowed to be a bit pompous if you single handedly changed the musical landscape.

i can't fathom how anyone can say they "hate" the beatles. not like, sure, fine. but hate? isn't that like saying you hate air or the color blue?

wow what a great reason. i see how this has to do with your opinion of the music. preach on!

their accents

It's interesting to me that The Beatles aren't burnt indelibly into everyone's psyche. I mean, I'm only 28, but I think my parents have most of the major albums on vinyl, and I was dancing to the more kid-friendly pop-pap Beatles (like Maxwell's Silver Hammer) well before I was potty trained.

Americans are largely ahistorical, though. Maybe humans in general. That's why we're all doomed to repeat Santayana. And no, he wasn't that guitarist guy.

From an old thread...




That's what I was trying to construe, more or less. I can't explain what one thing makes me dislike them. There's just a lot of little things that bug me.

I have respect for how they did their own thing. This was a concept almost unheard of in the music industry. You had to please the execs before you could please the audience.

Things were extremely different back in those days. The Beatles helped start the whole '60s revolution. I wouldn't say they started the counter culture movement but they had a HUGE part in it.

If you were white and under 18 at any time in the 60's you listened to the Beatles. It's that simple and as their music changed and grew so did their audience... their freakishly HUGE audience. That's going to have an impact.

I think only Bob Dylan was more influential in this period. Lennon was obsessed with the man and is cited as one of his main inspirations. Because of that I wouldn't say all current white music begins with the Beatles.

I don't know how the Beatles affected the African American community. One could definitely point to Sly and the Family Stone as doing many of the same things the Beatles did with their music but I don't know how much they were actually inspired by the Beatles. Maybe something to look into... maybe not.

I think what you mean is did the Beatles have an impact on soul, r &b, the blues, or other "black" musics that followed. African Americans actually did live in this country, watch TV, listen to radios, and were able to decode things said by people who were not black.

I could probably make a 20 disc box set of jazz and soul Beatle covers. Just sayin'. Its hard to argue that the Beatles didn't have a very wide influence. I'd tend to agree though that others (Dylan and James Brown come to mind) had a deeper influence though.

Regarding Dylan, I recently heard Mavis Staples say that when Sam Cooke first heard "The Times Are A Changin' ," he said what's a white boy doing writing a song like that and sat down and wrote "A Change is Gonna Come"

.

But those styles were already going on when the Beatles took the stage. I think Hendrix did more to expose the counter culture movement to the black audience than the Beatles, Beach Boys, Rolling Stones and Janis Joplin combined. He gave it soul.

parents usually have a lot of influence on their children, so hopefully if parents of this generation influence their children, it won't be lost on the following generation and so on and so forth.
did my parents influence my music taste at all? no, not at all. well, besides my dad being AC/DC's photographer, and that made me like them.. other than that there's nothing.
but it's usually how it happens.

Ummm, ever attend a Hendrix concert? I suspect the answer is no. I did, and if there were even ten blacks in crowds of around 5-7,000, I never saw them. You're certainly welcome to have an opinion, but there's very little reality in your assertion.

"Unfortunately for Jimi Hendrix during his lifetime Black people never really accepted him......openly. He dressed and acted very differently than other Black entertainers of that era and was largely dismissed within the Black community. They thought he was an "Uncle Tom" and had "sold out"."

I retract my statement and apoligize. Though I will offer up he was at the forefront of funk and was a pioneer of the black musical revolution of the sevenites.

"The echoes of Jimi Hendrix music can be heard in artists as diverse as WAR, Funkadelic, Mandrill, "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince", Living Colour, Sly and the Family Stone, Lakeside, Ohio Players, Slave and many others.
Jimi Hendrix influence can even be seen in hip hop where groups such as De La Soul, Digable Planets PM Dawn, etc will from time to time invoke Jimi�s name, guitar riffs and/or �spirit in their music."

One time I was playing Revolver in the car and my friend asked if it was the Chemical Brothers.

I think dog's reason is perfectly valid, and you're absolutely correct, it's a PUNK attutude. Last time I checked, PUNK was a great attitude to have.

The fact that everyone gets their indignant, indcredulous panties in a twist whenever someone professes not to adore the fucking Beatles is more than enough validation for PUNK stance.

Far be it from me to try and dispel anyone's revisionist take on the Beatles and how groundbreaking and wonderful they were. It's like trying to convince people that Bono is not Christ incarnate.

Not liking stuff just because other people do like it, and/or liking stuff that is unlistenable (Two things that you sir are gulity of) doesnt make you Punk (whatever that means anyway), it just makes you small minded---which ironically, is pretty punk in and of itself.

Why don't you tell us, since you're the one who introduced the concept to the discussion. Or were you just throwing out platitudes without any thought to what they might mean?




Whatever, I guess that was supposed to make me feel bad or inadequate or something.

There are many reasons not to like nor respect the Beatles, not "just because other people do like it". I believe that where dog, and most others like him, take exception is the universal fauning, of which "you sir", are apparently guilty. Enjoy your Beatles and your Mellencamp or whatever else it is you find "listenable".

Thats the idea of capitalizing it---it doesnt mean anything, or rather it means whatever you want it too. I used it b/c it seemed like a rather "Punk" (in the shopping mall sense) attitude to not like the Beatles b/c of their haircuts or b/c of "Beatlemania". Whether you or whoever dont like the Beatles b/c of their music doesnt matter to me Bilz and you know that--I just think its stupid to hate something just based on who it is, not what it is

What, in this case, do you mean by revisionist? It seems that perhaps you are the revisionist.

Look, it's not necessary to LIKE the Beatles, but it's completely unnecessary (and borderline retarded) to pretend to HATE them while your main music preferences run towards the pop-rock end of the spectrum.

In other words, if you like the fuckin' Monkees then you, quite obviously, don't hate the music of the Beatles. You may resent the fact that "everyone" accepts and recognizes that in a period of 7 years - the time it took the Wrens to put out ONE measly reckid - the Beatles created a songbook that is inarguably impressive in its scope, but that's got nothing to do with anything except your own indignation at the success of others.

Is it possible to love the Sex Pistols and hate Chuck Berry? Only if you're a dumbass. Is it possible to love Bright Eyes, or the Decemberists, or Josh Rouse, or Ryan Adams, or the New Pornographers, or the Shins, or Spoon, or roughly one million others, and still hate the Beatles? Not if you're listening to the music.