What are your 5 favorite songs from the 'boys from britain'?

The fact that so many books still name the Beatles as "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success. The Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worthy of being saved.

In a sense, the Beatles are emblematic of the status of rock criticism as a whole: too much attention paid to commercial phenomena (be it grunge or U2) and too little to the merits of real musicians. If somebody composes the most divine music but no major label picks him up and sells him around the world, a lot of rock critics will ignore him. If a major label picks up a musician who is as stereotyped as can be but launches her or him worldwide, your average critic will waste rivers of ink on her or him. This is the sad status of rock criticism: rock critics are basically publicists working for major labels, distributors and record stores. They simply highlight what product the music business wants to make money from.

Hopefully, one not-too-distant day, there will be a clear demarcation between a great musician like Tim Buckley, who never sold much, and commercial products like the Beatles.

>>71853992
hey i read 5 words of this and then stopped bud

>>71853992
Scaruffi claims, “The fact that so many books still name the Beatles "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art”. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe”.

Well, Beethoven is probably the most famous classical composer today; and even in his time, he was one of the most influential, successful, and well-known composers in the world.

>>71853992
Scaruffi writes, “Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success: the Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest”.

That's not at all the reason why rock critics rank the Beatles as the best. They were very successful, but that's not why they were good, it's the other way around.

Scaruffi, “Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers”.

A contemporary rock critic who is reviewing the Beatles is reviewing the rock music of the past. And most rock critics tend to appreciate the 50s, 60s, and 70s as the best era for rock. Look at Rolling Stone's "500 greatest albums of all time" list: almost all the albums on the list were from the 60s and 70s. If the Beatles were a contemporary band that's successful, I could see this argument being made (those critics are just following success and don't know the classics of the past)... but the Beatles are the classics of the past.

>>71853992
Scaruffi, “No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worth of being saved. In a sense the Beatles are emblematic of the status of rock criticism as a whole: too much attention to commercial phenomena (be it grunge or U2) and too little attention to the merits of real musicians. If somebody composes the most divine music but no major label picks him up and sells him around the world, a lot of rock critics will ignore him. If a major label picks up a musician who is as stereotyped as one can be but launches her or him worldwide, your average critic will waste rivers of ink on her or him”.

Again, not true. Rock critics a) tend to prefer the classic stuff to modern music which they rightly deride as trash, and b) when it comes to modern music, they prefer obscure indie bands to the overproduced popular trash. Scaruffi might be looking more toward pop music critics, rather than rock critics... They're guilty of a lot of what he's saying.

The big difference between today and the 60's-70's era is that the bands that were good back then were also the successful bands. Some of the best rock music in history comes from very successful artists from the 60s and 70s: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Don McLean, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Eagles, Iron Butterfly, etc. Today, success and quality often seem to be inversely correlated, as can be seen by the success of Nickelback, Linkin Park, Green Day, and all their ilk.

>>71853992
Scaruffi, “Buddy Holly & The Cricketts invented the modern rock band”

"The Beatles were unique at the time as they were truly a "band." Unlike Buddy Holly "and" The Crickets or Bill Haley "and" His Comets, or Little Richard, Elvis, etc., etc. The Motown groups were singers, not musicians. They sang and danced to choreographed moves. The Beatles were "The Beatles." They wrote their songs (their best songs, IMO were better than their covers), they played their instruments. The Beach Boys had hired session players to play instruments they were supposed to play".

Scaruffi claims, "Love You To" as being vaguely Oriental"

"Nonsense in its application to pop music there was nothing like it. In "Love You To”, we find a genuinely Indian-styled usage of mode, melody, rhythm and instrumentation. Even the form, which otherwise maintains a "neo-classical" boxy rock form preserves the Indian convention of an out-of-tempo improvised slow intro".

>>71853992
Scaruffi claims "The Beatles lucked into folk rock".

The Beatles had a skiffle background which was very folk influenced. This was noticed by musicians like Roger McGuinn

"I had noticed that they were using folk-influenced chords in their music. They used passing chords that were not common in rock’n’roll and pop songs of that time. I remember listening to them, and thinking that the Beatles were using folding chord construction. That comes from their skiffle roots, they will have learned those chords in their skiffle days, and just brought them into their own writing.” Roger McGuinn

>>71853992
Scaruffi writes, "In 1968 Great Britain became infected by the concept album/rock opera bug, mostly realized by Beatles contemporaries: Tommy by the Who, The Village Green Preservation Society by the Kinks, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake by the Small Faces, Odyssey and Oracle by the Zombies, etc (albums that in turn owed something to the loosely-connected song cycles of pop albums such as Frank Sinatra's In The Wee Small Hours (1955), the Byrds' Fifth Dimension, the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and the Beatles' Sgt Pepper). So, with the usual delay, a year later the Beatles gave it a try".

The concept album bug was highly influenced by the Beatles own Sgt. Pepper of 1967 which was a concept album of tracks linked togehter with artificial sounds. Sgt Pepper structure was unlike Frank Zappa Freak Out or Brian Wilson Pet Sounds. It influenced future concept albums with it's overture, reprise, finale, and the hidden track tacked on the end of the album. The point is the Beatles already went down this road before 1967. Abbey Road is not the first Beatles album to use a song cycle that would be Sgt Pepper. Abbey Road is neither a Rock Opera nor a narrative concept album. What it is a long song cycle in medley form in which the songs are segued into each other? It was also planned also, it should be noted that "You Never Give Me Your Money" was looped with "Sun King" and "Mean Mr. Mustard" were recorded as one song; "Polythene Pam" and "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" were recorded as one song; and "Golden Slumbers" and "Carry That Weight" were recorded as one song.

>>71853961
1. Anna
2. Misery
3. In Chains
4. Come Together
5. Norwegian Wood
Please Please Me is way better than their later stuff. Love that early 60s nostalgia.

>>71853992
>>OP
Scaruffi writes, "Hey Jude (august 1968), a long (for the Beatles) jam of psychedelic blues-rock, in reality another historic slow song by McCartney, came out after Traffic's Dear Mr. Fantasy and also after Cream's lengthy live jams had reached peak popularity".

Of course this was not the Beatles first long song they recorded. "Hey Jude" is not even remotely psychedelic in it's sound. There are many other songs by contemporaneous artists which break the three-to-four minute length barrier, though the examples which come immediately to mind use a variety of techniques, none of which is used in "Hey Jude": an extended improvisational break in the middle ("Light My Fire"), the stringing together of several shorter songs, medley-style ("MacArthur Park"), or simply a long series of verse/refrain couples ("Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands").

The Beatles opt here instead for an unusual binary form that combines a fully developed, hymn-like song together with an extended, mantra-like jam on a simple chord progression, and extremely long fade-out. The track is known for it's
two different halves that complement each other,

>>71853992
Scaruffi writes, "Sgt. Pepper is the album of a band that sensed change in the making, and was adapting its style to the taste of the hippies. It came in last (in June), after Velvet Underground & NICO (January), The Doors (also January), the Byrds' Younger Than Yesterday (February), and the Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow (February) to signal the end of an era, after others had forever changed the history of rock music".

His statement totally ignores the Beatles albums that were before this like Rubber Soul and Revolver. It also ignores "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Rain" that was singles that were recorded in 1966. Also Sgt structure as a non-narrative concept album influenced many future concept albums. Sgt. Pepper structure with tracks linked togehter with artificial sounds. Sgt Pepper structure also was unlike Frank Zappa Freak Out or Brian Wilson Pet Sounds. It influenced future concept albums with it's overture, reprise, finale, and the hidden track tacked on the end of the album

The Beatles (Rubber Soul) 1965 Brian Wilson cited it as an inspiration for "Pet Sounds." This was where rock became a true art form. They incorporated different time signatures, new instruments, and other musical styles. This album also uses the studio as an instrument before Pet Sounds. "Think for Yourself" and "If I Needed Someone" has guitar tones and vocal harmonies closer to what would be the standard in the psychedelic movement.

The Beatles (Revolver) 1966 Revolutionary in early preoccupation with "psychedelic" effects as a studio instrument, including electronic/tape effects, sound distortion, influence of Indian music, and avant-garde.

The Beatles (Sgt Pepper) 1967 An album psychedelic classic with electronic music, avant music, world music, tape, Art SONG, reversed effects, varied time signatures with the songs that are in which the song are in either song cycle form or songs linked together.

>>71853992
Scaruffi claims, “The Beatles had always been obsessed by the Beach Boys. They had copied their multi-part harmonies, their melodic style and their carefree attitude. Through their entire career, from 1963 to 1968, the Beatles actually followed the Beach Boys”

No one makes music without influence and while the Beatles were influenced by the Beach Boys it was the Beatles who influenced Brian Wilson to write a more serious album.

Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys

"Upon first hearing Rubber Soul in December of 1965, Brian Wilson said, “I really wasn’t quite ready for the unity. It felt like it all belonged together. Rubber Soul was a collection of songs…that somehow went together like no album ever made before".

Piero Scaruffi claims, “The sitar was used somewhere else in rock music”.

I guess he must have meant the Yardbirds "Heart Full of Soul". The Yardbirds hired a sitar player but the track was never finished. George Harrison actually played one on "Norwegian Wood" becoming the first rock guitarist to actually play one a record. George Harrison also would play the tamboura and swarmandal clearly influencing Brian Jones and other to play Indian instruments.

>>71853992
Scaruffi claims, "1967 was the year that FM radio began to play long instrumentals. In Great Britain, it was the year of psychedelia, of the Technicolor Dream, of the UFO Club. The psychedelic singles of Pink Floyd were generating an uproar. Inevitably, the Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".

How ignorant is this comment. With the release of Revolver for example "Tomorrow Never Knows" in 1966 which pre-dates Pink Floyds singles by 9 months. Revolver was certainly important in opening up a commercial market for psychedelic music. It would have happened anyway, but that doesn't change history. Revolver was a very big record for psychedelic music in '66. Classic Rock Radio related to FM radio. The origins of the classic rock radio format can be traced back to The Beatles' groundbreaking album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which would forever change several courses of the rock and roll format, especially with the slow rise of FM broadcasting.

In Penny Lane there is a barber selling photographs

Of every head he's had the pleasure to know

And all the people that come and go

Stop and say "Hello"

>>71853992
Scaruffi claims, “The White album wraps up with a long jam, more or less avant garde, (Revolution No. 9, co-written by John Lennon and Yoko Ono) two years after everybody else, and three years after the eleven minutes of Goin' Home, by the Stones”.

The Rolling Stones track was recorded in 1966 and it's a blues jam. "Revolution No. 9” is a full blown avant track based on loops, sound samples, and unrelated voice clips. The track was not recorded in real time or nor does it have a melody or rhythm so it can't be considered a jam. The song “Revolution No. 9” was recorded two years later not three years as Scaruffi remarks. The Beatles did record a 14 minute avant track in January of 1967 “Carnival of Light”. Showing again Piero Scaruffi incompetence on the Beatles history. “ Revolution 9"? I have arguments whether the latter is a song or not, but NO ONE, not even Andy Warhol’s Velvet Underground had recorded anything like “Revolution No.9

>>71853992
Scaruffi claims “The Beatles influence can not be considered musical”

The Beatles ability to marry studio experimentation with a strong pop song structure is such a profound influence that it's taken for granted. I'd say it's their most important contribution. It's the very foundation of how music is still made, so I'd say their influence is very much evident today, even if not everybody knows it. I still say to this day the most prophetic record of the Sixties wasn't "Yesterday" or "Satisfaction" but "Tomorrow Never Knows," which sums up most of where music has gone. Minus the vocals, it's virtually an big beat/techno and modern electronic record that's as much Public Enemy as it is Philip Glass. Today's music is mostly about sound texture and the group that got us thinking about it the most is the Beatles. Some love to dismiss "Sgt. Peppers," and especially "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite," but I'll be damned if all that random splicing up of tape and punching it into a song for sound effects can't be found in Kanye West or many hip-hop crews of the last 25 years or so.

Whether we're talking Radiohead, Coldplay, U2, L.A. Reid or Raphel Saadiq, to mention a few, they still mention or show the Beatles' influence. The Smithereens recently covered the entire "Meet the Beatles" album. Phish has performed all of the "White Album" in concert.

>>71853992
Scauffi writes, “In their songs there is no Vietnam, there is no politics, there are no kids rioting in the streets, there is no sexual promiscuity, there are no drugs, there is no violence. In the world of the Beatles the social order of the 40s and the 50s still reigns. Their smiles and their choruses hid the revolution: they concealed the restlessness of an underground movement ready to explode for a someone who wanted to hear nothing about it. They had nothing to say and that's why they didn't say it”.

The Beatles had many songs with a message. "The Word" and "All You Need Is Love" certainly have a strong message. You don't need riots, racism, LBJ, Vietnam, etc-just love. "Taxman" the Beatles are calling out the names of British politicians, and "Revolution" another song calling out politicians. The song "Blackbird" is about the civil rights movement. GET A CLUE a good song is not based on how radical the lyrics are but the Beatles did address some serious issues. Oh it's laughable the Beatles did not write about drugs "She Said She Said" is about an acid trip and "Tomorrow Never Knows" is about the concept of psychedelia.