The Beatles: Are they objectively excellent?

[FruityFrog]

I'm watching the film Yesterday. It's very good. The premise is that a solar flare or something causes The Beatles to have never existed, everybody forgets them. However, there is one person can remember their songs. He wows people with songs like 'Yesterday' and 'The long and winding road', people keep saying they're the best songs they've ever heard etc etc.

My question is, are they really the best songs ever, objectively? Some are incredibly simple and some super weird. Or are they significant because of what they represented at the time in the 60s, or how people born since then have experienced them through their parents?

No. They are objectively average. In terms of their abilities as musicians. I mean obviously they always used to say Ringo wasn't even the best drummer in the band!

I personally can't stand them.

The quote about Ringo was said in jest. And as someone who plays the drums Ringo was an inspiration to many. He didn't have the flashy high speed fills associated with rock drummers but that would never have suited The Beatles music. What he did was come up with some incredibly creative beats on numerous songs.

Listen to Come Together or A Day in the Life or Ticket to Ride and you instantly know which song it is from the drums alone.

Average! LOL!

I still love the Beatles- some of this I recognise is nostalgia from childhood when I was somewhat obsessed with them (this was the 80s-90s). The White Album was almost my favourite, they experiment with almost every genre in this from proto-metal to reggae to Beach Boys pastiche. Blackbird is absolute genius- the guitar is gorgeous. George’s stuff is brilliant- Something, Sun King, Long Long Long etc. Some of it sounds dated and twee now but I remember my dad saying that as a 13 year old when he first heard Sgt Peppers his mind was blown, he’d never heard anything like it in his life. Rock was still very young at that stage- 1967- or thereabouts. The jump from Love me Do to the experimental stuff over the space of a couple of years is phenomenal.

I am just marking place as I’m a huge fan and a bit obsessed but not sure you can apply ‘objective’ to any form of music. If you ask me I’d say they were brilliant.
I love, love most of their stuff. Some of it is awful. I think what they achieved together in such a short time and at such a young age is incredible.

The Beatles were a genre in themselves, a true gestalt that were greater than the sum of their parts.
Their combined talent, innovation and inspiration changed music and culture for ever.
By the way, don't forget the fifth Beatle, George Martin, who was able to interpret their wishes, make great additions and suggestions, and make it all happen.
People tend to forget that they were the innovators and trailblazers that everyone else followed, because they have always been there for younger people, like the furniture. Without the Beatles we wouldn’t have any of the other great bands who have come after: Pink Floyd, Queen and all. All great, some really great but nowhere near the Beatles.
(I always thought the Stones were a great pub band, but they didn’t innovate)

I know it’s been said before, but I literally had that subjective experience of hearing them on the radio for the first time as a child, and it was as if the drab and monochrome post fifties world actually did burst into colour. I will never forget it.