Why I hate The Beatles with a passion. A short essay by Scooter Nik.
Musical history revisionism isn't a new thing. Apparently Elvis invented Rock and Roll, despite his early material being covers of earlier hits by black artists. What he actually did was to popularise a music that most of the American record buying public (ie white college kids) wouldn't otherwise have come across, the charts being populated with Perry Como, Frank Sinatra and similar bland swing acts. Fair play to him there, he released a beast that is still chewing up the musical world 60 years on (He's dead though, get over it).
Move forward to the sixties, and you have a young group starting out. They start as every young group does, covering other people's material. The difference here is that although they're covering black artists, in much the way Elvis did, these acts are by this point well known amongst the young music fan of the day (Motown was a 'known', although not very important at this point, label). They took those songs, reworked them in a way that took any real passion out of them, and unleashed them on the unknowing British record buying masses (as opposed to 'music fan'), allying it to a cute and cuddly public image. The first boy band in short.
The Beatles 'invented' the British beat sound - by washing US R&B to the point where it was a pale copy of the originals. At the same time, other British bands - noteably The Stones, The Animals, Manfred Mann - were covering the same material in a more authentic, and thus less palatteable manner . Compare The Stones and The Beatles versions of Barratt Strong's 'Money' for a fine example of this.
But the lovable scouse moptops were credited with somehow inventing a 'new' sound. By p1shing the originals out.
Now let's move on to the mid 60s. The Beatles have continued to thrive, living high on the back of bland pop songs and a massive fan base, largely fuelled by media photos of them arriving wherever they went to screaming hordes of largely prepubescent females (Hi there Bay City Rollers and Take That, are you taking notes?) and the odd 'witty' soundbite from the 'rebel' in the band, Lennon.
The Beatles discover harder drugs, and a new sound coming out of the US. Jumping on the bandwagon, they appropriate this sound too, to the extent they are now often credited with inventing psychadelia, despite it having been kicking around in the US for a couple of years earlier!
Finally the band implodes. They play a famous gig on top of their property and call it a day.
This wonderful band fragments. McCartney vanishes off doing rather twee child-level songs (despite his proclaimed song writing genius), Lennon (Ever the master manipulator of the media) stays in bed with Yoko, declaring 'Give Peace A Chance' as if it is some hugely radical idea that no one has ever thought of before, despite people having marched against the bomb since the late 50s. Harrison comes off the best ironically, having saved his material/been sidelined by Lennon/McCartney throughout The Beatles carreer. Starr? Well... he was a drummer. Enough said.
And this is why I consider The Beatles the most overhyped band of all time.
