OK, lets get this straight. I'm not on this guys side, just trying to show how someone can look at something and come to a totally different conclusion.
I never said The Beatles did nothing but copy other peoples work. That's silly. What I said was "their genius was their receptiveness to all things new and their ability to take all these disparate and fringe ideas and turn them into something that can get played on the radio." . Totally different meaning. You lept to the wrong conclusion and started talking about people "ripping off" things. Totally off the mark.
Where would they have been without Dylan, The Byrds and Brian Wilson? And yes, I've read Lewishon's book. And I was trying to show how Q magazine had that same belief, but turned into a positive. It is no detriment that they went away and listened to music outside the mainstream and used these influences to create incredibly fantastic music that was of huge influence to others. I think it boils down to what you think "innovative" and "creative" mean. I don't agree with him, but I can see Mr PS's background (left wing academic) might mean that he places different meanings to these words than me.
I agree he's wrong about The Beatles not recieving contempary praise. We know they did.
The sex and drugs thing - to be honest I listened to all those songs for years without realising their "hidden" meanings.You must agree that they are exceptionally vague. Mr PS could well argue that what is the validity of having these references if noone knows they're there. He would argue that everyone knew what "Mothers Little Helper" and "Lets Spend The Night Together" were about. Then you would say their genius was their subtelty, their ability to insert subversive meanings into otherwise harmless songs. And on it goes.
The haircut thing - you're both being silly.
And the popularity thing - I think he went to extrordinory lengths to say why he thought what he thought. I, like you, don't agree with him. But he's not an idiot, and as I said a lot of things were out of my league.
My friend - I agree with most of what you say about The Beatles. It's just that your fanatical zealousness makes Al-Queeda (sp) look like boyscouts. And do you really go around websites identifying former "Beatle Haters."
ps I'd be careful about using Hunter Davies as a reference (authorised should be replaced by "sanatised"), or for that matter Anthology. The Beatles openly said they were telling their side of the story. Great chunks are missing (Yoko and the breakup get nary a mention) and time can colour even the greatest of memories.
I just found this post from finding the topic on google, and 10 years ago I never looked up what Al Queeda was,that you cruelly said I made sound like the boyscouts,and I now found out that they are an Arab terrorist group what an extremely unjustified,horrible thing you said to me and I'm really surprised that none of the moderators didn't say anything to you about it.I wasn't cursing or threatening anyone in my posts, I just posted as a very knowledgeable passionate fan who was trying to debunk all of these lies by this now even more popular Scaruffi.
Here is a great rebuttal of Piero Scaruffi's countless hateful outright lies about The Beatles that I recently found.This is what I was and am trying to do too.
https://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/piero-scaruffi-and-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-517This great blog post is by a guitar player and musically academically knowledgeable guy debunking the totally ignorant,ludicrous hateful lies by cognitive scientist and music critic Piero Scaruffi about The Beatles that ignorant Beatles haters calling them a talentless boy band,are quoting on so many sites for many years now and still are.
https://factorysunburst.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/piero-scaruffi-and-truth/comment-page-1/#comment-517On a heavy metal site someone posted Scaruffi's horrible inaccurate bullsh*t about The Beatles and a guy said that Scaruffi made up contrived bullsh*t about The Beatles and that a lot of people think he knows what he's talking about because he's a cognitive scientist.Many people elsewhere have said that Scaruffi just made up most of this bullsh*t,he made all of it up,the only facts he got right are John,Paul,George,Ringo,George Martin and Brian Epstein's names and when someone makes up that many lies about a subject,you can't trust anything they say about it.
I actually emailed this idiot Scaruffi back in 2001 to try to debunk his ignorant lies about The Beatles,and he emailed me back three times,and I was civil to him,(which wasn't easy,and I had to control myself from not cursing him,but I know that wasn't going to work to get through to him) and he was civil to me too,but you just can't get through to him.He actually said that he thought I'm one of the most intelligent Beatles fans he ever communicated with because I never mentioned The Beatles record sales as to why they are great and he actually claimed that this all the majority of Beatles fans said to him,that they sold the most records,which he denies that they did in his horrid article. I don't believe him at all I'm sure that a lot of other knowledgeable fans did inform him of a lot of academic and music scholarship that debunks his stupid,horrible lies but he just doesn't want to recognize it because he irrationally hates The Beatles and wants everyone else to hate them too.