I promise.
This one is prompted by mistakenly watching American Idol the other night. It happened to be Beatle night. All the songs had to be Beatles songs. Most of the contestants claimed to "not know" or "had never heard" the songs they performed.
I ain't buying it.
It was an excuse for not being able to sing a decent song that didn't need to be auto tuned, or sampled, or whatever it is the these kids are relying on in music nowadays
So, the Beatles.
The Beatles were the best band. Ever. Period. End of story.
Even though this is just an opinion, it's an accurate one.
Even though you may disagree, you'd be wrong.
...and you'd have to prove to me otherwise.
Can't do it, can you?
Check this out....
They created pop music
They didn’t embellish it or make it better – they created it. It started with their first album and came on strong with Rubber Soul and Revolver and songs like ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, ‘Penny Lane’, ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ were the fruition and evolution of a new style of music. They were the trigger of a revolution that became pop culture.
They disbanded in their prime
John Lennon was only 30 when the Beatles broke up. McCartney was 28. George Harrison was 27. Ringo Starr was 30. They still had youth and they still had many years remaining in their prime but they stopped while they were on top, ending a string of success that is unparalleled.
Imagine Muhammed Ali retiring in 1974 instead of 1981 and what you have is the Beatles.
Imagine Elvis retiring in 1968 before becoming a shell of himself by his death, and what you have is the Beatles.
Imagine the Rolling Stones retiring in 1973, or U2 in 1987. If they had, they might have come close.
But they didn't. Too bad. That's a difference maker.
Where some bands play on (and on, and on, and on – i.e., The Rolling Stones, The Who), The Beatles stopped and became iconic. No band ever called it quits at a greater time. Impeccable timing, even if it wasn’t planned to be that way at the time.
I mean seriously, would any of us have really wanted to see a new Beatles album in 1977 at #2 on the charts one notch behind Saturday Night Fever?
Not me.
They stopped touring at the height of their career
The Beatles, quite amazingly did not tour to support the 2nd half of their career.
The didn't tour to support the following albums...
Revolver
Sgt. Pepper
Magical Mystery Tour
The White Album
Yellow Submarine
Let it Be
Abbey Road
Name one band that ever put seven albums equal to that out in their career. Never mind supporting such albums with a multi million dollar tour.
I'll give you a minute.
Are you done?
Of course you are, because that band doesn't exist.
They bucked all standard practices and chose to grow up in the studio versus standing in front of 16 year old fans at oversold baseball stadiums with shitty acoustics.
So they stop touring in 1966 and what did they come up with?
How about these two gems?
A Day in the Life
“A Day in the Life” represents the peak of the middle-period Beatles, when no sonic stone was left unturned and every trip to the studio was an opportunity to do something no one else had ever done before. This Sgt. Pepper closer takes the “We Can Work It Out” John/Paul formula and fires it down Alice’s rabbit hole. The frame of the song is a gorgeous Lennon ballad, mixing real-life tragedy (the death of the young Guinness heir, Tara Browne) with stream-of-consciousness canoe paddlings, filling the Albert Hall with holes and splashing English imperialism on the silver screen, to the horror of the movie house. This piece on its own would have been noteworthy for its melodic beauty and lyrical adventurousness. But the Lennon bit is merely the foundation of something much more grand. An almost anarchic orchestral climb sends the listener to another place entirely – a bell-clear, everyday, up-out-of-bed-and-off-to-work place that seems comparatively mundane until the character has a smoke and goes into a dream. Then the world explodes again, with an ethereal, almost primordial vocal from Lennon sending the listener back to his own soundscape. This time, when the Lennon verse ends, all bets are off. We launch into an orchestral crescendo that hurtles headlong until the crash of that oh-so-famous final chord. Easily, this is pop music’s finest moment.
Phew.
and how about this one?
Strawberry Fields Forever
“Strawberry Fields Forever,” written in part about the garden where John Lennon (he was one of the Beatles) played as a child, is the sound of John questioning his sanity as the world swirls around him. A mellotron saunters along, horns blurt, a swarmandal (look it up) rains down, cymbals crash backward and nay-saying cellos saw at a tree, where John sits alone and wonders if he’s “high or low.” Sped-up, slowed-down, piled high with sonic elements and polished off with a little “cranberry sauce,” “Strawberry Fields” changed what a pop song could sound like. It stopped countless musical peers in their tracks – including Brian Wilson, who decided The Beatles had beaten him to creating the music he had idealized in his mind. It remains a bizarre, haunting and beautifully warped wonder.
Maybe this explains it better...The Beatles in 1967 were holding an aquarium full of tropical fish and everyone else was holding up blue construction paper colored with four crayola crayons.
So, these examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Don't get me started.
Everyone's entitled to their own opinion and I welcome yours.
I'll leave you with this...
Her name was Magil and she called herself Lil
But everyone knew her as Nancy
All you need is love
Love is all you need
