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From "Jaimie Vernon" <bullseyecanada@hotmail.com>
Subject Re: Beates? Yeah, yeah, yeah...
Date Wed, 04 Aug 2004 00:44:05 -0400

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At Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 20:49:40 Barry wrote:

>Gee Jaimie, you have such great things to say . . . usually.  These
>however make no sense to me at all.
>
> > 1) It was Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" that was sent up in the
> > Voyager explorer to the other side of the galaxy....NOT the Beatles.
>It's
> > all about frame of reference.
>
>So, a couple of dude at NASA liked the irony of that selection, or maybe
>they actually liked the record.  That says zero about history.

But it perfectly discredits Josh's assertion that the Beatles are the Alpha 
and Omega. If the Beatles were the zenith by which all pop culture is based 
there would have been a Beatles record on board....and to further illustrate 
I must also add that Chuck Berry had a recording on that flight as well.

> > 2) With the exception of Queen and The Dave Clark Five, The Beatles
>were nearly the last hold out to join the CD revolution.
>
>There were CDs when the Beatles and the Dave Clark 5 were recording?
>Can't say that I remember that.
>
> > 3) The Beatles "template" will not survive the Internet.....as they've
> > balked at the idea of MP3 downloads on any website other than Apple
>Records.
>
>I know nothing about what is or is not on Apple Records' website (okay,
>I didn't even know there was such a site) but every Beatle recording
>imaginable is available all over the net.

Again, two examples to illustrate that the Beatles may have BEEN the 
template (back to Josh's mail), but they no longer are. Once that grip on 
popular music/culture/what have you slips from their grasp, time will 
determine how they will survive the coming communications revolution.

> > In 100 years the Beatles will be but a footnote. There will have been
>more
> > names and more FIRSTS to have overshadowed everything they did for
>those
> > brief 8 years. Just as Wayne Gretzky overshadowed Rocket Richard and
>Gordie
> > Howe...so too shall someone overshadow him.
>
>I am no more a seer than you are, so you could be right.  Richard and
>Howe were hardly cultural touchstones (at least in the US), so Gretzky's
>catapulting over them in hockey's recordbooks is not a good analogy.

Yes, it is. Richard and Howe were the definition of hockey during THEIR 
period. They held all the records, scored all the goals, dominated the media 
and defined what hockey was. Gretzky came along, beat the records and 
popularized the game in the eyes of AMERICA....just like a little band from 
Liverpool did.

>What I do know is:  we are 35 years into your 100-year period --- a fair
>ways, I am sure you will agree --- and I hardly see the Beatles on the
>road to being relegated to a footnote.

Doesn't matter....I'll give you another 30 years from now and the result 
will be the same. With the Internet levelling the playing field and popular 
culture becoming but footnotes on the internet ("Click on the button marked 
1960's to see what Hippies and Viet Nam were all about").

We can get into a whole sociological debate about information, but that 
won't change the fact that archives aren't being back-dated. We're moving 
forward without taking stock of our past and only those with a boner for 
nostalgia are keeping the spirit alive (I happen to be one of them...which 
is why I wrote The Canadian Music Encyclopedia -- I live in a nation whose 
entire 100 years of musical output has NEVER been measured.)

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.

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.


Jaimie Vernon,
President, Bullseye Records
http://www.bullseyecanada.com
Author, Canadian Pop Music Encyclopedia
http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicPopEncycloPages



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