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| From | Stewart Mason <flamingo@theworld.com> |
| Subject | Re: Another Bealtes? |
| Date | Tue, 03 Aug 2004 16:22:37 -0400 |
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At 02:25 PM 8/3/2004 -0500, Michael Bennett wrote:
>I agree and disagree with Stewart -- from the perspective that 'there will
>never be anything like The Beatles again', with the implication being that
>nothing can be quite as worthwhile without a Beatles analog -- that is a
>conservative bent that leads to the backbiting that Stewart describes.
>
>But I don't think Stewart needs to diminish The Beatles so much to make the
>point. Being amazed by their talent and the confluence of circumstances
>that made them so pervasive is not necessarily empty nostalgia. It's just
>recognition of what makes them a stand out amongst stand outs.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not diminishing the Beatles musically at all. But
the key word there is "musically." The put-a-sock-in-it aspect for me
comes as soon as someone starts getting misty-eyed about "the soundtrack of
our lives" and "the spokesmen for our generation." It's putting too much
weight onto the music. And this doesn't just apply to the Beatles, either.
Seriously, who did more for civil rights in America: Goodman, Schwerner and
Cheney or Bob Dylan? I know which ones I believe gave more, but I don't
see how that "diminishes" Dylan.
>I wonder if the reaction would be the same if the question was 'Will there
>be another Ray Charles?'
Of course it would. There couldn't be another Ray Charles any more than
there could be another Beatles, or another Johnny Cash, or another Miles
Davis, and for the same reasons. Like someone said earlier today (was it
Slade?), for there to be another Ray Charles, first we'd have to forget and
lose everything the first Ray Charles did.
S
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