Another Debate

Me and my mate had another massive arguement, they always start during our local pub quiz.
This weeks was him saying that without the beatles there would be no Guns n Roses or Aerosmtih, and that music would be totally different.
I said thats bull!! Am sick of people overrating the beatles and claiming they influenced everyone in their path, its simply not true.
My point was that without the beatles you still have highly influencial people and bands like, Buddy holly, Bob Dylan, Elvis, The shadows, Billy haley and his comets, John Lee hooker, The supremes (lol)... em, theres more, i thought of loads!
Anyway, I dont like the beatles, there songs seem so cheesey and predictable... (beatles fans shout - They defined what is predictable with their song structures!)
Whatever

you've got to realize that even thought the Beatles aren't terrific(but they're good), they weren't famous for just being musicians. they redefined the recording world with Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, they changed a lot of stuff about the guitar.
they just changed a lot of thing and broke down a lot of barriers. you don't need to a virtuoso to do that.
even a lot of famous guitarist say that they wan't to be like the Beatles, but harder or faster or something. they wanted to emulate their sound.
so the Beatles WERE a very very very influential force that changed a lot of things.

I'll second that...

The Beatles may well have influenced many, many bands, and perhaps myself indirectly by influencing those who have influenced me, but as for direct influence - I've listed to perhaps two of their songs ever and disliked them both. Their playing was in no way even special to me.

What exactly did the Beatles change? What barriers did they break?

There is very little barrier-breaking done by anyone nowadays... Classical composers have written massive books on harmony and melody that cover almost everything that is now seen as "new". Take using a Bb Major chord in C Major, for example. Using the b7 major chord in a major key was popularized in some songs around the 60s-70s, but it's also found in some classical compositions.

Another example. Pearl Jam claims Hendrix as an influence, and Yellow Ledbetter shows this with the hammer-on/pull-off chord playing, such as...

|---------------------------
|---------------------------
|---------7---7h9p7--7------
|---7-----7---7------7h9----
|---7h9---------------------
|0--------------------------

But these suspensions and resolutions were all studied and many applied in classical composition. I'm currently thinking of one piano piece I know that plays an A Major chord with the third on top, to the fourth, to the second, and back to the third.

Brazilian and Latin folk songs use exotic chords such as +7, m11, and 7#9, but the 7#9 chord is seen as "The Hendrix Chord"... why is credit given to the wrong people? The majority of people listen to Rock and Pop music rather than other genres, so if it's the first time they've ever heard it done in a Pop setting, they assume it's the first time it's ever been done. *sigh*

I think its just called the "Hendrix chord" because its most identified with him, I dont think many people think he made it up himself.

The Beatles werent amazingly original, but they brought a huge range of influences together. The bottom line I think is that music would be different without the Beatles. They had a huge influence on music at the time and still do, Id reckon theyve influenced at least 90% of bands since, whether directly or indirectly.

The Beatles wrote the textbook on songwriting.

I am not a big fan of the beatles - absolutely not.

But from a musical point of view i do have to give them credit! They where amazing!

they managed to record all their stuff with only 4 tracks and they did it all live in studio alltogether - not one after another. the compositions where just great and so where the arrangements. it is true that the beatles would be nothing without George Martin - though they had good ideas, Martin was the one who was putting them into context. The real credit therefore has to go to George Martin. He was the one who wrote McCartneys ingenius basslines - not McCartney himself, who is now beeing praised for it.

But the beatles where not the only band that did great work back then. Bands like Gentle Giant with "Octopus" or the Beach Boys with "Pet Sounds" where also very important bands.

If a car had honked the very minute your papa turned and saw your mama for the first time,would you have been born?
If there had been a buglary the night you were conceived,would you have been born?
If your mama was married to someone else,would you have been born?
Such are the questions we used(me and my cuzzin)to ask ourselves when we were kids.
And this thread has reminded me of them.
Thing is,the events that take place in the world have sooooooo many elemnts factoring in,and soooooooooooo many options,that the different possibilities that exist are infnity!That's not an exclamation mark.It means infinity factorial.Factorial,in case you don't know,is something that is used in statistics when evaluating probabilities(amongst many other uses).For instance,2! would be 2 times 1.8! would be 8 times 7 times 6 times 5 times 4 times 3 times 2 times 1.So you know what infinity! is.
If you ask me,all the effect the beatles had,in deed all the effect anyone has,is this:
If there were no beatles,well,there would be no beatles.
It's like arguing that if Alexander Graham Bell died when he was 13,there wouldn't be phones today.
Or if Marie and Petrie(?) currie didn't exist,we wouldn't have x-rays in hospitals.
The truth is,we'll never know what would have happened if this and that didn't happen.
The options ate way too many.
We'll never know.
And in any case,no one person invented rock and all.They may be the ones who first became famous because of it.But they didn't invent it.
Music is dynamic.It develops from all over.People say Bob Marley invnted reggae.Yeah yeah.

Would their have been bands like GNR or Aerosmith without the Beatles? I have no idea, BUT, you do not realize the huge influence they had on everyone who was alive and a Rock and Roll fan when their music was new and fresh, it is very hard for most people who are maybe younger than 35 or 40 years old to understand how limited the music media was in the 60's, you might have one AM radio R&R station to listen too, and a lucky kid might get one new 45rpm record to play on the turntable a month, WOW 2 songs, Of course since you only had one radio station, that played everything that was considered R&R, whoever was on the Top 10 or 20 got heard the most, and the Beatles stayed on the charts like that for at least 7 or 8 years, so even if you didn't like them, you still had to hear them. It's funny you mention Bill Haley, Elvis, Buddy Holly, who do you think were some of the influences of the Beatles were? But by the 60's Elvis was mainly just making movies, Buddy Holly was dead, and Bill Haley must have been selling used cars or something while awaiting the 50's music revival of the mid 70's, (Until then 50's music was our Mom&Dad's music and you know how boring that is), most Dylan fans didn't like the Beatles and vice versa, IMHO, he may be a poet, but he ain't no singer, and John Lee Hooker's influence was microscopic, unless you were a musican seriously into the blues, you probably never heard of him in the 60's. As far as the Beatles album's go, most of their albums were considered groundbreaking, especially, Rubber Soul, Sgt Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, the White Album, and probably Abbey Road, when you consider the fact that most bands never even record that many albums in a career, let alone have one considered groundbreaking, and the Beatles had all those in the space of about 4 or 5 years, and the music changed vastly over their career, listen to the first Beatles album, and then listen to one of the ones listed above, they also exposed people to alot of different styles of music, different instruments, thematic albums, etc. I say all this as Joe Average White Boy growing up in the 60's, in the U.S., every kid I knew at the time was a Beatles fan, they also influeneced fashion, everything from haircuts to shoes, their even was a Saturday morning Beatles cartoon show. I'm sure Axl, Slash, Steven Tyler and Joe Perry all heard plenty of Beatles growing up, in the 60's or the 70's, I know they were on the turntable at every opportunity at my house, I heard alot of others groups, artists, but I can't say any of them had the overall influence of the Beatles..........

[Edited by pstring on 01-23-2003 at 10:14 AM]

The beatles were really to poppy for me to see how they influenced a rock band like G&R. I would credit that to an early rockstar, not a pop band. I think it was more people like Beck and Clapton and Hendrix which influenced these bands.

PS; The Beatles were over rated.

"The beatles were really to poppy for me to see how they influenced a rock band like G&R. I would credit that to an early rockstar, not a pop band. I think it was more people like Beck and Clapton and Hendrix which influenced these bands."

Guns N' Roses were/are a pop band too, just with a hard rock core, if you like. Its evolution, you dont have to sound like the music your influenced by, Led Zeppelin were influenced mainly by old blues artists, but they(some say) invented heavy metal, you get it?

At the end of the day, my opinion is, the Beatles wrote better songs than everyone else and thats why theyve been so successful.

Originally posted by Led Zeppelin
"The beatles were really to poppy for me to see how they influenced a rock band like G&R. I would credit that to an early rockstar, not a pop band. I think it was more people like Beck and Clapton and Hendrix which influenced these bands."

Guns N' Roses were/are a pop band too, just with a hard rock core, if you like. Its evolution, you dont have to sound like the music your influenced by, Led Zeppelin were influenced mainly by old blues artists, but they(some say) invented heavy metal, you get it?

At the end of the day, my opinion is, the Beatles wrote better songs than everyone else and thats why theyve been so successful.

Firstly, not that this is on topic at all, but I can sure hear blues in Led Zepelin's music. They sound nothing like metal to me.
Second, Guns and Roses dont sound like pop, I'm curious as to how you came to this conclusion, especially when they are compared to the other bands of their day that were considered pop.
Finally, its my opinion that the Beatles were big because they had good business heads on their sholders. Every successful band has to, or at least hire someone who does. I still dont think of them as rock at all, and I dont really like their songs. I'm just not a pop fan.

Im not saying there isnt alot of blues in Led Zeppelins music, cos its obvious - in fact they covered some blues songs - my point is they are known as one of the first heavy metal/hard rock bands, its evolution.

GnR are a hard rock band but theyve always been pop too, theyve got to be having had several hit singles. Im not comparing them with NSync, Im saying that they have pop sensibilities, catchy choruses etc. Their songs follow the verse/chorus/solo etc. pop formula.

Sorry, but I dont get how Verse/Chorus, etc is a pop formula. Can you provide me with a Rock formula?
And to Canuck7, I think it was you who said they revolutionized recoring with sergent Pepper? Not so. That album was recorded with just 8 tracks. They revolutionized nothing. It just scored high on the charts without any high scoring singles.
If you want the guy who really revolutionized recording, I'd give you Les Paul. Look at all the stuff he invented.

Influence is sometimes, and I would say, at it's best, invisible or very subtle, nothing more boring than hearing some band talk about how band xyz, "influenced them" when they sound like a carbon copy of xyz, when I hear blatant influence in someone's music, I usally see it as someone who hasn't found their own voice yet. Hendrix said Dylan was a big influence on him, and besides doing covers of Dylan's songs, I don't think the average person listens to Hendrix and say's Wow he sounds just like Bob Dylan, could a Pop band influence the people in a hard rock band, sure, imitation is one thing, influence is totally another, If you don't like the Beatles or think they are over-rated, fine, but to deny the huge influence they have had on rock music is a little like saying the Roman Empire had no influence on Europe............

I suppose your right, I'm still not that big of a fan.

Josh, they're are only 2 kinds of people in this world, those who are Beatles fans, and those who aren't, but some of the latter group will eventually change camps, so their is hope for you yet, Just Kidding................

I'd rather their not be any hope for me. :)

Luke, I'm your father, buy Abbey Road.......

WOW!! wow wow wow WOW!!
Dont even think about saying guns n roses are a pop band or have pop sensibilities!! If pop song goes verse/ chorus/ verse ... then explain songs like Estranged, Locomotive or even November Rain and try and pick out a common structrue. The song estranged is unbelievable!!
Its a shame Guns n Roses became so utterly popular that people branded them pop. Its the same old story with some people, if a band peoples too popular they feel their identity is lost!
Guns n Roses - over 100 million albums in a career that spanned a couple o years!! They Released two double albums on the same day that went No.1 and No.2 in the UK and USA simultaneaously!! BEAT THAT!!

i'm not really a beatles fan, but i do think they deserve credit for all their influencing. they were rebels at the time too when you think about it.
i think that some songs they did were ok, but i wouldn't classify myself as a Beatles fan.
you should read one of the GuitarWorlds were they have a great article about Sergeant Pepper and all the recording techniques and ideas. i really enjoyed even though i'm not a Beatles fan.
well, i just think that they were a big influence and that music would be different without them.