Rainard Jalen

Good grief. You made so many overbloated claims in that post I don't even know where to begin, we'd be writing replies the size of essays. Let's start here. Not direct imitations of anything, all hybrids. What a load of utter nonsense. I can barely believe you said that, and question whether or not you've even listened to The White Album and Abbey Road. The former is intentional imitations the whole way through, right up to Revolution 9, a pathetic imitation of the avant garde that had been doing the same thing 2 years earlier. Then there's Abbey Road. Have you ever listened to Maxwell's Silver Hammer, for example? It's not even rock, for heaven's sake. It's music hall. It sounds RETRO by 1969's standards. What about Oh Darling? It sounds like a 50s Doo Wop ballad. The faux-conceptual faux-opera on the second side also is just an imitation of what the Kinks, The Who and Zappa had been doing earlier on in the period.

When everybody else was doing long suites, they were still doing 3 and a half minute ditties a la 40s/50s music hall and Vaudeville. The most innovative band of the rock era? They basically were hardly even PART of the rock era.

Nah, you know what, screw it. I'm not well at the moment and I certainly haven't got the energy to reply to a bunch of clasp-at-straws statements with no foundation whatsoever. I mean, for heaven's sake, if you'd even HEARD Freak Out! and other early Zappa, for one, you would never have been able to make a claim like there'd be no prog without Sgt Pepper or the Beatles.

Also you're OBSESSED with bringing up the whole "mixing styles is not unoriginal" stuff. I never claimed it was unoriginal. What I'm saying is that they were NOT fusing styles or genres together. They simply were not. Unless you consider fusing styles together taking the popular forms of the moment and turning it into pop. That's about the extent of their fusion/merging/hybridisation. Plus fusing a style together would involve creating a style and playing it consistently and over the course of at least one record. The Beatles did nothing of the sort. Their last two albums are all OVER the place in terms of ideas. They just took any form/genre and played it themselves, shifting from song to song. That was it. Yes, it's VERY enjoyable to listen to, but it is NOT cutting-edge innovation by any idiot's standards.

Whatever. I can't be arsed anymore. I just cannot believe people will still dare to give the Beatles more importance as innovators than those who were really changing the face of music altogether. Hell, there wouldn't even have BEEN a Sgt Pepper if it wasn't for Pet Sounds. And Brian Wilson produced that whole album himself. The genius of the instrumental arrangements on Sgt Pepper is the work of Martin. I don't believe ONE instrument is played by any of the Beatles on She's Leaving Home, for example.





EDIT: PS there's no point continuing unless we do it point by point, it's silly to just battle seventeen thousand counter claims at once. Also, bear in mind that I don't actually enjoy debating a negative point on the Beatles as they are my favourite band.