Talent Speaking: Were The Beatles Actually Any Good?

[Yeshuasdaughter]

It's been quite a few decades since the fab four debuted and Beatlemania spread around the world.

So now that we've had time to think about it, were they actually any good?

In their early years they were no different from any boy band, and in their later years, they were very high on drugs, and sometimes their lyrics didn't make any sense.

Love 'em or hate 'em, they changed the world.

What's your opinion?

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Here's my opinion:

Personally, if we're talking sixties music, I'm much more of a Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Crosby Stills Nash & Young kind of girl.

The Beatles are just twanging away and yelling. And John Lennon was an awful father and for pretending to be so humble, he sure showed off his wealth a lot.

And I hate The Rolling Stones. Don't even get me started.

But Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, and almost anything Motown produced were amazing. And so much of the psychedelic proto-hard rock of the era blows me away, even though I'm a late Gen Xer, too young to have experienced it in person.

Nothing in The Beatles' playbook will ever surpass something like this:

 

[Magna]

Opinions will certainly differ on this subject. I think The Beatles are the best rock band there's been based on their music and their influence. The talent of Sir George Martin in helping to put it all together can't be understated either.

I'm a big fan of CCR too.

I like comparing/pitting songs against each other from different bands sometimes.

To CCR's Down on the Corner (great song) I'd play this one:

Or

Or

Or

 

[Magna]

Now I want to play some CCR:

 

[Judge]

Love 'em or hate 'em, they changed the world.

Yes- they changed the world. Along with Brian Epstein and George Martin. Without them, the Beatles would have probably fizzled out.

Something that no other musician can claim. It's what puts them into a different category, regardless of what one thinks of their ever-evolving sound as. In the real-time of the 60s, it seemed the Beatles were changing so much, well beyond just music. They were often the only bright spot in a time and contentious environment where all eyes were on a very unpopular war.

I still recall the first time in 1969 I put my foot down over the orders of my career military father.

Dad: Get a haircut!
Me: No sir.

Thing really were changing. You should have seen my graduation pics. LOL...

 

[Neonatal RRT]

It's been quite a few decades since the fab four debuted and Beatlemania spread around the world.

So now that we've had time to think about it, were they actually any good?

In their early years they were no different from any boy band, and in their later years, they were very high on drugs, and sometimes their lyrics didn't make any sense.

Love 'em or hate 'em, they changed the world.

What's your opinion?

Unless one grew up a teenager in the 1960s one probably will not have the perspective to comment on this. Everything is relative to what was previously known. How the Beatles influenced at the time and thereafter is quite apparent. The fact that you even asked this question some 50 years later, suggests the degree of influence. BTW, they were quite different from "boy bands" of today,...they weren't just popular, they were transformational,...like few bands ever have,...Led Zeppelin being another. In the late 1960's they experimented with so-called "mind enhancing" drugs,...like many of that generation,...but to suggest "they were very high on drugs", as if that was their perpetual state is a bit misleading. They were still quite artistically influential. Their lyrics did make sense,...you just had to understand the political and social environment of the time these songs were made,...they often used the slang and references of the day. For a younger person to read their lyrics today, they might not understand.

 

[Judge]

Unless one grew up a teenager in the 1960s one probably will not have the perspective to comment on this.

True. There's no way to explain it in terms of music alone. None at all.

Simple point. When I think of a musician- any other musicians, there is no "it" beyond their music. Otherwise music alone is always the same- totally subjective.

Though in the case of the Beatles, I can't think of any group or individual who evolved their sound at the rate the Beatles did. Something that probably terrified their competitors. Funny to think that Elvis Presley really did lobby Richard Nixon to have John Lennon deported.

Sherman and Mr. Peabody have nothing on a "Wayback Machine" when it comes to the Beatles. I hear them and just smile...taking me back to another time.

 

[Au Naturel]

Unless one grew up a teenager in the 1960s one probably will not have the perspective to comment on this. Everything is relative to what was previously known. How the Beatles influenced at the time and thereafter is quite apparent. The fact that you even asked this question some 50 years later, suggests the degree of influence. BTW, they were quite different from "boy bands" of today,...they weren't just popular, they were transformational,...like few bands ever have,...Led Zeppelin being another. In the late 1960's they experimented with so-called "mind enhancing" drugs,...like many of that generation,...but to suggest "they were very high on drugs", as if that was their perpetual state is a bit misleading. They were still quite artistically influential. Their lyrics did make sense,...you just had to understand the political and social environment of the time these songs were made,...they often used the slang and references of the day. For a younger person to read their lyrics today, they might not understand.

To really understand the Beatles you have to understand the slang of British youth of the 1960s. Otherwise, for example, you wouldn't have a clue what Daytripper was all about. Another song people don't understand is the song Norwegian Wood. The original words were "I wish she would." As in "I wish she would (have sex with me.)" The censors didn't like that so the Beatles changed the lyrics to something nonsensical and expected the listener to figure it out.

There wasn't anything truly wrong with playing around with hallucinogenics at the time. Don't know about Britain but LSD wasn't illegal here until 1968. The UN did not list it as a controlled substance until 1971. You can use them to go on a voyage of discovery, to ease the pain of life, or to fry your brain.

I fell in love with the Beatles when I heard Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band. So many of the songs spoke to me very deeply and in different ways. The album went where no album had gone before.

And it is a truth that most of our heroes have feet of clay. Some of them were seriously flawed. Doesn't make their art any less amazing. Doesn't make the good things they accomplished less good.

 

[Magna]

And it is a truth that most of our heroes have feet of clay. Some of them were seriously flawed. Doesn't make their art any less amazing. Doesn't make the good things they accomplished less good.

True. Jimmy Page isn't known for being the pinnacle of virtue when it came to at least one underage girl (ie Lori Mattix) who was 13 when she started seeing him.

 

[Au Naturel]

True. Jimmy Page isn't known for being the pinnacle of virtue when it came to at least one underage girl (ie Lori Mattix) who was 13 when she started seeing him.

I think back then that was a LOT more common. Then there was Roman Polanski who fled the country to avoid jail time and even won an Academy award while he was in exile. The standards have since changed.

 

[Skittlebisquit]

Stir it all up

 

[Tom]

Yes, very good and talented. But more so in combination then individually. The band was 'greater then the sum of it's parts'.

 

[SusanLR]

The Beatles is something that can't really be explained.
I was only six when they came to NY for the Ed Sullivan Show and there was just something
about them that made me think it was the start of something different. Both artistically and in appeal.
I thought they were the cutest guys I'd ever seen. Different.
And I guess I wasn't the only one when you watch that video of them at the airport.

Artistically it was a new wave in music. I saw it, felt it, heard it.
At my age, looking back, their first songs now seem a bit simplistic. Like I Wanna Hold Your Hand,
but, it made the girls scream.
Their style evolved as so did they. I would call them a historical phenomenon.

Between the Beatles and The Grateful Dead? Beatles. They hold a place in the epoch of my life.

 

[Progster]

IMO, their early albums were rather simplistic lyrically and they didn't really mature until a lot later on in terms of talent, innovation and songwriting. At which point, there was other talent emerging to rival them, such as Pink Floyd, Moody Blues, King Crimson. LSD no doubt played a role in creating a climate of experimentation and innovation which heralded the birth of a new genre, prog rock. But there is no doubt of their influence, both on contemporaries and subsequent generations.

New genres of music are often reactionary, and this certainly was the case for rock 'n roll. Britain coming through from the post-war era of social upheaval and change - out with the old (crooners) and in with the new.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

George Martin was the main influence on the band, very good teacher that combined with lots of initial practice in Germany before they hit the big time. Even Mozart had a teacher.

 

[Martha Ferris]

It's depends on individual opinion. For me do I like something or don't I like something or do I not care? Other's preferences mean little to me. Sorry, I am literal in answering questions. It's a communication problem.

 

[Tatami]

Probably the band I'd be the most likely to point to when asked which is the best band in the world.

 

[Tom]

The Beatles is something that can't really be explained.
I was only six when they came to NY for the Ed Sullivan Show and there was just something
about them that made me think it was the start of something different. Both artistically and in appeal.
I thought they were the cutest guys I'd ever seen. Different.
And I guess I wasn't the only one when you watch that video of them at the airport.

Artistically it was a new wave in music. I saw it, felt it, heard it.
At my age, looking back, their first songs now seem a bit simplistic. Like I Wanna Hold Your Hand,
but, it made the girls scream.
Their style evolved as so did they. I would call them a historical phenomenon.

Between the Beatles and The Grateful Dead? Beatles. They hold a place in the epoch of my life.

I was about same age and remember seeing their picture for the first time on the cover of a NYC newspaper. My first reaction was shock at the haircuts! I thought they looked like girls and it seemed really weird.

But this was the Bronx in the era depicted in the book/film 'The Wanderers'. Baldies, Ducky Boys, etc. But most boys had crew cuts.

Although simple, they made very effective love songs, ballads mostly but with edgy raw vocal highlights. They were also lyrically non-specific towards anyone early on (Not to Prudence, Michelle, etc) and could be taken to mean anyone, even the listener in their imagination. I think that was part of their attraction to all those screaming, hysterical girls (and boys).

I liked 'I want to hold your hand' and especially 'Do you want to know a secret'. Once I got over the haircuts. In later years I changed the lyrics in my head to 'I want to hold your gland'

It's all fun and games till the teenage girls riot.

 

[Metalhead]

Abbey Road and The White Album are both favorites of mine. I love blasting them very loudly through my speakers while smoking Mary Jane. (My house is fairly soundproof, which I also enjoy.)

I remember the first time I heard I Want You by The Beatles. It made me a lifetime fan. That song is friggin' cracking.

 

[Streetwise]

It's been quite a few decades since the fab four debuted and Beatlemania spread around the world.

So now that we've had time to think about it, were they actually any good?

In their early years they were no different from any boy band, and in their later years, they were very high on drugs, and sometimes their lyrics didn't make any sense.

Love 'em or hate 'em, they changed the world.

What's your opinion?

Paul McCartney and George Harrison seemed very innovative but John Lennon alone wasn't a great lyricist Ringo Starr almost non existent I wonder what the previous drummer would have brought to the group there is another musician called the fifth Beatle an African American but you never heard much from him.