Neapolitan

I disagree that the "Classical" composers were the greatest, the greatest composer when considering Art Music was during the Baroque period: J.S. Bach. Maybe most (or some) people feel the greatest composers were from the Classical period because of Mozart and Beethoven, and maybe that harkens back to what you said "People feel security in going with what they are told rather than daring to actually question something." Most people if asked who was the greatest composer will undoubtedly say Mozart.

The idea The Beatles will be remembered as the Beethoven of their time is something I've heard before - a few times actually. The last time I heard it was a few days ago when my friend brought up while talking about music. It was not my own observation but there are some thing I like to think about and wonder how possible (or true) such a statement is. It would be interesting (but impossible) to know what music is appreciated in the future. I guess people say stuff like that because of the momentum of people enjoying Beatles' music has continue now but there is always a possible of it dieing out because of various reasons. You can be big-headed, and say, “Yeah, The Beatles will be remembered and endeared by music fans a 100 years from now.” But as soon as you’ve said that, you think, “You know, they're lucky if they last three generations.”

The comparison was not between the structural similarities of a composition (e.g. a symphony) and a pop song. It's how popular they are and the contributions they made, the impacted they had on music in their own time and generations afterwards. It's amazing to me how many artist and bands have done cover-songs of The Beatles and the list is impressive. But then again I guess there are people who don't appreciate The Beatles and in turn wouldn't give any credibility to Rock bands, Pop artist, orchestras, Jazz musicians etc. doing covers of Beatles songs.

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