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Legit question, no meme-ing (aside from the picture): Do you think he's right about The Beatles? I've never been too crazy about them and I found myself agreeing with him quite a bit when I read what he had to say about them the other day.
http://www.scaruffi.com/vol1/beatles.html (It's a long read if you haven't read it already.)
Some snippets:
>"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. At such a time, rock critics will study their rock history and understand which artists accomplished which musical feat, and which simply exploited it commercially."
>"The Beatles sold a lot of records not because they were the greatest musicians but simply because their music was easy to sell to the masses: it had no difficult content, it had no technical innovations, it had no creative depth. They wrote a bunch of catchy 3-minute ditties and they were photogenic. If somebody had not invented "Beatlemania" in 1963, you would not have wasted five minutes of your time reading these pages about such a trivial band."
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lol no
i read it for a laugh sometimes though
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No, they were fine pop craftsman and had too important an influence on the direction pop and rock took despite sometimes being coattail riders.
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>>72686158
all three statements are kinda correct, especially the first. their original fans liked them because they made a lot of accessible pop songs. also popular music reviewers are all trash. however, where he is wrong his statements that they were never technical innovators or had creative depth. if he's listened to eleanor rigby and still believes this then he's just the contrarian everyone says he is.
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i don't listen to the beatles but he's completely right
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Mostly agree with the first statement, most people laud the Beatles as the GOATS because they were and possibly still are the most popular musicians ever. They had creativity though, and they led the charge for rock and music in the '60s and '70s in general, even if they didn't invent most of the sound. So they deserve some praise for that, but when people literally say that the top 5 albums EVER contain mostly Beatles albums then I don't know what to say.
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>>72686349
>they made a lot accessible pop songs
Accessible pop songs were allowed to be musically interesting back then
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When will HE review a Beatles album?
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>>72686195
he never says that they're shit or no good pop craftsmen, his main argument is that they're overrated. and there is no denying that. they don't deserve the exponentially greater amount of attention that's paid to them when they're not even close to being the best of their time.
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>>72686503
correct statement
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>>72686158
I think he's far too hard on them but he does have a point. The Beatles weren't and never will be considered the greatest act in music but they released at least 2 albums worth praising, even by Scaruffi standards. He even acknowledges this in his scoring: Abbey Road and Sgt. Peppers both have a 7/10. That's far better than most pop bands.
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>>72687084
>>72687150
The Beatles achieved continuous commercial success without sacrificing their artistry. In the field of popular music how are they not GOAT?
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>>72687360
what artistry?
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