Rainard Jalen

The Beatles had plenty of stuff to tour with even if you just took Hard Days Night --> Rubber Soul and the non-album singles (e.g. Day Tripper, Paperback Writer, I Feel Fine) and the B-Sides (e.g. She's A Woman, I'm Down). But you're right that Sgt.Pepper was not tourable material for its orchestral orientation.

However, I think you got it the wrong way round. They didn't stop touring because of the sonic shift. Rather, the sonic shift was borne out of their decision to stop touring. Sgt.Pepper for example was originally conceived when the Beatles were exploring the question of how they could create a record that would do the touring for them. That's where the fictional band concept arose from.

ProggyMan

Bull****. The Beatles stopped touring because they got jaded with the thousands of screaming teenagers outside their hotel every night, and decided they wanted to make music for themselves. They started out as a Rock n' Roll band, and only changed when Brian Epstein started managing them. To everyone who calls the Beatles simply 'pop' or whatever, listen to Helter Skelter, A Day In The Life 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

yeah that's true. They were also worried about attcks on their lives as they made powerfull enemies.
I also think that lsd and psychedelia and spiritual thinking was more long standing with the beatles when the stones went right back to rock after Brian died.
It is possible to do live shows with conceptual albums like Floyd but in the main live concerts are about more rock n roll pub type numbers and the stones wrote them.
On a purely personal level I think the beatles are like spots and shakespeare to a teenager who is into music or making a band. Like me listening to love me do and falling in love for the first time and later generations do the same and all tell each other the anecdote about the movement you need is on your shoulder with Lennon saying to Paul, "no that is the best line."
But as an adult I find the beatles a bit depressing now and I am a bit too old to enjoy love me do the same way.
Where as the Stones early stuff does kind of stay fresh and makes me want to roll one and knock back you know.
There is something about some of the beatles work that has become to my mind like seaside trips in the UK. Like Blackpool pleasure beach kiss me quick hats in the eighties if you get me. Like Morrissey's Every day's like Sunday (I love that song) portrays.
A bit like Elvis it makes you think of old men who have pictures of him on their walls and still gel their hair back and it reminds me of old retired peoples social bingo days out listening to The wonder of you.
The beatles have that same effect on me and lots of other people I speak to.
Where as the Stones still sound like fresh, sexy, sassy and cool.
But you are right Richard. I do remember reading that. In some ways when you think about it the beatles were very good live if you ever listened to their bbc recordings when they first started recording rock n roll.
I think that marketing of them for mass appeal was what Lennon hated himself. He said he felt a prick in the same suit like that.
I'd say the stones are better if I'm going to decide.
Oh yeah, one other thing about the stones, they were so fresh and unique when they came out. They were not original as they loved R&B and the blacks in the states were doing what they did but to the UK they were so new, sexy and sassy whereas the Beatles kind of came from a genre and the Beach Boys had already done the same stuff a couple of years earlier and so were other Epstein bands.
This may be a bit sweeping but perhaps the stones introduced the UK to R&B and then the Who followed.
The stones were more inovative in the UK for that reason I think.

ADELE

No, they stopped touring because Epstein died and because they were bored of what they were doing and because they had heard the Beach Boys.
And when I say they I should say Lennon as it was his band and he called the shots.
They were also worried about their lives with serious assasinations going on in the US and they were against the war.
And John met Yoko and wanted different things.
You do have a point about helter skelter and other John songs that is true.
It is not either or but a combination.
But to return to the original point I do think all things considered the stones are a better rock n roll band in terms of live and rock your socks off.
But lets face it noone could really say one was more then the other.
I would put a case for the stones as R&B from the US like Muddy Waters is more Rock n Roll and the type of songs you could get a street going to.
The Beatles later work is more introspective and Rock n Roll usually means good time.
Thats the best case I can put but wouldn't argue too feircely for it.

ProggyMan

But Paul wrote Helter Skelter...Anway, every single member of the band has said they stopped touring because they got tired physically and mentally of life on the road. The things you mentioned were factors though. I think the Beatles had plenty of grit, it's just their earlier records earned them a soft reputation. Rock n' Roll means sex, so...Really though, I don't think Rock has to be confined to loud-mouthed sex pots.

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!!!

Urban Hat€monger ?

I would think thats why

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