The Beatles Were a Big Steaming pile
Today marks the anniversary of John Lennon getting shot by Mark Chapman. It was thirty years ago. That's three decades. That's longer than Jimi Hendrix lived. That's just a little shy of the average life expectancy in Swaziland [1]. Saturn will of completed one of it's slow meandering orbits of the Sun, I will of had thirty years worth of novelty Christmas socks that I had to pretend to be thrilled to get.
Thirty years is a long time, but apparently not long enough for people to stop bleating on about a member of what should quiet frankly be an average and forgettable band. It's been about forty years since The Beatles split up but despite the length of time, or maybe because of it, people still can't stop perpetuating the myth that The Beatles where the best band ever. What a load of bollocks [2].
They're no different from any other manufactured and over produced band. Their distinction is that they were the first to be produced and exploited to such a degree. The fashion tie-in, the posed magazine photograph, the cheeky chap band interview, the whole teenie pop marketing shebang; it's all down to them, they were the prototype. The marketers took the screaming fan girls phenomenon that had started with Sinatra and Elvis and refined it into "Beatlemania".
They were signed up by George Martin, who hadn't even seen them or heard them play. When Martin did meet them in the studio and heard them for the first time, he informed them that their music was rubbish. When Martin asked the Beatles if they didn't like anything George Harrison quipped "Well, there’s your tie, for a start." High. Fucking. Larious.
While I'll give you that the Beatles wrote their own music it was hardly brilliant. Look at what they have done in their solo careers away from the guiding hands of the record produces. Take Wings' "C Moon", "Mary Had A Little Lamb" and "Hi Hi Hi". Seriously Paul, Seriously?
At it's best their music is mediocre at worst it sounds like an elephant shitting down a tuba, maybe you have to be off your head on drugs to appreciate it like their hippie demographic towards the end of their career I don't know. All I know is I hate Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Yellow Submarine, Hey Jude and all the other dross that they churned out. What I find the most egregious though is that history is being rewritten. If you listen to the way it was told now, there was no Stones, no Doors, no Kinks, there was only the Beatles.
[1]It's A small country in Southern Africa. It's main exports are Sugar and cotton.
[2]It's clearly 6 Fingered Man :)
Today marks the anniversary of John Lennon getting shot by Mark Chapman. It was thirty years ago. That's three decades. That's longer than Jimi Hendrix lived. That's just a little shy of the average life expectancy in Swaziland [1]. Saturn will of completed one of it's slow meandering orbits of the Sun, I will of had thirty years worth of novelty Christmas socks that I had to pretend to be thrilled to get.
Thirty years is a long time, but apparently not long enough for people to stop bleating on about a member of what should quiet frankly be an average and forgettable band. It's been about forty years since The Beatles split up but despite the length of time, or maybe because of it, people still can't stop perpetuating the myth that The Beatles where the best band ever. What a load of bollocks [2].
They're no different from any other manufactured and over produced band. Their distinction is that they were the first to be produced and exploited to such a degree. The fashion tie-in, the posed magazine photograph, the cheeky chap band interview, the whole teenie pop marketing shebang; it's all down to them, they were the prototype. The marketers took the screaming fan girls phenomenon that had started with Sinatra and Elvis and refined it into "Beatlemania".
They were signed up by George Martin, who hadn't even seen them or heard them play. When Martin did meet them in the studio and heard them for the first time, he informed them that their music was rubbish. When Martin asked the Beatles if they didn't like anything George Harrison quipped "Well, there’s your tie, for a start." High. Fucking. Larious.
While I'll give you that the Beatles wrote their own music it was hardly brilliant. Look at what they have done in their solo careers away from the guiding hands of the record produces. Take Wings' "C Moon", "Mary Had A Little Lamb" and "Hi Hi Hi". Seriously Paul, Seriously?
At it's best their music is mediocre at worst it sounds like an elephant shitting down a tuba, maybe you have to be off your head on drugs to appreciate it like their hippie demographic towards the end of their career I don't know. All I know is I hate Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, Yellow Submarine, Hey Jude and all the other dross that they churned out. What I find the most egregious though is that history is being rewritten. If you listen to the way it was told now, there was no Stones, no Doors, no Kinks, there was only the Beatles.
[1]It's A small country in Southern Africa. It's main exports are Sugar and cotton.
[2]It's clearly 6 Fingered Man :)
1 Comments:
Couldn't agree with you more! What is most irritating is that the Beatles seem to have protected status. If you ever imply that their music is the rotten dog egg it quite clearly is, then you usually get one of several responses:
1 - "What? You dont like the Beatles? But, but, EVERYONE likes the Beatles! How can you not like the Beatles??"
Yeah, whatever. Pick a CD at random from HMV. It'll probably be better.
2 - "Yeah, but the Beatles laid the foundations for ALL the music you like today, so ner ner, you dont know shit"
So? That point probably has a modicum of truth to it but where does it end? you can trace all music back through the 50s, 20s, Romantic period, Classical period etc etc until you end up with neanderthals hitting hollowed out tree trunks with bones. Just because there is a loose descendancy does not make it good, interesting, or worthy of the attention of my ears.
3 - "That's just your opinion, most people love the Beatles"
Wrong. It isn't my opinion, it is a fact! :-P
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