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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "Josh Chasin" <jchasin@nyc.rr.com> |
| Subject | Re: Beates? Yeah, yeah, yeah... |
| Date | Wed, 4 Aug 2004 13:34:41 -0400 |
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I realize I was over-emotional on this topic yesterday owing to pure
incredulity. So I apologize. This will be, I think, my last word on it.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jaimie Vernon" <bullseyecanada@hotmail.com>
> I realize these are broad strokes, but the Beatles become merely trivia to
> those who didn't live through their influence. They're not gods and their
> accomplishments can only be measured by the culture that it affected. Once
> all the boomers are dead and their children, and radio sinks into the tar
> pit it now inhabits, The Beatles become just another band that gets played
> on Oldies radio stations.
I just can't agree with this. Collective mass culture (and that goes way
beyond entertainment to include things like civil rights) passed through a
transforming filter with the Beatles, and you can't negate that. In my
mind's eye the world was in black & white before them, in color afterward.
The kids who's lives were changed by Cobain may hate-- or have maybe never
heard-- the Beatles, but COBAIN himself was a Beatles fan. Pink Floyd shoes
Beatle influences (and DSOTM was recorded in Abbey Road by Alan Parsons.)
Hell, Jaimie, you're a Klaatu fan! Did the impact of the abolition of
slavery in the US die away when Lincoln and all his peers died? I don't
mean to put anything the Beatles did on that pedestal, but I think the point
is relevant. The awareness future generations have of the Beatles influence
on popular culture is wholly separate from the influence itself, and I
remain resolute in my conviction that said influence eclipses any other mere
rock band. Every generation sends a hero up the pop charts, as Paul Simon
said; every generation, in a sense, has its own Beatles. The fact of that
construct goes again to their pervasive influence. I think it is so
pervasive and ingrained in our collective zeitgeist that it has become
invisible. How many bands we talk about on this list would even exist if
there had been no Beatles? They wrote the book. They made the mold The
irony of this discussion taking place on Audities fascinates me.
Again, the original question: will there ever be another Beatles? And I
still say the answer is irrefutably no.
We can agree to disagree; neither of us is going to change each other's
minds. I respect you and your opinion, but I will continue to disagree with
it.
> And as for the assertion that "She Loves You" is some reigning beacon of
the
> band's enduring qualities, I offer the perennially more popular "Happy
> Birthday" and defy 3 people on this list to name the author of that song
> without doing a Google search.
Not the same thing. People sing "Happy Birthday" themselves; they associate
"She Loves You" (to pick just one) with a specific rendition and artist.
Its like asking who first said, "Oy, my back is killing me!"
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