ADELE

Yeah thats true.
You could say not going on the road aint rock n roll though.
I suppose I'd be repeating myself saying that the stones were more edgy and loose and corrupt then the beatles.
The earlier point about the beatles been nursury rhyme like is true too I think.
I mean, the stones sang about sex and drugs and rock n roll.
It really is just taste. I once read an article that said if the stones had all died in a plane crash around 69 they'd be hailed forever as the best rock n roll band ever full stop. The Beatles split did mean they didn't screw up or make crap songs etc.
I also read John wanted to do rock n roll numbers that were quick and paul wanted ballads and george just wanted to get a few songs on the albums.
I can't knock the beatles because like I said when you are at school learning guitar you watch the beatles and their films and you maybe have a dobeee for the first time it all seems so damn great listening to their early songs then their later songs and it meshes with childlike imagery and all seems so bloody brilliant. I don't know about you but we'd sing yellow submarine and yesterday in assembly but not tumbling dice so as kids we saw the beatles as like part of our lives and learning. I remember when I was 5 and john was shot and I didn't know who he was but I rember feeling like he was jesus or something when i'd see Imagine on tele he looked so spiritual and people saying he was dead as I didn't know young people died. That added to the beatles whole historic influence. I think kids today and tommorow will all go through that over and again. Then as you leave school and get into relationships (or try to) you start liking the stones as you are free and they sound sexy and liberating like the pistols and clash etc. Then after too much liberation you get into the floyd and reflect on it all.
I suppose that is a rock n roll template that all young aspiring bands go through!!!
So I wouldn't then get older and knock the beatles for been what they were.
John Lennon's last album was an attempt to get back to good old rock n roll.
I suppose also the beatles can be studenty and acid whereas the stones appeal to blue collar workers like my dad with honky tonk woman etc.
But the beatles are like shakespeare to young blokes picking up a guitar at school and been extremely positive.
etc etc etc!!!

Rainard Jalen

But the Beatles were a pop band. Sgt Pepper onwards is also pop, albeit a more sophisticated type than what appeared on say Please Please Me --> Beatles For Sale. Pop simply means that the music is more focused on melody and hooks, and on creating enjoyable, catchy vocal/instrumental arrangements. About 97% of the Beatles' discography is precisely like this. It varies simply in levels of sophistication and depth of ideas and concepts. That this is the case does not detract at all from the excellence of this band and fans should not feel they need to avoid admitting it.

Saying that music is "just pop" is completely meaningless. "Pop" is as legitimate a format of music as is metal or hard rock or jazz or rap or soul or funk or punk or anything else. Saying that the Beatles were "just pop" is about as insulting and meaningful as saying that Mozart was "just classical" or that Nas is "just rap". Which, needless to say, is not very much at all.

Far as the early Beatles stuff went, of course John and Paul wanted to write it. They weren't even interested in having a free reign in those days. Paul for example wrote Love Me Do years before The Beatles even formed. Every stage of their careers was a part of their development as songwriters, and the signs of development are present all the time: "childish love songs" might be a way of describing the first two albums, but they're already by-and-large well away from that and much changed & expanded as early as Hard Days Night, 1964! But even then, their earliest stuff is always great. There's a good reason why they became so popular from Please Please Me onwards, and it's because those early hits were incredible, brilliant pop and people just fell in love with them straight away. The albums are consistently good too with very little filler. Loz, most detractors haven't even listened to any of the early albums and they know it full well! Even many serious Beatles fans have never bothered listening to the first 2 albums and probably skipped Beatles For Sale too, to say nothing of the haters.

"Childish love songs" does not describe the majority of the Beatles' early stuff any more than "mystical bollocks" describes the later stuff. It doesn't even describe a quarter of it. The majority of the album material is not really like that at all, there's a lot more variety, sophistication and abstraction going on than that. Hell, a significant bunch of the later songs are simply stories and character portraits. Drug-induced visions etc make up very very little of the Beatles' later lyrical material. But then I guess one'd have to have spent enough time with the albums to know that.

Sonically, the band were always astounding in their diversity and trial-n-error experimentation even early on. The influences are extremely wide and diverse, one needs only to pick out one of the early non-LP singles to see that. 1964, John's riff-driven I Feel Fine as the A-Side and Paul's Little Richard-inspired She's A Woman as the B-Side. They were always playing around in ways that most other acts were not - so many things were attempted early on it's hard to summarize. But again, one'd have to care enough about that sort of music and spend enough time with the early material to come across all this.

ProggyMan

I didn't say they weren't pop, I said 'simply pop'. Their later music wasn't just exclusively designed to be catchy.

Rainard Jalen

No, that is true. But that doesn't make the stuff that was bad or any less worthy.

ADELE

Man you know your stuff Richard.
I reckon that the guy means that pop has never been considered as cool as rock.
It isn't lets face it. That is why putting the beatles in pop lessens them a bit in many peoples eyes in terms of a sort of cred arguement.
It doesn't when you look at it thoroughly but in general unconcious it does to many.
Some writers even said that Lennon despised the beatles early on just he wanted a life and some cash.
You know like playing hard rock and great rock covers in hamburg then dressing up like a bit of a jaffa to get friendly airplay. It wasn't really him as he was more like the stones image then the stones were.
Pop these days helps that image of MOR crap with pop idol etc.
Whereas the who and stones and kinks get more cred looking back for been real rock about adult themes that the beatles early work lacked.
But like you said b sides and that gave them a chane to sneak in what they were really about even if noone noticed including me.
Perhaps the stones were more true to themselves?????
They certainly got abuse and stick like the pistols later did for their attitude.
so they appear anti establishment and therefore better.
Not in reality but in peoples minds.
I'll have to look out for those you mentioned Richard as they are new to me.
Real love is a great song that came about in the 90's and I love the video when george and paul hug for the first meet in years and then it switches to john pulling a face in 62.
Liam gallagher said everyone considers keef the idea of rock cool but lennon in his white suit with his fooking white plimsols to do that and be cool takes something!!
ah ha ha.

NSW

They both suck a$$.

ProggyMan

Why?

Urban Hat€monger ?

I would think thats why

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ProggyMan

Just about.

NSW

I don't really think they both suck ass, I just got tired of watching everyone wax philosophical about which one is better. They both have redeeming qualities, but neither one is just out-of-this-world awesome. This is all my humble opinion of course.