The Official "Music Was So Much Better in the Glorious Days of Yore" Thread

[blastingas10]

He made a point, so I wanted him to prove it. I NEVER said they were THE FIRST. I never thought they were the absolute first. I said they were one of the first, which they were. Simple as that. He named one person that did it first. As for Phil Spector, his earliest uses of the wall of sound were with groups like the crystals and ronettes, female vocal groups, not rock groups.

[Janszoon]

Originally Posted by blastingas10

Yes, Buddy Holly did it in the late fifties. My point was The Beatles were one of the first to add those instruments to rock n roll, thats a fact. Not the first, but one of the first. I havent modified my points. I never said they were the first. He proved that The Beatles werent the first to do it, and that never was my claim.

So the Beatles most important innovation was repeating something Buddy Holly did seven years earlier which, even when he did it, was hardly revolutionary as it was something that had been done in pop music since at least the 1940s. Glad we got that straightened out!

[midnight rain]

Originally Posted by blastingas10

He made a point, so I wanted him to prove it. I NEVER said they were THE FIRST. I never thought they were the absolute first. I said they were one of the first, which they were. Simple as that.

A wise man told me don't argue with fools
Cause people from a distance can't tell who is who

[blastingas10]

Originally Posted by Janszoon

So the Beatles most important innovation was repeating something Buddy Holly did seven years earlier which, even when he did it, was hardly revolutionary as it was something that had been done in pop music since at least the 1940s. Glad we got that straightened out!

I never said pop music, which is a very broad term that can cover so many types of music. I said rock n roll. I never said that was their most important innovation. It was one part of their innovations. Listen to any Buddy Holly song, then listen to Tomorrow never knows, its obvious that The Beatles came a long way from the music that Buddy Holly was making.

[Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra]

Firstly, Rock N' Roll is pop. From it's beginning it was intended to be a simple, blatant, accessible music. In fact, it was much more simple than jazz(even of the poppy swing variety), and that's not a statement of quality.

Secondly, The Beatles were not that ahead of times. They just applied a thousand layers of polish to simple songs. Structurally, the majority of their work was the same straight forward guitar rock they started with. No extravagant solos, generally short song lengths, fleshed out harmonized vocals, easygoing fan pleasingly ambiguous attitude

If you really want something groundbreaking from the 60s that shows cutting edge experimentation you pick up Sun Ra's 'Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra Vol. 1' that came out the exact same year as Rubber Soul. You may not like it, then again it's not pop music.

Thirdly, the Jazz/Blues comment was racist, and really unfound. Believe it or not, there is quite a lot of black youth still oriented in both genres. Blues especially in the sense of, who are you to say you 'understand' blues? I don't think ANY youth in modern day America could truly understand blues. Enjoy it, yes. Be a history snob about it, yes. Understand it? **** no.

Fourthly, I've seen this Beatles argument 180000000000000000000 times before, and even have been in it. There's no point in continuing it. Becoming the only thing that Janzsoon does that bothers me.

Fifthly, BlastingGas is showing a huge double standard by seemingly only liking pop music but then being offended that the Beatles are pop because it's pissing on their "groundbreakingly experimental genius", and after ****ting on truly experimental cutting edge music.

[Janszoon]

Originally Posted by Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra

Fourthly, I've seen this Beatles argument 180000000000000000000 times before, and even have been in it. There's no point in continuing it. Becoming the only thing that Janzsoon does that bothers me.

Sorry, I actually find it fairly entertaining.

[blastingas10]

First of all, nobody said that they understand the blues. Where did you get that? I am speaking from personal experience when I say that the Black youth doesnt know anything about the blues. I come from a big city with a big percent of blacks in it. I never knew one that knew anything about the blues. They are all gangster wannabes and no matter where I go, the majority of the black youth has that same gangster persona. I dont know if Ive ever met a young black person that had any appreciation for the blues or jazz. But I havent met all the black people in the world. Obviously there have to be some.

Secondly, I only took offense to the term "pop" because I am so accustomed to seeing it being used as a derogatory term to describe bad music. Pop music was once good, today it is crap. I don't like the term, it's too broad. Whatever is popular can be called pop.

Let me know when electronic music influences the world as much as The Beatles did.

Im sure you all will insist that The Velvet Underground were Sooo much more innovative than The Beatles. I guess you choose to ignore songs like sunday morning, which is just as poppy as most Beatles songs.

Yes, lots of these technical elements were already present in music before the Beatles got around to them. But it took the Beatles, and nobody else, to make The People aware of these elements. It took the Beatles to make people believe pop music was more than just a form of shallow, temporary entertainment - here today, gone tomorrow. And it took the Beatles to make people believe that music could actually change the world.

[someonecompletelyrandom]

Originally Posted by Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra

Secondly, The Beatles were not that ahead of times. They just applied a thousand layers of polish to simple songs. Structurally, the majority of their work was the same straight forward guitar rock they started with. No extravagant solos, generally short song lengths, fleshed out harmonized vocals, easygoing fan pleasingly ambiguous attitude

You can't forget the work that they did later in studio recordings. Sure they weren't the first to experiment with production techniques, but they were the first with a large enough audience to make it as influential as it ended up being.

[Howard the Duck]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

[blastingas10]

Originally Posted by Conan

You can't forget the work that they did later in studio recordings. Sure they weren't the first to experiment with production techniques, but they were the first with a large enough audience to make it as influential as it ended up being.

Musically, they popularized backward masking, close miking of acoustic instruments, backwards guitar solos and automatic double-tracking



A John Lennon composition written for the A Hard Day’s Night album, “I’ll Be Back” is the first clue of the genius for musical composition the band would develop. Modulating between major and minor keys–virtually key-shifting as only done in classical works–this song ignores traditional compositional convention by having two bridges, while lacking a chorus entirely.* Additionally, the fade-out ending arrives half a verse early, creating a visceral response in listeners that underscores the story-line. Music journalist Robert Sandall wrote in Mojo Magazine: “‘I’ll Be Back’ was the early Beatles at their most prophetic.* Their grasp of how to color arrangements in darker or more muted tones foreshadowed an inner journey they eventually undertook in the next three albums.”* By all musical and artistic standards, this song is nothing short of pure creative genius.



Tomorrow Never Knows,” the last track on the highly acclaimed Revolver album, marks a turning point in both pop music and well as the Beatles’ blossoming creativity. Based on John’s experience reading the Timothy Leary book, The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, this song is technically experimental beyond anything ever attempted in popular music, utilizing a number of techniques never before recorded. Using automatic double tracking (ADT) to double John’s vocals (which were then sent through a Leslie rotating speaker to create a mystical effect), clever tape “loops” designed by Paul (for additional mystical effect), an Indian-inspired modal music structure created my Lennon, it is all held together by a noticeably irregular drum pattern demonstrating Ringo’s rhythmic genius. And if that weren’t enough, “Tomorrow Never Knows” is structurally restricted to just one chord. This song breaks all established convention regarding musical composition, what a song should sound like, and how a song should be recorded–thus marking the inception of “experimental” music