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Bands not influenced by the Beatles?

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I saw having an enjoyable joshing session yesterday with @bartleby in which he expressed the view that no modern band isn’t influenced by the Beatles in some way. Obviously I argued manfully but he pretty much got the better of me. Help me out. Led Zeppelin? Gryphon?

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  1. Led Zeppelin a modern band? I don’t see a huge amount of influence in the music of today from The Beatles. Kraftwerk much more so (and Take That).

  3. I’d agree Kraftwerk. Also Beefheart until Moonbeams. But arguably there’s not that much in the popular canon that doesn’t follow patterns for songwriting, middle 8, chord structure, tonality or use of interval, subject matter, sonic experimentation etc that wasn’t first introduced to rock’n’pop music by the Beatles.

    Which is not to say that things haven’t been done better since, but as I argued on the PS I Love You thread, where this shitter of a song led (in particular its daring use of the 7th chord in returning to the tonic), others followed – Lola, Lady Madonna, Gimme Shelter and Suffragette City to name just four.

    • Structure / middle eights etc aren’t a Beatles thing, surely?

      Re. chord progressions, I think not very many people at all follow the Beatles example. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds has that chromatic A progression, resolves into D, then D minor, from there into B flat, then into G and uses the choral Aaaaah on D as a pivot back into A. Whereas the vast majority of everybody else goes E – A – B x 40 😉

      • Find me a pre-Beatles middle 8 in rock’n’pop that doesn’t go to the 5th note, in the way that say Eddie Cochran or Buddy Holly (always) do – that’s the change. The Beatles went to every single point of the chromatic scale. Nobody else had done this, that’s all.

          • And yet almost all popular music since eschews the rules of 50s popular music and follows the patterns, structures and intervals first employed by the Beatles. That’s the influence.

            • I haven’t listened to almost all modern popular music and have no way of knowing whether you’re right. Maybe. I do know that most of what I listen to doesn’t sound much like the Beatles to me, mind.

              • In the same way that Lola, Suffragette City and Gimme Shelter don’t sound like the Beatles. But it was Macca who (presumably) reached into music hall chord intervals to find a pattern incorporating a run through the 7th note to get to the root, the essence of what makes those songs work. He didn’t get that from ‘rock’ or ‘pop’ music and he was the first to do it. That’s the influence, not whether people are making songs that sound like Sowing the Seeds of Love or have callipoe samples or piccolo trumpet solos.

                • I feel like that’s stretching the definition of influence a bit far, but OK! Because how far back do you want to go? Maybe it’s music hall that’s the real influence here… or Austrian romanticism?

                  (Of course it’s not music hall or Mendelssohn that’s a huge influence on pop because modern songwriters won’t have heard them or consciously delved into their music looking for ideas. Same goes for the Beatles in my view. If they’re an influence on modern pop, they’re a distant ur-influence. The one idea that seems hardest to make stick on here sometimes is that most people don’t listen to the BBH at all, ever. Yes, Sgt Pepper is at number 1, but everyone who bought it already owned it on two formats!)

                  • It’s a gradual thing, spreading out from stuff that Macca and Lennon either first did on record or were the first to incorporate from influences outside of antecedents like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, The Everly Brothers etc.

                    Much like the tradition of the blues, where you can see the expanding legacy develop back from Robert Jounson to Muddy Waters, BB, Albert and Freddy King, Buddy Guy through to Clapton, SRV and so on.

                    No doubt some of what they did was novel, other bits were ‘borrowed’ from music hall, light opera, Lieber & Stoller, jazz, cinema soundtracks, crooners and so on. But in doing so, they widened the possibilities for popular music, in particular in the use off melody, harmony and rhythm in a ways that nobody else has, before or since.

      • Also “patterns for songwriting” “subject matter” “sonic experimentation” – I realise we’re in Da Church Of Beatles Worship here, but LennMac didn’t spring ab ovo – they studied the greats and were only to happy to acknowledge the fact. And that’s not to take away from their supreme feats of songwriting and GM sonic experimentation btw..

          • The “worship” remark was more about the number of posts on the site of late with “Beatles” in the title. It’s getting to the stage where I’d like to suggest changing their nickname from the “HJH” to “OBAA”…

    • Re. sonic experimentation I’d argue that while the Beatles did interesting things, the whole history of pop is the history of innovation in sound design. From Chuck letting his amp break up to Sam Phillips inventing slapback delay to Dave Davies slicing his speaker cone to the Wall of Sound to the first DJ scratching and cross fading on two turntables to the invention of the AKAI MPC sampler, it’s all been about sonic innovation, and the Beatles weren’t first or even biggest to the punch IMO.

      I also tend to think the Beatles wouldn’t have been so keen on new soundworlds if it weren’t for Brian Wilson, tbh. That “dig in and experiment” thing came at least as much from the big US producers as it did from Abbey Road.

      • Beatles v Beach Boys? It depends where you start.

        Ticket To Ride is often thought of as the point at which The Beatles began to be sonically adventurous. Recorded 15th Feb 1965, its peculiar stop/start rhythm, heavy guitar and imaginative closing coda are all lauded as innovations.

        California Girls is identified as Brian Wilson’s epiphany, an adventure in chromatics, its introduction is almost a mini-symphonic prelude. That record was recorded between 6th April & 4th June 1965.

        Both songs were inspired by the respective writer’s introduction to LSD.

        The respective albums, Help! finished recording 17th June & Summer Days, Summer Nights 4th June. Help!, of course, has Yesterday with its orchestration, a bassless I’ve Seen A Face & You’ve Got Hide Your Love Away. Side two of Summer Days can be seen as a rehearsal for Pet Sounds. Both Let Him Run Wild and You’re So Good To Me would be very snug on Pet Sounds.

        • But tbh I wasn’t doing “Beatles v Beach Boys”. I was just trying to suggest that the idea that the Beatles were the root and fountain of pop’s entire spirit of sonic experimentation isn’t true: sonic experimentation is baked into pop’s DNA. There’s no movement in 20th C. popular song – from field blues recordings through Les Paul and so on down – that *hasn’t* relied on brand new, game-changing tech and techniques in the hands of accidental visionaries.

          • John Lennon and George Harrison were introduced to LSD in ‘the Spring’ of 1965 at a dinner party by a dentist. He spiked their drinks, along with Cynthia and Patti Boyd.

    • In terms of the modern popular canon, bands appear to have become increasingly irrelevant over the past couple of decades. Many of the artists who have taken their place seem, to my ears at least, to take more from electronic music and pre-Beatles R and B, Gospel and even doo wop than the Beatles.

  4. The NME etc. airbrushed The Beatles out of history for about 20 years, didn’t they, so I’m not sure there was too much influence in the dire 1980s … and it showed.
    2017 – The Beatles are at no. 1 in the album chart, and no one has seen a copy of the NME since God was a boy.

  5. Depends what you mean by band. Guitar/bass/drums?

    Hard to find the Beatles’ influence in Frank Ocean or Kendrick Lamar tbh, though @tiggerlion might argue otherwise. I don’t think there’s much of a Beatles influence in very much extreme metal or minimal techno.

  7. Over my porridge this morning I calculated that I’ve bought 18 dub reggae albums this year. Not a Beatles expert, but I don’t hear their influence much in those grooves…

    • Which of the dub albums you’ve acquired this year have scored highest on the Robotometer, Sewer?

      Did you pick up King Tubby and the Aggrovators’ “Dubbing in the Backyard” set on Pressure Sounds? Or Lloyd Parks’s “Time A Go Dread”?

      • Y’see, Sir Duke, the reason I was tallying my dub was to try to convince myself to slow down a bit and now you’ve gone and put two more albums on my shopping list! (I had my eye on that Lloyd Parks, so cheers, btw).
        I did start the year as a relative novice and the albums I’m grooving to mostlytimes would be Aswad’s New Chapter Of Dub as recommended by Mr Tiggs, Junjo Presents Big Showdown as recommended by Leicester Bangs and Prince Jammy/Sly & Robbie’s Uhuru In Dub. But I feel I’ve only scratched* the surface..
        (*see what he did there…?)

            • I’ve just come out the end of a ‘discomix’ fixation. These are usually but by no means always the normal roots seven-inch with a deejay or dub version tacked on the end in order to make it into an extended 12-inch version.

              Island and Virgin have both released superb discomix compilations but my favourite is the Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry collection, ‘Disco Devil’. The full 8-minute discomix of the title track (a version of Max Romeo’s ‘Chase The Devil’) is just exquisite, an almost psychedelic mix of roots, dub and deejay all on one track. You get Scratch singing, an amazing dub version and then Prince Jazzbo toasting on the outro (which is basically ‘Croaking Lizard’ off ‘Super Ape’ if you know it). It’s fantastic. It’s so fantastic. Listening to it, you can virtually smell the smoke and taste the rum in the Black Ark.

        • Actually, Sewer, I mentioned those two albums precisely because I haven’t bought them myself – I wanted to know what you thought of them if you’d acquired them!

          But if I had to add a few more items to your list of dub albums to investigate, I might mention the following five-star 24-carat copper-bottomed heavyweight winners:

          “Dub I” – Jimmy Radway and the Fe Me All-Stars
          “Freedom Sounds in Dub” – King Tubby & Soul Syndicate
          “Jah Life in Dub” – Scientist
          “Jesus Dread” – Yabby Yu (not all dub, but all essential)
          “Warrika Dub” – Rico
          “Harry Mudie Meet King Tubby’s in Dub Conference Vol. 1”
          “In Lion Dub Style” – Prince Jammy’s
          “El Rockers” – Augustus Pablo
          “Dub Landing” Vol.1 and/or Vol.2 – Scientist
          “Return to Umoja” – Various Artists
          “Raiders of the Lost Dub” – Sly & Robbie
          “LKJ in Dub Vol.3”

          Good hunting!

            • Hi Tigger,

              1. Just a quick word to thank for your tip regarding “Hollie Cook in Dub,” which I purchased on your recommendation and like a lot. Although the album’s from 2012, it has that lovely warm 1970s sound to it. The dubs are upful and bright. Surely the best record made by someone connected to the Sex Pistols since “Metal Box”!

              2. I see that those nice people at Digikiller are reissuing “Kaya Dub” (1975), the first dub album ever to be pressed and released in the US. Having said that, the album wasn’t actually recorded in the US – they just seem to have got their hands on a bunch of old Tubby’s and Randy’s tracks from Jamaica which had been lying around somewhere (Note: this “Kaya Dub” album has nothing to do with the Aggrovators’ “Kaya Dub” set, which is basically a sister album to Bob Marley’s “Kaya”.

              http://dkr.bigcartel.com/product/kaya-dub-lp-kaya

  9. To borrow from the Life of Brian, what have The Beatles ever done for us? I’m aware of their ‘pioneering’ use of studio techniques and their inventive songwriting, but it seems to suggest that without them every song would still have a I – IV – V chord progression etc.

  10. New Order seem a guitar band pretty much uninfluenced by the Beatles. Hard to see their stamp on Blue Monday. As were the Pogues. As were Sonic Youth. And the Pet Shop Boys. And The Fall. And Public Enemy. @deramdaze as usual the 80s getting an undeserved kicking.

    • Revolver is one of Chuck D’s favourite albums. I can’t hear any link. Tomorrow Never Knows as proto-Bomb Squad? Strrreeee—-eeeeeee—–tttttch!

      The Fall’s cover of A Day in the Life is great (see one of mini’s CBVD). But beyond that, again, ya strugglin’.

        • The Dead must have quite liked the Beatles’ music, at least, as they performed all the following nine songs live in concert:

          Blackbird
          Day Tripper
          Hey Jude (about 30 times in the 1985-1990 period)
          I Want To Tell You
          Revolution
          Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
          Rain
          Tomorrow Never Knows
          Why Don’t We Do It In The Road

          In addition:

          1. The Jerry Garcia Band often played “Dear Prudence”. they occasionally did “Eleanor Rigby”, too.
          2. “I’ve Just Seen A Face” appears on a written setlist of a 1969 Grateful Dead show, but no recording of the performance exists.
          3. Paperback Writer was performed by the Grateful Dead during a soundcheck in 1995. They did not perform the song during a show, though.

          • Both Syd and Jerry Garcia were into The Beatles. If liking them was part of their overall inspiration to go on their own creative musical journey, if not overtly referencing them stylistically, one would suggest that this is indeed an influence. Dig down deep enough into the root ball of rock/pop and there they are – a big hairy knobbly dangly thing with infinite tendrils called THE BEATLES.

            • 1. What is it with this sudden gonad fixation? @black-celebration, you should be ashamed of yourself!
              2. As well as being genuine innovators who left behind an impressive body of work, OBAA are also superfamous, so – as mentioned elsewhere – many acts reacted to the oppressive blanket of their influence by defiantly wriggling out from underneath its weight (which is, itself, a form of influence) and those who have adopted their ideas should have no trouble tracing them back to the source – so you don’t have situations like that time The Hives said, straight-faced, that they’d never heard of Iggy Pop when they started making music…

          • I get that the Dead liked the HJHMs, but does covering them counts as influence ? They still seemed miles away in their own world.
            But then if it’s ‘Rock’ influenced by the Beatles, you’re excluding Country, Bluegrass, Jazz, Classical etc., so for mine the Dead are marginal at best.

            • It’s an interesting point but in the Tubby Hayes book Simon Spillet tells of how jazzers were forced to start doing albums of popular themes and pop workouts due to the tidal wave caused by the 60s pop groups effectively wiping out their audience, and many of their venues. An influence, if not especially benign!

  15. Here’s a couple of current newish Americana bands where there seems to be more influence from people like Bob Wills and Hank Williams than the Beatles, Hot Club of Cowtown and Chatham County Line.
    Do they count?

  17. Thompson Twins, Howard Jones, Visage, The Human League, heaven 17, even Tears for Fears? I suppose there was a general “reaction” against the 4 piece “band” with guitars in the 80’s. As mentioned elsewhere I’ll leave it to Bingos memory to think about hip hop etc……..

    I do however acknowledge that without The Beatles The Jam and Del Amitri among many others may not have happened. It does make me wonder what would have happened if John, Paul and George (Martin) hadn’t got together. Would someone else have been the innovators?

    • Of course. All the Beatles influences were there waiting for someone. Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, music hall etc. They were just first.

  18. Surely the primary influence of the Beatles is that a band consists of a self- sufficient group of musicians, mostly writing their own stuff. Their template virtually killed off bands that couldn’t write their own songs, and others had to adopt this or die (the Stones being a good example). Every significant band in the pop/rock era has followed this example, other than perhaps novelty acts brought together to perform, say, specific songs by songwriting teams.

    Their influence is the very structure of what we expect from a group.

    • Well, what we expect of a rock group, anyway. The limiting and unhelpful insistence on writing your own stuff is far less important today, which might go some way to explain why the “band” is less and less relevant as a concept at this point, as Ernie says.

      • Yes. This. The ‘writing your own stuff’ meme is just like ‘wearing sunglasses’. Cool but a bit rubbish. It should be about good songs that speak to the listener. The rest is just daft.

  20. I love the Beatles dearly. But none of the ‘musically clever’ stuff they did is any more advanced than say, what Nelson Riddle did with Sinatra, or Miles Davis with Gil Evans. All of this stuff was pop done with a classically trained producer-arranger. George Martin deserves more credit. He’s the genius. He merged the deep musical knowledge with experimentation.

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