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| From | "Michael Bennett" <mrhonorama@hotmail.com> |
| Subject | Re: Another Bealtes? |
| Date | Tue, 03 Aug 2004 23:48:10 -0500 |
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Nothing like specific anecdotal evidence to refute a general statement.
Some here may recall the Beatles #1 album selling millions of copies. Which
isn't to say that the majority of teenagers don't know the Beatles, don't
know what they look like and just don't give a fuck. But compare them to
anyone else in their era, and I betch a significant percentage of teens buy
at least one Beatle comp. What keeps the Beatles alive is what, in lesser
numbers, is going to keep The Velvet Underground alive amongst college and
graduate school age musicians for years to come -- the music connects.
As for the Bennie Goodman/Dorsey/Sinatra, et al. comparison -- no one said
that The Beatles were the only group to engender a frenzied reaction. As I
noted in my last post, they were in the right place and time with
television, global travel, movies, etc. to get their music out there on a
scale that no one else had before. This in no way takes away from their
predecessors, nor those who've gone on to sell scads more records due to
more effective marketing.
It could be that thirty or forty years from now this discussion will be as
passe as the proposed constitutional amendment against gay marriage. The
boomer generation will have passed on, and The Beatles will no longer be
cited in the lofty terms that they are today. The reason they have such
prominence now is because the people who lived in that era and in the
aftermath, as the predominant voices in the overall culture. When they die
off, let's revisit this thread.
Finally -- I'd agree with you that Josh's "She Loves You" test would fail.
But it's specious to claim that the artist who waxed two of the five most
recorded songs in history ("Yesterday" and "Something") wouldn't be
recognized by John and Jane Q. Public in substantial numbers. Of course, if
your test was whether everyone recognized them, then I guess you win. After
all, look how poorly informed many Americans are about key issues and facts
relating to the presidential race.
Of course, this is far more important.
Mike "Barack Obama is the new Beatles" Bennett
Record reviews and more at http://fufkin.com
Find out about Chicago shows:
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/chicagopopshowreport/
>From: Stewart Mason <flamingo@theworld.com>
>At 11:23 PM 8/3/2004 -0400, Josh Chasin wrote:
> >I know 15-year-old kids who are learning
> >Beatle songs on guitar, because they love them.
>
>I know 15-year-old kids who are teaching themselves Elizabethan folk songs
>on the hammered dulcimer, because they love them. They are a distinct
>minority. I also know a 15-year-old kid who recently got into a massive
>"classic rock" phase, by which he means that he's discovered his mom's
>Talking Heads, Elvis Costello and B-52's albums (many of them at least 25
>years old at this point, which means that they are to 2004 what Elvis'
>"That's All Right" was to 1979 -- and good lord, let's all chew on THAT for
>a moment, shall we?). Said kid has heard a few Beatles songs, though not
>many because his dad is into hardcore early jazz and acoustic '20s blues
>and his mom came of age around the time of FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE and RUMOURS
>and didn't progress backwards much. He's genuinely not impressed by the
>Beatles. His reaction is pretty much exactly what my reaction to my
>parents' Ernest Tubb and Patsy Cline records were when I was 15: eh.
>
>Do I think he'd like REVOLVER if he gave it the time and energy? Could be,
>although honestly based on his personality and tastes, I think he's much
>more likely to be attracted to '65-'69 Kinks. The kid reads P.G. Wodehouse
>and Evelyn Waugh, fer chrissakes, so he'd like that Veddy Veddy English
>thing. Do I think he's some kind of mutant freak because he doesn't like
>the Beatles? Nah. I think he's a 15-year-old kid. I turned 15 in 1984.
>Would I have been a freak because I wasn't into Benny Goodman? After all,
>let's remember: Benny Goodman, along with Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey,
>was at least as completely revolutionary in jazz as the Beatles were in
>rock, and in much the same fashion: they made something new out of their
>musical forebears, and they brought that new sound to the teenybopper
>masses. (The Beatles were not the first musicians to make 14-year-old
>girls jump up and down and scream while leaving little wet spots on the
>theater seats: Dorsey's singer, a skinny little Italian kid named Frank
>Sinatra, was the guy for whom the archaic term "swooning" was revived.)
>
> >The Beatles already HAVE endured
> >long enough to stand the test of time. Its 40 years since "She Loves
>You;"
> >FORTY YEARS. Walk down the street, sing a few bars, ask people to
>identify
> >the artist. Hell, ask Lou Reed; he always hated them. But he'll get it.
> >And don't just ask boomers; ask kids, old ladies, everyone. Black,
>white,
> >Latino, everyone.
>
>See, the thing is, I honestly don't believe that's true. Are you really
>saying that a large majority of average people on the street, crossing
>demographic boundaries, would be able to identify "She Loves You" as being
>a Beatles song? I don't believe that. I have no doubt that many people
>would, and that they would be of various and diverse backgrounds. But no,
>I don't believe that "everyone" would. If an editor somewhere wants to pay
>me to write the story, I'll go out to Faneuil Hall and start buttonholing
>people myself.
>
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