50 replies to this topic

[voteronniegibbs]

they've done a couple of catchy tunes

what's the one that goes something like

" hey youoooo, donner kebab"

I like that one

[Ullman]

I know a lot of people don't like them, but they did make a major contribution to popular culture. I think the three song writers in the band wrote some classics.

I think people are divided into two main groups on this one. People who like the Beatles and those who pretend not to.

[Trojan]

I think I've done listening to the Beatles to death. Maybe I will return in years down the line but I don't feel the same for them as I used to. Over exposure I think.

That said, I can write a list of some of my faves.

Here Comes the Sun
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Hey bulldog
Hello Goodbye
Something
Long and Winding Road
Hey Jude
The Fool on the Hill
Strawberry Fields Forever
For The Benefit of Mister Kite

Post Beatles you can just about cobble together a best of for John's best songs, Paul has been genuinely embarrassing, and George helped fund and release some great British films whilst quietly living out his life. Without a doubt my favourite Beatle.

Didn't George fund The Life of Brian? He certainly funded another of my favourite films A Private Function, which to anyone brought up when rationing was still in force is very evocative - but also extremely funny.

[Derwent]

I think people are divided into two main groups on this one. People who like the Beatles and those who pretend not to.

I am genuinely not a fan. They wrote some decent lyrics. They wrote some decent tunes. I just don't think they wrote many truly great songs, certainly not to the extent that they are revered. Its not that they were bad, just not as good as the legend perpetuates.

[l'angelo mysterioso]

I am genuinely not a fan. They wrote some decent lyrics. They wrote some decent tunes. I just don't think they wrote many truly great songs, certainly not to the extent that they are revered. Its not that they were bad, just not as good as the legend perpetuates.

I don't 'revere' any pop/rock or whatever musicians. I don't regard a single one as a 'legend'.
the Beatles came along when popular music was in a trough here and in the uk.
'well she was just seventeen, you know what I mean,and the way she looked was way beyond compare.' had the same effect on me as a thirteen year old 'awopbbomalloobopalopbamboom' had on those a few years oldeer than me.
One of the things the beatles, and for that matter the stones did wass open up peoples' ears to the music that was behind what they were doing.
The Beatles wrore songs thaat touch me to this day. I thionk those songs were great. You don't. No big deal.

[Bulletproof]

Didn't George fund The Life of Brian? He certainly funded another of my favourite films A Private Function, which to anyone brought up when rationing was still in force is very evocative - but also extremely funny.

He did and IIRC Holy Grail as well. And something to do with The Long Good Friday.

[Martyn Sadler]

A little late to this thread, but here are my Beatles favourites:

We Can Work It Out
Yesterday
All my loving
Strawberry Fields Forever
Something
And I Love Her
Here, There and Everywhere
Norwegian Wood
Fool On The Hill
Girl

The Beatles were great, partly because they had such a diverse range of memorable songs. I can't easily think of any other band or individual with an output that compares with the Beatles for diversity over a relatively short period.

[Hornetto]

The Beatles were great, partly because they had such a diverse range of memorable songs. I can't easily think of any other band or individual with an output that compares with the Beatles for diversity over a relatively short period.

The Beatles took eight years to revolutionise popular music. The Sex Pistols took one album.

Those in the cheap seats sing along. The rest of you can rattle your keyboards.

[WearyRhino]

The Beatles were great, partly because they had such a diverse range of memorable songs. I can't easily think of any other band or individual with an output that compares with the Beatles for diversity over a relatively short period.

Save for the first couple of albums did they not just follow trends set by others?

A band greater than the sum of it's parts but just a good band nevertheless.

[Martyn Sadler]

Save for the first couple of albums did they not just follow trends set by others?

A band greater than the sum of it's parts but just a good band nevertheless.

On the subject of following trends, you're correct in the sense that all music has its roots in what has gone before.

Mozart created music that followed a pattern set by others, but he refined it in a way that no others until then had been able to do. The Beatles had a similar role - how much is debatable, and of course they weren't the only ones.

[l'angelo mysterioso]

The Beatles took eight years to revolutionise popular music. The Sex Pistols took one album.

Those in the cheap seats sing along. The rest of you can rattle your keyboards.

the sex pistols and the rest made it ok not to wear flares, for which I'm eternally grateful.
That was about it.
punk took rock music back to basics-a good thing. Popular music was more or less untouched by punk as was popular culture in general. Most young people weren't walking about with safety pins through their noses spitting at people believe it or not. Punk fashion and music were very much a minority taste amongst young people, same with mods, rockers, teds, beatniks and hippies before them

[marklaspalmas]

Surprised to see so many Strawberry fields in the top 10 and hardly any Across the Universe.

[WearyRhino]

the sex pistols and the rest made it ok not to wear flares, for which I'm eternally grateful.
That was about it.
punk took rock music back to basics-a good thing. Popular music was more or less untouched by punk as was popular culture in general. Most young people weren't walking about with safety pins through their noses spitting at people believe it or not. Punk fashion and music were very much a minority taste amongst young people, same with mods, rockers, teds, beatniks and hippies before them

I disagree Chris - Punk widened the spectrum of what was possible in terms of music, fashion, art, politics and culture. The 'anti-fashion' itself was shortlived, commercially exploited and completely misunderstood (as you description of it illustrates) but its legacy is still very real.

[l'angelo mysterioso]

I disagree Chris - Punk widened the spectrum of what was possible in terms of music, fashion, art, politics and culture. The 'anti-fashion' itself was shortlived, commercially exploited and completely misunderstood (as you description of it illustrates) but its legacy is still very real.

on the contrary it narrowed it down. That was what was good about it, and musically it was embraced by a small minority of the nation's youth. That isn't a criticism by the way.

punk had no influence, effect, or relevance to the politics of the time.

expand a bit on punks 'legacy' please.

[Martyn Sadler]

I disagree Chris - Punk widened the spectrum of what was possible in terms of music, fashion, art, politics and culture. The 'anti-fashion' itself was shortlived, commercially exploited and completely misunderstood (as you description of it illustrates) but its legacy is still very real.

I think that Punk was a welcome reaction to the pretentiousness of much rock music in the mid-seventies.

But is there such a thing as "anti-fashion"?

Most fashions start by being a reaction against existing fashions, before becoming fashionable themselves.

I'm not quite sure what its precise legacy is.

[WearyRhino]

I think that Punk was a welcome reaction to the pretentiousness of much rock music in the mid-seventies.

But is there such a thing as "anti-fashion"?

Most fashions start by being a reaction against existing fashions, before becoming fashionable themselves.

I'm not quite sure what its precise legacy is.

'anti-fashion' is an inadequate word but the best I could come up with - perhaps 'nihil-fashion' suits better. What it did was challenge the limiting nature of 'fashion' in clothing, music, thought etc. and made it possible to plough a lone furrow. As a result, clothing, music, culture etc is more diverse now than it was before 1975.

As for politics - punk saw a reawakening and redefining of anarchism that continues to this day and was in evidence on Millbank last week. It encouraged single issue politics and direct action.

[Martyn Sadler]

'anti-fashion' is an inadequate word but the best I could come up with - perhaps 'nihil-fashion' suits better. What it did was challenge the limiting nature of 'fashion' in clothing, music, thought etc. and made it possible to plough a lone furrow. As a result, clothing, music, culture etc is more diverse now than it was before 1975.

As for politics - punk saw a reawakening and redefining of anarchism that continues to this day and was in evidence on Millbank last week. It encouraged single issue politics and direct action.

Punk was surely the symptom rather than the cause of the social and cultural changes that were taking place in that era. The causes were the general breakdown in authority of and respect for many of the political, social and cultural institutions that had been influential until that point. And, after the oil crisis of 1973, which caused major economic problems, those were turbulent times.

[WearyRhino]

Punk was surely the symptom rather than the cause of the social and cultural changes that were taking place in that era. The causes were the general breakdown in authority of and respect for many of the political, social and cultural institutions that had been influential until that point. And, after the oil crisis of 1973, which caused major economic problems, those were turbulent times.

Cause and effect in sociological change, and indeed history, are impossible to identify and isolate in the manner in which you have tried. It's all a lot more organic than that.

[l'angelo mysterioso]

'anti-fashion' is an inadequate word but the best I could come up with - perhaps 'nihil-fashion' suits better. What it did was challenge the limiting nature of 'fashion' in clothing, music, thought etc. and made it possible to plough a lone furrow. As a result, clothing, music, culture etc is more diverse now than it was before 1975.

As for politics - punk saw a reawakening and redefining of anarchism that continues to this day and was in evidence on Millbank last week. It encouraged single issue politics and direct action.

mate it meant you didn't have to wear flares any more
music and culture are in many ways less diverse. Any diversity that exists is down to the globilaisation and instantanaeousness of communications.
Punk narrowed down the spectrum of rock music.That was a good thing. It needed doing because it had become up its own ass. Pop was little affected by i.t

punk redefined nothing politically and it certainly had little if anypolitical effect. Do you mean to say that most punks even knew what anarchy meant. I doubt it, let alone 'redefined it', whatever that means. Single issue politics and direct action? Against what? Thee poll tax? It was the tax itself that provoked the direct action. Nuclear disarmament? I don't think so? Cruise missiles? No. What abouit racism, homohobia, religious intolerance? People has been fighting it and getting huirt in fighting it for years.

[Ex-Kirkholt]

The Beatles took eight years to revolutionise popular music. The Sex Pistols took one album.

Those in the cheap seats sing along. The rest of you can rattle your keyboards.

The Beatles (along with George Martin) were revolutionising popular music virtually from the start - in '62 their debut single was self-written which was unheard of.

In '64 they were releasing albums where all the songs were original - again nearly unheard of.

By '65 their record company was allowing them, again with Martin, almost total "artistic control" of the music whilst playing to massive crowds the world over.

For the next 3 - 4 years they were at the forefront of most changes in popular music.

The Pistols released one great album - I had a ticket for the never-to-be Champness Hall gig - and then disappeared into the abyss of "Rock 'n' Roll Swindle" and making records with criminals. John Lydon is excepted from most of this.

The Pistols may have set the ball rolling in the punk "revolution" but the Beatles did the same in 60s whilst remaining, possibly, the best band of the era.