Friday, March 14, 2008
50 Years and So Many Songs! No Other Band Could Last So Long!
A student of media effects claimed today that after a week of tracking media messages, whether selectively sought or passively observed, one could not escape them unless he were asleep. Billboards, commercials, music, magazine covers in check out lines: they pervade our daily existence.
One could say that if media messages do shine so on through window panes --which is to say, they perforate us, willingly or not-so-willingly – then, whatsoever they provide for our days, The Beatles similarly yet thankfully do for our lives.
This four-piece 1960s version of a boy band was initially taken about as seriously as New Kids on the Block was nearly 20 years ago. This is clearly demonstrated in the 1964 New York Times article by Theordore Strongin: “The age of 15 or 16 or 14 or 13 is essential in a Beatles expert,” he wrote.
Strongin’s words would almost make it easy enough to subscribe to that line of thinking, if nearly 50 years later, we didn’t know any better. However, in sharp contrast, and just two weeks earlier, William Mann of the London Times saw things another way. He wrote, on inkling, an article that seemed to gather the not yet understood electricity in the air, and mimic a familiar theme to what had once been the title of a popular 1957 song: “Something’s Coming.”
For Mann, the fact that the Beatles took back the crown from all the American rock bands, who had been so lovingly worshipped in England for decades previously, was the icing on the cake. His excitement, however, seemed swept over by a slight veil of nervousness, which upon describing the phenomenon and everything positive to be found within the music, he stopped to make a bold, precautionary, and telling statement:
“These are some of the qualities that make one wonder with interest what The Beatles, and particularly Lennon and McCartney, will do next, and if America will spoil them or hold on to them, and if their next record will wear as well as the others. They have brought a distinctive and exhilarating flavor into a genre of music that was in danger of ceasing to be music at all.”
Insofar as anticipation, with the masses’ breathless attention so penetrating even skeptics could not deny it, all eyes were on the Beatles. A Hard Day’s Night, the band’s third album, along with its first movie of the same title, paved the yellow brick road for the Beatles. For the first time, critics were starting to wake up and smell the coffee, and Trix wasn’t just for kids anymore.
The rest is history, and today the chronology of Beatles albums is often muddled when downloaded in mp3 format, or when Number Ones are compiled onto one smashing album. Most important is that by the time they got to Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles, with credit also to those nameless predecessors of “acid-buddhist imagery and rock beat,” acknowledged in passing by Village Voice writer Richard Goldstein, in combination with seemingly endless new production possibilities provided by the technologically advantageous four-track, forged a new genre, one that no one has ever come close to be able to do better.
For the love of pop music, everyone must love the Beatles on some level. Yes, I’ve encountered a few prunes who swore up and down they hated them, but they’re just jealous. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. By and large, what I’ve always found uniquely interesting about the Beatles is that, although fans and pop critics may not always agree which Beatles album was ever the best, the point is that everyone has a favorite: Revolver, I’ve heard countless times. Sgt. Pepper’s, for the daring. The White Album, for the sentimental, which I’ll admit, includes me.
Being that the White Album is my favorite, I must say that Ellen Willis’ backhanded scoff at the title got me a little sore. But then, it has me laughing in a sense, like Mann was at bittersweet goods, since I do so want to know what her thoughts were on Weezer’s Blue Album, or Green Album, or Jay-Z’s Black Album, or better yet, the Gray Album: Danger Mouse’s online, legally suspect yet not-for-profit, brilliantly presented mix of The White Album’s beats and orchestrated strings serving as the backdrop for The Black Album’s punchy hip-hop lyrics. Then again, I think she would have enjoyed it; she did admit to harboring a rebellious, screaming teenager in her head.
Mania, recording innovations, and all aside, I can’t recall when I heard the Beatles first because they have always existed: in my lifetime, in the life before mine, and will afterward as well. But I can tell you the two things that make me pay attention: The first is that someone once told me if I wanted to learn how to play guitar I needed to play the Beatles. They never barred anything; they played all the chords the way they were supposed to be played. They didn’t cheat. I once heard they rode a bus for four hours one day just to find a rumored man who knew how to play the B7.
Besides that, I’ve always heard the Beatles never stressed about writing lyrics. That’s debatable, but I can say honestly I’ve never stressed too much about why I like their lyrics. To me, it seems like the lyrically complex are equally as entertaining and thoughtful as the more poppy ones, silly and catchy rhyme schemes and all -- so catchy I’ll bet you a dollar that whether you like a Beatles song, you could sing one, and with your eyes closed.
A student of media effects claimed today that after a week of tracking media messages, whether selectively sought or passively observed, one could not escape them unless he were asleep. Billboards, commercials, music, magazine covers in check out lines: they pervade our daily existence.
One could say that if media messages do shine so on through window panes --which is to say, they perforate us, willingly or not-so-willingly – then, whatsoever they provide for our days, The Beatles similarly yet thankfully do for our lives.
This four-piece 1960s version of a boy band was initially taken about as seriously as New Kids on the Block was nearly 20 years ago. This is clearly demonstrated in the 1964 New York Times article by Theordore Strongin: “The age of 15 or 16 or 14 or 13 is essential in a Beatles expert,” he wrote.
Strongin’s words would almost make it easy enough to subscribe to that line of thinking, if nearly 50 years later, we didn’t know any better. However, in sharp contrast, and just two weeks earlier, William Mann of the London Times saw things another way. He wrote, on inkling, an article that seemed to gather the not yet understood electricity in the air, and mimic a familiar theme to what had once been the title of a popular 1957 song: “Something’s Coming.”
For Mann, the fact that the Beatles took back the crown from all the American rock bands, who had been so lovingly worshipped in England for decades previously, was the icing on the cake. His excitement, however, seemed swept over by a slight veil of nervousness, which upon describing the phenomenon and everything positive to be found within the music, he stopped to make a bold, precautionary, and telling statement:
“These are some of the qualities that make one wonder with interest what The Beatles, and particularly Lennon and McCartney, will do next, and if America will spoil them or hold on to them, and if their next record will wear as well as the others. They have brought a distinctive and exhilarating flavor into a genre of music that was in danger of ceasing to be music at all.”
Insofar as anticipation, with the masses’ breathless attention so penetrating even skeptics could not deny it, all eyes were on the Beatles. A Hard Day’s Night, the band’s third album, along with its first movie of the same title, paved the yellow brick road for the Beatles. For the first time, critics were starting to wake up and smell the coffee, and Trix wasn’t just for kids anymore.
The rest is history, and today the chronology of Beatles albums is often muddled when downloaded in mp3 format, or when Number Ones are compiled onto one smashing album. Most important is that by the time they got to Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles, with credit also to those nameless predecessors of “acid-buddhist imagery and rock beat,” acknowledged in passing by Village Voice writer Richard Goldstein, in combination with seemingly endless new production possibilities provided by the technologically advantageous four-track, forged a new genre, one that no one has ever come close to be able to do better.
For the love of pop music, everyone must love the Beatles on some level. Yes, I’ve encountered a few prunes who swore up and down they hated them, but they’re just jealous. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. By and large, what I’ve always found uniquely interesting about the Beatles is that, although fans and pop critics may not always agree which Beatles album was ever the best, the point is that everyone has a favorite: Revolver, I’ve heard countless times. Sgt. Pepper’s, for the daring. The White Album, for the sentimental, which I’ll admit, includes me.
Being that the White Album is my favorite, I must say that Ellen Willis’ backhanded scoff at the title got me a little sore. But then, it has me laughing in a sense, like Mann was at bittersweet goods, since I do so want to know what her thoughts were on Weezer’s Blue Album, or Green Album, or Jay-Z’s Black Album, or better yet, the Gray Album: Danger Mouse’s online, legally suspect yet not-for-profit, brilliantly presented mix of The White Album’s beats and orchestrated strings serving as the backdrop for The Black Album’s punchy hip-hop lyrics. Then again, I think she would have enjoyed it; she did admit to harboring a rebellious, screaming teenager in her head.
Mania, recording innovations, and all aside, I can’t recall when I heard the Beatles first because they have always existed: in my lifetime, in the life before mine, and will afterward as well. But I can tell you the two things that make me pay attention: The first is that someone once told me if I wanted to learn how to play guitar I needed to play the Beatles. They never barred anything; they played all the chords the way they were supposed to be played. They didn’t cheat. I once heard they rode a bus for four hours one day just to find a rumored man who knew how to play the B7.
Besides that, I’ve always heard the Beatles never stressed about writing lyrics. That’s debatable, but I can say honestly I’ve never stressed too much about why I like their lyrics. To me, it seems like the lyrically complex are equally as entertaining and thoughtful as the more poppy ones, silly and catchy rhyme schemes and all -- so catchy I’ll bet you a dollar that whether you like a Beatles song, you could sing one, and with your eyes closed.
Labels: College, Music, Sociology, The Beatles
