Guest Howard
GuestForum Replies Created
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We all love the beautiful harmonies of the MLT. Well, how about these three young lads from the 1960s!
N.M.E. Poll Winner’s Concert 04-11-1965. The Beatles were the poll winners fro the second year in a row of course.
The Ivy League – “Funny How Love Can Be”
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Guten Tag, Ken. You are in good company here in the MLT Club. Welcome!
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“You may be underestimating my knowledge in music, I don’t think you want to put the Beatles up to the Stones side by side in an objective way, preferences aside.”
Not at all Tomás. I have no doubt you have far more musical ability and probably have far more knowledge of particular music than me. However, I have no reservations whatsoever about putting a Stones song alongside a Beatles song for comparison, whether objective, subjective or simply beecause “it’s only Rock and Roll but I like it”! I’ll start the comparison in another post, and welcome you to play the game.
As for your, “Count me out of the list of those who think that at 17 there was a musical revolution going on. At 17 (1984) I thought the music was crap. I’ve always been a Beatles fan and I know what I’m talking about.” I think you are misrepresenting Professor Leroi here. What he actually states is “Everybody thinks they know when the music changed. And when the music changed … was usually when they were about 17 years old”. He doesn’t mention anything about a music revolution here.
You have actually just corroborated Leroi’s view. Your favourite music at 17 was the Beatles and it still is today. Leroi didn’t mean with his comment that the popular music of your teens was your revolution, but rather your favourite music at the age of 17 was your music revolution. There’s a huge difference there Tomás. If you read him more carefully, you’ll see that the music revolutions happened by 1964, 1982 and 1991. 1982 stemming from the introduction of drum machines and synthesizers and 1991 when hip hop and rap took over the charts.
Professor Leroi said the data shows a 1964 revolution that was all about music becoming more “aggressive”. But The Beatles did not contribute to that change in the music.
He said that change in musical style was largely driven by other bands, playing louder rock and roll. “When the [Rolling] Stones, the Kinks and the Who were transforming the face of popular music, Lennon and McCartney were writing ditties for prepubescent girls,” he said.
“That’s not saying the Beatles didn’t have nice tunes, it’s not to say they didn’t have nice haircuts, or that they weren’t nice boys, but in terms of driving the music ahead, they just weren’t that important.”
You state, “I know someone that managed the fortunes of many celebrities and she was a high school dropout. I understand that to build a house you need an engineer, to ensure soundness, but a title doesn’t give wisdom, only knowledge.” Exactly Tomás! The knowledge that comes with years of peer critical study and assessment that is not based on hearsay, anecdotes, and personal feelings.
Managing the fortunes of celebrities, on the other hand, doesn’t necessarily require years of a specific study, just the same as being a competent, capable musician/performer doesn’t, as the MLT have shown! For people like me though, it would take years of study to become even a mediocre musician! I don’t see any benefit in devaluing the achievements of others, and I’m sure that wasn’t your intention. I too am not intimidated by titles and consider any contributions dispassionately.
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Jung, you are in the right club to think the Beatles are in a league of their own. Members of other clubs may think otherwise of course. As we are discussing groups, Dylan and Elvis aren’t a consideration, particularly Elvis who wasn’t known as a musician (although he could play guitar) and he wasn’t a songwriter/composer.
We need to establish criteria to determine how we can compare groups rather than just simply popularity or personal likes. For example, up until at least 1967, the Beatles played the great majority of instruments on their studio recordings, and early on, all of them with occasional assistance from the fifth Beatle, George Martin.
It was the same with the Rolling Stones, with occasional assistance from the sixth Stone, Ian Stewart on piano (who also played in some live tour performances when Brian was sick). On their albums from 1965 until Brian Jones’s departure in 1969, they played nearly all the instruments required with Brian Jones contributing, from 1965, the dulcimer, sitar, harpsichord, mellotron, trumpet, trombone, marimbas, recorder, flute and pretty well any other instruments required. You can find many of these instruments on their albums “Aftermath”, “Between The Buttons” and “Flowers”.
Some more instruments would have been included in their experimental “Satanic Majesties’ Request” whose recording sessions were greatly disrupted due to Mick, Keith and Brian’s many court cases over various drug busts.
In comparison, during the same period, The Beach Boys’ greatest achievement, “Pet Sounds”, was hardly a Beach Boys production. The album was mostly a collaboration between Brian Wilson and lyricist Tony Asher. Wilson produced several backing tracks over a period lasting several months, using professional Hollywood recording studios and an ensemble that included the classically trained session musicians nicknamed “the Wrecking Crew”, also known as the musicians frequently employed on Phil Spector’s records. There is far too much material on this subject for one post so I’ll save more for another post.
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Nice guitars Tomás and also an interesting topic title. The Tomas Crown Affair was a great movie. I remember the 1999 version more so than the 1968 original. I note your guitar got you through your tough teenage years, along with, I suspect, your favourite music!
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This style of print reminds me of the cover of the Beatles’ Revolver album.
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The Beatles: Has evolutionary biology proved the Fab Four’s early work wasn’t ‘musically important’?
The following article (First posted 18 December 2017), taken from the ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Commission), deserves consideration.
What were the other major revolutions in popular music?
“Everybody thinks they know when the music changed. And when the music changed … was usually when they were about 17 years old,” Professor Leroi said.“The belief in the importance of the music of your youth and the arbitrariness of revolutions and change and so forth, and the journalistic nonsense that has been written about it, all conspire I think to make the history of pop deeply opaque and deeply subjective.”
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Ah Tomás, are you falling back on that “I may not know much about art, but I know what I like” defence. As previously discussed, is commercial success necessarily an indicator of quality.
What were your fellow music consumers listening to in the classical music period? I have selected the following contribution from the internet for an example.
“What we think of as “classical music” was not exactly the pop music of its day, but at that time all types of music were a lot closer to each other in style. The most serious kind of music was church music, then opera. A lot of instrumental music was written for amateurs to play at home (of course there was no other way to hear music since there was no recording technology). The more “popular” music was folk music, music for dancing, songs sung on the streets or in taverns – but the musical language of all genres was basically the same. A folk song or dance tune could be incorporated into a more “serious” work quite easily, even into church music.
One of the qualities that made something “popular” was simplicity. The “classical” composers that tended to be the most popular were those who wrote in a very simple, tuneful style that did not rely very much on contrapuntal techniques, complex forms and overly rich harmonies. But these are some of the very qualities that we now value so much in the great composers, whereas the thousands of simple, tuneful pieces churned out by their now-forgotten contemporaries may be charming but now can seem trite, insipid and uninspired.
But much music then was not necessarily consumed for inspiration, but for entertainment – to be consumed, discarded and forgotten. People mostly wanted something new – our idea of going back over and over to “masterpieces” written hundreds of years ago would have been ridiculous to them. What they mostly wanted was something brand new, but easily digested. Kind of like watching TV.
There were an enormous number of composers who were very popular in their day but have now faded into obscurity. I don’t know that they were necessarily “one hit wonders,” because that is something that mostly seems to apply to recorded music. These were mostly people who churned out lots and lots of music for popular consumption, but their music has not stood the test of time. On the other hand, a number of composers that we recognize as geniuses were not universally acclaimed in their own time. They may have been acknowledged as great composers by other musicians and respected by the public, but often their music was considered too difficult and complex for the average listener. This sort of criticism was leveled at Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and many others.”
As you state, Paul McCartney’s solo career is an incredible one and I would love the opportunity to see him live in a small venue concert. However, I don’t think you are going to find too many people who would consider his solo career to be on the same level as the Beatles.
As for the Stones, there were many British bands who had significant hit singles, Herman’s Hermits, The Searchers, Manfred Mann, The Hollies, The Kinks, The Dave Clarke Five etcetera, but none of them had anywhere near the significant album output and quality of the Rolling Stones, whose best albums sold in the multi-millions.
On that subject, one of my brothers (and all three are Rolling Stones fans and not into the Beatles like me), held a party where he played a song by the Rolling Stones for each year of the sixties from 1964 to 1970 and challenged them to play a Beatles song for comparison. He had all his Rolling Stones vinyl albums and his guests Beatles vinyl albums lined up. Would you like to play?
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What a blast from the past! Are any of you other fellow old timers here still in touch with your teenage youth?
The Undertones – “Teenage Kicks”
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I know that not everyone here is into punk, but I just can’t help admiring the enthusiasm of these young dudes!
Has anyone else got a cousin like Kevin?
The Undertones – “My Perfect Cousin.”
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Bathurst 1000: Mustangs keep the old Ford flag flying.
For all you bogan, petrolheads in North America, today is our annual “Bathurst 1,000” and this year, Mustangs are the favourites for poll position.
From Wikipedia:
“The Bathurst 1000 is a 1,000-kilometre (620 mi) touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as a championship event for Supercars.
Widely regarded as the pinnacle of motorsport in Australia, the Bathurst 1000 is colloquially known as The Great Race among motorsport fans and media. The race concept originated with the 1960 Armstrong 500 at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, before being relocated to Bathurst in 1963 and continuing there in every year since. The race was traditionally run on the Labour Day long weekend in New South Wales, in early October. Since 2001, the race is run on the weekend after the long weekend, normally the second weekend in October.
Race winners are presented with the Peter Brock Trophy. This trophy was introduced at the 2006 race to commemorate the death of Peter Brock. Brock is the most successful driver in the history of the race, winning the event nine times, and was also known as one of the most popular and fan-friendly drivers during his long career. He was given the moniker “King of the Mountain” for these reasons.”
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“Release the Stress”.
“Learn to let go, release the stress, you were never in control anyway”!
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“Light in the Dark” – photograph on canvas.
“When we are lost, broken and falling to pieces, there is always a light in the dark.”
Count on me, perhaps?
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Live streaming is fine with me Jacki. I’m used to staying up all night so it won’t be a problem for me!
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A Hard Day’s Night: Solving a Beatles mystery with mathematics.
The Real Opening Chord to A Hard Days Night (Randy Bachman’s Guitarology).
