Hating the Beatles is an interesting business. I personally have always enjoyed them. But if you happen to be, like most people, more or less indifferent to them, I can understand the temptation to develop an active hatred, just because it's a lot more interesting than not caring either way. It suggests boldness, passion, and critical thinking on your part, you know? Do it at the right parties, and you can wind up standing in a corner looking like a delightful raconteur, with half a dozen people standing around you hanging on your every word, because they're desperate to convince you that you could not possibly hate the Beatles and must be mistaken somehow.
For a lot of music lovers, though, hating the Beatles is a 101 class in basic contrarianism. So if you're going to do it, you should do it carefully and effectively. Here are some pointers.
But don't worry about crafting your own pointed, devilishly witty rejoinder
This is a good place to post this, perhaps. An article about the hitmakers behind Katy Perry and other artists, and who have scored the most number one singles ever... Behind Lennon and McCartney.
Interesting and somewhat dispiriting to observe the modern pop process as more or less hostile to genuine innovation, micromanaged and stripped of all spontaneity and productive of music in which meaning is hog-tied to structure. Structure which is deliberately, mathematically contrived. I mean, its admirable in a way, and impressive. (And some of the songs they've done have been great ("since you've been gone", anyone?)
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/10/14/the-doctor-is-in
Perdie ghosting in for Ringo. Its like "MAN, RINGO CAN ACTUALLY... No, wait, that's Bernard."
Well, this isn't TOO far from Motown's aesthetic really. Besides how effectively clean and well recorded everything was, is any Motown single TRULY a radical break from R&B beforehand? They learned how to make the singles they'd been hearing and recording for two, three decades prior into more hyper digestible forms. That's not so divorced from Dr. Luke & Max Martin.
Yeah, and this sort of gets to the heart of the issue with The Beatles in that they are prized for innovation and the meaningfulness of their lyrics (which was a product of the time, I suppose, given that (I think) Lennon said he wrote I Am The Walrus purposefully to excite ridiculous interpretations of nonsense), arguably more so than the POP! aspect of their sound. Now, actually, as Luka is sort of suggesting in his (extremely funny) posts, their innovative achievements have perhaps been overstated - and in a sense they too resemble Max Martin/Dr Luke, in that they took the avant-garde techniques/innovations of classical composers, and the music of cultures such as India e.g., and brought and fitted those into a pop context.
Fucking hell son do you want to be a bit more boringThey changed things hugely in many areas of music, from merchandising to touring to publishing models
Yes, that is what I meant, of course. I have heard their greatest hits, as does everybody. I just never cared to sit down to listen to even one of their albums and I doubt I ever will. There is an obvious quality to their music, but it's lost on me. Most of it riles me up.
Leo, is right, by the way. It's not only laziness. It's also priorities. Beatles, Stones, folk, eighties punk, recent hiphop, etc. score low on my priorities list. I am sure I miss out on some excellent stuff, mind you, it's not that I am proud of it.