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I know this forum is full of music heads so I thought I'd put this question to you...
Do you agree with David Bowie's view on the Beatles? - See video below:
I think the Beatles are massively overrated. They've got some great songs/albums, but Bowie is right, you don't see their influence in modern music. So much better stuff going on when the Beatles were around.
I think Oasis, one of the biggest bands in the world in the 90s (after that video was recorded) were influenced a bit* by the Beatles.
The Beatles were at a time when music was progressive - they released 12 albums in 7 years and their body of work was so wide they chimed with a lot of people at that point in music.
There has been no other artist who has had as much influence over such a short period of time and that's makes the Beatles unique.
*stole pretty much their whole chord progression structure
I'm not sure where i am on the Beatles. They didn't start from scratch and invent popular music, that was already happening in the US and UK but they were uniquely strong and innovative song writers and had the looks/image/marketing that made them head and shoulders above the rest at the time but their legacy on other music hasn't been never-ending. As Bowie infers, the influence is more immediate even if their music stands the test of time.
I've always been big on the Stones who admit to being devotees of old school blues (Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf etc) but have probably had the biggest impact on live performance in my opinion and still do so today. Music sounds less dated today than the Beatles too imo but that might well be bias.
I dont think Bowie was wrong.... However the Beatles simply wrote brilliant pop songs... Many, many unbelievably brilliant songs. I agree that their style has not influenced many musical genre's but for me its the sheer quantity of songs that is the Beatles legacy. If anything bands have taken these songs and sometimes taken them to another level, unearthing just how good they are.
The Beatles' cultural impact is without parallel, bar possibly by Bowie himself.
They established the now common concept of bands mostly writing their own songs. They had THREE genius songwriters in one group, so much so that for several years the man who wrote what Frank Sinatra called "the best love song of the 20th century" (George's Something) could barely get a look in.
They smashed through glass ceilings all over the shop, and surfed the zeitgeist throughout their relatively brief existence.
Having said all that, I think Bowie definitely has a point. However he's underrating the Beatles' influence in the States, eg the dozens, maybe hundreds of Americans inspired to form bands after THAT Ed Sullivan Show appearance (they arguably had more lasting influence in the USA than elsewhere); and also that, by going from Love Me Do to Tomorrow Never Knows in 4 years, from With The Beatles to The White Album in 5...they also set the pace for bands that start off as straightforward pop or r&b feeling liberated enough to experiment and take risks (like he went from Laughing Gnome to Low).
Bowie himself had a similar level of influence, albeit it in mostly different spheres. He was always a very astute cultural commentator.
I never bore of Bowie or the Beatles, the older I get, the more I love them both, and appreciate all the more what they both achieved.
Sister Ray alone has probably inspired more contemporary bands! I remember when I first got into the Velvet Underground I couldn't believe how old the music was compared to how modern it sounded. So ahead of their time.
I included the Nile Song as it was a real outlier in Pink Floyd's catalogue but doesn't sound dated to me.
Black Sabbath, need I say more? I'm sure there are other examples, Kraftwerk springs to mind.
Here's a few quotes from musicians influenced by the Beatles, If you want more let me know, there are plenty.
'Dave Grohl' “When I was young, that’s how I learned how to play music — I had a guitar and a Beatles songbook. I would listen to the records and play along. Of course, it didn’t sound like the Beatles, but it got me to understand song structure and melody and harmony and arrangement. So, I never had a teacher — I just had these Beatles records.”
'Joe Walsh' "I took one look on The Ed Sullivan Show and it was, ‘fuk school. This makes it! I memorized every Beatles song and went to Shea Stadium and screamed right along with all those chicks. My parents still have a picture of me all slicked up, with a collarless Beatles jacket and Beatles boots, playing at the prom.”
'Brian Wilson' "Wilson’s inspiration came when he first heard the Beatles’ Rubber Soul. “As soon as I started hearing it, I loved it. I mean, loved it!” Wilson told The Times of London. “I still remember hearing Michelle for the first time, and Girl. What an incredible song! Everything about the way John Lennon sang, and the lyrics he was writing… It sounded amazing. Norwegian Wood is my favorite, too. The lyrics are so good, and so creative… I can’t forget the sitar, too, I’d never heard that before, that unbelievable sound. No one had heard that in rock ‘n’ roll back then, this amazing, exotic sound. It really did inspire the instrumentation I ended up using for Pet Sounds."
'Nancy Wilson' (Heart) "Sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart have said they never wanted to be the girlfriends of the Beatles or the wives of the Beatles — they wanted to be the Beatles. “The lightning bolt came out of the heavens and struck Ann and me the first time we saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, Nancy told Believer. “There’d been so much anticipation and hype about the Beatles that it was a huge event, like the lunar landing: that was the moment Ann and I heard the call to become rock musicians. I was seven or eight at the time.
“They were really pushing hard against the morality of the times. That might seem funny to say now, since it was in their early days and they were still wearing suits. But the sexuality was bursting out of the seams. They had crazy long hair. They seemed to us then like the punks seemed to the next generation — way out of the box for the time… Right away we started doing air guitar shows in the living room, faking English accents, and studying all the fanzines… Luckily, our parents were both musical and supportive about us getting into music. So it didn’t take all the begging in the world to convince them we had to have guitars. We taught ourselves to play off the Beatles’ albums and the trusty old Mel Bay chord book. Pretty soon we knew every Brit pop song that was out.”
'Gene Simmons' For Gene Simmons, lead singer and bassist of heavy metal’s KISS, Liverpool had always been a place he’d wanted to play. “I’ve been fascinated by the place ever since I heard the Beatles,” Simmons told the Liverpool Echo when he arrived in 2010. “There is no way I’d be doing what I do now if it wasn’t for the Beatles. I was watching The Ed Sullivan Show and I saw them. Those skinny little boys, kind of androgynous, with long hair like girls. It blew me away that these four boys in the middle of nowhere could make that music. Then they spoke and I thought, ‘What are they talking like?’ We had never heard the Liverpool accent before.
“I thought that all British people spoke like the Queen. The only time you heard a British accent was when they played the Nazi in war films.
“Overnight I became an Anglophile,” Simmons continued. “I read up on the Beatles, who they were, where they were from. I learnt about Liverpool, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Ringo’s band, and the Quarrymen and all that. I read up on everything they did in the news. I followed their failures and their successes. The Beatles were a band, of course, and I loved their music. But they were also a cultural force that made it OK to be different.”
'Robert Fripp' Robert Fripp once stated that King Crimson was his way of uniting the music of Hendrix, Bartok and The Beatles. Hearing A Day In The Life, an experience he later described as “incredibly powerful”, certainly opened the door to In The Court Of The Crimson King. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was a regular at Crims’ rehearsals in 1969, while Lizard addresses The Fabs’ break-up on Happy Family. In 1999, Fripp wrote in his dairy: “Were The Beatles the last example of group genius in Western popular culture?”
'Black Sabbath' Ozzy Osbourne on hearing She Loves You for the first time was akin to being hit by “a lightning bolt”, he told Classic Rock recently. “The Beatles were the effing reason why Ozzy Osbourne started singing.” Geezer Butler was similarly smitten, citing The Beatles as his generation’s great lift-off moment and admitting they changed his life forever. Black Sabbath consummated the love by covering Day Tripper in their early live shows.
And of course Oasis So beholden are the Gallagher brothers that Oasis were often derided as little more than a Beatles tribute band. “It’s beyond an obsession,” Noel once stated. “With every song that I write, I compare it to The Beatles.” Liam even named his first son Lennon. Covers of I Am the Walrus, Helter Skelter and various others aside, you can find Beatles references in everything from Supersonic and Morning Glory to I’m Outta Time and Be Here Now. Even Wonderwall takes its name from a George Harrison soundtrack.
My Father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic.
Here's a few quotes from musicians influenced by the Beatles, If you want more let me know, there are plenty.
'Dave Grohl' “When I was young, that’s how I learned how to play music — I had a guitar and a Beatles songbook. I would listen to the records and play along. Of course, it didn’t sound like the Beatles, but it got me to understand song structure and melody and harmony and arrangement. So, I never had a teacher — I just had these Beatles records.”
'Joe Walsh' "I took one look on The Ed Sullivan Show and it was, ‘fuk school. This makes it! I memorized every Beatles song and went to Shea Stadium and screamed right along with all those chicks. My parents still have a picture of me all slicked up, with a collarless Beatles jacket and Beatles boots, playing at the prom.”
'Brian Wilson' "Wilson’s inspiration came when he first heard the Beatles’ Rubber Soul. “As soon as I started hearing it, I loved it. I mean, loved it!” Wilson told The Times of London. “I still remember hearing Michelle for the first time, and Girl. What an incredible song! Everything about the way John Lennon sang, and the lyrics he was writing… It sounded amazing. Norwegian Wood is my favorite, too. The lyrics are so good, and so creative… I can’t forget the sitar, too, I’d never heard that before, that unbelievable sound. No one had heard that in rock ‘n’ roll back then, this amazing, exotic sound. It really did inspire the instrumentation I ended up using for Pet Sounds."
'Nancy Wilson' (Heart) "Sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart have said they never wanted to be the girlfriends of the Beatles or the wives of the Beatles — they wanted to be the Beatles. “The lightning bolt came out of the heavens and struck Ann and me the first time we saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, Nancy told Believer. “There’d been so much anticipation and hype about the Beatles that it was a huge event, like the lunar landing: that was the moment Ann and I heard the call to become rock musicians. I was seven or eight at the time.
“They were really pushing hard against the morality of the times. That might seem funny to say now, since it was in their early days and they were still wearing suits. But the sexuality was bursting out of the seams. They had crazy long hair. They seemed to us then like the punks seemed to the next generation — way out of the box for the time… Right away we started doing air guitar shows in the living room, faking English accents, and studying all the fanzines… Luckily, our parents were both musical and supportive about us getting into music. So it didn’t take all the begging in the world to convince them we had to have guitars. We taught ourselves to play off the Beatles’ albums and the trusty old Mel Bay chord book. Pretty soon we knew every Brit pop song that was out.”
'Gene Simmons' For Gene Simmons, lead singer and bassist of heavy metal’s KISS, Liverpool had always been a place he’d wanted to play. “I’ve been fascinated by the place ever since I heard the Beatles,” Simmons told the Liverpool Echo when he arrived in 2010. “There is no way I’d be doing what I do now if it wasn’t for the Beatles. I was watching The Ed Sullivan Show and I saw them. Those skinny little boys, kind of androgynous, with long hair like girls. It blew me away that these four boys in the middle of nowhere could make that music. Then they spoke and I thought, ‘What are they talking like?’ We had never heard the Liverpool accent before.
“I thought that all British people spoke like the Queen. The only time you heard a British accent was when they played the Nazi in war films.
“Overnight I became an Anglophile,” Simmons continued. “I read up on the Beatles, who they were, where they were from. I learnt about Liverpool, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Ringo’s band, and the Quarrymen and all that. I read up on everything they did in the news. I followed their failures and their successes. The Beatles were a band, of course, and I loved their music. But they were also a cultural force that made it OK to be different.”
'Robert Fripp' Robert Fripp once stated that King Crimson was his way of uniting the music of Hendrix, Bartok and The Beatles. Hearing A Day In The Life, an experience he later described as “incredibly powerful”, certainly opened the door to In The Court Of The Crimson King. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was a regular at Crims’ rehearsals in 1969, while Lizard addresses The Fabs’ break-up on Happy Family. In 1999, Fripp wrote in his dairy: “Were The Beatles the last example of group genius in Western popular culture?”
'Black Sabbath' Ozzy Osbourne on hearing She Loves You for the first time was akin to being hit by “a lightning bolt”, he told Classic Rock recently. “The Beatles were the effing reason why Ozzy Osbourne started singing.” Geezer Butler was similarly smitten, citing The Beatles as his generation’s great lift-off moment and admitting they changed his life forever. Black Sabbath consummated the love by covering Day Tripper in their early live shows.
And of course Oasis So beholden are the Gallagher brothers that Oasis were often derided as little more than a Beatles tribute band. “It’s beyond an obsession,” Noel once stated. “With every song that I write, I compare it to The Beatles.” Liam even named his first son Lennon. Covers of I Am the Walrus, Helter Skelter and various others aside, you can find Beatles references in everything from Supersonic and Morning Glory to I’m Outta Time and Be Here Now. Even Wonderwall takes its name from a George Harrison soundtrack.
Missing the point.
It's not about people being inspired to make music, it's about the music they actually make and cultural impact.
Black Sabbath sound nothing like the Beatles, yet they basically created heavy metal. There's a tangible legacy from their musical innovation. You can hear it in the contemporary music. As Bowie says, where do you hear the Beatles in modern music? Look at the music that followed in the 70's, 80's, 90's. Oasis were awful. A couple of a good albums but no real musical legacy. Probably got a few kids into guitar because their songs are so easy to play.
The Beatles' cultural impact is without parallel, bar possibly by Bowie himself.
They established the now common concept of bands mostly writing their own songs. They had THREE genius songwriters in one group, so much so that for several years the man who wrote what Frank Sinatra called "the best love song of the 20th century" (George's Something) could barely get a look in.
They smashed through glass ceilings all over the shop, and surfed the zeitgeist throughout their relatively brief existence.
Having said all that, I think Bowie definitely has a point. However he's underrating the Beatles' influence in the States, eg the dozens, maybe hundreds of Americans inspired to form bands after THAT Ed Sullivan Show appearance (they arguably had more lasting influence in the USA than elsewhere); and also that, by going from Love Me Do to Tomorrow Never Knows in 4 years, from With The Beatles to The White Album in 5...they also set the pace for bands that start off as straightforward pop or r&b feeling liberated enough to experiment and take risks (like he went from Laughing Gnome to Low).
Bowie himself had a similar level of influence, albeit it in mostly different spheres. He was always a very astute cultural commentator.
I never bore of Bowie or the Beatles, the older I get, the more I love them both, and appreciate all the more what they both achieved.
Bowie released 10 albums in the 7 years from 1970 to 1977 so could easily compare to the Beatles and went from The Man Who Sold the World, through Ziggy and Aladdin Sane to Heroes. He has a similar body of work which will have influenced people and he did continue after that 7 years. I love his stuff too.
However, the Beatles were part of the era which initiated the space for him to have that creativity.
Never really got the Beatles. Prolific song writers, some of which was great and some of it drivel. Personally thought the Stones were streets ahead, particularly performance wise which i think had a greater influence, but I suspect I'm in a minority there.
Siouxsie & The Banshees also covered the Beatle's Helter Skelter
Don’t have any Beatles albums but have pretty much everything Stones albums until they checked out in 1978 with “some girls” However they certainly changed music in the 60s and were mimicked and copied for years to come . Unashamedly by Oasis. For what’s it’s worth I think it’s six of one and half a dozen of another in relation to Bowie who in my opinion was as good if not better than both of the aforementioned.
The music that inspired the Beatles(and Stones) is still alive and well - namely The Blues.No doubt some people will be moaning about cultural appropriation now.
Although I still frequently listen to Bowie but rarely listen to the Beatles these days, I firmly believe the Beatles were a massive global influence on popular music, and still are for many.
I'd also suggest Bowie didn't really believe his own statement. He wasn't averse to spinning a yarn for attention's sake.
Here's a few quotes from musicians influenced by the Beatles, If you want more let me know, there are plenty.
'Dave Grohl' “When I was young, that’s how I learned how to play music — I had a guitar and a Beatles songbook. I would listen to the records and play along. Of course, it didn’t sound like the Beatles, but it got me to understand song structure and melody and harmony and arrangement. So, I never had a teacher — I just had these Beatles records.”
'Joe Walsh' "I took one look on The Ed Sullivan Show and it was, ‘fuk school. This makes it! I memorized every Beatles song and went to Shea Stadium and screamed right along with all those chicks. My parents still have a picture of me all slicked up, with a collarless Beatles jacket and Beatles boots, playing at the prom.”
'Brian Wilson' "Wilson’s inspiration came when he first heard the Beatles’ Rubber Soul. “As soon as I started hearing it, I loved it. I mean, loved it!” Wilson told The Times of London. “I still remember hearing Michelle for the first time, and Girl. What an incredible song! Everything about the way John Lennon sang, and the lyrics he was writing… It sounded amazing. Norwegian Wood is my favorite, too. The lyrics are so good, and so creative… I can’t forget the sitar, too, I’d never heard that before, that unbelievable sound. No one had heard that in rock ‘n’ roll back then, this amazing, exotic sound. It really did inspire the instrumentation I ended up using for Pet Sounds."
'Nancy Wilson' (Heart) "Sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart have said they never wanted to be the girlfriends of the Beatles or the wives of the Beatles — they wanted to be the Beatles. “The lightning bolt came out of the heavens and struck Ann and me the first time we saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, Nancy told Believer. “There’d been so much anticipation and hype about the Beatles that it was a huge event, like the lunar landing: that was the moment Ann and I heard the call to become rock musicians. I was seven or eight at the time.
“They were really pushing hard against the morality of the times. That might seem funny to say now, since it was in their early days and they were still wearing suits. But the sexuality was bursting out of the seams. They had crazy long hair. They seemed to us then like the punks seemed to the next generation — way out of the box for the time… Right away we started doing air guitar shows in the living room, faking English accents, and studying all the fanzines… Luckily, our parents were both musical and supportive about us getting into music. So it didn’t take all the begging in the world to convince them we had to have guitars. We taught ourselves to play off the Beatles’ albums and the trusty old Mel Bay chord book. Pretty soon we knew every Brit pop song that was out.”
'Gene Simmons' For Gene Simmons, lead singer and bassist of heavy metal’s KISS, Liverpool had always been a place he’d wanted to play. “I’ve been fascinated by the place ever since I heard the Beatles,” Simmons told the Liverpool Echo when he arrived in 2010. “There is no way I’d be doing what I do now if it wasn’t for the Beatles. I was watching The Ed Sullivan Show and I saw them. Those skinny little boys, kind of androgynous, with long hair like girls. It blew me away that these four boys in the middle of nowhere could make that music. Then they spoke and I thought, ‘What are they talking like?’ We had never heard the Liverpool accent before.
“I thought that all British people spoke like the Queen. The only time you heard a British accent was when they played the Nazi in war films.
“Overnight I became an Anglophile,” Simmons continued. “I read up on the Beatles, who they were, where they were from. I learnt about Liverpool, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Ringo’s band, and the Quarrymen and all that. I read up on everything they did in the news. I followed their failures and their successes. The Beatles were a band, of course, and I loved their music. But they were also a cultural force that made it OK to be different.”
'Robert Fripp' Robert Fripp once stated that King Crimson was his way of uniting the music of Hendrix, Bartok and The Beatles. Hearing A Day In The Life, an experience he later described as “incredibly powerful”, certainly opened the door to In The Court Of The Crimson King. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds was a regular at Crims’ rehearsals in 1969, while Lizard addresses The Fabs’ break-up on Happy Family. In 1999, Fripp wrote in his dairy: “Were The Beatles the last example of group genius in Western popular culture?”
'Black Sabbath' Ozzy Osbourne on hearing She Loves You for the first time was akin to being hit by “a lightning bolt”, he told Classic Rock recently. “The Beatles were the effing reason why Ozzy Osbourne started singing.” Geezer Butler was similarly smitten, citing The Beatles as his generation’s great lift-off moment and admitting they changed his life forever. Black Sabbath consummated the love by covering Day Tripper in their early live shows.
And of course Oasis So beholden are the Gallagher brothers that Oasis were often derided as little more than a Beatles tribute band. “It’s beyond an obsession,” Noel once stated. “With every song that I write, I compare it to The Beatles.” Liam even named his first son Lennon. Covers of I Am the Walrus, Helter Skelter and various others aside, you can find Beatles references in everything from Supersonic and Morning Glory to I’m Outta Time and Be Here Now. Even Wonderwall takes its name from a George Harrison soundtrack.
Loving that Dave Grohl anecdote. I did something similar age 15. I went to my bedroom with 3 cans of Pepsi, several packets of cheese and onion, a large aero, an acoustic guitar, and a copy of the Complete Beatles - a book containing all the songs with lyrics and chord shapes. I said (to no one in particular) I’m going to my room and I will not leave until I can play ‘I’m Only Sleeping’ A particular favourite of mine at the time - and still is. Up to this point I’d never had a lesson or (apart from watching other people play) any idea how to play a guitar.
It took maybe 10 hours of slavishly placing my fingers on the guitar in the chord shapes - a cheap old guitar with strings like cheese-wire and an action that left my soft teenage fingers bruised and calloused. By the way whoever published that Beatles book is a fcuking sadist. Nice pictures yes and all the words but the keys chosen for each song were evil. Db and G minor? Are you having a laugh? But I did it and I was so proud. It sounded nothing like the Beatles but I was making a noise on a guitar which did have a passing resemblance to music. It was a start.
Dave Grohl would go on to have success with Nirvana and fill stadiums with the Foo Fighters. I too would go on to sing in stadiums. You may know this one: “Up yer arse, up yer arse, we’ll stick the blue flag up yer arse. From Stamford Bridge to Wembley we’ll stick the blue flag up yer arse!”
As a footnote, Nirvana’s ‘About A Girl’ (written by Cobain rather than Grohl) is very Beatlesy. Have a listen.
Not a Beatles hater but never really "wanted" to listen to their music. The Who, The Kinks, The Small Faces all seemed a bit more dynamic at the time and it was music I wanted to hear. Bowie is timeless.
The Beatles would have been less influential had they not had the input of George Martin.ELO especially benefited from the "Martin Sound"
It's hard to know if they'd have been less anything without GM. He certainly was part of the perfect storm that resulted in the magnificent output of the Beatles. A producer of comedy platters, who given the appropriate company turns out a genius.
I absolutely love it!
Love the Stones too.
Never really seen it as a competition. Even if the bands themselves did, at the time. Reading a biography of Brian Wilson, he was certainly very competitive. But that drove him to some great musical heights himself. So...
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