re: The Beatles: does their music hold up?

So you're saying you don't like the Beatles?

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So let me assure you that I haven't gone through my "top 100 ever"* playlist and removed all songs by The Beatles.

They were never in there in the first place.

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:wehaveabadassoverhere:

I don't think you'll be satisfied with this thread until you get more people to bash on The Beatles.

We get it, you don't like them.

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it wasn't a bad song, but they really changed a lot with that album.

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Without derailing this thread, do you think they "sold out" with that album?

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Well being that kings of Leon was one of my favorite bands with their first two albums, then they started writing radio rock, it's hard to say they didn't change their sound/look.

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The sound certainly changed. The question is whether this was a natural evolution, or a directive from the record company (or something along those lines).

I just think the term "sold out" is overused. I like to reserve it for obvious obvious -- just crystal clear -- examples.

Like Black Eyed Peas.

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then got into heroin

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You mean acid/lsd

Heroin is a completely different animal in itself. I severely doubt they were dabbling with H.

I was born in '70 and listen to the Beatles several times a week.

If I were to list my own personal all-time top 5:

Beatles
Dylan
Marvin Gay
James Brown
Leonard Cohen

Put those in any order you'd like.

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You have experience here?????

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No, but im not a retard that doesn't know the different between LSD and heroin.

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an incongruence between their "best band ever" status and the present-day listenability

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There may or may not be incongruence because the two concepts are not necessarily the same thing.

But be that as it may, it seems to me that some of the criticism comes from listeners who favor bands like . . . as mentioned earlier . . . Led Zeppelin and whose tastes are more suited to, for lack of a better term at the moment, "heavier" or more obviously "harder edged" music (although the Beatles had a few hidden gems along that line)which actually developed at the end or after the Beatles' career.

I think some listeners who haven't really listened to the depth of the Beatles catalog tend to think of "I Wanna Hold You Hand" or "Yellow Submarine" as emblematic or representative of their music. It's safe to say those types of tunes really are part of a fairly small percentage of the Beatles output.

Starting with A Hard Day's Night and/or Help, for example, and certainly by Rubber Soul and Revolver, their writing had become much more complex and adventurous, although still pop. By Sgt. Peppers, "the White Album", etc., they were truly experimental on a lot of tracks.

I am sure there are a lot of listeners today who aren't crazy about the music. There are orders of magnitude of more music out there to listen to, for chrissake. But if you were to take some sort of reliable poll of listeners, say, separated by people in their 50's, 40's, 30's and 20's, I'll bet you would be surprised at the popularity of the Beatles today in all age ranges. If that translates into "holding up", then I would say their music "holds up".


For the record, I am a huge Stones fan. I also like early Led Zeppelin, Velvet Underground, Allman Bros Band, MC5, Humble Pie, Hendrix, Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Pixies, some Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire, The Hives, etc. I also like Frank Sinatra and Doctor John. So . . . I'm kind of all over the map and to each his own. But I really find it hard to accept the premise that the Beatles' music doesn't "hold up".