The Beatles... Are they really the greatest rock band of all time?
Alright, this is probably the 3rd time I rambled on about The Beatles. I'm sure a lot of you know or all of you should know by now that I am not a Beatles fan, mind you that will not cloud my judgment. The Beatles as we all know, were a British psychedelic rock band from the 60's that only lasted 10 years; 1960-1970. Funny fact, Lennon actually predicted his death two days before he was murdered, "I'll probably be popped off by some loony." Well he sure guessed it right. No matter, surely wasn't a great loss in my book. To the die hard fans of The Beatles however, it was a sad time to see one of their favorite rock idols to pass on in such notice. I will again repeat, I do not share this sorrow, since I come to believe this sorrow is not a full fledged entity.
So are they really the greatest rock band of all time? The real answer is no. As for many other answers for other notably asked questions such as "Is 2Pac the greatest rapper of all time?", "Is Jay-Z the best rapper alive?", and "Is Black Sabbath the first metal band?". They all share the same relative answer of "no". But this topic mind you, is only and shall be only about The Beatles.
There are quite an amount of reasons why The Beatles aren't the greatest rock band of all time. One of them being that not everyone likes The Beatles. This eliminates the very fact of being even one of the greatest rock bands of all time. I for one don't like The Beatles, so I am apart of that bunch. Now lets move on to further reasons that will click to your minds as well.
The Beatles are well notable for their shift in style, although it wasn't perfect and wasn't meant to be perfect, at least it was an attempt to show the full potential they had. Each album had a different feel to it, was fairly memorable, quite cheesy, and an easy digestion for the inexperienced listener. The cheesiness of their work was quite excessive, it bounded to the very nature of pop doing so. this also kicked them down since their songs were unfortunately not flawlessly executed.
Now, lets take a look at their album work, instead of wasting my time, were going to fast forward to Rubber Soul and Abbey Road, their most notable albums. Both albums share a different shift in style, simply because The Beatles wanted to out-limit their potential. Well lets put it this way, back then, we didn't have all this modern gadgetry where an album would sound a lot better in quality like in the 70s and up. In the day and age of the 60s it was quite a prehistoric comparison. Also, in the 60s, we bear the 4 channel recording. So a lot of the time, some instruments that couldn't fit in a certain channel had to share a same channel, sometimes leaving the sound a bit bunched up at times, or if done right, no troubles at all. But if your a recording artist like myself, you would or should know certain recording aspects on how to get certain quality sound in which you try to accomplish adjusting channels the way you want them to sound, so in the end, you have a track your proud of.
Rubber Soul has a more raw feel to it in relevance to Abbey Road. Abbey Road, being one of the final albums, has a mixed variety of essentials to it which includes progressive, folk, and jazz. When I listen to each album, and especially when I hear my mom flip them on in the car, I feel with each track, there is something missing, perhaps a few things can be added to each track or be redone. They both have that excessive awkwardly cheesy feel to it that neglects my attention. It doesn't have that jump out of your chair rock feel that it might as well have. Instead, it has an essence of easy pop digestion and simplicity, which is very bad for musicians to have, IF they don't do it right. In the Beatles' case, they definitely aren't doing it right.
If you notice, take for instance, the first track of Abbey Road, "Come Together". In "Come Together", the song starts out with a psychedelic funky baseline with the drums following up. This part is the good part, and the highlight of the song. Then as soon as the vocals come in, it wears thin and becomes very simple; the drums transition to a simple constant and the technical funky psychedelic bass is no more. Here we went from a really amusing beginning to a over-simplistic and cheesy follow up to the end.
Now an instance of a track on Rubber Soul. Let's take a look at "Drive My Car", first track on the record. Now to be fairly honest, this song is a step down. To be even more honest, this is probably one of the most corny rock songs I ever heard, in a bad way. The reason is because this song compared to "Come Together" is much more tedious and simplistic after the first 5 seconds all the way to the end.
Listen carefully and keep thought of those criticisms, maybe they will kick in sooner or later. Now yes of course there is more behind it, explaining the downfall of the Beatles is a very hard task that probably very few can do and get away with. There are still those who worship the Beatles, and you know what? I'm fine with that. You can listen to the Beatles all you want. I'll just spend my time listening to good music while you keep your ear on the garbage disposal. Yes I may be a harsh person at times, you may think I'm a blatant asshole after reading this.
Now lets think of some bands that ACTUALLY may be the greatest bands of all time that you and I can agree with. Pink Floyd, Genesis, The Cure, Black Sabbath, Porcupine Tree, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull... Those are some of the greatest bands of all time. Where do the Beatles go? Hell... Nowhere even close, the Beatles can't touch the talent of ANY of those bands. So the big question that needs to be answered now is "Why are they such an overrated band?" Well lets look at this way, being overrated doesn't mean your good. Overrated means you are accepted and adored by pop culture media at a maxim. Your meeting the needs of those without any acquired taste, rather too stubborn to acquire any taste for good music and much rather listen to simplistic easy to digest music that mostly isn't great at all. The Beatles are overrated because they have tried to exceed the limit of their mediocre potential. They fiddled around with all kinds of styles and still weren't widely appreciated by everyone as one of the best bands of all time. That being said, all questions have been answered about the Beatles.
screaming yet?
