Jump to content

Are the Beatles over-rated?


ender4

Recommended Posts

The next question.

 

Did the Beatles ever produce a perfect single?

 

Personally I would rate things like the Kinks' Waterloo Sunset as perfect and Ike and Tina Turner's River Deep Mountain High.

 

Which Beatles' single do you think reached that level of perfection?

 

 

that's a good question and perhaps throws a little light on the first 7 or 8 pages

 

The Beatles are good, the later stuff is perfectly listenable - but they wouldn't get on my desert island discs list.

 

Agree with Waterloo Sunset btw, now that was a crafted piece of work from craftsmen.

 

The Beatles were competent with lucky timing and good PR.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The next question.

 

Did the Beatles ever produce a perfect single?

 

Personally I would rate things like the Kinks' Waterloo Sunset as perfect and Ike and Tina Turner's River Deep Mountain High.

 

Which Beatles' single do you think reached that level of perfection?

Waterloo Sunset is a strange one ... by which I mean , it's a fantastic song ..and yet possibly it's become a victim of it's own success and through familiarity I sorta no longer like it  ... Kinks wise nothing beats that you really got me machine gun like guitar riff  , I'll never tire of that

 

 

Beatles wise ... All you need is love probably , even if it was "borrowed" from Chanson D'Amour and three blind mice !!  again for me the singles probably suffer through over play  but Paperback Writer still sounds fairly fresh even after all those years  ....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The question of perfect single is very subjective. They produced many more great singles than Ike and Tina Turner and the Kinks did to be fair.

 

I quite agree.

 

I think their reputation arises from the sheer volume of quality work but it is still an interesting question - subjective or not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

The next question.

 

Did the Beatles ever produce a perfect single?

 

Personally I would rate things like the Kinks' Waterloo Sunset as perfect and Ike and Tina Turner's River Deep Mountain High.

 

Which Beatles' single do you think reached that level of perfection?

Waterloo Sunset is a strange one ... by which I mean , it's a fantastic song ..and yet possibly it's become a victim of it's own success and through familiarity I sorta no longer like it  ... Kinks wise nothing beats that you really got me machine gun like guitar riff  , I'll never tire of that

 

 

Beatles wise ... All you need is love probably , even if it was "borrowed" from Chanson D'Amour and three blind mice !!  again for me the singles probably suffer through over play  but Paperback Writer still sounds fairly fresh even after all those years  ....

 

 

I can't disagree with the problem of stuff getting played to death.

 

I can't argue with your choices.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The question of perfect single is very subjective. They produced many more great singles than Ike and Tina Turner and the Kinks did to be fair.

Absolutely it's subjective. In my opinion (and that's all anyone can give) is that The Beatles produced more 'perfect pop songs' than any group or artist ever, and certainly more than The Kinks or Ike and Tina. More than they could ever dream of in fact.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

There is no such thing as a perfect single, and I know, I've got a GCSE in Music, so don't even argue with me.

 

you can do one

 

I did tambourine as part of my NVQ in interneting

 

 

Oh is that right? Well, the word musik was part of a spelling test I did when I was in Primary school...so....leave it yeh?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

RE the perfect single, Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane is pretty damn special. I mentioned Paperback Writer / Rain earlier. I'd be tempted to say to say We Can Work It Out, but I think Stevie Wonder did a better version, so gonna rule it out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

RE the perfect single, Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane is pretty damn special. I mentioned Paperback Writer / Rain earlier. I'd be tempted to say to say We Can Work It Out, but I think Stevie Wonder did a better version, so gonna rule it out.

 

As a man who loves a riff I have to admit that Day Tripper never fails to give me the white man's overbite.

 

Perfect example of John and Paul's sweet and sour vocals complimenting each other perfectly.

 

But I think Back In The USSR and Paperback Writer are nearer to perfection.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can never decide out of the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Who or Oasis that I enjoy the most or who is overrated, all I know is they all had an amazing knack of writing the best British pop songs ever. They all stole, all created their own amazing melodies, kept things relatively simple for the most part, but all inspired other bands.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you're talking about the most perfect pop song of all time, then it's a straight fight out between, Heatwave - Martha & The Vandellas, and Another Girl Another Planet - The Only Ones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wasn't just the music, they had a huge impact on the technical side of recording music. One of the big reasons they were so successful was because they produced the best recordings. They were among the first to use 4 tracks when recording, leading to huge leads in multitrack recordings, they introduced sampling to the mainstream, first use of feedback on a recording...

 

 

 

 

They were able to do all that due to the expertise of George Martin.

 

 

Irrelevant. The effects and advances were broadcasted through the medium of the Beatles music.

 

If I produced some crazy recording effect and put it onto a track and that effect was picked up by everyone when recording. The track would be the thing that everybody remembered, not me.

 

 

 

 

Stefan is right in a fashion. The Beatles were certainly one of the first exponents of sampling on tracks that were in the mainstream. And many people did follow on from their success on certain tracks

And they did that through the expertise of George Martin who's contribution Stefan referred to as irrelevant to those sound effects.

George Martin was very much involved in the creative process of Beatle song writing and many if not all the most notable sound effects unique to that time were created by Martin and his engineers.

As stated before people who haven't already read Martin's book on the making of Sergeant Pepper should take the time to read it as it discloses just how important his role was in making music by the Beatles so experimental and unique to it's time.

Do you deliberately ignore what is written to cause arguments?

I didn't say his contribution was irrelevant. I bloody even said that without him they wouldn't have been the band that they were. You're taking comments completely out of context, which is understandable to an extent but then even when you've had the context clearly explained, you're flogging with the same whip.

Im on my phone so I can't repost what I said and I can't be bothered to write it out again but look back at my previous posts because you obviously haven't read them properly.

So in the future, kindly refer from putting words in my mouth. That would be grand.

 

I quoted them for you and i haven't taken anything out of context because this is why. Take George Martin's expertise out of most Beatle recordings and what do you have? The usual medium you speak of with nothing different. Thats the massive point you are missing. Sergeant Pepper for instance was revolutionary for the music business lyrically, technically and the execution of song and George Martin was a massive part of the technical side of that. It simply wouldn't have happened in the way that it did without Martin's input. It made many, many people in the music business sit up and take notice and with all due respect i wouldn't dare put words into the mouth of any university graduate who seems to think that type of education makes his opinion right.

Edited by Morpheus
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Found this very interesting. Rather than quote the UK number 1s i decided to have a look at how many number 1s they had in America.

 

 


Beatles Number 1 Hits in America  

 

DATE      WEEKS CHARTED SONG TITLE LABLE WEEKS #1 #1 ON 01/25/64   14 I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND CAPITOL 7 02/01/64 02/01/64   14 SHE LOVES YOU SWAN 2 03/21/64 03/28/64   9 CAN'T BUY ME LOVE CAPITOL 5 04/04/64 05/02/64   11 LOVE ME DO TOLLIE 1 05/30/64 07/18/64   12 HARD DAY'S NIGHT CAPITOL 2 08/01/64 12/05/64   11 I FEEL FINE CAPITOL 3 12/26/64 02/27/65   9 EIGHT DAYS A WEEK CAPITOL 2 03/13/65 05/01/65   9 TICKET TO RIDE CAPITOL 1 05/22/65 08/14/65   12 HELP! CAPITOL 3 09/04/65 10/02/65   9 YESTERDAY CAPITOL 4 10/09/66 12/18/65   11 WE CAN WORK IT OUT CAPITOL 3 06/25/66 06/11/66   10 PAPERBACK WRITER CAPITOL 2 06/25/66 03/04/67   9 PENNY LANE CAPITOL 1 03/18/67 07/29/67   9 ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE CAPITOL 1 08/19/67 12/09/67   10 HELLO GOODBYE CAPITOL 3 12/30/67 09/14/68   19 HEY JUDE APPLE 9 09/28/68 05/10/69   12 GET BACK APPLE 5 05/24/69 10/18/69   16 COME TOGETHER APPLE 1 11/29/69 10/18/69   16 SOMETHING APPLE 1 11/29/69 03/21/70   13 LET IT BE APPLE 2 04/11/70 05/23/70   10 THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD APPLE 2 06/13/70

 

 
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Morpheus, you're on to a wrong one there. The first quote is taken out of context.

It's clear to me and everyone else what Stefan meant, you're making yourself look foolish.

He never once inferred that Martin himself was irrelevant, it's reasonably clear the his point was that he is a PART of their success and that they are, in fact, a sum of their parts. It's a bit like saying that without Benteke we'd have been relegated last season. Irrelevant argument.

You've chosen to read what you like in order to cause an argument. Nobody is buying it.

Edited by dont_do_it_doug.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...
Â