The Beatles - the most overrated band of all time

Ceydn, I think you (and the rest of us, really) are lacking a bit of persepective on the whole situation. We're looking back through 40 years of history, and from where we are sitting, things done in '63 might as well have been done in '68. We don't have that period of experience to put them in context.

Now, I agree that one person calling the "best" is just silly. But it's a general consensus. Think of it like an election. They may not be everyone's first choice, but they're way up there on preferences, and that's enough to get them into power.
 
But it's opinion Ceydn.

Some people think the beatles are the best band ever.
Others think Gun's and Roses, whilst others think N*Sync.

Although, the Beatles have sold more records than Gunners and N*Synch combined :)

The Beatles just happen to be many peoples favorite band, making them, in their eyes, the best band of all time. It's really not that hard to understand
 
I know what ceydn means. It's fair enough for them to be called a great band, but they so seem to be named as the greatest band ever by default, without any real thought. A bit like Hendrix being top of so many best guitarist polls.....
 
Yes, I thought about the Hendix thing. I've never been a fan of him. Same with Eddie Van Halen, I just have no time for the bloke. Plays too many notes.

Revolutionaries, sure, but it doesn't mean I have to like them.
 
I was going to bring up Hendrix also. People still call him the greatest of all, but in reality technically he wasn't that great a guitar player. He couldn't shred like Malmsteen and he wasn't as eloquent as someone like Dave Gilmour or as gifted a player as Satriani. If he was still alive now, doing what he was doing back in '67, guys would be standing around with their arms folded going "Dude, impress me". He did do some amazing things and got a sound from a guitar that no one's been able to get since and he was a spectacular showman, but that doesn't make him the greatest of all. He did write cool songs though, and that's what's helped maintain the Beatles' popularity. They weren't the first to do a lot of things, but the amount they achieved in such a short time, and the way they changed music as entertainment forever means you simply can't dismiss them as over-rated. Were they just the right band in the right place at the right time? Yes, but they could have blown it like so many others. The very fact that they didn't, that in just eight years as a recording band they laid down such a vast catalogue of songs, most so memorable and catchy that they never get old and that regardless of how big and how strange they got, they never forgot how to write a good song puts them so far above just about any band ever that it's almost impossible to rate them too highly. If they weren't the greatest band ever, they come pretty close.
 
hmmm... i was expecting to come in here and get on my high horse and tell you "YOUR OPINION IS WRONG" - however, you've made some very good points.

As soon as people start saying "such and such is the greatest band of all time", they're over-rated, no matter how good they are. But there's no question that The Beatles are "ONE OF the all time great bands".

Another point I would like to make is; why hasn't Paul McCartney had any hits for a long ass time?
Click to expand...

I'm sure I read somewhere that he doesn't write pop/rock music any more, and he's been doing classical style composing instead? That'd be why.

You can say the same for anyone though. Ex members of Led Zep, or any other old band... even the ones that are still together, apart from the Stones I guess. How much they sell TODAY doesn't necessarilly have any relation to the quality of the music they're producing.
 
oh i didn't realise there was a page 2.

Totally agree about Hendrix. I often find it really hard to not tell people "oh shut the fuck up" whenever there's a conversation about guitars/music, and some knowitall has to go "ahhh but Hendrix blah blah blah" like he's playing a trump card that no one can dispute, and therefore proving his superior musical knowledge. Fuck Hendrix fans, man.

But what about people who aren't really fans? They just know a couple of songs like Yesterday and Let It Be, but because the 'general consensus' is that they're the greatest band of all time, they'll just go along with it?
Click to expand...

I totally see where you're going here. Opinions are fine. Even if I don't agree with them. If someone says "for my money they're the greatest of all time because they did this, this, and this, and they did it all before pretty much anyone else" I'll say fair enough. But saying "WELL ASK ANY MUSIC EXPERT" isn't an opinion.. it's just like what I said above about Hendrix, instead of actually having an opinion, I'll just go with a common misconception and have nothing to back it up except for "everyone else agrees with me" and still stand there with a smug look on my face because I'm right and your wrong.

I was thinking about this the other day with the U2 concert and all. Now, I'm not making any comment about how good (or not) this band are - but I think they're often talk about as being the biggest band in the world right now. And that's probably fair enough if you consider that they filled Telstra Dome in Melbourne for 2 nights in a row. BUT, I was thinking... how many people at that gig are really rabid passionate fans who are gonna go there and totally lose their mind, like we all would if Maiden toured, for example.... and how many are just casual fans who have a couple of albums and know all the songs that get played on the radio, or don't even have any of the albums but just think "oh, this is the biggest rock band in the world, we should probably go check it out ey?".

It's a similar thing. The biggest bands are big just because people are told how big they are all the time. So it's not like me staggering out of a venue after seeing Maiden or Nightwish or Coheed & Cambria and going "OH THAT WAS FUCKING AWESOME I TOTALLY LOST MY MIND I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW GOOD IT WAS"... it's people walking out going "oh, that was pretty good, wasn't it? I'm glad we left early to miss the traffic though" as if they'd been to see a play or a movie or something.

I'm sure I was trying to make a point somewhere in all that.
 
I agree with the U2 thing. A woman at work was ecstatic when she finally got tickets to see them, but she doesn't even own all their albums and had to get that new best-of to get their biggest hits. I said, "Why don't you just buy their albums?"
 
That's true. A lot of people who went to see them probably went because they were going with friends or something. U2 is massive though, and the same goes for them as it does with a lot of huge bands. They have immense stage shows now, but even when they weren't using them back in the 80s, they were so good live that they were utterly entrancing. If you go back and watch their set from Live Aid in '85, they were one of the best bands of the day. Because regardless of what else they do, they still let the music do the talking. Pearl Jam is another one. When I saw them in '95 they had no stage props at all, but the crowd was enraptured. People were crying during "Black". That sort of thing makes a great band. Both of those bands have been called over-rated at some point, and maybe they are. But they do exactly what bands are supposed to do, and they do it very well. It that makes them over-rated, then so be it.
 
From All Music:

"So much has been said and written about the Beatles -- and their story is so mythic in its sweep -- that it's difficult to summarize their career without restating clichés that have already been digested by tens of millions of rock fans. To start with the obvious, they were the greatest and most influential act of the rock era, and introduced more innovations into popular music than any other rock band of the 20th century. Moreover, they were among the few artists of any discipline that were simultaneously the best at what they did and the most popular at what they did. Relentlessly imaginative and experimental, the Beatles grabbed a hold of the international mass consciousness in 1964 and never let go for the next six years, always staying ahead of the pack in terms of creativity but never losing their ability to communicate their increasingly sophisticated ideas to a mass audience. Their supremacy as rock icons remains unchallenged to this day, decades after their breakup in 1970.

Even when couching praise in specific terms, it's hard to convey the scope of the Beatles' achievements in a mere paragraph or two. They synthesized all that was good about early rock & roll, and changed it into something original and even more exciting. They established the prototype for the self-contained rock group that wrote and performed its own material. As composers, their craft and melodic inventiveness were second to none, and key to the evolution of rock from its blues/R&B-based forms into a style that was far more eclectic, but equally visceral. As singers, both John Lennon and Paul McCartney were among the best and most expressive vocalists in rock; the group's harmonies were intricate and exhilarating. As performers, they were (at least until touring had ground them down) exciting and photogenic; when they retreated into the studio, they were instrumental in pioneering advanced techniques and multi-layered arrangements. They were also the first British rock group to achieve worldwide prominence, launching a British Invasion that made rock truly an international phenomenon."
 
It's interesting that both discussions seem to revolving about the definition of "overrated". Ceydn seems to be arguing about them not being the "best band ever" (which you kind of have to agree with), others are talking about influence and so on, and others are just "I don't like 'em so they suck".

We need to define what we mean by "overrated".
 
Go rent (or buy I guess) the anthology DVD series.
Might give you a different angle, or atleaset, back up your statements further (not saying you don't know what you are talking about, just saying that this fuckin in-depth doco will either prove you right or wrong in your own mind).
 
spiff1ct2.jpg
 
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