Dr.Tchock

Forgive any spelling mistakes, for English is not my first (or barely my second) language.

I recently stumbled upon a somewhat provoking album review on Revolver by The Beatles , and, frankly, could not construct any meaningful or effective rebuttal to it. It's, quite easily, the best review on that particular website, not for what it contains but for what it represents: a unashamed and highly elitist manifesto on the crushingly superiority of Art Music over Pop Music. Of course, nothing new under the Sun, we have all heard or proved with our own ears such statement, but the following response (the comments of said review) is elucidative of something.

If we still ascribe artistic credibility to Pop Music, as I certainly do, one is not shocked at the attempt to defend it, specially it's most powerful representative (in the form of The Beatles). It is undoubtedly more immediate, easier to get into and not fully devoid of deep emotional or even intellectual value. Yet, I cannot help to cringe at stuff like this:

Lennon and McCartney are not even close to Beethoven and Mozart. Or Bach and Chopin. Or Mahler and Verdi. That does not mean they are not valuable, just that when you raise the bar they do no make the cut. A very exceptional cut in their defense.

Another comment states:
Ah, bravo.

Which brings me to my central thesis. Snob-ism, elite-ism, etc... I would bank my house and personal belongings that every single one of the comments that bash the original review for being a Classic (also and almost facetiously described on Wikipedia as serious music) snob are themselves giant Pop Music Snobs (by Pop music I understand recorded music, everything from Metal to Pere Ubu, for argument sake). How can one bash in earnest something like Lady Gaga for being plastic and "just-for-making-music-executives-richer" and praise The Beatles WHILE being appalled that someone would dare cross them in favour of some old dead white guy composer? Aesthetically, what really separates Lady Gaga from The Beatles (not arguing innovation and first something-something through a Leslie speaker) when you bring Verklärte Nacht into the equation? How can one build an hierarchy of quality form Lady Gaga, to Kayne West, to Madonna, to U2, to Arcade Fire, to Kraftwerk, to Radiohead, to Brian Eno, to Pink Floyd... all the way up to The Beatles and then say it stops here and anything else is elitism/or incomparable? One can do that sure, by why accept elitism (or as I call it standards) on a closed system and revile it in an open one? To many interrogations, but I digress.

Is Pop irredeemably separated form the standards of Art Music? But then putting Lennon in the same club to Mozart creates a paradox. One admits that the standards are different, and as such requires two different forms of elitism. Yet, they are comparable, are found in the same category. If not, might as well class Lennon with Lionel Messi, and claim they both excel in their respective fields, and inspire people and etc, etc, etc...

In short, devoting lines and lines of music criticism to rank Pop Artists, and such is clearly the goal of that Sputnik Music website, seems rather meaningless and idiotic when the deities of the genre can be easily surpassed by invoking any Romantic prodigy of the courts of Europe. One cannot look down on the Lady Gaga's of this planet and cry foul when someone does it on The Beatles. It's hypocritical at worse, cognitive-dissonant at best.

But I ramble without cessation...

PS: No special affection or disaffection to either Lady Gaga or The Beatles. Examples are merely examples.

PPS: I admit with no trouble that some Pop Music can be ranked above some Art Music even using Art Music standards. But statically such does not occur often.

avalonblues

The review is by a classical music fan listening to Revolver and expecting to hear something with the musical complexity of Chopin and the lyrical content of a Tolstoy novel. Pop music can't be judged by the same standards as classical music, they have different objectives. For example, I think that Tomorrow Never Knows is a work of art, but the whole song is only one chord. Its artistic value doesn't come from the complexity of the actual notes of the music. However, Tommorrow Never Knows creates a sound, ambience, and state of mind in the listener that classical music could never achieve, because of its instrumentation.

Would be interesting to see what Mozart would have done if he had tried some LSD. Frank Zappa maybe?

Also i'm not sure why he picked Revolver as the exact moment that signalled the decline of Western civilization or whatever he was on about. It's not like Elvis was writing concertos or anything. Plus pop art is art, just axe Andy Warhol

Janszoon

Statements like this are why I hate the Beatles instead of merely disliking them.

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Dr.Tchock

Exactly. Witch is why the "don't expect to hear Bach" argument does not follow. Either they are excellent pop musicians, and let's leave it at that, or they are geniuses. And if the latter then they must be compared to other geniuses. And they are certainly canonized as geniuses by the critical collective.

A serious discussion on the validity of the Beatles position on the "musical hierarchy" would be most interesting.

Digressing some more...

Dotoar

Ok, first of all:

One does not exclude the other. They were geniuses within the pop music paradigm, and thus not comparable to classical musicians. You wouldn't compare Galileo with Erik Wallenberg (the inventor of Tetra-pak), would you?

And further on, with all the obvious Beatles-hatred on this forum in mind; It all seems to have its roots not in the music itself or even the four dudes in the band, but in its critical acclaim, and that's just downright nutty. Even in this thread there are already several of you that openly state how you hate/dislike/whatever them because they are overrated, not to mention the multitude of other threads displaying the same logic (or lack thereof). What's up with that? I can certainly understand why one don't wanna listen to "Strawberry fields" for the gazillionth time, I even understand why one doesn't like the music in the first place, but what I do not understand is why someone would dismiss their musical and cultural importance as well as the musical and artistic value in their output. I myself hardly ever listen to them anymore although they are and will always be my favourite band of all time, not least because they were the ones who got me into music altogether, but that's just because I don't really 'need' to anymore.

For one thing, they were groundbreaking, like it or not, but not necessarily in the field of originality altogether but in the field of originality within the pop music paradigm. If you listen chronologically to their discography you will encounter something truly rare for a pop band, namely development. Even the earliest records show progress, maybe bar "Beatles for sale", in relation to the predecessor, be it songwriting, lyrical content or instrumentation. It does not matter who was first with the sitar or the diminished chord; what matters is who could put it to good use within a given format, and few acts have done that so successfully as the Beatles. Contemporary bands like Kinks, Who, Zombies and Stones sure had their own groundbreaking gimmicks on their own which the Beatles never had the chance of pulling off, and rightly so. Zombies, for example, were arguably surpassing Beatles in 1964 with their surprisingly complicated pseudo-baroque songwriting and arrangements, and Stones originated the blues rock which the Beatles most likely wouldn't have pulled off convincingly (and whose importance I acknowledge but don't care much for since I don't like blues).

But none of these bands had the sheer scope and versatility the Beatles had. They did almost everything and they did it good, all for the sake of artistic creativity. Remember how they sacrified touring for exactly that reason in 1966; How many bands would do that as determined as they did? Such stunts speak volumes about them as a visionary band. Or the ultimate breakup in 1970 when they still were at the peak of musicality and artistry? Or the decision to release a plain white album, twice the length of an ordinary album and still come out with winners in 1968? And we haven't even nudged the subject of the influence of "Sgt. Pepper" on the whole prog and artrock movement to come. And anyone dismissing them on the premise of 'datedness' or anything, must remember that all of their inventions, or popularization of inventions, were unheard of at the time.

Of course, one must remain cool-headed and take their obvious flaws in account as well. A metalhead or an avantgarde fogey probably have little appreciation for their music, they were never instrumental virtuosos and they probably have a quite a lot of songs which could be regarded as silly but that's where the personal preferences set in and they are simply not valid in discussions like this.

That was long, but what I'm trying to get across is that eliticism is stupid whenever it targets musical phenomena within contexts they were never part of in the first place. So, if we must compare Beatles with Bach and Stravinsky, then we must do the same with Stones. And their orchestral maneuvers were even way below the Beatles, weren't they?

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Screen13

Re: Beatles for Sale...The opening killer song hat-trick is worth getting the album alone for opening up to Folk Rock styles. "I'm a Loser" is the winner with John opening up before "Help," showing off a good Dylan influence when having such a style was new. Maybe the rest of the album is half-killer half-filler plus one useless track in "Mr. Moonlight," but "No Reply," "I'm a Loser," and "Baby's in Black" certainly added a little to the Beatles' world.

Screen13

Sorry for double quoting...but here maybe I can help.

Being a Beatles listener for years, I can see where some can get sick of all of the worship. Add to it that the music certainly ended about 40 years ago, not counting the Anthology add-ons, the time and generation gaps certainly can effect. To some, it's great, to others it's pretty much Dad Rock. Back in the day, a goal of The Beatles seemed to try to knock the old order out of the way (Despite some digressions, of course...yes, I'm referring to a couple of Mr. McCartney's songs like "Honey Pie"), which did result in the Producer Pop moving aside for a while along with other great things as well as some that were not so great (but that's a whole other thread). Keeping to human nature tradition, anyone in connection to now (or at least starting more with the Alternative Late 70's/80's), has a good chance to call The Beatles as over-rated, especially when there has been more edgier music from that period that is just as important but usually overlooked in the Media.

Certinaly Beatles Rock Band and all of the other exploitation which uses their music is not helping matters at all (Across the Universe, the film, anyone?).

Going to the review linked...
Some of the hatred in others gets linked in reviews to the fact that The Beatles helped Rock stay around and grow in it's influence when one's choice of music certainly can get overlooked, expecially if one's taste is more of a Classical or at least a non-Rock base. This makes it all the more tempting for one to develop a attitude against them, especially when the stage is the internet.

Then, there are those who just don't "Dig It."

Again, an opinion is to each their own.

Dotoar

There are some true highlights on "For sale" as well, "I'm a loser" being a personal favourite, but taken as a whole it's definitely the most stagnant record of their career. That's not to put it down or anything though.

Every band grows old over time of course, and The Beatles' share of the whole musical catalogue will shrink as well, that's just natural. Thus, there will be more and more options to choose from for every new generation but the fact that Beatles still attract new fans despite their numerous competitors that only grow in numbers, speaks volumes about their standards (not to mention whether all these subsequent bands would have been in the first place without Beatles before them). And as the new generation gets acquainted with them, maybe through the Rock Band exploitation (and yes, exploitation is a good thing), it has a good chance of getting to know more obscure acts further on.

For sure, noone is obliged to like the Beatles, or even "get" them, but that review in question, with its preposterous comparisation to classical music, is just, well, preposterous. I mean, talk about unbearable idiocy of elitism.

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s_k

I don't think the beatles can do much about that.
I love them by the way. But I already loved music before I got any sort of interest in the Beatles. So the statement is bull**** anyhow.

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