Are the BEATLES vicariously responsible for the mediocrity of mainstream pop music?

[xilddx]

OK OK OK!! READ what I've written, don't react like you just found out I pooched your mum after your dad went out to see Dean Friedman again.

I'm barely familiar with the Beatles music (always disliked them since I was little and I still think Lennon was a nasty piece of work), but I thought I should at least give an album a try and Basschatters recommended Revolver to me yesterday. So I bought it and have listened to the album three times since last night. I quite like the album, I doubt I'll ever be a fan, but some songs like She Said She Said and Tomorrow Never Knows blew me away, some of the others are getting there. HOWEVER, I was surprised that it all felt very familiar. I realised that this is likely because even now, many mainstream pop acts are derivatives, hip hop being the general exception. There was nothing like the Beatles before them, they innovated, they are the most iconic, successful and enduring pop band ever unless I'm mistaken.

Is the music INDUSTRY still thinking that to get another Beatles on their disgusting leeching books, they have to find a band that sounds like them in modern guise? Have the Beatles unwittingly created a set of boundaries that the industry is incapable of transcending in its quest for massive pop hits? Have they misjudged the young so much that they think they cant accept real innovation in mainstream pop music?

Edited June 6, 2013 by xilddx

[redstriper]

No.

[neepheid]

I don't see how the Beatles can be held responsible for a lack of innovation on the part of other people. The title of this thread is a little too combative for my tastes also. Are you trying particularly hard to be controversial today?

[xilddx]

[quote name='neepheid' timestamp='1370546861' post='2102589']
I don't see how the Beatles can be held responsible for a lack of innovation on the part of other people. The title of this thread is a little too combative for my tastes also. Are you trying particularly hard to be controversial today?
[/quote]
Better?

[leroydiamond]

Indeed. I'm off to bed[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1370546351' post='2102574']
OK OK OK!! READ what I've written, don't react like you just found out I pooched your mum after your dad went out to see Dean Friedman again.

I'm barely familiar with the Beatles music (always disliked them since I was little and I still think Lennon was a nasty piece of work), but I thought I should at least give an album a try and Basschatters recommended Revolver to me yesterday. So I bought it and have listened to the album three times since last night. I quite like the album, I doubt I'll ever be a fan, but some songs like She Said She Said and Tomorrow Never Knows blew me away, some of the others are getting there. HOWEVER, I was surprised that it all felt very familiar. I realised that this is likely because even now, many mainstream pop acts are derivatives, hip hop being the general exception. There was nothing like the Beatles before them, they innovated, they are the most iconic, successful and enduring pop band ever unless I'm mistaken.

Is the music INDUSTRY still thinking that to get another Beatles on their disgusting leeching books, they have to find a band that sounds like them in modern guise? Have the Beatles unwittingly created a set of boundaries that the industry is incapable of transcending in its quest for massive pop hits? Have they misjudged the young so much that they think they cant accept real innovation in mainstream pop music?
[/quote]

Indeed. I'm off to bed

[flyfisher]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1370546351' post='2102574']
There was nothing like the Beatles before them, they innovated, they are the most iconic, successful and enduring pop band ever unless I'm mistaken.
[/quote]

. . . Which is probably the answer to your questions. Is it so surprising that such a band should be a big influence on e music industry for so long?

Could we perhaps be a bit more generic and focus on the genre rather than particular band? You could probably re-phrase your basic point in terms of 'rock and roll' rather than a particular band. Look at 'popular' music pre and post the 1950s (roughly) - perhaps Elvis was the big influence, or Buddy Holly etc etc?

[SpaceChick]

The best bit of GCSE music was "Help. Side 1" *Thinks wistfully to the days when albums had sides*

I think Revolver is a fantastic album.... The bassline on Taxman alone, worthy of greatness.

However, I do think there may be some truth in what you say Nige. And certainly earlier Beatles tracks were more of a "formula" approach in my opinion which I think has influenced more modern pop.

However, when you think of such things as Sgt Pepper and the Yellow Submarine soundtrack, I don't think there are many other artists which have tried to duplicate.... So I think the Beatles will always go down in history as greats of modern music.

If you liked Revolver... Then I recommend Rubber Soul.... Hubby reckons that those two should have been a double album!!

I think that in Britain you could get chased down with pitchforks for saying you don't like the Beatles.... I'd watch your back sweetheart

[visog]

[quote name='redstriper' timestamp='1370546775' post='2102584']
No.
[/quote]

Well said... I think the answer is probably record companies...

[Lord Sausage]

No, there has been other great pop music/bands as well as the beatles that have led to this point. Fleetwood Mac, Beach Boys, etc etc. There was loads of great pop in the 70's and 80's that didn't sound like the beatles. It's just all turd now!

Edited June 6, 2013 by Lord Sausage

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

Well , i can't stand Lennon either(even if he was one of the best songwriters ever). I see the Beatles as 2 era's to get into;
Either love me do/ tkt to ride. (Which I always hated). Or yhe Drug Years , which I think was when their best stuff was made.
Havent got any of their stuff,(probably because we have heard most of it on the radio over the years).

Can't really blame the Beatles . However, the older we get, we can see straight through the transparent s&it of xfactor/ britains got no talent etc. Even in grunge , 1 or 2 bands that makes it has about 300 clones rammed down peoples throats.
I think once TV took priority over radio as a marketing tool for music MTV ! then the slippery slope of mediocrity started.

This topic will run for a while I think as there are many answers . Over to other basschatters ....

[Lord Sausage]

In terms of Modern pop. Gotye is great. Ignore the big hit and listen to album tracks. Killer and original!

[White Cloud]

Eh, no.

[Oneandfive]

The Beatles recorded something like 300 songs. They're not all 'A Day In The Life'. Or 'Tomorrow Never Knows'. This is a subjective opinion, but many of them are bland, twee, trivial rubbish. And it seems to me that unfortunately, the sh*te Beatles output has had just as much influence on the last 50 years of pop music as the great.

[LukeFRC]

all I will say on this matter is number nine
number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

number nine

[Wil]

The best thing about the Beatles is they took time to craft a lot of very fine pop songs. They were just a band, but a band who were very good at what they did. Any modern band that puts the same amount of craft into their work is worthy of respect IMO, whether they float your boat or not or if you consider them to be interesting would be another (fairly subjective) matter. I'd say it's impossible to really measure what kind of influence they have on current music, such is the diversity of it available today.

[BetaFunk]

I agree with others that the Fab Four were excellent at what they did. They knocked out memorable pop songs and were unique at the time being liked by kids and teens as well as mums and dads. No other group had such a wide audience.

Edited June 6, 2013 by BetaFunk

[risingson]

People seem to seriously struggle separating their feelings concerning The Beatles and the impression that they left on popular music, terribly so on this forum for whatever reason. It's usually just a result of a load of people who feel passionate about one particular subject, in our case it's popular music as it exists and its history over the past 60, 70, 80 years. Very easy to get argumentative and opinionated over, very difficult to separate what you love from the factors that defined the changes that the Beatles and George Martin made in the time that they recorded and worked together.

No one knows where the next Beatles will come from because the Beatles appeared on the airwaves just as normally as any other derivate popular band would appear on Radio 1 nowadays. What they did was established themselves as a popular boy band, gigged around the world for a number of years, built an impossibly huge audience through superb management and PR, then decided to wield such incredible demand for their music to push the boat out with what they could do as a purely studio-based band. As it turned out, the very much established Lennon-McCartney songwriting team became a platform for the likes of George Martin to really test the extent to which a studio could be used as an extension of the voices, instruments and songwriting prowess that they had in spades. The rest is history, they pushed boundaries, wrote songs that could be anything from harmonically rich and hugely complex to incredibly basic but utterly catchy nonetheless. They will have laughed throughout some of the studio sessions where they performed, knowing that they absolutely had free reign when it came to what they could release, as it turned out it was almost anything. Their talents were inexplicably big, George Martin's prowess for arranging and production was very much the icing on the cake.

The 'mediocrity' of popular music if you refer to the top 40 is a result of a saturated and lazy approach to the release of popular music to the record labels, it's easier to back a sure fire winner like what the The Beatles were in the early days of their career. But Nigel you know as well as I do that mediocrity is a hugely subjective thing, if you're willing to look a little closer than what is there on the surface of pop music as it exists then a plethora of superbly original music is there for the taking. The difference with what The Beatles achieved in their comparatively short existence next to the likes of some other big name acts throughout the years is a combination of incredibly hard work, strong collaborations with the right people and an unbelievable amount of songwriting and lyrical talent from 3 of the 4 of their members. It's just an utter rarity and something to be marvelled at.

Edited June 6, 2013 by risingson

[ead]

No of course not. In reality the Beatles recorded for only a few short years and holding them responsible for the last 50 years of popular music in general is unreasonable. They songs are in the context of the time in which they were written when the country had just emerged from the post war period of austerity and was looking for a bit of levity.

I think the clue is in the genre - popular music - it's what people buy, like it or not. There's a separate discussion about what music is promoted by the industry and whether people would buy the 'mainstream' releases if there was more equal promotion to other styles of music. In the days of home recording, YouTube and the internet the choice has never been wider if you go looking.

[Cat Burrito]

I blame Herman's Hermits

[skankdelvar]

Do you not mean 'unwittingly' or 'inadvertantly'?

And in any case, no, they are not. The responsibility lies with the individual who decides that the Beatles 'influence' isn't enough and that they must cop a lick and a look. Likewise, many young people today sport a cravat simply because they saw a picture of me wearing one in 1968. Don't blame me if they can't tie it properly or they can't carry it off with panache.

Besides which there were any number of bands / artists who were in thrall to the Beatles and who managed to produce distinctive and interesting music of their own. The Byrds and - after Rubber Soul - Mr Brian Wilson.

And lots of others I can't be arsed to name, but we probably know who they are.

In fact, to take it a step further, I'd argue that [i]most [/i]musicians of the period (and some since) ripped off the Beatles. It's just that some were better at at it than others.

The mediocrity of modern music is simply down to the general public's lack of moral fibre.

Edited June 6, 2013 by skankdelvar

[risingson]

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1370556068' post='2102828']
The mediocrity of modern music is simply down to the general public's lack of moral fibre.
[/quote]

Can't tell whether you joke over this one Skank but I don't believe it to be true at all. To be honest modern music couldn't possibly be mediocre, there is far too much variety and depth to popular music for anyone to argue that. What there is nowadays is an endless choice of music. It is easy to confuse modern music with what is presented to us through radio, TV and advertising. There are still a great deal of musicians out there that continue to work hard to get good music to us for little in return and that's definitely something that a lot of people on this forum will be able to relate to.

[Lowender]

Any similarity to modern music is simply the fact that they were so influential. Yet no one has come close to their greatness. Maybe a good song here or there.

I don't think record companies try to get people to sound like the Beatles. If anything, that's not the sound they want these days. But a lot of bands try to write great songs and the Beatles had A LOT of great songs.

The closest I've heard anyone to actually sounding like the BEatles is The Zombies Odysey and Oracle and of all things, a one hit wonder called "Lies" but eh Knickerbackers. But that stuff was back in the 60's!

BTW: Rubber Soul, Sgt Pepper and Abby Road are also all masterpieces and sound like three different bands. Bottom line. They were genius. And McCArty constructed some of the most musical bass lines you'll ever hear. Simple, yet masterful in voice leading and logical movement.

[skankdelvar]

[quote name='risingson' timestamp='1370556602' post='2102833']
Can't tell whether you joke over this one Skank
[/quote]

I'm joking, but that doesn't stop your reply from being a good 'un and a very constructive rejoinder to an oft-expressed misapprehension in these parts.

What I [i]really [/i]think is that modern pop music is mediocre because Britain lost the Empire and young people are all alcopop-guzzling narcissists with floppy hair.

[chris_b]

I don't think pop music is any more mediocre than it was in 1962 or any year since.

There have been many good and innovative bands since Love Me Do was released, who have recorded many great tunes.

Thank God The Beatles raised the bar.

Pop music pre 1962 really was awful.

[Cat Burrito]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1370560141' post='2102889']
I don't think pop music is any more mediocre than it was in 1962 or any year since.

There have been many good and innovative bands since Love Me Do was released, who have recorded many great tunes.

Thank God The Beatles raised the bar.

Pop music pre 1962 really was awful.
[/quote]

I was 100% with you until the last point. I've spent the evening listening to Buddy Holly and off the top of my head Eddie Cochrane, Del Shannon, Elvis Presley and rockabilly fans all over would disagree. Plenty of terrible examples too but lots of great music was there to influence & inspire then & now