Here’s the table, and here are my cards, face up: I very rarely listen to them. Important – crucial, even – to me at the time, but that importance has flatlined over the years. Time has enabled a perspective that didn’t exist when I was so close to them I couldn’t see anything else. Now, they seem like a jolly enough bunch, singing songs Gran could pat her knee to, and the ruddy-cheeked newspaper boy could whistle as he went on his rounds. They were a great little Variety turn – possibly the best – seeing us through the Bakelite years and dropping us off in the sunflower of our love, our eyes like kaleidoscopes. But many British acts lifted the spirit of Our Island Nation in earlier times. George Formby, Vera Lynne, Max Bygraves, Lonnie Donegan. That’s the Moptop’s lineage – rollicking end-of-pier entertainment, and by golly did the loveable foursome deliver! Toe-tappers a-plenty!
The problem is the fans. The problem is always the fans. Because fans subscribe to a belief system, they buy into a myth, and the myth here is the Beatles Are The Best. Not even “were” the best. For fans, their floppy-fringed love-objects are still gurning for the camera. Still ad-libbing one-liners for press conferences the whole world over. Still at the Top Of The Hit Parade. And still Number One in their hearts.
Whatever the Beatles were, they are no longer. We have their recorded legacy, a few albums, some singles, some movies. Let’s look at those movies first, because they show the people we’re dealing with, and how they think. Fans of the Fabs like Magical Mystery Tour because it’s the Beatles. You won’t find many movie fans enjoying it as a movie. Ianess claimed here that Scorsese and Spielberg were spearheading an artistic reassessment that at last credited this wretched little home movie with cinematic quality. I don’t see it. If Scorsese and Spielberg have said they enjoyed the movie, it’s because they are fans of the Beatles. They’re the right age. You know – old. They have fond memories of what the Beatles meant to them at the time, and it’s memory that’s colouring their judgement. The Beatles made a couple of good movies, not great movies, not movies that are going to appear in any critic’s list of the best fifty movies ever made. When the fans die out as a breed, their movies will be remembered – when remembered at all – as quaint period pieces.
At the time – forgive me, but this phrase is key to the whole thing – I could barely see anything beyond the Beatles. They were all over what we were coming to understand as “the media”. Couldn’t get away from them, and didn’t want to! Couldn’t get enough of them! Fan magazines, bubblegum cards, anything you could stamp with their faces (in little starbursts, preferably), we wanted. Now, all that stuff is big bucks on ebay, because the brand is collectable. There was no collecting at the time, we just ate it all up. hardly knew the diff between mono and stereo and didn’t care, because we were too busy looking forward to the next record!
When the Beatles couldn’t make the transition to rock, after a few “ironic” and bitter nods to a form they didn’t understand, they broke up. The big spoilt babies. Each of them took his ball home. And a Nation Mourned.
I missed a lot of music in those years, thanks to the Fabs. Their domination extended to dominating my cash resources, too. People who bought records that weren’t by the Beatles either had a lot of disposable income or preferred Elvis. It was only after their break-up that I was able to take off my Beatles Goggles to look back at the wider picture, especially in the US – and realise not only what I’d missed but what was still happening. Pop music didn’t fall apart when the Beatles broke up. The world didn’t revert to black-and-white. And many of the groups who’d been inspired by them (their most important fuction in popular culture) were producing music quite as good as, and better than, Beatles music. Fans can’t see this. Don’t want to see it. For them, even hugely dull sub-par albums like For Sale remain “better than” anything made by any other pop group. For them, everything else, by everyone else, falls short, failing to reach the Fabs’ godlike heights. And it’s at this stage they become Pop Scientologists.
The recent “This was their Sgt. Pepper” thread was interesting, not because it threw up albums that imitated or fell short of that album, but because it featured albums that have every right to be considered qualitatively as good as Pepper. Maybe I don’t like some of them, maybe you don’t, but the argument that The Beatles Are The Best is now the scripture of the Scientologist.
Take your shoes off before you enter this thread.
Johnny Concheroo says
That’s a great piece. And it doesn’t diminish my love of the Beatles one iota to admit that what you say is largely true.
After driving every trend in pop culture for eight years the reality that perhaps the Fabs couldn’t compete with the new rock gods Hendrix, Cream et al began to dawn around the time of The White Album. Instead of innovating as usual they started to copy the sounds they were hearing around them.
Hence we got hints of the British Blues Boom in Yer Blues while Clapton was drafted in to play the virtuoso solo George couldn’t manage on While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Likewise the sound of Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac was lifted wholesale for Sun King on Abbey Road.
Elsewhere it was business as usual and The Beatles’ albums continued to dominate, but the signs that they were fallible were there for all to see. I really don’t think they could have gone toe-to-toe with the newly energised Stones (with Mick Taylor on board) as the 70s dawned.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
If I could write as like you do, I’d have written that piece HP. I must go take my medicine cos I seem to agree with virtually every word.
I have no idea how really, really good them Beatles were because on the rare times I listen I know every word, every note then drift away, look for the girl with tangerine eyes and I’m gone.
SixDog says
Absolutely fantastic piece Mr Sauce.
I remember saying at the old place, The Beatles were first, but never the best.
They were literally writing the rule book as they went, they had no path to follow, musically, commercially or legally which made their achievements all the more astonishing. Ian McDonald’s Revolution in the Head, reads to me almost like a scripture in the way it’s set and referenced too that adds to this otherworldly aura.
I was born some three weeks before the split. I had other reference points when first introduced to The Beatles music as a kid. Led Zep, Cream, The Small Faces, The Who (esp Tommy) and moreover early 70’s Stones and Queen were on regular rotation in our house to compare and contrast. Helper Skelter aside, the Fabs just couldn’t compete with the multi layered and exotic sounds those bands were producing BUT they were the spark that lit the fire.
chilli ray virus says
Ian Macdonald said something like “one cannot discuss the sixties without discussing the Beatles”. The albums, particularly from Hard Day’s Night to Sgt Pepper, are so enmeshed in 60’s culture that they are artefacts of the time and beyond regular music criticism.
Having said that the songs (with a few exceptions – eg. Number 9) are still universally loved by children, grannies and those of us too young to remember the real thing. The OP being something of a rare exception. This is not nostalgia but a definite attraction to the strange appeal of their music. I have no idea this is true but something really special happened during those recording sessions . The Stones (who were imitators and past their best after Sticky Fingers ) don’t even come close.
Raymond says
An excellent piece, sir.
I would not take issue with the thrust of your argument, save for this observation: ‘scientologists’ aside, people keep buying and listening to their music. That means something.
chiz says
The Beatles may have led the wave of guitar pop and later introduced the briefly-popular Indian influence, but when they tried to be Pink Floyd they were rubbish, and when they tried to be Cream they were embarrassing. The renaissance for Abbey Road suggests they were heading in the opposite direction to the zeitgeist. They’d have been all washed up in the anus hepworthis of 1971. They didn’t have a good enough guitarist for the rock era.
But they made a generation of young women all funny, and like all deities, their artefacts have bankrolled their church. The good albums, Hard Day’s Night and Revolver, are very good indeed. So I don’t mind them being revered for those and Pepper and their early cheeky charm. Jesus’s later miracles weren’t all that, either.
Tiggerlion says
I was impressed by the resurrection. Weren’t you?
ianess says
‘They didn’t have a good enough guitarist for the rock era’. And thank God for that. I don’t think I could have borne the tedium of a 25 minute version of ‘She loves you’, with each member taking tedious solos and squalling guitars and screeching vocals to the fore.
minibreakfast says
It’s posts like this that make me love you, Mr Ness.
ianess says
I’ll love you back if you post your Bob album reviews.
chiz says
Meh. Bands come back from the dead all the time these days.
minibreakfast says
I’ve given you a little upsie.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Not for the first time, Mrs B.
dai says
Couldn’t compete with bands like Cream, Pink Floyd, The Stones and Fleetwood Mac?? Did they want to, did they need to? Abbey Road is a pretty decent record.
I am smelling some prog nonsense in this thread, other bands may have had better musicians but nobody else had their songs, their voices and their incredible versatility as a package.
They probably ended at the right time, but separately made some pretty great music up to 73, I think indicating there could have been a few more Beatles albums that would have kept them at the top.
Johnny Concheroo says
Not so much prog, but I don’t think the Beatles could have made the move into stadium rock which the Stones embraced almost immediately after the Fabs folded.
H.P. Saucecraft says
“… nobody else had their songs, their voices and their incredible versatility as a package.” It’s this kind of statement, that left unanswered, strengthens the “tech” of the Beatles. It’s nonsense, simply put. There were many, many groups that could sing better, and wrote songs “as good” as the Beatles. As to incredible versatility – they wrote catchy pop tunes, they sang, they played musical instruments (a couple of them well) and they jumped about in front of the camera. Maybe they could do balloon animals as well?
Rob C says
Utter nonsense. No other pop band either here or in the US had anything like the sheer quantity, quality and diversity of songs. It’s something trotted out by the cultural revisionists, but funnily enough not by most of their contemporaries of the time, and an acknowledgement still held by most modern professional recording artists too. There were many other bands of doing good and even great records, but again, not the same levely of quality and consistency, be it The Stones, Byrds, Who, Kinks and et al & etc.
As for JW’s comment comparing them to music hall (why not ? – chuck it in the heady brew) , you can add soul, rock and roll, pop, folk, psyche, avant garde to the list as well .
Lodestone of Wrongness says
That’s much better HP, much better. Your lead story was excellent but thank heavens I can now disagree. At their short-lived peak nobody did it better than The Beatles, nobody.
But thank heavens they split up (and then died, Paul Is Dead isn’t he?) and we were spared watching them descend into Dylan Dreadfulness or Stones Stadium Snoredom or even ,shiver, A Beatles Reunion Tour….
H.P. Saucecraft says
More Scientology:
“No other pop band either here or in the US had anything like the sheer quantity, quality and diversity of songs.”
Lodestone of Wrongness says
That ain’t Scientology that’s Scientific Fact…
Junior Wells says
well, to me, the answer is blues.
Beatles roots weren’t blues and the root of rock is blues.
I regularly listen to the Faces, Stones , Clappers etc but rarely the Fab Four
I’m not into music hall.
mikethep says
Top piece, Mr S. As ever, the truth probably lies in between. I never bought any of their records, not even Sgt P, because they were omnipresent, and my sisters bought all the early ones. I mostly bought blues and Dylan records until 1966 or so. But I loved listening to them, and seeing them play live (no need to repeat that thread, eh?), because they were so HUGE, and I loved the fact that I was exactly the right age when they arrived to turn the world upside down. They are a massive part of my life, and I’m always happy when the Fabs pop up on shuffle. I find Revolution in the Head fascinating as an insight into the creative process, no more, no less.
So I guess I’m a fan. But I don’t think I’m a fan in the sense you mean, not sure who is really. But I’m happy to let the Scientologists get on with it. People can criticise the Fabs all they like, as long as they aren’t being stupid or ignorant.
I stumbled across an On the Buses fan site the other day…now that’s hardcore.
Bingo Little says
Great post.
There’s nothing wrong with loving a band from your youth. It’s when you convince yourself that they were superior to every other band ever in every single regard, and will continue to be so until the heat death of the universe that the problems begin.
There’s a kind of mass psychosis around the Beatles that makes them really unappealing. A need to reassure oneself that there remain no cracks in the edifice, that they are superior in all regards. Discussion of the greatest singers of all time? Got to make sure Lennon is right up there. Chatting about the all time classic reggae tunes? Don’t forget Ob-la-di Ob-la-flipping-da. Likewise the constant scramble to identify yet more hyperbole that can be heaped on the band’s shoulders.
Worst of all is the imaginary Beatles. Because the albums they recorded weren’t enough, we have to suffer through endless alternative realities where they reunited for Live Aid, or where Lennon lived and now rules Twitter. Once you’ve analysed every golden note of the music and worked out what Ringo was doing every Tuesday night in 1968 where left to go but pure fantasy? And if, in that fantasy, they happen to be releasing world-changing music even as late as the 90s, then why not?
The Beatles were a band. At times, a really great one, and undoubtedly a fantastic one to have had as the “my band” of your youth. They released some classics, they released some stinkers. They were not the greatest in every category by a long shot (no one is). They were in decline at the point they split up and the optimum they would have been likely to manage in any imagined future from 1980 onwards is probably what the Stones have done.
The funny thing is that I reckon everyone might actually enjoy the Beatles more without all the humourless nonsense around them. Let it be.
H.P. Saucecraft says
You are infested with Thetans, Bing!
Bingo Little says
Xenu be praised!
mikethep says
PS HPS: if you’re going to keep evoking TWCODH, NB that it’s not Vera Lynne but Vera Lynn. As you were.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Her, too.
deramdaze says
Couldn’t compete with 3rd generation blues plodders like Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac and Blind Faith, all of whom accurately predicted in the 60s themselves the dull records that would saturate the following lesser decades. Yeah, right.
A day doesn’t go by when I don’t rejoice that The Beatles got out when they did. May 1970, perfect.
I have no interest at all in a Fabs LP from 1973.
How do I know this?
Because I have no interest in any LP from 1973.
They may not have been the best group (but they also may have been), but they were definitely from the best era….and the most important consideration is not ‘who’ or ‘where’ or ‘why’, but ‘when’.
‘When’ is at least 95 per cent of the equation.
Junior Wells says
Close, but 2 years too many.
Yours sincerely,
D. Hepworth
Sewer Robot says
Yer talkin’ out your anus hepworthis, man!
Baron Harkonnen says
I couldn`t care less about the Beatles at the time. I liked them bought Rubber Soul, Revolver, The White Album and thought they were excellent. I wasn`t bothered about the personalities, the royal command shows always bothered me. At the time I was more into the underground sounds emanating from the US West Coast, I also thought the British psychedelic bands were too whimsical. Couldn`t be arsed with Zappa and the VU though, fucking posers. That was then.
With time my tastes and view of a lot of the music of the `60`s has changed. I now love the British psychedelia of that time and appreciate the music The Beatles created Beatles For Sale on-wards. I now consider it to be majestic and the influence on at least 80% of music of the time and what has followed. But I also consider the personalities who created the music to be on the whole self-centred bastards.
I always moved forward with my musical tastes, I won`t bore you with the details and still look for new music today. Obviously new music to suit my tastes not just for the sake of it.
I only ever met one of the musicians that I admired – Arthur Lee, he was an ignorant bastard. Never meet your heroes it`s often been said and it`s correct. In the 80`s I was offered the chance to meet Roger McGuinn, I declined the offer and he was a member of my favourite band The Byrds, I hadn`t forgotten Arthur.
My point is this, it`s the music that matters. Simple.
I did meet Arthur Lee again in the 00`s, by accident, he was charming!
This piece has been about me and my views. Crafty your piece was about you.
H.P. Saucecraft says
“This piece has been about me and my views. Crafty your piece was about you.”
Meaningless observation, Harkers. It was about my changing attitude to the Beatles, based on my views. But it’s about Beatles fans, mostly . And your point? “It’s the music that matters”? Wow. That’s deep. Since when were you writing for motivational posters?
Baron Harkonnen says
“It`s the music that matters” was not written for `motivational posters` whoever they may be and since you accused me of doing so maybe you can enlighten me Crafty. It was my view, meaning why bother about the personalities who create it. When I listen to Dylan for example, I don`t think about what he was up to when he created the music, I don`t give a toss, I`m only interested in the music.
So please do not have cheap shots at me – “Wow. That`s deep”, I could do the same but……..
“It was written about my changing attitude to the Beatles, based on my view”, well I should think that most certainly is about you or my understanding of the English language is completely fucked.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Oh – and thanks for telling us about your meeting with the “charming” Arthur Lee.
Baron Harkonnen says
Have you been a knob all your life Crafty or are you just practicing?
H.P. Saucecraft says
*gives Barry Harkonen big sloppy kiss*
SteveT says
He’s been practising for quite a while but he hasn’t quite refined it yet.
You haven’t clocked it yet have you? This is the HP Saucecraft site – it used to have more followers but they got bored.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Why, you scamp! *gives SteveT a pinch on his ruddy little cheek*
(Er – if you’re up to it, Mr T, check the stats. I’m nowhere near the most prolific poster or commenter. And the blog awaits your benign creative influence to lead it to brighter days!)
Baron Harkonnen says
Mr S, Don`t you dare to question His Majesty Crafty because you should know he`s always right. My arse.
Baron Harkonnen says
(Er – if you’re up to it, Mr T, check the stats. I’m nowhere near the most prolific poster or commenter. And the blog awaits your benign creative influence to lead it to brighter days!)
Bitchy! No practice required.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Attaboy, Barry! GRRRRRR!!!!!
Baron Harkonnen says
Aaaah, thas wacken up King Crafty, how we doin` t`day, sharpenin`t claws? Chill owd bean, thas still King Crafty from hence t` eternity.
ianess says
Read a quote recently from that titan of rock, David Lee Roth – ‘the reason most music critics like Elvis Costello is because most music critics look like Elvis Costello’.
SteveT says
What’s that got to do with the price of fish? I thought this post was about the Beatles but since you raised the subject Costello may have been down the queue when looks were given out but he has done better with the ladies than you or I most likely.
Anyway for what it is worth HP’s post was well written and I largely agree with it. It is after all a rehash of a post I submitted on the old old site a number of years ago now that had Mr Hepworth in a lather. I own all of the Beatles original albums in one format and one format only. I have no interest in their films. For my sins I also own all the John Lennon albums, A Wings compilation, no Macca although that may change when they reissue Flowers in the Dirt if it has the Costello sessions, no Harrison and no Ringo. I was around 10 years old at the height of their popularity (1966) so its little surprise that they would resonate less with me than they did with Baron who I think is 8 years older. Nothwithstanding that and in further analysis of this argument and comparing it with the recent arguments about Costello then I think there are some essential differences that were argued for Costello not being a major star and indeed by the same reasoning for the Beatles to be considered major stars. Namely the writing of standards. I think in anyones arguments the Beatles wrote several not just one or two.
Songs that are Universally known. Who comes close to the Beatles? Abba? Simon and Garfunkel? Queen (it pains me to name them)? For that reason alone they are a major influence on popular culture in the 20th and even 21st century. Did they write they best songs? Maybe not. Are they my favourite band? Not by a long chalk. However there are certain of their songs that I have heard hundreds if not thousands of times that still bear repeat listening. A mark of a talented band indeed. I don’t routinely listen to these days – as someone else said I don’t need to because they are already in my head. However in fairness HP I thought your comment to Baron was pretty glib to be honest and not in the spirit of either the post or this site. Hey ho, each to their own.
Baron Harkonnen says
It`s OK Mr t, thanks but when it comes to sticking up for myself on this place nobody bothers me. King Crafty has tried to belittle me but I`m not going to bite back because the old gizzard always needs to get the last word in.
Re: Costello, now there`s a dude who has the handle on wordage, great songwriter, pity about the voice but hey like Dylan he makes the songs his own. I always thought `King Of America` was Costello`s most accessible album but my favourite is `Almost Blue`, it`s the Americana angle see.
Anyhow outa this thread because Johnny C and KFD (amongst others) have some great threads going.
ianess says
Funny quote, no? As for the laydeez, speak for yourself, but I can confidently proclaim that, over the decades, I’ve done much better than EC, despite not having his fame nor wealth.
SteveT says
What? You have compared score cards with the minor talent? Surprised you are on speaking terms?
ivan says
The Beatles were all right, but their fans were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.
Johnny Concheroo says
You said what you said and it was wrong.
And now it’s all this!
H.P. Saucecraft says
If you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then OK, I’m sorry.
Johnny Concheroo says
Too late. The mods have already started a bonfire and someone has erected a crudely written sign reading “Deposit Saucecraft Trash Here”
H.P. Saucecraft says
Me and John Lennon both. I was just continuing his quote.
Johnny Concheroo says
So was I. Remember the bonfires?
http://i.imgur.com/XXTenCx.jpg
Jackthebiscuit says
I am an unashamed Beatles fan Ivan, & I think your view that I am thick & ordinary is quite harsh, but probably true.
Oh to be able to come back with a witty reply.
ivan says
@jackthebiscuit
I wasn’t having a go at you at all. My comment was essentially John’s comment about Jesus, except i replaced Jesus with Beatles and ‘disciples’ with ‘fans’. I thought – at the time of posting – that it dovetailed nicely with HP’s original comment, where he said his problem isn’t with the band, rather with the fans.
The fact that I got to use a (slightly) religious based quote in a thread where a cult was named was the icing on the cake.
Your appreciation of the band shines through in your other comments, and there’s no snarking up my sleeve intended at you. Is that OK? 🙂
H.P. Saucecraft says
Jack, I didn’t see this as a poke at you, and I’m surprised to see your comment. Ivan’s slight twisting of John’s quote was pretty bloody brilliant!
Johnny Concheroo says
And surely my use of Lennon’s “and now it’s all this” is common currency among even the most casual Beatles’ fan?
Vulpes Vulpes says
The rabid mop-top-heads are irrelevant. You can admire your Humber Super Snipe or your Sunbeam Rapier all you like, the fact is it isn’t an Aston, and never will be. There’s no logic to it other than that the completeness and the delight of the narrative arc of the marque’s arrival on the scene and progression through it can’t be changed without a Tardis. Get used to it; it’s not a fan thing, it’s just what happened.
H.P. Saucecraft says
“Get used to it”? Did you really say that?
Your analogy doesn’t stand up to even a ride around the block. There were plenty of cars as good as/better than the Aston. An Aston driver who insisted that his car was the best in the world, nothing else comes close, would be the type of person you wouldn’t want to spend too much time with. Especially if he started droning on about it not being a matter of opinion but verifiable fact, and told you to “get used to it”!
Vulpes Vulpes says
Apologies for the dashed-off-quickly nature of the comment, but I think my point stands. Based upon my recollections of the time, those of a schoolboy in awe of the band and the blast of creativity they unleashed at the time, they occupied a very similar place in the cultural road map that my peers and I navigated in the late 60s. The Aston, mainly because of the 007 connection, was on a pedestal above all other cars. I am assuming here of course that the main body of Beatles bores you complain of are of a similar age to myself.
It matters not a jot what a petrol-head might say about the alternatives available, it was THE car at the time as far as Joe Bloggs was concerned. And The Beatles were THE band at the time in the same way. From my provincial perspective, that’s the truth and there’s no escaping it (hence the hurried remark “Get used to it”).
I’ll stop droning on now and you can go back to making smug remarks.
ianess says
If you’re talking about the James Bond Aston Martin with the machine guns, I’m with you.
mikethep says
“body of Beatles bores” – now there’s a t-shirt.
H.P. Saucecraft says
@vulpes-vulpes – I “can go back to making smug remarks”? Hmm. I can quite understand why sparkling erudition, persuasive articulation, felicity of phrase, infectious joy in the artful deployment of language, and sheer intellectual firepower might come across as “smug” to someone less bountifully endowed with these qualities, vulpes!
Kaisfatdad says
Excellent piece H.P.
One of my school pals saw the Beatles live. He said you could scarcely hear the music for all the screaming fans. It’s very difficult to explain to the kids of today the extraordinary level of hysteria of Beatlemania. The way in which the whole nation was obsessed with one pop group.
Mr Concheroo makes an interesting point. What would have happened if they had hung on in there for another ten or fifteen years and played the stadium circuit where fans could actually hear the music properly?
I’m not doubting they’d have played some wonderful concerts. But gradually that 60s hysteria would have diminished and the world would have seen them a tad more objectively. Perhaps.
Instead they pulled the plug out almost at the height of their popularity thus preserving the legend in amber.
They were such a part of my formative years, that it’s very difficult to be objective. Time perhaps for me to re-listen to the Moptops and their contemporaries and try to get them into perspective?
H.P. Saucecraft says
I saw them live, too. My mum took me when I was ten (apologies to the Baron for making this comment “about me”), at the Coventry Hippodrome. I don’t remember anything but the screaming. I had my hands over my ears.
Baron Harkonnen says
Aaaah Crafty, another dig. Well if we post on here that`s going to happen I suppose.
The Beatles live before hanging up their instruments? A complete waste of time. My uncle (he was 5 years older than me), took me to the Plaza in St Helens to see them, in 1963 I think. Screaming is all I too remember.
Ahh_Bisto says
Enjoyable piece but I don’t agree with the conclusion. I think ‘The Beatles are The Best’ mantra has been sustained and supported by a far more complex array of factors and human perspectives; by their fans, by their peers, and by successive generations of influential musicians and writers who The Beatles, in turn, have influenced. I think there are too many diverse tracts and too much of a critical body of analysis and review around today as to why The Beatles are so great and that negate the claim their legacy and barometer of quality is in the uncritical hands of deifying zealots. They’ve been microscopically dissected in a way no other band/artist has ever been (or ever will be) and yet they and their music haven’t capitulated under the weight of the critical gaze despite the minutiae of detail now available that, for lesser acts, would have diminished their stature and laid bare the absence of genius for all to see. That said, it’s easy for me to make space in my life for many other forms of music and for artists whom I listen to far more regularly than The Beatles and have done so for years. But so what? My tastes and listening preferences don’t make their music any less significant or any less enjoyable when I do listen to it again. I don’t feel that the received wisdom of their brilliance imposes itself on my own sense of their brilliance.
Baron Harkonnen says
Acomment that makes sense Bisto, thanks.
Rob C says
Indeed. That just about wraps it up.
JustB says
“I don’t feel that the received wisdom imposes itself on my own sense of their brilliance”.
How would you know?
Ahh_Bisto says
Mainly because I listened to The Beatles from an early age before I knew about their significance. I loved them before I knew anyone else who loved them (apart from my parents) and before I realised it was common knowledge that everyone loved them. The Beatles have always been mine, not the world’s.
dai says
*Many many groups could sing better ” than Lennon and McCartney? That’s a ridiculous statement. You may have a point somewhere, but to dismiss that key aspect is delusional.
H.P. Saucecraft says
So you’re saying the Beatles were the best singers, right, Dai? Better than anyone else. To think that there were better singers than Lennon and McCartney is “delusional”.
Ri-ight.
dai says
That was for HPS much higher up (bloody phone)
DrJ says
I’m smashing the piggy bank this weekend to buy the new version of 1, so I guess that makes me part of the problem. However, I think there’s a difference between fans who were there at the time, and those who weren’t. As I was born a few years after the split, I didn’t get into the Beatles until I was a record buying eighties kid. The perspective is totally different. The Beatles seemed otherworldly to me at the time. I remember seeing footage of Shea and wondering “what is this? Is this a thing that actually happened? Take me to that place.” That’s powerful stuff. Certainly more interesting than Echo & the Bunnymen.
Furthermore, when you’re late to the party, you experience the Beatles as a fait accompli. You see all of it at once. It’s overwhelming. How did they do this? How did they do it so quickly? It has a beginning, middle and end, so I guess it does contribute to having a creation myth that matches most religions. For exactly the reason that ‘I wasn’t there’ , it makes me want to go back and read books and watch documentaries to put it all together. It’s the same impulse that drives people to study Shakespeare or visit battle sites. The only contemporary band in the eighties that came close to capturing that for me was Talking Heads.
I’m old enough now to know now that the history that gets written about that time is massively reductionist. As much as I’ll enjoy a show like Psychedelia Brittanica, I know its faults (London-centric, elitist, bypassed the majority of the population, etc). I lived through Cobain’s suicide and britpop, and thankfully we have documentaries now to tell us how very *important* those events were. **coughs**
Finally, I need to get something off my chest: I don’t like the blues. Wow. That’s a relief. I’d rather “woke up, fell out of bed” instead of “woke up this morning”. I’m sure this is not a shock to anyone familiar with my posts. Can you imagine Abba doing the blues? Ugh.
mikethep says
Excellent post, Dr J (speaking as one who was there). Particularly the second para: 8 years (tops) was a significant chunk of my life, and the Beatles’ life span went by no more quickly than anything else. Seen from a present-day perspective, it’s just a brief flare.
Ainsley says
DrJ I think you nailed it there. As a child of 1960, the Beatles were just celebrities to me until the mid-70’s when I discovered music (and the Beatles) beyond the charts. At that point they were like a bolt from the blue; without any of the background it was purely the sheer joy of the music that made me into such a huge fan (the new 1 set is winging it’s way from the tax-dodgers as I write, despite several other formats already in my locker).
dai says
There were better singers, but not “many many groups”, that bit is delusional. Pretty unusual to have 2 of that quality in the same band. I would say 2 of the top 10 British white singers ever in the rock era.
Bingo Little says
Rolling Stone has claimed, with a straight face, that John Lennon is the fifth greatest singer of all time:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-singers-of-all-time-19691231/marvin-gaye-20101202
Better than Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Van Morrison, Curtis Mayfield, Mavis Staples and Fred Durst.
Can’t speak for anyone else, but this is the sort of bollocks I’m on about. Not just the greatest band! The greatest singers, the greatest guitarists, the greatest album sleeves, greatest live act, best shoes, sexiest legs and if there’s a dog show involved, Lennon’s pooch will have to win that too.
Blue Boy says
to describe anyone as the 5th , or 17th, or 32nd best singer of all time is inherently absurd…
Bingo Little says
How about describing the Beatles as the “best” band?
Blue Boy says
Touche. But we all know that those kind of Top 50 lists are particularly egregious examples of such comparative tomfoolery. I agree with you about Sam Cooke, mind.
Bingo Little says
The man had a once-in-a-century voice.
Seriously, though, I do think that the “best” thing is at the centre of the aggravation on this thread. We all toss around phrases like “greatest” all the time, but I’ve no idea how you empirically measure the quality of a band and come to the conclusion that one is so head and shoulders over all the others that they will simply never be toppled and are the toppermost in all aspects. I know which bands I think are the greatest, but christ I’m not going to die in a ditch over it.
It’s the propagandising over the Beatles that I don’t get. If you love them, just enjoy them, don’t worry so much about their place in the pantheon. HP is spot on that their “bestness” has become an article of faith in some quarters, to the extent that when you question that position you’re immediately winding people up – just look at some of the stuff on this thread. If someone thinks Sam Cooke can’t sing for shit, then fine – there’s no bar chart I can pull out to disprove the statement, and I certainly won’t get all snooty about it. Their loss, after all.
dai says
Make that top 5 (or 6)
colrow26 says
Dear Mr HP, your writing is once again of the highest order, your points made with a confident flourish and your beliefs are hard to argue against, but I will try….
Heres the thing, I first saw the Beatles on a black and white tv in 1963 singing “This Boy” from then I was hooked, well as much as a 6 year old could be! And that was the start of my musical obsession. An obsession I have lived with along with my obsession with football. They used to say never discuss p[olitics or rteligion cos it will always cause an argument. I reckon you should never discuiss music or footbal for the same reasons…..
Its all about opinions really isnt it and how boring would it be if we all had the same? I have to confess that I am an avid list maker so when someone asks me “who are your favourite bands Colin?” (and this happens on a daily basis!) I usually say Beatles, Jam, Smiths, Steely Dan and Roxy Music. Now on any day of any year I can play music by any of those bands and think “this is the best”. That little list does suggest I am one of those people who only listens to music from a certain era but no, I try to listen to new stuff every month and am always looking out for something new to move me which is how I discovered the delights of Father John Misty.
Getting back to the OP, I know exactly what you mean about the Beatles overshadowing other music from te 60s. For my own benefit I recently made a point of going back to 1963 and listening to albums from then to 1969 to see what I had missed. It was more than worthwhile to hear Night Beat by Sam Cooke (63) and Otis Blue from 65. I was surprised how much I didnt get Cream (Fresh Cream/Disreali Gears) or Hendrix (Electric Ladyland) or (and I know I will get slaughtered for this) Astral Weeks….but then I loved T.Rex and Slade so maybe its just the way I am?? I listened to all these albums and the oly ones that were well ahead of the Beatles were Highway61 revisted and Blonde on Blonde…to my ears Dylan was on a another planet to the rest of music made at that time.
Last night, before I went to bed I wanted to listen to something so I played Yes It Is then flipped it over to hear Ticket To Ride and it sounded as fresh as ever as good as when I first heard those songs.
It is all about opinions and this is mine…..
H.P. Saucecraft says
It’s all about how opinions are expressed, Mr26. This blog is one of the relatively few places in the internet democracy of dunces where you can formulate – and read – an opinion more thoughtfully expressed than like/dislike-sucks/rocks. It’s not important if you (anyone) disagrees or not with my post. The only value or interest in any of this is in how an opinion is articulated, the fun we can have with it. I was going to use the word nuance but held myself back.
colrow26 says
..lovely word “nuance”, you should have used it!!
H.P. Saucecraft says
*takes deep breath*
NUA ….
NUUUUU …
NUAAAAANNNnnn …
Nope. Just can’t do it. Sorry.
Skirky says
“I’m talking nuance-sense…”
GCU Grey Area says
H.P Nuancecraft.
ianess says
‘Pee, belly, po, bum, drawers’. Yet another Paul Johnson-style desperate revisionist piece. Both Owsley and Bisto cover most of the points I’d raise, so I’ve only a few comments.
The behaviour of true believers is neither here nor there. As pointed out, they had the acclaim of their contemporaries and, as someone who has met many of these musicians, including members of the ‘rock’ bands heralded above, I can attest that they still hold them in awe.
They wouldn’t have become a hard rock-blues band because their influences were rock n roll, soul, pop tunes and country and western. Their stab at it with ‘Yer Blues’ was a very commendable, witty attempt at the genre. This plodding blues-rock, so beloved of prog fans and rock snobs, was not their style and itself proved to be a monumental dead-end for Cream, Hendrix, Zep.
AHDN was rightly acclaimed as ‘the Citizen Kane of rock movies’ which is maybe not the greatest accolade ever, but it still bursts with humour, vitality and freshness.
From someone who lived through the period, their ability to move with the times and consistently produce extremely high-quality songs made them stand apart. All the other bands mentioned above were inconsistent in quality terms and some had extremely brief periods of creativity.
As for the bloody Stones, enough already. A Chuck Berry covers band, even into the ’70s, who worshipped and aped the Fabs and produced some great singles, though many shoddy albums.
Baron Harkonnen says
Fair comment ianess, which paints a succinct and accurate picture of the time and of what made the HJH. Also how their fellow contemporaries perceived them.
We all have an opinion on this subject but woe betide anyone who has an opinion that differs from or questions the gods who walk amongst us.
ianess says
Bingo – Aretha number one? How unimaginative. Personally, I can only take her in homeopathic doses before the whole gospelly, yelping shtick bores me silly.
Have you ever listened to The Plastic Ono Band album? His singing on that is marvellous. Both tough and tender, poignant and soulful.
Bingo Little says
Sam Cooke is my number one, Ian. I completely agree that Aretha is a dull, soft selection.
Do you think John Lennon is the fifth greatest singer of all time? I agree that TPOB is his best vocal work, but he surely doesn’t make the top ten of any sane list.
Blue Boy says
Enjoyed the OP, but disagree with it.
There is The Beatles as they were at the time and The Beatles the way they sound now. And then there is the mythology, the fandom, the cultural Swinging 60s context, the Moptop idolatry and all of that (as someone who works in Liverpool I encounter this most days). It is difficult to separate the one from the other – but the fact that some people make idiotic claims for the Beatles shouldn’t impair our response to the actual music (not the films – I agree, they are fluff, if enjoyable fluff).
As it happens I have been listening to quite a lot of 60s albums this year, catching up with a number of bands whose work from that period I largely knew through the singles and famous tracks. And if you listen to the full albums of The Stones, the Who, The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, The Kinks, Love, Donovan etc, from that period, my word but much of it is thin stuff. I don’t think one of them comes close to The Beatles in the sheer sustained quality of work. Most have moments every bit as good as the Beatles, but only moments, and with little of the invention and flair of most of Rubber Soul, Revolver, Hard Day’s etc. Only The Beach Boys stand comparison.
Listen to the music that was around as the Beatles were in their prime and you can understand why they were so huge and revered at the time, and why other bands saw them as the yardstick. It’s not that they were always the first or only ones innovating, and they copped ideas from others –Dylan and the Beach Boys for example – but mostly they led. I really don’t think anyone can seriously argue against their profound cultural influence through the 60s, an influence which has continued ever since.
That could all be true, and yet the music could now sound tired, weak, over-rated. But to me it doesn’t. I do still play The Beatles regularly and I think their best work sounds fantastic. Lennon and McCartney’s voices are great; the rhythm section is consistently inventive and strong, the song writing is peerless, the arrangements and studio work increasingly intelligent and interesting. I don’t think this is dated heritage music for one second. I think the best of it is the best of its time and still amongst the best pop music ever.
The pop canon is still very young and new, and will evolve. Knowing what will last is notoriously difficult at the time, and musical and artistic history is littered with people declared geniuses in their own time who have since fallen into obscurity. Maybe in 100 years people will be agog at our deluded elevation of The Beatles, and will be obsessed with the collected works of Donovan. But I doubt it.
dai says
I defended The Beatles here, but I dispute your claim of nobody reaching their standards over an album (except Beach Boys):
Odessey and Oracle
Let it Bleed
Beggar’s Banquet
Astral Weeks
The Who Sell Out
Forever Changes (especially)
The Notorious Byrd Brothers
The Village Green Preservation Society …
retropath2 says
I prefer Burt when he writes about mythical e mails……….
(No I don’t.)
But it is a delight to read this well argued piece and the predictable aggrieved bleatings in response. More, please, sir!
Beatles? Didn’t like ’em.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Mr Path2. There’s nothing quite like a Beatles thread for attracting a bit of interest. It’s a testament to their importance that so many people still do care enough about them (in spite of what Tig says below) to have a strong opinion about them. Or even a mild preference one way or the other. A piece along the lines of “Hollies Fans: Harbingers Of The Pop Apocalypse” would maybe get a couple of mild, off-topic comments before slipping into oblivion. More’s the pity.
ianess says
Bingo – Lennon has one of my favourite pop/rock voices, my selection clearly influenced by the material.
A number of the others you mention, with one clear exception, have beautiful voices, but the quality of the songs makes a great deal of difference to me.
As for the glorious Sam, I heard, for the umpteenth time, ‘A Change is gonna come’ on the playlist last night and, for the umpteenth time, was transported by it.
Bingo Little says
The greatest* song ever recorded.
I’ve no problem at all with people (lots and lots of people) saying “the Beatles are my favourite band, and Lennon’s is my favourite voice”). The difficulties are with the “they’re the greatest and always will be. Deal” type statements we so often see on the subject.
As has been pointed out before: “every man thinks he has the prettiest wife at home”. I say, love your wife and don’t worry so much about what anyone else thinks of her.
*In my opinion. I cannot empirically demonstrate this to be the case.
bang em in bingham says
“Scientology is a body of beliefs and practices created by American science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard (1911 – 1986).”
“The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960. Members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr”
H.P. Saucecraft says
Thanks for clearing that up for us.
bang em in bingham says
Glad to be of assistance.
H.P. Saucecraft says
‘preciated!
attackdog says
Re: Mythical groups (and spurious ‘religions’)
Am I alone in thinking that the popular beat combo, ‘The Beatles’, never even came close to writing, let alone performing an epic such as ‘Stonehenge’?
I rest my case.
Spotcheck Billy says
Is it possible to separate the work from the cultural impact it had? On one level, yes it’s perfectly valid to say that that Beatles For Sale is not very good or that Magical Mystery Tour (the movie) is self-indulgent tosh. But I think most people hold these truths to be self-evident, and did so at the time. Beatles cultists may want to believe that everything they did is beyond criticism, but most of us prefer to hold with the idea that, for the most part, they were ground-breaking, game changing, transcendent even. And just occasionally they were absurd or just plain ordinary. From this distance, it’s easy to dismiss the music but in the context of its cultural importance, much less so. This has been happening for 30-odd years though. In the 1970s it was still commonly held that Sgt. Pepper was the best Beatles album (see the NME’s top 100 albums survey of 1975 – Pepper is No1). But for some reason, perhaps in reaction to the hype and reverence bestowed on it at the time of the 20th anniversary, by the late-1980s, it was Revolver that was being touted as their best. For many of us, the Beatles’ music is so much a part of the fabric of our lives, it is impossible to separate it from the events it helped to shape. And I wouldn’t have it any other way…
H.P. Saucecraft says
I said something about the influence they exerted being their most important cultural legacy. As a phenom, they were phenomenal. Many of “us here” were there at the time and experienced their influence first-hand. They were undoubtedly the most influential pop force ever, in a way that (say) Elvis wasn’t. Not many boys looked at Elvis and thought “I could do that – gizza job!”, but thousands of boys (and maybe a few girls) saw the Beatles as models for something they could actually have a go at themselves. And because the Beatles, in stylistic terms, managed to stay on the crest of the wave, they remained truly inspirational until, perhaps, the drugs wore off.
I’m not sure if anyone today has the same enabling, inspiring influence for “young people” (whatever they are). Probably not. That culture shift of the late sixties was unique.
Diddley Farquar says
The eulogising can get a bit much agreed. I do think though that some of the resentment about this comes from the perspective of rock snobs’ inability to get pop. A point of view tha
Diddley Farquar says
Oh bollocks. Continued. …that sees rock as where it’s at and catchy, joyful, commercial pop is sneered at. The same people who don’t get Abba.
David Kendal says
By the nature of this website, and other music sites, a lot of the views expressed about any act tend towards the cultish. A bit like those of the jazz fans Philip Larkin called scholars manqué. It doesn’t follow that they are typical of the wider public. There may be a cult about The Beatles, but then there are a lot of people out there who just like their music.
An act can go from huge popularity and influence to cult status. Reading a few music history books, I realised how influential as well as popular Paul Whiteman had been in the 1920s. His arrangements influenced other bands; he brought some of the best white soloists to the general public; promoted the idea of jazz as an art, and in Bing Crosby had one of the most influential singers of all time. His orchestra was in many waysThe Beatles of its day.
In the seventies, forty years after Whiteman’s heyday, even the jazz buffs I knew didn’t listen to him. Forty years past The Beatles heyday, their records still sell, and Paul McCartney still plays their songs to packed out audiences. I recently talked to a 27 year old Bosnian living in London about the music she listens to while working – it included The Beatles. I listen to them from time to time, although I was ten when they broke up. I don’t know enough about music to analyse their innovations, or what that unexpected chord change in Penny Lane is, but I always like the sense that they are discovering what they can do and then going further.
Ahh_Bisto says
I was reading about Paul Whiteman (the Oliver Hardy look-a-like) the other day in Peter Doggett’s Electric Shock and, as you say, just how significant he was back in the day for not just popularising jazz but for actually rescuing jazz from obscurity and from the taste-makers who were ready to consign it to the history books, even back in the 1920s. He was the man who commissioned Gershwin to write Rhapsody in Blue to demonstrate how jazz could appeal to the masses and was an art form, not some fly by night musical fad.
David Kendal says
The book I read most recently, which may cover the same ground as Pete Dogget’s was by Elijah Wald-How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music. The title is misleading as The Beatles only appear towards the end. His real subject is that there was a change in the way popular music was written seen following the arrival of The Beatles, and this led to music writers, possibly prone to cults, ignoring or downplaying big chunks of music before that. His book is trying to recover that era and what was popular. He tries to cover too much ground, but he makes lots of interesting points for example, Mitch Miller’s novelty records, which could only be created in a studio, were the real precursors of later producer driven records like Phil Spector’s.
He wrote a more focused book about Robert Johnson, exploring how the blues came to be seen as the music of a lone country guitarist, playing in obscurity. He points out it was popular music with many forms, and the country blues was a minor phenomenon. The big stars were women playing with bands in urban areas, and they had a wide repertoire than just the blues, as did Johnson. Wald is a folk guitarist himself and admires Johnson – but he wants to trace how this figure who was unknown in his lifetime became a genuine cult.
Ahh_Bisto says
The book about Robert Johnson sounds like it has some parallels with Doggett’s in the way terms such as “blues” and “jazz” back in the day did not mean the same thing as they mean today. Both genres had been subject to significant historical revisionism even while music with those tags was being made in the pre-WWII years. In other words mythologising has touched all genres of music since popular music became a phenomenon at the start of the 20th Century, with the blues one of the most reinvented and abused terms going. Perhaps there is too much mythologising about The Beatles but at least buying into that myth is based on clear evidence of what their music is representative of even if the idea of “music hall” as an influence is an apparent anathema for many who feel it’s something artificial unlike the “so f**king so real it hurts” blues.
Doggett comes at it from the perspective of how the process of recording music or listening to recorded music fundamentally changed our ideas of music and what qualified as music. That’s where Whiteman is so significant in the way he shaped perceptions of jazz, in the way he arranged it,often to make it more palatable to white listeners with disposable income who bought a recorded version.
And therein lies the problem with the idea of what constitutes “real” or “authentic” music. Much of the appropriation by supposed experts into qualifying what music fits or doesn’t into a particular genre is based largely on what’ s been recorded not what was actually in the petri dish of live performances from those who invented and defined these genres . The progenitors of jazz and blues back in the day when they performed live were far less prescriptive or cohesive, far more spontaneous, raucous, primal and sexual. As you say it was often female performers who brought the music of jazz and the blues to the masses. In other words very little to do with the vast swathes of fret-wank that have been passed off as the “authentic” blues for the past 50 years.
DogFacedBoy says
No-one is asking the obvious question.
WHERE IS BEATLES BAND?
H.P. Saucecraft says
@dogfacedboy – http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Patricksmash/where_is_beatles_band__my_favourite_fab_covers/
ip33 says
i think @junior-wells hit the N on the H further up, they weren’t the Blues and that’s perhaps why they are so brilliant. Because the Blues are easily the most over-rated, boring, hasn’t changed for 40 years music that somehow still exists.
I get the history and without it Pop and Rock probably wouldn’t exist but enough already, it’s been done so just stop.
PS The OP and the replies have been brilliant and I wish I could write a fraction as well as you lot.
Kaisfatdad says
Hang on Mr Sativum!
I think there are more than a few of us here to enjoy joyous catchy pop. I wouldn’t want the casual visitor to this site getting the impression that all the AWers listen to is Icelandic tuba quintets playing the Beefheart songbook.
If we had an office party, the dancefloor would be heaving.
Vulpes Vulpes says
duc0 probably has a shelf full of those LPs, admit it.
Tiggerlion says
I love Beatles Band, me, warts and all, and have done so since my aunt bought With The Beatles for my fifth birthday. Mind you, by my sixth, she’d moved on and bought me The Rolling Stones debut rather than A Hard Days Night.
I dispute the Scientology premise, Mr Sauce. Nobody really cares any more. Sure, they still sell, even to youngsters, but so does Tamla Motown. There are also weighty tomes constantly written about them. Magazines, such as Mojo, put them on the cover a lot, along with most of the ‘classic’ rock acts. I can understand you being frustrated by all of that. But, the sad truth is white boys playing guitars are passé and only old geezers like us give a shit.
I saw an episode of Pointless recently and The Beatles were featured in a question. The contestants had to find a track from Rubber Soul, Revolver or Abbey Road that the general public weren’t aware of. There were loads of pointless answers. The public hadn’t heard of half the tracks on Abbey Road, including Oh Darling, Because and The End. Civilians, eh?
The cult I object to is the cult of The Wrecking Crew, the delusion that a handful of musicians were responsible for half of the best records released in the U.S. in the sixties. In fact, there were dozens of session musicians on those sessions (well over sixty) and they weren’t even called The Wrecking Crew. Hal Blaine came up with the term to sell his story in 1990. If you want an example of a reverential, worshipful rewriting of history, look no further.
Sniffity says
While reading this a few hours ago, I was listening to a radio quiz. The question came up – what was the Beatles last studio album?
Answers proffered included Please Please Me, Rubber Soul, The White Album, Abbey Road and On The Roof.
Johnny Concheroo says
That sounds like a candidate for Private Eye’s “Dumb Britain” column.
In similar vein, I wrote this on the old blog:
Sometime during the early 1980s the following question was asked on University Challenge: “Which famous record carried the catalogue number R4949?” purred Bamber Gascoigne in his familiar avuncular manner.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, not one of the students knew the correct answer. I think one of them even punted a speculative guess in the direction of Bohemian Rhapsody.
The answer was/is, of course, Love Me Do.
Even though the question fell on stony ground, it was a sign of the times that only 20 years after the event, the catalogue number of the Beatles’ first Parlophone single was deemed important enough to warrant a reference on a stuffy TV quiz show for posh kids. The Beatles had truly broken down all the barriers and reached the very heart of the establishment. Or so it seemed. (continues in similar fashion for another 500 words)
H.P. Saucecraft says
Queen recorded Love Me Do? The things you learn here …
mikethep says
That probably says more about the bloke (and I’m pretty sure it was a bloke) who set the questions…
H.P. Saucecraft says
I can see Johnny leaping from his recliner and punching the air as the answer sprang from his lips before the question was even finished …
Johnny Concheroo says
Have you been spying on me? (hmmm…)
Johnny Concheroo says
Then I ran around the room chanting “In your face King’s College, Cambridge! Where’s your expensive private education now?”
Johnny Concheroo says
Possibly, but insanely detailed knowledge on that level is no different to knowing about Köchel numbers in relation to the works of Mozart.
And working in classical music publishing for some years I knew people who could identify those K numbers (the important ones, at least)
H.P. Saucecraft says
Here’s your starter for ten, Johnny – and no conferring with Google, thank you – which Beatles album has this matrix number?
YEEX 150-1 / YEEX 151-1
H.P. Saucecraft says
Have to hurry you …
Johnny Concheroo says
No one memorises matrix numbers, but the point of the Love Me Do question is that it was the Beatles first Parlophone single and therefore worth noting
H.P. Saucecraft says
Right. Passing it over …
Johnny Concheroo says
I can tell you that the “-1” indicates the record was pressed from the first lacquer (or master) made. “-2” would be the second one (usually made after the first one wears out or is damaged) and so on.
And I’m shocked you have such a late Beatles compilation LP in your collection.
Johnny Concheroo says
Oh, and EMI matrix numbers starting in “Y” indicate a stereo recording, while those starting with “X” are mono
minibreakfast says
I expect you’d pass this with flying colours, JC: http://everyrecordtellsastory.com/2015/11/03/a-degree-in-record-collecting-could-you-pass-the-qualifying-paper/
(Most amusing, worth a read whether you’re a record
borecollector or not.)Johnny Concheroo says
Thanks MB. It looks great. I need to study it in depth, but the opening question grabbed me right away. I bought the first Led Zep LP in the week of release with turquoise lettering on the sleeve!
Of course I let it go for a quid or something years later. Who knew it would be fetching close on two grand in 2015?
Skirky says
I used to know the Phonogram mid-price album catalogue numbers up to #121. PRICE 69 is, pleasingly, Kiss’s Love Gun.
H.P. Saucecraft says
“I used to know the Phonogram mid-price album catalogue numbers up to #121.” The saddest Afterword t-shirt of all?
Skirky says
Helps enormously when you’re going through the browsers ordering out of stock back catalogue, mind. I used to have a teacher who could tell you exactly the amount of change he was holding without counting it due to skills developed in his past life as a bus conductor.
mikethep says
I could do that. Comes from fossicking around in your stylish leather change bag looking for, er, change.
badartdog says
It’s the ‘used to’ that ‘s the kicker isn’t it. Damn senility.
James Blast says
Burt is Tom Cruise.
H.P. Saucecraft says
And James is Nazanin Boniadi.
SixDog says
The Beatles not blues?
They were rock and roll. Leather clad, Buddy, Gene and Elvis worshippers with a direct lineage through the blues. Half the White Album is blues
Skiffle was English post WW2 austerity blues after all.
I’d argue the more ‘interesting’ bits came later, certainly after the Dylan discovery and LSD.
Jackthebiscuit says
Good evening everyone, my name is Les & I am a Beatles fanatic.
I am 59 & I would have been 6/7 when I first heard them & i have loved them since the first time I heard them. I am unashamed to say that they remain my favourite group.of course I am not immune to some of the clunkers they recorded (Michelle, Revolution 9 anyone?).
The thing is though, despite more than 50 years of loving the Fabs, I still love lots of other music & to me, that is exactly as it should be. My opinion is exactly that – my opinion, & is worth no more (or less) than anyone else’s.
That love of music is what took me to Word magazine, & indirectly to this site. I reckon most folk here are cut from similar cloth.
What would we be if we didn’t share a passionate love of music? – Fucking civilians, thats what.
Bingo Little says
So…. you’re saying that all this music is getting in the way of all of us getting laid?
H.P. Saucecraft says
I like a gal in uniform, me.
mikethep says
No, but arguing about it might be.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Here’s the type of Beatles Fan I’m talking about, the Scientology follower, transposed to the car owner model mentioned above. Scene: two men in a bar.
Him: “I got the new Lexus, me.”
You: “Pleased with it?”
Him: “Hah! Wouldn’t have any other car, me.”
You (already at a loss): “Really?”
Him: “It’s the best car in the world.”
You (looking around the bar for someone else ): “Oh, it’s a good car, all right.”
Him: “Good car? GOOD CAR? You’re off your rocker, mate. The new Lexus is THE BEST CAR IN THE WORLD.”
You (glancing at watch): “Goes a bit, then?”
Him: “Goes a bit? GOES A BIT? Goes better than anything else on the road, mate. makes everything else look like it’s standing still, is how it goes.”
You (finishing drink): “Comfortable, is it?”
Him: “The seats are the most comfortable ever produced. Scientific fact. Not sitting in them is like torturing myself. Also – the wheels go rounder. the actual wheels go much rounder than other cars. Been proven. The doors open more … openly. You can’t compare a door on a Lexus to a door on any other car.”
You (standing): “Fascinating. I’ve enjoyed our little-”
Him: “ANYONE SAYING THEY GOT MORE USEABLE BOOT SPACE THAN MY LEXUS IS FUCKING DELUSIONAL. End of.”
You (from the door): “Right-oh!”
Him (to empty bar): “BMW?” (laughs) “You cannot compare the BMW to my lexus. Chalk and fucking cheese, mate. CHALK AND FUCKING CHEESE. Oh yes. Know what I’m talking about, me … know a thing or two about motors, me …”
FADE TO BLACK, END CREDITS
DogFacedBoy says
Went to a night of Beatles promos at the NFT tonight with Beatles alumni like the Grand Poobar of Apple, Giles Martin and Mark Ellen plus by video link from LG Michael Lindsay-Hogg.
(Didn’t see many other AW members of the Church there)
Seeing those films looking like they were shot yesterday, sounding meaty and fresh and shot through with a sense of fun, irreverence, style and daring by innovative filmmakers – a treat for the eyes and ears – blows away all this revisionist pissing in the wind.
It’s not a contest about who has the best guitarist in a muso circle jerk, or whether Lennon had a better set of pipes than Billie Holiday. It’s whether the music produced stands the test of time to remain inspirational and meaningful not to some kind of Marxist idea of the idiot peasants just accepting what they see given as fact but to future generations.
Great pop music does that. Not because we are told it does but for how it makes us feel. When an 8 year old like me picked up a copy of With The Beatles and wants to hear ‘Eight Days A Week’ every hour of the day it’s not because of an implied greatness of the group. And some of you are thinking “well he could have chosen better than that 2nd drawer song”
Sometimes people over think these things. One impression I really got from all the clips is the occasional look, face and grin between them saying “god this is fun, such a laugh, aren’t we fucking lucky?
We’re dancing about architecture again. I’d rather be in a cult than, well, and so it goes…..
H.P. Saucecraft says
Are the Beatles still inspirational to “kids today”? If not, who is?
Johnny Concheroo says
Roy Cropper writes: Eight Days A Week is on Beatles For Sale not With The Beatles.
Seriously, I agree with all you say DFB. My point about the “guitar playing” was this. After eight years of re-shaping and re-inventing pop music (and our lives) two or three times a year, by 1969 the Beatles were no longer the only show in town. I questioned whether they could have competed/dominated into the 70s.
In retrospect the Beatles disbanded at exactly the right time. They lived fast, died young and left a beautiful career trajectory.
DogFacedBoy says
It wasn’t even With the Beatles it was “the Red Album”
I blame it on sitting at a well known London train station whilst writing
minibreakfast says
That’s a smashing bit of cross stitch, DFB.
ianess says
Great post dfb. I really miss attending these types of events, now I no longer live in London.
I take your point about the sense of ‘fun’ and have always believed that there was a great feeling of inclusivity also, that we could all join in and enjoy the MMT.
I heard ‘You’re gonna lose that girl’ last night on the playlist and could only marvel at the inventiveness, verve and intricacy of what is probably a minor pop song of theirs.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Absolutely, Ian! “You’re Going To Lose That Girl” is an uptempo little number sure to get those toes a-tappin’! So roll back the rug, Grandma, because the teens are having a swingin’ twist party!
ianess says
Shit, I never knew Brian Mathews posted here.
On a point of order, I think you’ll find that Mr Chubbard Checker’s hits predated the Fabs by a couple of years. The groovy cats were doing The Swim by then.
dai says
The solo Beatles had 15 no. 1 US hits (more than 40 top 10) and 8 chart toppers in the UK. I find that pretty amazing.
Bingo Little says
Well then; prepare to be amazed all over again, because the Spice Girls had nine (count ’em!) UK number one hits!
Skirky says
Yes, but there were five of them…
H.P. Saucecraft says
Little-known Pop Fact: Bananarama, self-styled most successful girl group of all time, had no UK number ones at all!
deramdaze says
Isn’t the original theme of this blog more typical of the American rather than British perspective?
There certainly seems to be far more of a ‘The Beatles are brilliant, The Stones suck’ mind-set on American web-sites.
I also think there is far less of holding Lennon up as a modern day Saint in Britain, mercifully.
Junior Wells says
From what I’ve read here, the ‘The Beatles are brilliant, The Stones suck’ mantra is alive an d well on the Afterword as well.
ianess says
Hardly. I’ve had a mild pop at the Stones, purely in an attempt to rile HP and ridicule his revisionist claim as to their superiority over a band the Stones themselves acknowledged as their betters.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Ah but, Ian. I respect your views because they are expressed in a very lively way. Not because you adopt a pose of not liking the Stones, who are in every way except cuteness equal to the Fabs. Jagger/Richards wrote some great pop hits, and then some great rock hits (which is more than the Pampered Foursome managed).
Johnny Concheroo says
Revisionist is correct. The Stones were indeed great, but their level of greatness was not as, er, great as the Beatles.
The Stones had some wonderful singles but their LPs were very patchy early on as their fledgling song writing took a while to find its voice.
The Beatles meanwhile appeared (more or less) fully-formed and proceeded to annihilate all before them.
H.P. Saucecraft says
More Beatles “Tech” (you have to be on your guard for this stuff, it tends to slip by unquestioned):
“The Beatles meanwhile appeared (more or less) fully-formed and proceeded to annihilate all before them.”
Careful, Johnny – you’re approaching Operating Thetan III level …
Johnny Concheroo says
I don’t know what any of that means, I’m afraid.
Is it something to do with Star Trek?
Tiggerlion says
Indeed. The Stones hits were made ‘pop’ largely by Brian Jones’s interventions, and they were truly great. When they became rock, and rock at its best I agree, they lost a few dimensions. Their empirical trio of albums, Banquet, Bleed & Sticky and their attendant singles have a formula to them. Exile was a muddy slush, monochrome in tone, sound and style.
That’s why Goats Head Soup is The Stones at their very best, album-wise, yet they were at their peak in 1965.
H.P. Saucecraft says
There was a splendid remix/master whatever of Exile which sounded much better, although perhaps still not pristine enough for someone who likes listening to women play the harp!
While the Fabs were pleasing the OAPs with their happy tunes and adorable fringes, the Stones were pounding out pop noir gems like the troubling “Mother’s Little helper”, “Paint It, Black”, “Under My Thumb”, “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?” and other tracks which were far more rock than pop, and quite outside the Moptops’ limited range.
Tiggerlion says
You misunderstand me. I was simply making the case for Goat being The Stones best album..
Those singles were a product of their bad boy persona. Paint It Black is possibly their best. It is certainly a favourite in my house. Who plays that jangly thing George Harrison was fond of? Under My Thumb was always execrable. Dull and plodding. Nah. They were better in 1965 with Heart Of Stone, The Last Time, Play With Fire, Satisfaction, Get Off My Cloud.
SteveT says
Agree Tigger that Paint it Black is their best single, that and 19th Nervous breakdown.
H.P. Saucecraft says
@tiggerlion – “You misunderstand me. I was simply making the case for Goat being The Stones best album.” I understood that. You didn’t understand me.
Tiggerlion says
OK. Thanks for clearing that up.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Sorry? What?
Lodestone of Wrongness says
The words from “While” to “range” are your most preposterously silly of the entire thread. Well done!
Tiggerlion says
It’s all marketing, innit. Epstein made The Beatles throw away their leather jackets and don sharp suits in order to appeal to a wider audience. Oldham knew he couldn’t compete in the fresh-faced department so did everything to establish The Stones as the anti-Beatles, from spreading media stories (“we piss anywhere”) to neat tag-lines (“would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone”) to forcing Jagger and Richards to write songsto match their ‘image’.
They are simply different sides of the same coin and, boy, did they coin it in. Saucy seems to have fallen for The Stones’ myth more than The Beatles’ one. I enjoy both.
H.P. Saucecraft says
“The Beatles are the Best Group in the world, ever. Nobody else can touch them for talent, versatility, voices, records, songs …” (repeat tiresomely until fade).
Nope, Tig. That’s the myth. I wouldn’t make that case for the Stones or any other band. But I do listen to the Stones, and not the Beatles. And one of the reasons is that they grew up as a band, and the Beatles … didn’t.
The thing is, people LIKE the Beatles, as people. They LOVE them. Nobody likes the Stones, let alone loves them, because they’re a bunch of pricks, always have been.
Tiggerlion says
I’ve never met any of them, so have no idea what they are/were like as people. They come across as complex human beings with strengths and weaknesses, just like everybody else.
I listen to around 520 minutes of The Beatles catalogue on a regular basis and around 480 minutes of The Stones, including their live albums. Not much difference there.
Both dwarf in comparison to Coltrane and Davis and Mingus but there you go.
Peace and love.
H.P. Saucecraft says
I think we’re understanding each other, Tig. And we’re basically agreeing with each other, except where we differ. If I have that right?
Tiggerlion says
*whistles Sympathy For The Devil*
Ahh_Bisto says
The idea that The Beatles had no ‘rock’ repertoire in their music or that playing rock was outside their “limited range” is utter tosh. Did The Stones rock more than The Beatles? Probably. But, again, so what? The Beatles rocked when they wanted and tried other genres as well, lots of other stuff, hence the legacy of their music.
You only have to listen to The Beatles albums in sequence to hear how their music increasingly defined and embraced ‘rock’. The riff of ‘I Feel Fine’, the heavy chord that crashes the opening of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, the jingle-jangle riff of If I Needed Someone, the mod-rock of Taxman, the heavy riffs of She Said She Said and And Your Bird Can Sing, the psychedelic drone of Tomorrow Never Knows. The heavy rock rhythm and guitar licks that underpin Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and its reprise, pretty much half of The White Album and just the overall vibe of that album is ‘rock’, not pop.
Hey Bulldog, Helter Skelter, I Want You (She’s So Heavy), The End….
As a denier you risk appearing more blinkered than those you decry for being Beatles Scientologists. I love The Stones. I love their attempt at being The Beatles for a while and in trying to be them finding out who they really were in a way The Beatles never did.
ianess says
As regards ‘rock’ and ‘pop’, who else has read Nic Cohn’s trashing of the ‘rock’ movement that destroyed ‘pop’ in Awopbop..’?
Wholly agree with Bisto that the Beatles could rock hard when they wished, eve going back as far as ‘Money’ and ‘Long Tall Sally’. Both Barrett Strong and Jerry Lee Lewis lauded their ‘toughness’ in a recent documentary.
As for the Stones singles that HP lists, Gawd almighty. ‘Under my Thumb’, ‘Have you seen your Mother’? Some of their poorest and I speak as someone who loved most of their early covers and their own compositions.
Diddley Farquar says
The rock movement that destroyed pop? A similar view is expressed in Bob Stanley’s Yeah Yeah Yeah. The singles chart declined as a result. I have some sympathy with that opinion. Clearly the mid sixties was a golden age for the 45. Then again I wouldn’t want to change history and miss out on many fine rock albums. Thank God for glam rock and Bowie who I would argue was a Beatles for the 70s.
Diddley Farquar says
Beatles rock is a different kind of rock to Fleetwood Mac, Hendrix, Stones. Quite an influence on post punk and indie, espcially the White Album. Siouxsie and the Banshees saw fit to cover Helter Skelter and Dear Prudence. Probably those who decry the Beatles later forays into rock would also deplore the 80s and 90s acts who admired those tracks. Punk was partly born out of a weariness with all that blues rock with it’s extended soloing. The Beatles disinclination to go that way helped keep them relevant for those more recent bands.
Bingo Little says
“no elvis, beatles or the rolling stones, in 1977”
Diddley Farquar says
Phoney Beatlemania. That’s punk and it’s year zero. It wasn’t long before certain tracks were referenced again along with The Doors, Roxy Music and The Velvets. By avoiding the heavy blues thing a certain freshness was retained. There’s a bit in Everybody’s Got Something To Hide that sounds just like a snippet of the Sex Pistols. The Breeders covered Happiness Is A Warm Gun and so on.
Ahh_Bisto says
I think The Beatles’ version of ‘rock’ is also a precursor to 70s prog, another form that steered rock away from the blues. For example, to criticise The Beatles because they looked to the Music Hall as an influence misses the significance of that music in rock. Music hall is a peculiar form of folk music. In the first half of the 20th Century it often provided an absurdist or comedic commentary on the prevailing issues of the day, both lyrically and in terms of the arrangement of the music and the use of characters as narrators in the music. Coupled with the flourishing avant-garde scene in the mid-60s the canvas of Music Hall was ripe for reinterpretation. These are the ideas The Beatles – ever open to ideas – played around with and as a result created songs and musical concepts that were instrumental in helping to define the uniqueness of English, as opposed to American, psychedelia. It doesn’t surprise me that Lennon said he loved Genesis’ Selling England By The Pound. A track like The Battle of Epping Forest is ripe with absurdist Music Hall influences and imagery.
Diddley Farquar says
Self-evident really isn’t it? The orchestration, the nonsense verse, the harking back to childhood and it’s imaginary worlds.
We could also talk about the melodic, soft rock of ELO and 10cc with the harmonies and use of playful sound effects. OK, maybe a less welcome development for some but nonetheless significant and music that brightened up the charts at the time. 10cc were very Abbey Road/early McCartney solo. All this just goes to show the lasting diverse influence, where other great acts had more of a one-style influence. Here we get into the ‘they invented everything’ territory which so angers some. A ridiculous statement of course but you can see why it gets made.
Ahh_Bisto says
(This is in reply to AlliumSatvium, can’t seem to reply to his actual post).
I think that’s the other lasting legacy of The Beatles, the way they used the studio as that additional ‘instrument’/’musician’. Obviously you can argue that was George Martin’s influence but I think it’s the musical open-mindedness of The Beatles that is crucial. I suppose there are those who are critical of bands who don’t play it “real” but use the studio to craft their sound. The Beatles reacted to that back in the day (that Get Back on the roof for example) but it’s equally self-evidential that technology and the studio’s box of delights was as significant a driver for how rock developed from the mid 60s onwards as the “vision” or musical chops of the artists themselves.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Getting down to skinny comments.
I don’t deny anything the Beatles achieved. I’m not in love with them. I don’t think they’re the “best” anything. I don’t criticise them for having music hall roots. Of course I’m provoking with the occasional barb, otherwise this thread wouldn’t have had as much life as it’s had. The piece was about the fans who love the band to the point where the Beatles are the Best. Of anything. Of Everything. There’s a lot of quotes you could pull from this thread which show that. As to their “big rivals” the Stones, I didn’t much like them in the sixties, but I do now. And it is mildly interesting to imagine the Beatles creating the Stones material, and vice versa. The “loveability” factor is huge. Whether a product of canny marketing or not (I don’t believe that for a second, Tigger, I think we have a fairly accurate understanding of all the characters involved), the Stones were, and remain, a bunch of unlikeable pricks. That was part of the appeal, in a perverse way. But The Fabs were, and mostly remain, loveable. Fans identify with them as people in a way Stones fans didn’t. This love for them as people is as important as an appreciation of the music, and colours it.
Diddley Farquar says
Hey Tigger. I have to say I disagree with everything you say there.
Brian Jones? He added some instrumental magic here and there but was sidelined once Jagger-Richards became a composing team, partly due to his unpleasant personality and partly due to his inability to write a song. The reason they changed style was the unfavourable response to Satanic Majesties and the trend in music generally toward heavier rock plus the blues boom.
Exile to me sounds fine. The lack of clarity of sound adds to the sense of something murky coming up from the basement, not that it’s especially lacking. It helps the feel of timeless grooves from the southern states, albeit via Paris.
Goat’s Head Soup? Some great playing can’t really make up for the missing tunes and ideas. Tracks meander on repetitively and outstay their welcome. There’s one great song and that’s Angie. It’s Only Rock’n’ Roll is a more entertaining collection for my money.
Tiggerlion says
Brian Jones was the finest multi-instrumentalist of the sixties. He was loathesome and Oldham chose Jagger and Richards to be the writing team. However, he added a sparkle most other groups lacked. Up to Paint It Black, he was a special ingredient indeed.
We are never going to agree on the relative merits of Exile and Goat. However, if you wanted to make a case for Sticky Fingers, I’d be willing to listen.
Diddley Farquar says
He certainly added a sparkle, some magic. Paint It Black is probably their finest moment of that period. I’m also very keen on Play With Fire. Not sure if Brian brings anything special to that particular tune. Sticky Fingers is probably their best album. It’s the most consistent. Pretty varied too, putting paid to the mistaken notion that the’re just about the blues in that second great era. There’s country, soul, Santanaesque rock, rock ‘n’ roll and whatever Moonlight Mile is.
Black Celebration says
The fact that the Beatles were very, very good is something almost everyone agrees on. As far as I know there isn’t a significantly vocal bunch of people that disagree. This is why I also find passionate, defiant and angry assertions of them a bit curious. No one is arguing.
To (nearly) paraphrase Lennon, you don’t have to believe in the Beatles.
Johnny Concheroo says
I think Mr. Saucecraft is playing devil’s avocado with us here.
I’ve always found the Beatles naysayers amusing as they doggy paddle feebly against the tsunami of popular opinion, only to find themselves dumped unceremoniously on the beach of derision with sand in their Y-Fronts (get on with it, Ed.)
“What care I for the vagaries of fashion” they cry. “I’m an individual who follows no one”.
etc
H.P. Saucecraft says
Johnny, the post’s not really about the Beatles, it’s about the Fans who rate them the Absolute Best Of Everything Ever, with a religious zeal. You’re a borderline Scientologist yourself, but there remains hope for you. Bingo and I are planning an abduction/extraction scenario. There may be hugging involved.
I’ve praised the Beatles in this thread very highly, if you care to read my comments rather than imagine what I said. True, I don’t listen to them much, hardly at all, but this doesn’t mean I don’t recognise their achievements. The ones that deserve recognising, that is.
Johnny Concheroo says
Tsk. I know all that. But a thread like this tends to bring out the Beatle deniers.
My love for the Beatles may be unstinting in its devotion, but I like to think it’s not entirely unconditional or uncritical.
After all, as someone said on one of the old Word podcasts, The Beatles are the lingua franca of popular music. How can we regard them otherwise?
H.P. Saucecraft says
I don’t know what French Kissing has got to do with it, Johnny.
Bingo Little says
Ah, the Afterword, with its famous collective deference to popular opinion.
Whatever comfort blanket works for you.
Johnny Concheroo says
I must point out that I was not being entirely serious there. Perish the though that I should be so precious
Johnny Concheroo says
“thought”
ianess says
‘I don’t believe in Elvis’ (Costello)
deramdaze says
Funny thing is I rarely listen to them and when I do I always follow the ‘what would Liam Gallagher do’ rule and naturally listen to the polar opposite!
I can tell you exactly the last time I heard ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ as, quite by chance, I picked up a mono copy in the week of its 40th anniversary…..that’s now a whopping 8 years ago.
Kid Dynamite says
As a young child avidly watching Saturday morning cartoons, this was my introduction to The Beatles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv2QnMNUE3Q
(episode chosen at random, before someone suggests that I need to watch the preliminary sketches on the Cartoon Anthology DVD to fully understand the majesty)
No DFB-style vinyl epiphany for me, just a shoddy animation that, even at eight or so, I could tell wasn’t very good. Is it any wonder I’ve never bought into the Beatles legend? Sure, in adulthood I recognise that they are historically important (right up there with the Black Death!), and they had some decent tunes (and not a few stinkers), but that’s it. Mr HP Burtcraft is right to be bewildered at the zealotry of the True Believers. It does not compute for me at all.
H.P. Saucecraft says
I’ve never seen a single episode of this show, and I’m not going to start now. Neither am I ever going to listen to the Capitol US albums, which the Americans hold dearly enough to reissue in a pointlessly remastered box set recently.
Johnny Concheroo says
Twice.
The recent box of US Beatles albums is the second such release. The first one appeared a decade ago in two volumes containing four albums in each
The new one of which you speak duplicates those earlier volumes and adds five other titles including the pointless Beatles Story audio documentary and the posthumous Hey Jude compilation for which you gave the vinyl matrix number above.
Black Celebration says
I’m not going to click on that cartoon. As a child I saw one of them (which featured No Reply) and it was very, very bad indeed. Ringo in particular.
ianess says
I recall seeing Freddy Starr do a shoddy impression of Mick Jagger. Is it any wonder I’ve never bought into the Stones legend?
colrow26 says
I used to do a bit of work as a TV extra and I met this guy from Liverpool called Frank (cant remember his surname) who worked on Radio Merseyside. He was of an age to know a lot of the “faces” from Liverpool and he told a story bout Freddie Starr singing with a band. There were high hopes for this band until they got an audition with Joe Meek in London and Freddie arrived at JMs door naked…..audition cancelled band split up, whatever did happen to Freddie Starr…….
Beany says
According to Wikipedia:
In the early 1960s, Starr was the lead singer of the Merseybeat pop group The Midniters. The group was promoted by the manager of the Beatles, Brian Epstein, and was recorded on the Decca label by Joe Meek.
ianess says
A naked teenage boy presents himself to Joe Meek and the audition is cancelled??!! That’s not the Joe Meek I’ve heard about.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Maybe they found a more enjoyable way of spending the afternoon than listening to beat music?
Johnny Concheroo says
Tracks by Freddie Starr appear on any number of Merseybeat compilations
http://i627.photobucket.com/albums/tt351/mojoworking01/various_artists-mersey_beat_1962-641_zps2zbzpn5v.jpg
pencilsqueezer says
There is no year zero in art. It is a continuum.
The Beatles were part of that continuum. They absorbed influence from artists that had preceded them and from artists that were their contemporaries and through their combined talents made music that many people enjoyed and some continue to enjoy.
They were and continue to be an important part of that cultural continuum but they are not the alpha and omega of it.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Yup. Upsie.
Bingo Little says
Very well said.
fitterstoke says
Once again, Mr Squeezer steps in with the mot juste – have another up……
deramdaze says
‘Not a few stinkers’ – really?
Of course, it’s easier to pick up stinkers, if valid, if you record 220 or so songs in seven years.
Five years since the last Adele album, isn’t it?
Have U2 recorded as much as The Beatles yet?
Two Ami Winehouse albums in 8 years…..
Junior Wells says
to give Amy her due, she’s had fair reason for being a bit slack on the recording output in the last few years
H.P. Saucecraft says
Amateur. Didn’t stop Jimi …
Cookieboy says
http://i875.photobucket.com/albums/ab313/cookieboymonster/54892643.jpg
Sewer Robot says
This is why you crack pots:
(Ash v Evil Dead Doll Fight)
H.P. Saucecraft says
@johnny-concheroo
Johnny Concheroo says
Can someone remind me, what are we talking about again?
colrow26 says
Wasnt it something to do with Tom Cruise………??
H.P. Saucecraft says
http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t642/burtkocain/fifthbeatle_zpsn0opuzoj.jpg
Giggles says
Jesus, Tim. Are we going to have to suffer this validation by click -bait horseshit *every* time something has annoyed you?
‘I’m just trying to start a debate, Malcolm.’
Yeah, of course you are… And well done.
But you swatted a lot of nice people away with callous rude abandon in the course of this thread and I don’t think that your undoubted verbal dexterity gives you the moral license to do that.
H.P. Saucecraft says
“Giggles”, take a deep breath. Two people brought in a personal element to this thread that just wasn’t there. Made the thread “about me” while complaining that the thread was “about me”. Look at what’s been said about me, the insults. They “brought it on”, so I don’t know what they expect. You want a list? I really can’t be arsed, but it’s there. You’ve just added to it. “Clickbait horseshit”, “callous rude abandon”. That’s pretty dextrous, verbally speaking. It’s also insulting. Not that I’m upset by it. I just note it. Also your use of my real first name. Your comment follows in the pattern set by Harkonnen and SteveT. It does nothing to add to the debate. There’s a lot of informed opinion here, by people who thought a bit about the subject. There’s a good debate, from a slightly different angle, about a subject that never ceases to engage people. None of it from you. “Giggles”. You just weigh in with another pop at me.
I’ve banged on and on here about how my opinion on the subject doesn’t matter that much, how it’s neither right nor wrong, it’s just the way argument is expressed that makes it interesting and gives it value. A point entirely lost on Harkonnen, who seems to think I’ve got something personal against him. I haven’t. Nor you, nor anyone. You can’t please everyone. If this thread has given more pleasure and interest to people than it has irritated A Certain Faction just by dint of being written by me, then that’s fine by me. But why not take your obvious personal issue with me to PM, “Giggles”? Even better, start your own thread, get people involved. But if people pile in with personal insults etc. etc., don’t let it get you down!
Giggles says
Jesus, HP, you don’t like it up you, eh?
Look back over the thread and look at the nature of some of your comments about other posters’ linguistic prowess. Look at how you tried to ridicule those who took the bait. Read your comments again and consider how they could have been personally hurtful to the people involved. That’s the only reason I stepped in.
I’m nobody , I’m nothing, but I won’t stand by and let a writer I admire demean himself unchecked.
You’re better than this; stop being a bollocks.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Check your PMs.
Giggles says
Sorry. I’m not gonna read any PMs.
Johnny Concheroo says
No need to milk it mate. No one loves a drama queen
SteveT says
For what it is worth and probably not a lot HP was pretty dismissive of Baron and his view which is what irked me in the first place. I actually agree with HP’s post largely but more than that I also feel that anyone should be allowed to put a contrary view and not have the piss taken out of them. His response to Baron was sarcastic and unnecessary and to me spoiled what was a good debate. You will note that in responses to other people HP has been more reasoned so I can fully understand why it was taken personally. Unfortunately he aint going to admit he did anything wrong so none of this moves us any further down the road to ending the spat.
ianess says
The only reason I can imagine for ‘giggles’ making his unwarranted, unmerited post is that, for whatever reason, he’s motivated by personal animus.
As for his, transparently, faux-concern for the other posters, I fail to be convinced by claims of their vaunted niceness, having read these and other posts of theirs. Their personal jibes at HP were both feeble and puerile and they clearly did not enjoy having their jabs repaid with interest.
I enjoyed the thread, particularly bisto’s comments.
ianess says
And ivan’s brilliant joke.
ivan says
Aw thanks, man 🙂
love yer work too!
H.P. Saucecraft says
Well, seeing as how “Giggles” (Jeff, whatever he calls himself) lacks either the politeness or the courage to talk to me via PM, where he should have first aired his grievances anyway, I’ll reply again here, and then let him have the last word.
To “Giggles”, then: First, you can drop the fake-concerned well-meaning-friend act. That passive-aggressive stuff. You’ve charged into a thread that you took no part in other than to have a very personal go at me.
You’ve also taken on the admirable role of protector-of-the-injured. I’ve re-read the comments, as you asked, and I can see two commenters who might have had a little withering sarcasm directed at them, SteveT and Baron Harkonnen. This is because they both made their comments about me, rather than the post, and they’re both insulting and bad-mannered. Like you. I can’t see anyone else who might be licking his wounds. Maybe vulpes, but he told me to go on making smug comments so I made the smuggest I could think of. Can’t please some people.
So – as to the rest of this long and otherwise enjoyable thread, I can’t see where I’ve beat up anybody else too badly. If I have, this is an opportunity for them to say I’ve hurt them personally, and I will consider their appeals on merit (<SMUG ALERT).
As to SteveT and Baron Harkonnen, I really couldn't care less. I find their writing dull and witless and just possibly this may accurately reflect their dull and witless personalities. If they want to apologise for personally hurting me, or they start writing intelligently and entertainingly, then again, I may reconsider.
As for you, "Giggles", your hatchet-job comments about me were longer than your blog pieces, which I've generally enjoyed and never disrupted. I think you've had pops at me in a previous lifetime, right? As far as I know I've never done to you what you do to me, so I'm a bit mystified by your frankly weird compulsion to put me in my place and make me atone for my horribleness.
Looking through this all again, I'm struck by what a wealth of enjoyable comment there is here, Opinionated, informed, and lively. That you should choose to reactivate a thread that had effectively run its course and end it on such a sour note tells us much more about you than it does about me.
So go ahead, "Giggles", the last word will be yours (so don't fuck it up). Perhaps Steve and Barry would like to join the scrum as well? But in future, you three may be happier staying out of my threads and not reading my blog pieces.
(Apologies to all the commenters here who are as bored by this shit as I am.)
SteveT says
HP my writing maybe be dull but I am not doing it for a living. I come on here to have discourse on music mainly with people who have similar interests. I don’t have to defend myself at all and frankly don’t give a shit about your petty posturing as leader of the pack. I know of several people who have left this site entirely because of you and your attitudes. I ain’t going to be one of them. So I will carry on with my dull writing and defer to your greater eloquence and literary ability. Then if you could tell me where I can find on of your bestsellers I will invest in it – sure it will be worth the effort as I would imagine you reserve the sarcasm for this site only.
ianess says
Is this the same ‘giggles’ who’s had a rather nasty pop at bingo (to his bemusement) on the London Pint thread?
Sewer Robot says
Mr G’s remark on the “London Pint” thread has been misunderstood out of its context. It’s the continuation of an in joke about a duel on the “thought everyone knew that” thread..
JustB says
Is this also a joke? Cos… how? Sometimes I feel very dense.
Sewer Robot says
(*quick re-check*) looks like I’ve got my posters mixed up (you all look the same to me apart from Moose). The timing of the posts made me think it was the same dude continuing a joke.
(*backs away from thread sheepishly*)
Blue Boy says
Where is Moose?
Ahh_Bisto says
I think some people on here are forgetting the rules of Afterword Club
Rule #1: “If you’re starting to lose the argument, start correcting their grammar.”
Too many are jumping straight to Rule #47
#47a: “Use an ad hominem attack.”
#47b: “If one or either party doesn’t know what ad hominem means then opt to ‘play the man, not the ball’.
#47c: “If one or either party doesn’t like football then use the line”I’m about to get medieval on your ass”.”
#47d: “If one or either party party isn’t familiar with oeuvre of Marsellus Wallace then just starting insulting each other in whatever way works best for you both.”
#48: “Everyone else choose sides and line up in descending order of most vicariously aggrieved.”
However, in moments like these is there not a better course of action? Aren’t rules made to be broken?Rather than react to a perceived slight with the metaphorical ‘horse’s head in the bed’ post should we not just breathe deeply, count to 10, forget the words that have cut us deep and instead take to our bosom (or to the bosom of a lady friend) the words of Larry Ernest Blackmon.
“Wave your hands in the air like you don’t care”
Never were wiser words spoken. Not only does waving your hands in the air help to relieve the tension in your body (and potentially in your lady’s bosom) it also keeps your fingers well away from the keyboard.
Larry Ernest Blackmon: the prophet of the Afterword (up)
Fin59 says
What a strange twist or two, this thread has taken.
Anyway, back at the point, The Beatles are great. No question. The archetype of everything that followed.
On the other hand, If I never heard any of their music again, my life could go on, utterly undiminished.
I could not say that of Joni Mitchell or David Ruffin or Michel Petrucciani.
Elemental. To one, to all. Irrelevant. To me.
This has been about me.
Declan says
Tetchy thread, dear oh dear. Then again, I’m of an age where Beatles and Stones fans (and Liverpool and Man, Utd. fans) battled each other on a daily basis, existentially. Yes, this was the 60s, at school, in Ireland. I stayed well clear of the factions, being a simple music fan (love football too). I’ve always admired anyone who could pen a decent melody so the Beatles (with their 60 plus, I’m not anal enough to want to count them), the Stones (20-ish), the Who (12-ish), Hollies (10-ish), right down to Oasis (5-ish) and any number of OHWs(1-ish). And that’s just the pop axis. As for the differentiation to “rock”, well, less reliance on melody, more on riffs and instrumental prowess and not expecting to get on radio, but the industry still called the shots. Not a great deal of difference then tbh.
Jazz has also been a major factor for me for 40 years now (pop &co over 50) and classical, country, folk, and , well, music. Everything that’s ever been recorded vies for needle time. The Beatles were excellent, their albums still stand up, they vie for attention with Miles Davis, or Stravinsky, or Dylan, or Planxty. Just because some fans need to see everything in absolute terms is no reflection on the group at all. Isn’t it a bit like that these days anyway (“best breakfast ever” or “worst foul ever”, etc.) Best? Best ever? Who cares?
I own the albums and they get played. Because they’re good. Stravinsky and Miles too. Because they’re good. What I don’t get is the constant repackaging of the same product over and over again (mono mixes, 24-bit remastering, alternate packaging, whatever) but, y’know, it doesn’t bug me nor affect me, it’s probably there for a reason. So, music fan, me, not a Scientologist in sight. Gonna change your mind when I say Sgt Pepper is still their greatest album?
retropath2 says
Bluddy hell, so much ink and so much blood.
But bringing it up to date, who is the best Beatles tribute band? All of these acts claim so:
http://www.likethebeatles.co.uk
http://www.bootlegbeatles.com
http://www.upbeatbeatles.co.uk
http://www.upbeatbeatles.co.uk
The list goes on……
About time the experts told us.
Meanwhile, headline of my search:”Beatles tribute show coming to The Burt on March 7″
pencilsqueezer says
*Scratches head*
Oasis Quo or Elo,Elo.
ernietothecentreoftheearth says
Thing is, that is for a single album, not a run of albums.
Archie Valparaiso says
Peace and love!
niscum says
May I just say at this point that HP is NOT in any way an angry or arrogant old codger. He’s funny. Some might say brilliant. And very funny.
And he’s into Buddhism too. So, basically chilled like fuckery.
Thank you.
SteveT says
I just want to expand on that Niscum . I for one never suggested he was either angry, arrogant or even an old codger for that matter – I could include myself there for Gods sake. It’s probably got out of hand. Any vitriol wasn’t even directed at me until I weighed in. I just thought his response to Baron Harkonen was pretty rude and not even justified because there hadn’t been an attack on him in any shapes or form. It’s obviously degenerated since those early skirmishes and clearly HP doesn’t care to admit that his initial response that triggered all this off was not in any way wrong.
For record ‘It’s the music that matters’ Wow that’s deep. Since when were you writing for motivational posters?’ – I think that is pretty insulting considering nothing had been directed at HPS to warrant that response. Maybe I am reading it wrong. I don’t think so.
niscum says
Agreed.
Thank you. And may I also take this opportunity to confirm that I in no way meant to suggest that you, or indeed I, nor indeed anyone here, thinks HP is arrogant and/or bitter with life and that this sometimes seeps into his immense body of work here at AW.
That needs to be made clear.
Admittedly he can be rather cool to the touch sometimes – some might say cold – but he is always witty and assertive.
So to summarise if I may: witty, assertive and cold. Not arrogant.
SteveT says
Consensus achieved.
retropath2 says
Burt has had a trying term, and sometimes finds it difficult to fit in. His form work can be patchy, but when he puts his mind to it he shows the promise we have seen. Some of the other boys find him difficult, and he can sometimes be his own worst enemy. Provided he controls his silly tendencies and resists the temptation to play the class clown, we all here have high hopes for him, although Matron can never forgive him for the distressing incident with her roll-ons.
H.P. Saucecraft says
That the thing with the roll-ons – can we just move on? I don’t know why you have to reactivate a dead-on-its-feet thread with that tired old canard. Yes, it happened, I admitted it, and I apologised (and for the related incident with the foot powder, which I did not instigate) and matron accepted that apology, together with the replacement roll-ons. But for a Certain Faction, that’s never enough. Please take this to PMs, retropath. The fact that you still have this bee in your bonnet tells us more about you than it does about us and [That’s enough words. Ed.]
H.P. Saucecraft says
And on a personal note – retro is right about the trying time. I’m not the sort of Afterworder who brings his problems to the blog, but there’s been two blog pieces I didn’t write over the last couple of months, the subjects of which may have added an edge to my words. It happens. I’m not offering excuses or apologies, mind. Just noting.
Johnny Concheroo says
I must say it’s laudable that you don’t offload your problems on an uncaring bunch of strangers, preferring instead to sit in a darkened room, rocking gently back and forth with this spinning endlessly on the retro Garrard deck
http://i.imgur.com/wo5q4qU.jpg
H.P. Saucecraft says
I think I had that … is that the one where the second side of the album is the same as the first, only backwards?
Johnny Concheroo says
Almost. It was the single where the B-Side was backwards, even down to the printing on the label.
ernietothecentreoftheearth says
To my ears, Rod, Mick, Eric and the rest are a pretty pallid version of the blues. If the Beatles were music hall, they at least surpassed their predecessors.
Johnny Concheroo says
Disagree with that. Clapton took the electric blues to a level they had never previously reached.
“The Beano Album” in particular was a breakthrough like no other and almost single-handedly kick-started the British blues boom, which (for better or worse) evolved into 70s rock and from there into heavy rock.
ianess says
Peter Green was wonderful too – so restrained and tasteful.
Johnny Concheroo says
Green was probably the most authentic of the British blues boom guitarists*, but sadly we’ll never know how he would have developed or how far he could have taken it.
It’s fashionable to dismiss the Armani suited playboy of the 80s now, but I still think the young Clapton took the music further and into places it had never been before.
*discounting Jeff Beck, of course.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Every time JC crowbars the Beano Album into a thread Junior Wells has to give him a dollar. It’s reprehensible.
ianess says
Where is Beano band?
H.P. Saucecraft says
It’s touching, in a way. I know Johnny paid a fortune for the same copy of the Beano so he could pretend he was in the album cover.
Johnny Concheroo says
Issue #1242, cover date May 7, 1966
http://i.imgur.com/xpoyHPu.jpg
SteveT says
Peter Green was probably my favourite of the British Blues guitarists of the time – listening to his work with early Fleetwood Mac now still sounds exciting. I loved his tone which was different to Clapton/Beck.
Johnny Concheroo says
Yes, Green had the best tone and feel. Better than Clapton at the time. Those early F.Mac recordings still sound great.
bricameron says
Wasn’t The Rutles ‘All you need is cash’, Mr Saucecraft’s point?
ernietothecentreoftheearth says
Different perspectives, I suppose. I only heard all the blues bloom stuff 10 -15 years after the event. Perhaps I would have felt differently had I been there at the time ( or rather listening to stuff other than Puff the Magic Dragon). As it was, by the time I came to them the records sounded either weedy or overblown. Younger people will doubtless say the same about some of the stuff I thought was marvellous in the late 70s.
Johnny Concheroo says
That’s true. It’s often difficult to appreciate the impact a musical movement had after the event.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Or even during. Or before.
mikethep says
In both directions. If you judge the Beatles era by what you see now in old newsreels – girls in hysterics, girls clogging the streets, girls climbing all over Austin Princesses etc – you’d think the whole nation had gone nuts and spent all its time screaming. In fact life went on, and whole days went by without anybody giving the Beatles a second thought. (I might be exaggerating here.)
I think we knew at the time though – 63-65, say – that something pretty special was happening, didn’t we? (Obviously I’m addressing the olds here.) The Beatles and their ilk provided a point of consensus for the yoof in a way that nobody else had done for quite a while, not since Elvis probably. That’s probably why people react sharply to any suggestion that the Beatles weren’t quite as good or as important as they’re cracked up to be. But even then, for every Beatle or Hollie you had to put up with a Honeycomb or a Rockin’ Berry, all of whom were cracked up to be as important as the Beatles, by their record companies at any rate. (Somehow you knew that if they were on Pye they definitely weren’t important.)
I seem to have lost my thread…anybody seen my Horlicks?
Bingo Little says
I think that’s a really good, balanced comment.
retropath2 says
Musical movements? I blame that Ron Geesin, about 1.45
Johnny Concheroo says
Good post Mike. It reminded me of David Hepworth’s great blog piece
“Why The Beatles are underrated”
http://www.davidhepworth.com/feature.html
H.P. Saucecraft says
http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t642/burtkocain/hepworth_zpsurojcdno.jpg
Johnny Concheroo says
Digging those Photoshop skills. Do they also have the full range of Adobe products at that Eel market of yours?
H.P. Saucecraft says
Yes. I use a sophisticated suite of filters in Photoshop to achieve an authentically crap “Paint” effect.
Johnny Concheroo says
I just had to share this recent Twitter exchange between David Hepworth and some bloke:
Some Bloke: I don’t like the Beatles. Don’t think they were/are as great as its made out. There, I’ve said it
David Hepworth: Bless
H.P. Saucecraft says
“Bless”! That is just so brilliant! Only Hepworth – the Master – can invest such a hackneyed term with such perfect poise and withering accuracy! Er – bit of a Beatles fan, then, is he?
Johnny Concheroo says
Don’t tell me you didn’t read this (don’t know why I bother etc)
“Why The Beatles are underrated”
http://www.davidhepworth.com/feature.html
H.P. Saucecraft says
We seem to be caught in some kind of recurrence loop, Johnny. The internet comment equivalent of the Möbius strip. I see no way out unless we can break it using this Chronic Hysteresis penknife! Here; you keep a lookout while I prise back the corner of this ventilation shaft grille …
Johnny Concheroo says
I’m just waffling to try and help you get more posts than the legendary Lionel Blair thread
H.P. Saucecraft says
I like to think we all learned something from that thread. Mainly, that Jeff Beck is lighter on his feet than Lionel Blair.
Johnny Concheroo says
But I daresay Lionel has a better knowledge of what’s in his flower beds than Jeff
Junior Wells says
I expect a few might have an idea what is in Lionel’s flower bed.
H.P. Saucecraft says
http://i1318.photobucket.com/albums/t642/burtkocain/Conchita-Wurst_2919615k_zps3ggyxpm4.jpg
mikethep says
The Beatles are good, but they’re no Ray Noble…
Just found this: http://jot101ok.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/the-beatles-where-do-they-go-from-here.html
Noteworthy not just for the above outstanding judgment from Pete Murray (there are others), but also for the most outrageous lie from Jimmy Savile – that he and the ‘boys’ used to work together on the docks in Liverpool, being light-fingered with the shipping crates. Did anybody call him out on this, I wonder?
Johnny Concheroo says
Great stuff.
Maureen Cleave it was who did the infamous “Bigger than Jesus” Lennon interview for (I think) the London Evening Standard.
It went unremarked in Britain of course but months later blew up into the biggest thing since Ben Hur in America.
Johnny Concheroo says
Al Bowlly’s in heaven and I’m in limbo now
And what a bizarre, esoteric quote from Pete Murray.
Ray Noble was from a different era and working in an entirely different world of music to the Beatles. Gotta love his work with Al Bowlly though
H.P. Saucecraft says
In the interests of objective fairness, I’ve just cued up the latest
marketing scamBeatles release, the re-whatsitted “1” compilation. I was quite prepared to eat my words/hat/humble pie on a fresh audition.Really I was.
Giggles says
I’m Sorry. I over-reacted because I was stressed and pissed ( for really boring adult reasons).
No excuse and I don’t expect any understanding.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Dude!
Giggles says
Thanks.
H.P. Saucecraft says
The stupid thing is, if we were all in a pub or something together, we’d all have a great time, all of us. These little frictions get out of proportion on the internet.
ianess says
You’re barred, matey. Sling yer hook.
Sewer Robot says
Unless “What’s an arpeggio?” came up as a question in the pub quiz – then it would all kick off…
mikethep says
Which was a feature of the short-lived Afterword Facebook lifeboat, which you passed on as I recall. Because we were mostly posting under our real names, with real photos, intercourse was less fractious, with very few spats. Or have I got out the rose-coloured glasses again?
Anyway, even though we’ve never met, the likes of KFD or Hannah feel like friends, and it’s unlikely I’d ever feel like getting fractious with them, even if they proved unsound on the subject of Spooky Tooth.
In fact, I’d value a cut-out-‘n’-keep guide to who’s who. I’m friends with quite a few folk on FB and I can’t remember who they are in the real Afterworld.
Johnny Concheroo says
Intercourse is always fractious round at my house.
It starts with begging and it usually ends in tears.
ianess says
Better than the other way round.
Johnny Concheroo says
How true that is.
H.P. Saucecraft says
UP!!! – Brilliant, Ian.
mikethep says
You might enjoy this, @hpsaucecraft…three jokers messing about with Beatles music. For three whole hours.
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/take_a_trip_to_beatles_hell_with_members_of_negativland_and_the_church_of_t
mikethep says
Sigh…
@h-p-saucecraft
H.P. Saucecraft says
I’ve been busy helping my intern curate the Bono/Twat thread, @mikethep.
Thank you for the Beatles-related link. I have previewed it and find it baffling.
deramdaze says
Just caught the first bit of ‘The Nation’s Favourite Beatles Songs’ (or something like that) before viewing it properly sometime this week.
Based on the ‘1’ track listing presumably, last, at no. 27, is the sublime ‘The Ballad of John & Yoko’!
Civilians, eh.
Did they ask the same people who voted for Cameron at the last election?
Don’t hold out much hope for my beloved ‘Lady Madonna’.
mikethep says
Probably just as well.
deramdaze says
I was using my very useful, and almost infallible, ‘if the Americans don’t reckon it, it has be good’ card.
Never fails (see ‘the Blues’, Syd-era Pink Floyd, pre-Tommy Who, 60s Kinks).
‘Lady Madonna’ only got to no. 4 on Billboard and, despite getting to no. 1 absolutely everywhere, ‘The Ballad of John & Yoko’ struggled to get to no. 8.
Ipto facto…..they’re the ones for me, Squire!