HIStoric
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mj_frenzy;4181778 said:
That's good for them!
mj_frenzy;4181778 said:I do not doubt at all these high chart positions that Beatles’ songs reached during those years, but in the Beatles’ case these high chart positions do not necessarily mean good quality of music.
For example, the first two Beatles albums that gave rise to Beatlemania (‘Please Please Me’, ‘With The Beatles’were by all accounts very easy, mushy pop songs (superficial lyrics along with some catchy tunes), not to mention that almost half of the material from these two albums was just …covers.
I'm not really the kind of person to believe that just because a song is simpler, it therefore means it's of a lesser quality. They are simpler, more superficial songs than their later material I'll definitely give you that, but I still consider it to be great music. It's like most tracks on Thriller, most don't have a great amount of depth to them (especially when compared to MJ's later records) but I still consider it excellent music nonetheless.
Also for the record, it was much more common for artists back then to perform covers. At the rate their contract forced them to churn out music whilst performing an ungodly amount of concerts/TV appearances/shooting films, it's to be expected they'd have to resort to covers. Additionally it wasn't half covers. Only 1/3rd of their '63/'64 material were covers. Everything else was written entirely by Lennon-McCartney (bar one song by George Harrison), which is a significant achievement for the early-mid 1960s.
I think the fact that that A Hard Day's Night was entirely Lennon-McCartney compositions, written at the height of Beatlemania (under the aforementioned circumstances) and turned out as good as it did is something in itself. Hell, it's widely accepted that The Beatles helped set the standard for musicians to write their material. They weren't the first to do so (I believe Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry were an influence on them in this regard), but there's an interesting distinction pre-and-post Beatles of the songwriting expectations of musicians, and how you're judged upon that.
mj_frenzy;4181778 said:
You're entitled to your personal opinions on their music, but I completely disagree on your comment about "other factors" being the main success for their music. While I won't disagree that other factors come into play (Brian Epstein, for example, was an extremely good manager), the quality of their music is absolutely a factor that played into their success. I mean hell, if their music wasn't high quality, it wouldn't have lasted the many generations it has. It really is that simple.
I'm sure hype and hysteria and great public relations did help with their incredible charting in the mid-60s, but you can say that of all huge artists during their peak. Even after Beatlemania, their records still did well (Sgt. Peppers and Abbey Road are amongst their best selling albums IIRC). A great way to see if older music is "high quality" is by how it does many decades down the line... like through Spotify, which is primarily used by more younger audiences. In just over one year on Spotify, The Beatles have at least 14 songs with over 20,000,000+ streams. For comparison, Oasis only have about 5 songs with 20,000,000+ streams (not suggesting that low stream counts = low quality music, such an argument would be bollocks. Merely providing for comparison since this started as a comparison between the two bands).
Now of those 14 Beatles songs, about 7 were released between 1963-1965. If a 50+ year old song is getting tens of millions of streams on a single streaming service, surely that must mean that, even if outside factors at the time could help contribute to it's success upon release, it's not just these outside factors that contributed to it's success? The earlier material is quite evidently loved by countless of millions of people around the globe. Hell, a 2000 compilation of theirs is the 3rd best selling album of the 21st century - 30-40 years after the original songs release dates, went to #1 in 19 countries and stayed there for a while! Surely all of this must count for something?
In my opinion, it all comes down to the core of what The Beatles were all about: the music. That's what I believe an artists longevity comes down to: how great their music is. It's exactly why in 2100, people will still be listening to them, why people will be listening to Michael Jackson, etc etc. You're more than entitled to dislike most of their work, but their music does continues to be amongst the most popular and respected of legacy artists for many reasons (outside of chart/sales success). It wasn't just outside factors that propelled them to success
mj_frenzy;4181778 said:
I can believe that actually haha. Over the years I've come to really appreciate some of their solo material!
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