Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Hello Goodbye]

I dont know the answer but I now have this vision in my head of 4 drugged out, tired, bored musicians who have achieved unmatched world fame, slouched in a studio drinking endless cups of tea and smoking just about everything (except the tea) playing and listening to thousands of previous obscure records by unsuccessful bands and artists seeking out snippets of idea's they can nick for their next completely original creation.

 

 

[Hello Goodbye]

The Beatles claim that they were the first to put lyrics on an album cover...







But Bob Dylan was the first to put lyrics in a music video...


https://youtu.be/MGxjIBEZvx0



I think Bob Dylan invented rap music.

[Moogmodule]

This might have been a forum I was frequenting around as a teen - if not, it certainly looks pretty similar.

Anyway, I found this discussion very interesting. Thinking back to when I first got really into The Beatles, I seemed to get the impression from reading forums like this one that my appreciation must of had a lot to do with their so-called innovations and 'firsts'.

Looking at the direction of this thread though, it seems most are pretty comfortable with the fact that The Beatles probably get more credit in this regard than is due to them. But there are others which are adamant they virtually invented music - that's putting it in a cheeky way, but a couple have hinged Beatles fandom on accepting this great swag of historical assertions as fact.

I probably fell into the latter as a teen, and when I finally had these understandings of music history challenged and disabused from me I felt The Beatles' music to be a rort, the way a lot of music lovers disregard popular bands or singers who have "ripped off" others.

My question then is why does this belief that The Beatles' invented so many things and genres still persist? Is it a media class that don't know any better? Is it because The Beatles were the best known rock band at the time, and so (often mistakenly) got the credit for certain things? Because I find the more I let go of the idea that The Beatles had to have invented many many things (a standard not held against any other band I can think of, I might add) the more I can return to appreciating them for what they did come up with, namely great songs.

I think there becomes a popular simplified view of events since it’s easier to present that then delve into the nuance of creation of art, technology etc. like the old one that Edison invented the light bulb. I suppose it was easier to say that to highlight his achievement then to go into how he improved existing designs. And when explaining things to kids they’re going to be more impressed with someone inventing something wholesale than just tweaking existing designs to make them viable products. So it becomes a shorthand way of underscoring how important this person is. The corollary of this is when you hear criticism that all Steve Jobs did was bring together existing technology to create the iPhone. As if that somehow negates what a revolution he created through his vision for that product.

So with the Beatles. We (as in musical media/aficionados etc) have to explain why they’re so great to people with short attention spans and lots of other things to focus on. It’s easier to say oh they were the first to do this, this and that. Rather than give lengthy explanation of their songwriting and creative art that is equally worthy of praise but just not as easily digestible as, they were the first ....

[Moogmodule]

Another thing I’d add is that, although there’s probably few things the Beatles did that you can’t find someone who’s done it before them, they were taking more risks with their ongoing success by using Indian instruments, psychedelic effects, relying on video clips to promote a single etc than a small time artist who wasn’t making hits. There was always the real risk that The Beatles would move away from their audience and lose commercial power.  Their continued success seems inevitable to us now but it wasn’t back then. Any album or single could have been a bubble burster. There weren’t many artists who were commercial successes in 1964 who were still so at the end of the decade.

So even if they weren’t the absolute first to do something, the fact they were willing to take risks by to continually moving forward and trying different things means they deserve credit as innovators. It’s easier to innovate when you’ve got nothing to lose than when you’re on top of the world and conventional wisdom is to keep doing what you’re doing to maintain success.

[nimrod]

Another thing I’d add is that, although there’s probably few things the Beatles did that you can’t find someone who’s done it before them, they were taking more risks with their ongoing success by using Indian instruments, psychedelic effects, relying on video clips to promote a single etc than a small time artist who wasn’t making hits. There was always the real risk that The Beatles would move away from their audience and lose commercial power.  Their continued success seems inevitable to us now but it wasn’t back then. Any album or single could have been a bubble burster. There weren’t many artists who were commercial successes in 1964 who were still so at the end of the decade.

So even if they weren’t the absolute first to do something, the fact they were willing to take risks by to continually moving forward and trying different things means they deserve credit as innovators. It’s easier to innovate when you’ve got nothing to lose than when you’re on top of the world and conventional wisdom is to keep doing what you’re doing to maintain success.

Well said