Dotoar

Ok, first of all:

One does not exclude the other. They were geniuses within the pop music paradigm, and thus not comparable to classical musicians. You wouldn't compare Galileo with Erik Wallenberg (the inventor of Tetra-pak), would you?

And further on, with all the obvious Beatles-hatred on this forum in mind; It all seems to have its roots not in the music itself or even the four dudes in the band, but in its critical acclaim, and that's just downright nutty. Even in this thread there are already several of you that openly state how you hate/dislike/whatever them because they are overrated, not to mention the multitude of other threads displaying the same logic (or lack thereof). What's up with that? I can certainly understand why one don't wanna listen to "Strawberry fields" for the gazillionth time, I even understand why one doesn't like the music in the first place, but what I do not understand is why someone would dismiss their musical and cultural importance as well as the musical and artistic value in their output. I myself hardly ever listen to them anymore although they are and will always be my favourite band of all time, not least because they were the ones who got me into music altogether, but that's just because I don't really 'need' to anymore.

For one thing, they were groundbreaking, like it or not, but not necessarily in the field of originality altogether but in the field of originality within the pop music paradigm. If you listen chronologically to their discography you will encounter something truly rare for a pop band, namely development. Even the earliest records show progress, maybe bar "Beatles for sale", in relation to the predecessor, be it songwriting, lyrical content or instrumentation. It does not matter who was first with the sitar or the diminished chord; what matters is who could put it to good use within a given format, and few acts have done that so successfully as the Beatles. Contemporary bands like Kinks, Who, Zombies and Stones sure had their own groundbreaking gimmicks on their own which the Beatles never had the chance of pulling off, and rightly so. Zombies, for example, were arguably surpassing Beatles in 1964 with their surprisingly complicated pseudo-baroque songwriting and arrangements, and Stones originated the blues rock which the Beatles most likely wouldn't have pulled off convincingly (and whose importance I acknowledge but don't care much for since I don't like blues).

But none of these bands had the sheer scope and versatility the Beatles had. They did almost everything and they did it good, all for the sake of artistic creativity. Remember how they sacrified touring for exactly that reason in 1966; How many bands would do that as determined as they did? Such stunts speak volumes about them as a visionary band. Or the ultimate breakup in 1970 when they still were at the peak of musicality and artistry? Or the decision to release a plain white album, twice the length of an ordinary album and still come out with winners in 1968? And we haven't even nudged the subject of the influence of "Sgt. Pepper" on the whole prog and artrock movement to come. And anyone dismissing them on the premise of 'datedness' or anything, must remember that all of their inventions, or popularization of inventions, were unheard of at the time.

Of course, one must remain cool-headed and take their obvious flaws in account as well. A metalhead or an avantgarde fogey probably have little appreciation for their music, they were never instrumental virtuosos and they probably have a quite a lot of songs which could be regarded as silly but that's where the personal preferences set in and they are simply not valid in discussions like this.

That was long, but what I'm trying to get across is that eliticism is stupid whenever it targets musical phenomena within contexts they were never part of in the first place. So, if we must compare Beatles with Bach and Stravinsky, then we must do the same with Stones. And their orchestral maneuvers were even way below the Beatles, weren't they?

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