
The Music of the Beatles (1968) - tintinnabula
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1968/01/18/the-music-of-the-beatles/
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jackhack
As valid and thought-provoking as this article is (was?) I find myself struck
by two things: 1) Written in 1968? That was fifty years ago! How greatly our
world has changed in that time in terms of culture, yet the Beatles music
feels as fresh and immediate today as then. How innocent some songs are "I
want to hold your hand" \- to a degree it would be inconceivable on today's
vulgar radio.

2) The references to contemporary composers of the 30s and 40s were almost
totally lost on me. The big bands, the jazz & blues men, and such were
familiar. Shows just how few compositions (and more rarely, composers) stand
the test of time.

For a delicious counterpoint, I suggest this:
[https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/music/sgt-
pepper...](https://www.reviewjournal.com/entertainment/music/sgt-pepper-
critic-stands-behind-67-review-despite-bad-speaker/) A reviewer who called Sgt
Pepper (Rolling Stones #1 rated of 500 albums) “Busy, hip and cluttered”, “a
surprising shoddiness in composition” and “fraudulent.”

There's no accounting for taste, it seems.

~~~
w4tson
Also interesting he was not keen on “I am the Walrus”.

He didn’t seem to mention production either. Sgt Peppers was the birth of
concept album recorded in stereo!

~~~
gumby
> Sgt Peppers was the birth of concept album recorded in stereo!

I believe that honor goes to Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys, though the public
wasn't ready for it in 1966.

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gumby
A lovely piece of characteristic pretention from the NYRB (a journal I love
BTW) which it still preserves today: "on one side were Sinatra, Horne, and
Holiday, stylists of a high order, wonderfully performing material of little
musical interest (when not derived from Gershwin or Porter) and dim literary
content. On the other side were specialized concert singers—Frijsh, Fairbank,
and Tangeman—who, though vocally uneven, helped to create a new style..."

The author could probably guess that Sinatra, Horne and Holiday would still be
popular 50 years later while Frijsh, Fairbank, and Tangeman are essentially
unknown.

But as others have written this piece has aged well, and that too I predict
will be true of most contemporary NYRB articles.

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Tycho
This piece aged fairly well.

Confession: despite being a rabid Beatles fan for 20 years, I only really
listened to John Lennon’s first solo album this week. I think I dismissed it
partly because it has a silly name (Plastic Ono Band). It is fantastic.

The thing about The Beatles is that their catalogue underwrites our cultural
obsession with ‘albums’, which is a ridiculous standard to impose on
everything else. Much fairer to judge songwriters on their accumulation of
worthy tracks spread over many years and projects, even if they never come
together in one perfect album. Beatles solo careers are prime victims of this
unfortunate standard.

~~~
mgkimsal
> Beatles solo careers are prime victims of this unfortunate standard.

Quite true. Each Beatle's solo albums always had 2-3 good to great songs. This
is pretty much what each would bring to a Beatles album too, but collectively,
that would give them 6-10 really great tracks per album. They never could
possibly deliver entire albums of greatness (or even "really good"ness) year
after year individually.

Put another way, each Beatles album could be looked at as a 'best of' each
member at that point in time. A "greatest hits" collection every 6 months or
so, really. But no one person would be able to keep that pace (even they
couldn't, eventually).

~~~
Tycho
We could have had at least five more years of classic Beatles albums if they
hadn’t split up in 1970, just based of what songs they went on to write. And
probably longer owing to the creative atmosphere and competitiveness within
the group setting.

