Pop Psychology.

[Diggedy Derek]

Actually, gotta be said many of us have shared the sort of position of Beatles haters here like Luka and JWD. For me, the Beatles attain a sort of classicism that is to me bewitching, but classicism can in itself be something to hate, perhaps. I generally profess to hate Sinatra in just such a way.

Nonetheless, I think with The Beatles that they're such a rich band that it's hard not to find quite a lot to like there. It's not just one thing they do perfectly but many (and personally I've always found The Byrds and The Beach Boys a bit one dimensional, especially the later).

The Beatles- a tight little RnB outfit circa '63; soul-shouters / garage rockers in one package circa Hard Day's Night; eloquent lo-fi poets circa '68. They had everything, often at the same time.

 

[anhhh]

ozu/ford vs kubrick (i should go to the street)

 

[Grievous Angel]

I like the beatles and I would like all their albums, apart from the first couple which I can take or leave. As that bloke from haircut 100 said*, it's all about revolver isn't it.

I suppose I can grudgingly admit that Matt's got a point about their ability to package intimacy in media but they weren't the first -- I'd stab at saying it was Sinatra and the bobbysoxers but who knows, maybe Glen Miller had it too. I'd ask my dad cos he was a fan but he's dead.

However I'd rather express the same position it in two different ways:

1) it's all about tunes -- I keep tellin' ya!
2) the beatles were both individually and, more importantly, collectively, mages of the aeon. They, like Marley, really were angels sent from god for the redemption of the world. They were literally divine.

Plus, and I know this kind of ex-post facto revisionism is really irritating despite the fact that this was the position of the beatles at the time, but they were a soul band -- they were just dressed up like a white pop act. Just ask George Clinton.

* Nick Heyward! "Your favourite shirts are on your back though some say on the shelf". Or something. Bring back Paddy Macaloon!

PS: I don't like Casablanca. Which isn't important, but neither does my wife, and she's a bit of a cineaste.

 

[jwd]

hey simon, you're a HUGE dylan fan aren't you? i daresay your position on dylan is similar to mine on the beatles (and you know how huge a dylan fanatic i am.)

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"

so given i like "odyssey and oracle" so much more than any beatles album, does that make me baal's nemesis?

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.....)

no you're quite right i think, it is quite 'performative' in some ways. perhaps with mccartney it's more about the content of the songs and with davies it's the delivery. the way he carries the songs with his voice, the way he lets the lyrics loll in his mouth. (this is much more important around village green-era: the early stuff is more strident.) maybe davies is sometimes close to one of those film director tricks you were talking about: "b) talking really quietly so you had to strain to hear what they were saying" - especially on songs like "rosemary rose" or "people take pictures of each other."

i guess this is the thing, quite often i'm absolutely turned off by the confessional, 'cos it rarely transcends its first-person dogmatism. i'm always, "so you lost her? big fucking deal."

 

[MBM]

The Beatles: Are there two Beatles - the live band and a recording band.

Beatles (1) actually died in plane crash on route back from the US in 1966. They were a bunch of cheeky R&B/pop soul entertainers. They were young and fun and their fans were mainly young women.

Beatles (2) were created by George Martin from DNA samples taken from the original band. He made certain "alterations" to their basic body patterns (including quadrophonic hearing systems) to enable to them to interface more securely with their equipment in the studio. They needed huge quantities of drugs to keep their replicant forms stable. The drugs had the useful side-effect of scrambling the brains of their now mostly-male fans from noticing their heroes' transformation.

Unfortunately, 60s genetic engineering wasn't that stable and band only lasted 4 years. In 1980, the Lennon replicant was assassinated by the CIA (or it may have been EMI) when he threatened to go public with the inorganic nature of the Beatles.

 

[Woebot]

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'
!!

 

[Groke]

I think the intimacy thing comes vaguely out of music hall and variety shows - working a crowd as well as just making them dance. If you listen to Lonnie Donegan in his 'funny' years there's a real warmth and rapport with the audience, and maybe some of the Beatles' genius was to pick up on that kind of thing and realise you could use it to put across emotional content, not just jokes.

In general the thing that's so extraordinary about them is how they took a music which was made to connect with and energise really small crowds and perfectly adapted it as their audience grew. Nearly all the other Merseybeat bands made ghastly, horrible mis-steps as soon as they realised the nation was listening but the Beatles didn't (or not for a long time, anyway).

 

[mms]

they did some good ones but i could quite happily never listen to them again, they are like an irritating infection or a nervous condition that seems to come back at random in many ways.
what i mean is the world could be so different if the beatles (and the stones) werent held up with so much reverence, what they did seems to have set alot of things in stone, 40 year old decrees that stand over music. they are rocks around the neck of music and it's almost important to ignore their output. but of course that would be slicing off the old nose to spite the face.

aesthetically, the horrible midrangey sound of alot of their recordings and their voices often give me the hump.
some of their songs are just dreadful too, really bad, horrible nostalgic ballads and nasty novely songs, plus alot of braindead hippy twaddle guilded by arrangements.
the way sgt peppers is held up with so much respect when apart from she's leaving home the last song which are amazing, and the first 8 seconds of the title track, it's mainly gilded novelty drivel.
it's obviously all about revolver from that period anyway, that's got everything sgt peppers hasn't got in bundles.

no doubt the beatles were great song writers, i wish more people would do a good job of covering their songs, the version jonny cash did of 'in my life' was infinitley more moving than their version.
I'd choose to listen to anything else i think.

 

[sufi]

 

[grimly fiendish]

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.

and i used to feel exactly the same way about shakespeare and dickens as i did about the beatles: what is this crap? why is it good? "well, laddie, it's good because ... because ... because it's shakespeare/dickens/the beatles! and they're great! they just are! millions of your elders and betters can't be wrong!"

and that's it. it becomes a self-fulflilling prophecy. what self-respecting music fan isn't going to rebel against being repeatedly told, without reason, that something is the best thing since the invention of the wax cylinder?

for me, the beatles suddenly made perfect sense when a dear friend made me a CD of slightly lesser-known tracks, lovingly sequenced. it opened my eyes, and the very next day i went out and bought revolver, pepper and abbey road. (i still can't be bothered with anything pre-revolver, i must admit.) irritatingly, i don't have the CD to hand right now but i'll try to post the tracklisting tomorrow. it's not just me: i played the same CD to a confirmed hater and he was blown away.

 

[Chef Napalm]

Totally off topic

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)

Sounds like a story or two there. Between which films?

 

[geto.blast]

Coming from a non anglo-saxon background i always thought the Myth of the Beatles was a "generational-bridging tool" to help the babyboomers connect with their young'uns.

Hats off to all the Beatles-skeptics here it s not an easy thing to admit publicly :]

 

[Raw Patrick]

byron coley once describing the rolling stones as an over-rated but reasonably vigorous rhythm-and-blues combo from the UK!

I also remember him saying that he never got into The Beatles bcz they seemed like they were for girls whereas he could put up with The Rolling Stones bcz they were for boys!

The Beatles leave me cold. I think it's because I think of them as being like a music hall act.

 

[PeteUM]

I love and rate The Beatles but I have this half-assed theory (based on stale memories of parts of my philosophy degree) that attempting to critically assess their music is compromised by the fact that to a certain extent they have created the DISCOURSE (I think this is Nietzsche via Derrida) in which they would be judged...or whatever. Like, because we inhabit a post-Beatles discourse, it isn't surprising that we think they had a way with a tune. This might be another way of saying that we all grew up with (and therefore like)The Beatles but it isn't just that. Maybe someone else with a firmer grip on this stuff can tell me what it is I'm trying to say.

 

[fldsfslmn]

I got angry looks in a bar when I was overheard claiming that the Beatles (+ Elvis, as went my theory) were post-war America's way of versioning all the excitement of National Socialism. Needless to say, there was a context to my argument that got a bit lost in the beer ...

I'm not sure if the angry looks were triggered by my criticism of the Beatles or my criticism of National Socialism. I highly doubt it was both, which tells you something.

It's funny to note here—as in the case of Dickens and Shakespeare—how much these unassailable canonical figures are produced by piggy-backing emerging technology or modes of communication. I'm just spouting here, but it could be Shakespeare = mass theatre or publishing, Dickens = serialized stories running in daily newspapers (ergo, advancements in printing technology, etcetera). For the Beatles it could be—what? Television? Sound recording?

 

[PeteUM]

Yeah, I was going to say something about how they were only able to embody this new paradigm because of emergent cultural shifts brought on by new media/technology, and perhaps also because they were so shit hot, and cute to boot. Or something.

I see The Simpsons as an example of a similar kind of thing.

I love the idea of versioning National Socialism!

 

[martin]

Hats off to all the Beatles-skeptics here it s not an easy thing to admit publicly :]

Really, I find it quite easy, they were the poor man's Freddy & the Dreamers.

 

[corneilius]

Pop Psychology

There's a great book, "black vinyl. white powder" that takes a look on the inside of the pop business, glorifies it a bit, but does let the penny drop, without realising it.

Basically, pop music is like PR, it plays on neurosis, so the 'intimacy' the beatles used worked because the audience themselves were nuerotically trying to get the intimacy they were lacking in their lives, without being aware of it, same goes for the band, it's a co-dependency. Hence the tears and all that bollox. And being unawares of it, they keep coming back for more, 'cos the neurosis stays in place. And that's yer consumer culture, basically. The phuckers at the top do realise what they are playing with, 'cos the whole scheme was crafted by Edward Bernays, a nephew of Freuds, in the early years of the 2oth century. A form of mass hypnosis.

You's never get an indigenous/aboriginal reacting like that! Oh No! They'd get fuckin' bored, and wander off!

I have spent the last ten years removing, erasing those neurotic neural pathways that are created by 'education' and parental humiliation/ignorance, and accessed by 'pop', shopping, TV etc., and now I can't stand the stuff. I want my music to a) tell the truth and b) remind me of who I really am, and encourage me to be strong, honest and connected. If it doesn't do that then yawn! As for the Industry FUCK 'EM! They're all muppets, every last one of them. Bill Hicks had a good savvy on these people.

I never like the beatles or hendrix, as he was presented, for that matter - hendrix died just before he was about to do his 'own' thing, his honest work. That's such a pity, 'cos he might just have blown the lid on all the mega pop shite, being that he was up to his eyeballs in it, and didn't like it much! Good enough reason for some people to off him! (now there's a conspiracy theory for ya! ha. Ha. ha!)