Quote:
Originally Posted by Minstrel
I didn't forget that. It's fairly well-established that the Beach Boys and Beatles consistently pushed each other to be better. McCartney said that Pet Sounds pushed the Beatles back into the studio for what ended up becoming Sgt. Pepper's, because Pet Sounds set a new standard. And certainly Brian Wilson was inspired to try and create better, by work of the Beatles.
I think the Beatles made great music. They're one of my favourite bands (even if I don't listen to them much anymore, since their music is so ubiquitous). I just don't think they were one of the most experimental bands of the time. Experimenting with looping, time signatures, etc, were not pioneered by them. To their credit, they were willing to pick up new techniques and try to change their sound and they did it incredibly well, but I don't think they revolutionized anything. I do think Brian Wilson's production techniques revolutionized how pop and rock music was made. Though, of course, he built upon Phil Spector.
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The Beatles did not pioneer looping or time signatures and I never said they did pioneer them either. Using mixed time signatures though was rare in rock music in 1965. The Beatles in combination of using looping, sampling and repetitive drum and bass lines have given rise to the sounds we consider mainstream today and the majority of music we hear on the radio now is based around sampled and looped sounds in which the Beatles were the ones who put in rock music.
John Lennon, too, provoked the development of new recording techniques. It had been known for some years that recording the lead vocal twice and layering the resulting tracks, considerably thickened the sound of the singer’s voice. Lennon, who found recording sessions tedious, asked the engineers to find a solution to this time-consuming method.
This simple trick called Automatic Double Tracking or ADT is now produced using digital technology, and has become the standard on pop records of today.