Originally Posted by Comus
My 1,500 post so I'll make this one special just for you.
Let me make a few guidelines clear:
1. This thread is about bands you hate that everyone else loves
2. The thread is thus subjective
3. All music is subjective
4. As such words such as "listenable" are subjective
5. Disliking the Beatles =/= not knowing anything about music
The Beatles influence is undeniable, but when put up against say Muddy Waters, or any of the Delta Blues greats that inspired the early-mid-60's British blues movement it's virtually nil. Beatles inspired countless bland pop groups, and still does. These blues guitarists directly inspired bands and players such as the Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, Jethro Tull, Peter Green, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, who's collective influence surpasses the Beatles tenfold in terms of rock music.
If you want to listen to bland, boring poppy rock, why not just turn on your radio? You're kidding yourself if you think that listening to the Beatles is any different than your regular pop band of today, it's all the same, the Beatles are just more musically acceptable. My point that they were not about the music is valid, they got famous for portraying an image. Girls loved them, guys wanted to be them, and that old cliche.
I remember watching a Robert Plant and John Bonham interview recorded about 1970 where they were talking about the Beatles. Bonham said something along the lines of "People went there to look at them, not to hear them play, I went to a beatles concert to look at them too." They then went on to say that their music was all about the music, and after that it got a bit more boring, but the point stands. And what greater perspective than right there? Plant and Bonham both said it wasn't the Beatles fault, it was just the times, people needed something to look at and not listen to.
Modern rock today would be the same without the beatles, of that I have no doubt, but modern pop wouldn't. People immediately assume that every british band to come out from the sixties did so because of the Beatles, I mean come on what? Beatles released their first albums when? 1963? By that time the underground scene was all about the Blues The Rolling Stones had formed, and the Pretty Things were well on their way. This had nothing to do with the Beatles, but everything to do with the likes of Howling Wolf, Jimmy Reed, Willie Dixon and the likes.
The argument that "without the beatles a lot of the bands you listen to wouldn't exist" is utter rubbish. Come back when you change "without the beatles" to "without the delta blues". You clearly have no clue about the true influences. We're talking about rock here, hard gritty, filthy rock. What about Chuck Berry? He was shredding it half a decade before the Beatles, what about Buddy Holly and the Crickets? The Shadows (they were even british!) What about Little Richard? He had already gone gospel for a short time before the Beatles had even formed!
Now that your point is totally and utterly moot. What about you? The moment anyone, in a thread totally unrelated to you, talks bad about a band you like, your immediate reaction is to launch personal attacks. To be quite honest that type of behaviour is not really the kind of thing we want from a moderator. You more than anyone should know that everyone is entitled to their opinions, and that it's no crime state them. You've said yourself that I've done nothing worthy of even an infraction, but I'd quite argue you have. You constantly step out of line, yet you do exactly what you chastise others for doing.
When you bash a band it's "expressing my opinion" when someone else bashes a band it's "ignorant".
That is all.
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