John Lennon & George Harrison

[uwe]

My mom loved The Beatles and she was born 1930. She also thought they looked cute, haircuts and all. Anytime they came on the radio (and they came on the radio all the time in Germany) she'd turn it up and hum/sing along, whether it was I Want To Hold Your Hand or Come Together. The Rolling Stones otoh went over her head.

I think what made The Beatles (+ George Martin) stand out was how they soaked up wide-ranging influences (rock'n'roll, Brit Beat, rhythm & blues, country, folk, Eastern, soul/Motown, English Music Hall, classical and even a little jazz) and incorporated them in their own writing, sounding at the same time varied, yet instantly recognizable. I think coming from a harbor town (Liverpool) and learning their chops in another one (Hamburg) had a lot to do with that. They were immersed in what today we would call world music at a point in time when very few musicians their age were. Plus they had a guy with a one-of-a-kind musical ear (Paul) plus a witty lyricist (Lennon) with a musical edge. Their musical development in a few years was astounding: They started as Everly Brothers/Buddy Holly soundalikes and within a few years produced music you had never heard before.

And I still think Sgt. Pepper is a no-holds-barred work of art, not a duff track on it and a sonic experience to this day. I believe their iconic status in pop music of the last 50 to 60 years or so is entirely justified and well-deserved. If you took them out of the equation, I don't think that pop music would have been such a pillar of youth and eventually adult culture from the 60ies onwards.

[Pilgrim]

Beautifully said. Agreed.

[Dave W]

Really? I thought Sgt. Pepper was stale the day I first heard it. Different strokes.

Now IMHO this is still fresh, 53 years later.

[westen44]

Well said.

He sure does, and he can still rock.

Thanks.  I wasn't looking for it, but I happened to find this today.

https://consequenceofsound.net/2018/09/paul-mccartney-john-lennon-compliment/

[westen44]

My mother was also born in 1930.  She did actually like the Beatles okay, but leaned more toward other music.  My father never could fathom why anyone would like the Beatles.  then after "Back in the U.S.S.R. he actually seemed to believe they were Communists.  My sister  did like especially some of the early Beatles, but her favorite genre has always been R & B.  I can remember when I was a teenager one of her friends I had never seen before and never saw again since popped in and attempted to stage some kind of musical intervention on my behalf one day.  The gist of it all is I should seriously consider R & B much more and rock much less.  Then many years later, when my sister's daughter came on the scene, she attempted to convert everyone to hip-hop.  Out of all music,though, I think she disliked the Beatles the most

However, among my friends almost all of them viewed the Beatles and the Allman Brothers as being the top bands in the world.  In addition to that, I also liked Hendrix and Cream.

[gearHed289]

People may not know precisely why they like a certain kind of music.  But it often has to do with how it makes them feel--how it affects their emotions.  Usually they don't need another person to try to help them understand that.  I think much of the time when we like music it happens spontaneously and isn't even the result of conscious decisions.

This ^^^ exactly! Sometimes people want some kind of explanation as to why I don't like a certain band, or even genre. I don't owe anyone - not even myself - any explanation. It just is what it is.

[uwe]

"Really? I thought Sgt. Pepper was stale the day I first heard it. Different strokes."

It was - and still is - magical to me. Mind-opeening like a trip holding hands with Alice in Wonderland. I heard Magical Mystery Tour before I heard Sgt. Pepper (but the two came from the same sessions or at least the same period and could have well been one album) - I was seven or eight years old, my nine year older brother had the EP - and stuff like Fool on the Hill and Your Mother Should Know mesmerized me. Lennon's rallying call at the start of Magical Mystery Tour gave me shivers. The music was to me as radical a transition from what I had heard before as color TV was to black & white TV. It was no less than cinemascopic.

[uwe]

This ^^^ exactly! Sometimes people want some kind of explanation as to why I don't like a certain band, or even genre. I don't owe anyone - not even myself - any explanation. It just is what it is.

I can generally pick out pretty well why I don't like something - that is my music-over-analyzing self, no doubt a very German trait!

[westen44]

This ^^^ exactly! Sometimes people want some kind of explanation as to why I don't like a certain band, or even genre. I don't owe anyone - not even myself - any explanation. It just is what it is.

I tend to have a natural tendency to be analytical.  Sometimes that can probably even slow me down because I can think about something too much.  But with music it's often something I feel more than think about so much.  I agree.  With me it just is what it is. 

[westen44]

"Really? I thought Sgt. Pepper was stale the day I first heard it. Different strokes."

It was - and still is - magical to me. Mind-opeening like a trip holding hands with Alice in Wonderland. I heard Magical Mystery Tour before I heard Sgt. Pepper (but the two came from the same sessions or at least the same period and could have well been one album) - I was seven or eight years old, my nine year older brother had the EP - and stuff like Fool on the Hill and Your Mother Should Know mesmerized me. Lennon's rallying call at the start of Magical Mystery Tour gave me shivers. The music was to me as radical a transition from what I had heard before as color TV was to black & white TV. It was no less than cinemascopic.

I know part of this was once discussed in another thread before.  But through the years I sometimes was puzzled when I saw criticism of "Fool On the Hill" and "Your Mother Should Know."  It seemed to me that these were two unique songs by Paul.  They actually were mesmerizing.  That is true.  That could be said for the whole of the "Magical Mystery Tour" album itself, IMO., although it wasn't actually designed to be an album in the strictest sense.