I don't like the Beatles

[Blarg]

It might be something unreasoned, even political. Their music is so wide-ranging they have something for just about everybody. If there's not a single song of theirs you like, pretty much no matter what your taste, you're being too hard on them.

It might also be that weird thing that some people, especially the very young and very old get, where they like only some music and not any of the rest, as if it were an accomplishment or some perverse point of pride. I've known countless people who are thrilled that they only like a tiny percentage of the wide range of music that's ever been made and seem to act as if that's a very special achievement or type of enlightenment. For some of them, that kind of narrowness and perverse self-satisfaction at narrowing one's horizons instead of broadening them is a years-long though temporary weirdness, but some just go from one fad to the next all their lives, equally oblivious to anything but the one they're in.

The Beatles are good enough that I don't think it's just a matter of taste. Don't be too brittle, or too proud of missing too much.

[HesseJam]

The Beatles might be overrated. That doesn't stop them from being one of the eternal top 5 bands in popular music. Moreover, they were a catalyst in changing Western society in the 60s and early 70s.

Messagewise, I like "Revolution" best, which remains the banner song for advancing society in a non totalitarian way. Hmmm... so, indeed, it might be a Midwest thing not liking The Beatles after all...

[zephed]

[ QUOTE ]
The Beatles were ground breakers, but being a ground breaker doesn’t mean great music. I enjoyed the early Beatles – black music mixed with rock-a-billy with a Liverpool accent. It was very simple fun music in the vein of Buddy Holly. While Sgt. Pepper and the later was innovative and ground breaking - I loathed it.(Still do)

BTW I’m old enough to have been at the Shea stadium concert. They sucked at that concert.

[/ QUOTE ]
Wow, you are old.

[diebitter]

For those of you that don't like the Beatles, those of us that do don't really care. What we do like is those that claim the Rolling Stones were better - that make us LOAO.

[billyjex]

I just came across this thread. I hate the beatles. I don't enjoy their music.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
The Beatles might be overrated. That doesn't stop them from being one of the eternal top 5 bands in popular music. Moreover, they were a catalyst in changing Western society in the 60s and early 70s.

Messagewise, I like "Revolution" best, which remains the banner song for advancing society in a non totalitarian way. Hmmm... so, indeed, it might be a Midwest thing not liking The Beatles after all...

[/ QUOTE ]

Any band that sparks a nationwide furor and popular rallies to burn their records is definitely tapping an important nerve. The Beatles were definitely like nothing else out there, and nothing since.

As times get farther behind us, history gets more rewritten every day, and we forget and obscure how far out there the Beatles were -- that Nixon banned Lennon from entering the U.S. for a while, that people wondered if they were to blame for Charles Manson and they had to testify in court about it, etc. They were a gigantic part of the culture, way bigger than just a band.

And their music was so incredibly varied in tone, subject, and design. Really, if you can't find anything in the Beatles you like, I think without question you're missing out big time, and my judgment of your taste and sense of perspective plunges.

[diebitter]

Well said, Blarg.

Can any of you state for sure you don't like listening to any one of these tracks (I've tried to pick those to illustrate distinct styles):

- All you need is love
- Something in the way she moves
- In My Life
- Strawberry Fields Forever
- Help
- Get Back
- Helter Skelter
- Hey Jude

for a very small sample. Or try 'Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/In the end' (yes it is one track) for something a little more obscure (if that's possible for Beatles songs)?

I'd find it hard to believe there's someone anywhere that's heard em all that won't like at least one of them.

PS. It's a media thing to slag off the Beatles at the moment. If you didn't like em before, fine, but if you recently read something about the Beatles being bad, and thought to yourself 'yeah!', try listening to some first.

[Blarg]

Some more, and more indication of their variety and good songs:

Julia
Long and Winding Road(became a big Ray Charles favorite too)
Blackbird
Dear Prudence
Back in the USSR(this one still cracks me up)
Maxwell's Silver Hammer
When I'm 64
I Get By(With a Little Help From My Friends)
Why Don't We Do It In The Road
The various Harrison songs
Twist and Shout(not an original)

Except for the Twist and Shout up there, nobody else was writing songs like this at the time, and not a lot of people ever wrote songs like that. One of the things I really love about the Beatles is that they were pretty fearless when it came to covering a huge range of styles, tones, and subjects without worrying how much it would affect their bottom line. There was always Paul's A side, but there was always Lennon's B side, too, where anything could happen. Including some Harrison stuff, which I got to like a lot more over time, myself.

That's the cool thing about not nailing yourself into a single style and milking it until people get sick of you - if you're sufficiently talented, have wide enough tastes and interests, and stay together long enough, you can come out with so many surprises and try so many things. Pretty rare for a band to dare something like that in general, and very rare today.

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
Including some Harrison stuff, which I got to like a lot more over time, myself.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, Harrison is impressive - to be in a band with the established talents of Lennon & McCartney, and actually come up with stuff that doesn't pale into insignificance is pretty wonderful.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps is a truly beautiful song, and Here Comes the Sun and Something are pretty darn good too.

PS. I think 'A Day in the Life' was voted top song ever recently - might only be in the UK.

[Blarg]

That song definitely established Lennon as a critic's darling. Very interesting.

Harrison's stuff really grows on you. Over the years, it went from occasionally cool to very cool to me. I saw a great PBS special on his songs a while back, and it was amazing. His best songs really stand the test of time and are totally unique. I have to admire the guy enormously; he stuck to his guns on his spiritual outlook and accumulated a lot of what seem like utterly genuine and devoted friends on the way. That guy definitely did something seriously right.

Not to mention, you gotta love a guy who was a major catalyst and investor in the making of the Monty Python movies.