21-Mar-2012, 7:28 AM
...so that the "Where are you from?" thread can get back on track. 
Just out of curiosity...do you think that the quality of music can be objectively measured, or are you using "best" in a less dogmatic sense?
The Beatles, like Elvis and Dylan and NWA and the Sex Pistols, were enormously influential. No one who knows anything about popular music can deny that. But this doesn't mean that you have to like them. I happen to love the latter four people/groups, but if I'm going to start singing their praises to a neophyte, the last thing I'm going to talk about is their influence. Perhaps some people listen to music as a purely historical exercise...fine. But I can't relate to that line of thinking. I listen to whatever hits me at any given time. I don't care about the culture in which a certain song was released; so what if "Hound Dog" scandalized a nation? That's not why I listen to it. I listen to it because DJ Fontana's drumming is the most manic drumming this side of Keith Moon, because the first bars of Scotty Moore's second solo sound like Samson tearing down the walls of the temple, and because Elvis sounds dangerously psychotic (I still have no idea what he's saying at the very end, but I suspect that, for my own sanity, I don't want to know).
So back to the Beatles. With two or three exceptions, I don't get any hit off of their songs. Are they well-produced and well-crafted? Sure. Do their albums show a sort of evolution (in sound and approach)? Of course. Are they terrible? No. Britney Spears is terrible. My Bloody Valentine are terrible. The Ramones are terrible. The Beatles are just mediocre (this is all imo, of course).
Quote:Beatles' best works are all towards the end, no musician on this planet will ever deny that.
Just out of curiosity...do you think that the quality of music can be objectively measured, or are you using "best" in a less dogmatic sense?
The Beatles, like Elvis and Dylan and NWA and the Sex Pistols, were enormously influential. No one who knows anything about popular music can deny that. But this doesn't mean that you have to like them. I happen to love the latter four people/groups, but if I'm going to start singing their praises to a neophyte, the last thing I'm going to talk about is their influence. Perhaps some people listen to music as a purely historical exercise...fine. But I can't relate to that line of thinking. I listen to whatever hits me at any given time. I don't care about the culture in which a certain song was released; so what if "Hound Dog" scandalized a nation? That's not why I listen to it. I listen to it because DJ Fontana's drumming is the most manic drumming this side of Keith Moon, because the first bars of Scotty Moore's second solo sound like Samson tearing down the walls of the temple, and because Elvis sounds dangerously psychotic (I still have no idea what he's saying at the very end, but I suspect that, for my own sanity, I don't want to know).
So back to the Beatles. With two or three exceptions, I don't get any hit off of their songs. Are they well-produced and well-crafted? Sure. Do their albums show a sort of evolution (in sound and approach)? Of course. Are they terrible? No. Britney Spears is terrible. My Bloody Valentine are terrible. The Ramones are terrible. The Beatles are just mediocre (this is all imo, of course).
Quote:In Jr. High School, I would take a gummi bear, squeeze its ears into points so it looked like Yoda, and then I would say to it "Eat you, I will!". And of course then I would it eat.