Pop Psychology.

Woebot

Well-known member
OK I rabbit on about Paul McCartney too much. But check this anyway.

My theory about The Beatles success was that they managed to engineer a sensation of total intimacy with their audience, Managed through psychology to make their fans feel as though they were whispering in their ears. Sure its what many bands try to master, but none get half as close as The Beatles did to achieve this.

I saw McCartney on the Who wants to be a millionaire programme, and at the end when saying goodbye as the show closes, what does he do? Does he wave to the audience, kiss his wife theatrically, shake hands with the host Chris Tarrant? No, he points directly into the camera to YOU the eye at home. Genius, he uses the mass media to reach right into your soul. I cant think of a better way to achieve total intimacy with the the greatest number of people.
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
There's something in that, although of course the intimacy thing was the basis of Frank Sinatra's success as well (and would have been impossible before the intimacy-potential of the microphone). Though Beatles definitely took it a step further. Their early lyric writing always started with an explicit "me" or "you" concept didn't it. Their 1962-1963 singles-

Love Me Do/P.S. I Love You
Please Please Me/Ask Me Why
From Me To You/Thank You Girl
She Loves You/I'll Get You
I Want To Hold Your Hand/This Boy

If you bought all that lot, you probably felt you had the low down on all the fab four's dalliances.

How anyone can not love The Beatles is beyond my comprehension. It's like claiming not to like Casablanca or something.
 

redcrescent

Well-known member
diggedy derek said:
How anyone can not love The Beatles is beyond my comprehension. It's like claiming not to like Casablanca or something.
I remember a review in an old issue of the Rolling Stone Album Guide where the author went a step further by asserting that "not liking the Beatles is as perverse as not liking the sun."
Not quite, but close, IMHO.
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
not loving the Beatles

totally agree with diggedy derek, it's amazing how often you come across this attitude though

i've had bunches of mates in a pub where all of them profess to be completely indifferent to the Beatles

and then they're repeating This Life over here and the Scottish girl character at one point says "the beatles were crap, weren't they"

Erase the World had a hilarious thing about this the other week, some idiot he knew claiming the Zombies were better than the Beatles!

when i were a kid (born in 1963, symbolically) i thought of the Beatles as a separate category from pop. there was pop music and there was Beatles who were like something much more massive (perhaps because of the films). When i saw Help! i thought they actually lived in a row of terrace houses with the walls knocked down.

it's weird listening to them and hearing them now, with trained fan/critic type ears now, as a band, with the bassist doing this'n'that, and the guitar solo coming in here, and the drum doing that, and so forth -- as a band playing rock'n'roll -- i t's slightly diminishing at first, but then the admiration gushes forth on a different, informed level, just at how good they were at it, how inventive

(when you're young i don't think you can actually discriminate between the layers of sound, i can distinctly remember hearing and recognising a bassline for the first time, rather than as this undifferentiated blare of sound)
 

anhhh

Well-known member
um, reading this thread now i can understand what was my problem with the beatles. i like their songs, but when somebodyelse is playing them. i find their recordings (from rubber soul to the end) very depressing. i can see the work in the textures, in how each part flows to the following one, in the voice's work, the use of the instruments, et all (and the work of mixing it, record track over track all those layers of sound and to get the sound they get ( i remember something about thom yorke with a book about the production tricks of the beatles when radiohead were recording kid a). But the thing i really find dissapointing is that intimancy you' re saying. the way they try to get into you. probably because i have feel that thousand of times when i meet people (in my case from me to them). and also other reasons why i dislike them is because for their fans all the music that came after them is probably there (i guess there was a recording finding the traces of the beatles and there was a track from my bloody valentine, sometimes i think that people believe electroacoustic music started with that john lennon track).
 

mms

sometimes
isn't that what the libertines do in a internet savvy, celebrity culture kinda way?
sure they are much more debased and their audience is obviously smaller, but it has worked for them too, and mcartney's actions would be kinda corny now.

they hold impromptu gigs for the fans, (arranged via texts and email lists) the explicitly torrid and emotional friendships, the constant need to tell everyone about everything that you do and has happened to you because you want to, rather than just to sell the new album..
they're like your messed up teenage mates that you hate aren't they, thats what it must seem like i guess. Plus they always look directly into the camera in the press photos.
Plus in their lyrics, even though life is a messy struggle, it's always got it's glory, and you will get carried thru no matter what.
 

Martin Dust

Techno Zen Master
I've never liked them, I'd probably die from the amount of acid needed to make them make sense first.

I was always a strange boy tho ;)
 

jwd

Well-known member
Diggedy Derek said:
How anyone can not love The Beatles is beyond my comprehension. It's like claiming not to like Casablanca or something.

Jesus Derek that's harsh. OK I'm bristling because I'm one of those people that doesn't love them. At all. There's 6-7 great songs there, tops. (uh, "Rain", "Glass Onion", "Paperback Writer", "I'm Only Sleeping", "A Day in the Life" [how good was The Fall's cover of that btw?], I'm struggling now.) The rest doesn't even remotely connect with me. But as I always say, The Byrds and The Kinks were my Beatles...
I am a big fan of Paul circa-Ram and some solo George. Has anyone heard Ringo's Beaucoup of Blues? Is it okay?
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
cmon Jon

only like seven Beatles songs and one of them being "Glass Onion" is quite the nuttiest opinion i've heard in a while! that one's like not even in their Top 200 Tunes (White Album as a whole i think incredibly over-rated--i happen to be listening to all this stuff at the mo' as writing an essay on psychedelia), your others are good choices (esp 'Rain', 'i'm only sleeping', 'a day in life') but why not 'she said she said', i can't see how anyone could be a Byrds fan and not love that tune. what about 'tomorrow never knows', 'strawberry fields', 'walrus' , 'come together', etc etc... And loving the kinks but not liking mccarteney-esque terribly-English social observation classics like 'rigby' or 'penny lane'... don't make much sense if you ask me.

(this is your keenan-oid side coming through ain't it :) c.f. byron coley once describing the rolling stones as an over-rated but reasonably vigorous rhythm-and-blues combo from the UK!)

i can sort of semi-understand the weariness with the over-exposed canonical (geeta has a similar opinion about the sex pistols) esp if you're young... but this stuff gets to be canonical for a reason, cf shakespeare and dickens. the problem with canons is not what's in them so much as the subsequent artists who think the way to get into the canon is to emulate an existent occupant of said canon -- hence the dwindling long line of beatles-eque artists starting with badfinger

(an aside -- Green was a huge Beatles fan, you know)
 

jwd

Well-known member
cmon Si

blissblogger said:
'she said she said', i can't see how anyone could be a Byrds fan and not love that tune.

Yeah the one that got away, that's a great song. I'd forgotten that one. 'Tomorrow', 'Walrus' etc., they're okay I guess, I'd never ask to hear 'em, never put them on. 'Within You Without You' passable (Sonic Youth's cover of that was sweet. Lee's voice!)

blissblogger said:
And loving the kinks but not liking mccarteney-esque terribly-English social observation classics like 'rigby' or 'penny lane'... don't make much sense if you ask me.

Kind of implies that the only reason one would listen to the Kinks would be for the 'terribly-English social observation' 'classics' which I think is a pretty myopic view of what the Kinks did.

The Beatles never moved me, never touched me - and (to link it back w/the pop psychology thing that Woebot started before I derailed it, sorry Matt mate!) as per Matt's comments on Paul's performance demeanor/'intimacy', that's one thing I get out of the Kinks big-time - I think it was maybe K. Shields who talked about how intimate Davies' voice was, how little he 'projected' and how he could perform in front of huge audiences and yet it was such a close, intimate experience - 'almost lazy' I believe he said. This being a different kind of 'intimacy' to McCartney's.

I was never even exposed to the Beatles when I was young, my folks only had "Abbey Road" and never actually played it when I was around, I do remember an Australian all-night music TV show doing a Beatles special and me staying up and watching it and going "yeah and that's it?" It just didn't really happen for me.

If I recall correctly, Keenan's first record purchases were all Beatles records, I'm sure he's still a huge fan.
 
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jwd

Well-known member
Actually Matt what do you reckon? What separates McCartney's 'intimacy' from Ray Davies' 'intimacy'? vis-a-vis performance tactics etc.. It's definitely a different kind isn't it.
 

luka

Well-known member
it's like this, you lot like the beatles cos you heard them all the time when you were children. i'm sorry, but it's as simple as that. revolver's got some good songs on it, mostly they're horrible twee novelty pap. all that abbey road stuff, eewwww, what a load of shit. my dad never played the beatles so i'm free of the blinkers, i would talk the same about sam cooke cos thats in my musical dna, thats what i remember hearing all the time and thats what i love with the same blind passion. its nothing but the music you grew up with. in terms of the music, not including their impression on the cultural landscape and all that rubbish, beatles=nothing special
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Totally the opposite with me- I hated them when I was young, it was only when listening to them so I could slag them off (about the age of 19) that I realised how good they were.
 

xero

was minusone
Diggedy Derek said:
it was only when listening to them so I could slag them off
Ha, I've been meaning to do that since I was 19 but still haven't got round to it. I don't think I've ever put a beatles record on myself and listened to it in my life. Like a lot of canonical pop or any contemporary blitzkrieg-marketed pop you don't need to seek it out, it finds you anyway whether you like it or not. It's quite difficult to form any kind of personal opinion about because it's so ubiquitous. I think Luka has a point about it being the music of people's childhood subconcious. My dad liked the byrds ;)
 

hint

party record with a siren
I find it hard to understand how anybody with even a passing interest in, or appreciation of, melody and harmony couldn't get a great deal of pleasure from at least 15 or so beatles songs. they're complicated things made to sound simple - through song structure, recording and production techniques. the variety of sounds and styles across their albums is impressive to say the least.

yeah - of course they churned out some right old rubbish, but songs like blackbird, in my life, taxman, I've just seen a face... they come pretty close to untouchable in my opinion.
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
and let's not forget

the early beatles (we're all mostly talking about mid-period to late)

the early beatles were pretty untouchable as a rock'n'roll band - 'money', 'i'm down', 'help', 'hard day's night', 'ticket to ride' , etc etc etc

it's the sound of pure excitement

from (and including) white album on they get pretty ropey apart from the flashbacks to the early rock'n'roll mode (back in the ussr, get back etc) with some notable exceptions of course

for a long, long period they were completely irrelevant to me -- roughly 1980 to early-mid 90s, only start checking them again when Beatlesy flavors came into pop with Stone Roses, madchester, primal scream -- so i can sort of understand the underwhelmed response -- also understand the generational impulse to write off the Sixties as ancient times (i feel the same about Elvis and most 50s rock'n'roll incidentally)

yeah but i would agree with what the gentleperson said upthread to the effect that anyone who has ears and a sensibility attuned to melody and harmony who could fail to be floored by a lot of the Beatles stuff ....

it's not just the tunefulness though it's the whole package, the drumming is fantastic, ringo was one of the best drummers of the era, the bassplaying

and then there's the little matter of Geist

the Geist of an era dripping through every pore of the sound, it's such a rare and special thing (who has that quality today, in music... who can you tell the Time by?)

yeah i can understand Sixties-antipathy if you want to junk the whole decade (kpunk attitude) cos it's a shackle, a burden... really can't understand Jon's thing of loving the Byrds and Kinks but not the Beatles considering the latter intersect with the first two at so many points
 

Woebot

Well-known member
blissblogger said:
it's not just the tunefulness though it's the whole package, the drumming is fantastic, ringo was one of the best drummers of the era, the bassplaying

so true. there is absolutely zer0 reduncancy in those songs. theyre about the only songs played on a drum/bass/guitar where the instruments themselves are of absolutely no importance at all, theyre practically invisible markers, the song is EVERYTHING. and thats total musical transcendence as far as i can hear. one hears so much written about the textureology of sound (often its lovely stuff to read, and has a political point at its heart, the refusal of "song" as guardian of societal staus quo) however (of course?) sound should only be there to carry the "song". "song" here natch in the broadest sense: bach=song.

however, to turn all this on its head, when you then listen to something like The Beatles "looking through you" and tune into the instruments, the drums/the bass/the guitar the playing is a mindfuck cos its so spare, so godamn elegant.

-

i reckon slagging The Beatles off is a pose, a reaction to the disempowerment effected by their ultra-transcendental music (and yeah of course they have their very weak spots. for me personally sgt pepper/abbey road/letitbe are a drag, though i adore the white album/revolver/rubbersoul). its the most obvious kind of shmindie attitood (vis a vis baal's example of the bloke who prefers the zombies!!!!) isnt it more liberating to actually go "ok they were cool, and at points they were beyond cool"
 

anhhh

Well-known member
i dont know if i could explain it. i have explain before that there are lots of things that in that tunes that i could admire. but maybe the point is the approach; for example check milton nascimento cover of "norwegain wood" in "minas". that song could change your life, so why it never move when i hear the original tune? Because i knew it was a song about a girl who meet lennon and have sex. and in every song you could feel that "hey, we are the beatles and this is our life". and that's the same thing we hate when rock bands talk in their songs about the loneliness in the road and their life on the road. I need to take off the song from the public personna. and about songs that you could hear the sound of that year, i dont know, but i was checking a weeks ago some of the first timbaland productions and... they werent what you could say timeless. probably in ten years christina aguilera or avril lavigne could be the sound of a period of time even when you know that that was a lie, or even never was real.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
jwd said:
Actually Matt what do you reckon? What separates McCartney's 'intimacy' from Ray Davies' 'intimacy'? vis-a-vis performance tactics etc.. It's definitely a different kind isn't it.

well yunnuh thanks for trying to square with the original assertion ;) (only kidding threads seem to be much more prosperous when they meander!)

i'm not sure i hear the same thing as you here jonno. ray davies seems almost more like bowie in the way he "acts" out his songs, things like "waterloo sunset", even the song title denotes a tableaux. there certainly seems to be only a very little of the confessional too (not that that is any sure-fire way of creating intimacy) actually i think Diggedy Dereks Frank Sinatra parrallel might possibly be more illuminating here, but you know jon i havent checked out village green preservation society OR the lost LP yet (your top tips) so i may be talking out of my arse (as per.....)

this whole pop psychology thing, i must admit to being utterly fascinated by it, seeing how people weave their spells. easiest to pinpoint as characters within pop being ambient conmen brian eno and la monte young, classic snakeoil salesmen. working in movies i used to get the opportunity to analyse some famous directors close-up (worked for Ri*ley Sco*t for two years amongst others) and i was always fascinated by their little tricks:

a) pretending to forget your name
b) talking really quietly so you had to strain to hear what they were saying
c) not talking to you at all (a go-between like an art-director would do the talking for the director while he would stand there facing you impassively)

etc etc etc
 

luka

Well-known member
matt have you any idea how infuriating it is when you share an opinion and someone just says
'yeah, but you're only saying that cos you think it makes you sound cool'
!!
 
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