to think the way the Beatles revolutionised music has been largely forgotton?

[VicarsGoingForGoldInKungFu]

i was as guilty as the next man of slating Macca at the opening of the olympics....but then, DH made some "awwwwwww" noises and started to dig out his Beatles collection,( then his Wings collection, but i forgave him and we are still married).....and then that got me googling and i ended up with Dangermouses The Grey Album.....which got me to listening to The White Album......

and then i got googling a bit more and i think that people forget how they completely revolutionised the music scene, how they started, and how they ended up making some really really excellent music. The White Album is brill. id never really listened to DH beatles albums before tbh.....

and i feel a bit guilty now. Macca did deserve to be at the olympics.....just because he is now 70, and wobbles a bit, doesnt and shouldnt erase the musical history that he and his band mates gave us. He shouldnt be cast aside. (and honestly - if you re watch, the backing track started too early and he only wobbled at the start....he got going and was on tune!)

Now we have simon cowell who tells us what we will buy.....all those other bands that people cited as worthy of playing the opening ceromony......they are only here because the Beatles changed things. They did it first, i just think things have moved on so much and so fast that people forget. I am not a raging Beatles fan, but i acknowledge what they did.

so, it is with hands in pockets and staring at the floor that i say "soz macca". I have travelled the boards and i have said this on many of the nay sayer threads....but we should just stop a mo and go give the White album a listen.....

But vicar, the bands in the charts you put up were just other boy pop bands. Who were signed, yes, because The Beatles were popular. Nothing earth shattering. They inspired youngsters to join bands.

As they gained more control other their sound they diversified, but the first few years they were poop.

I'm also of the 'if it wasn't them it would've been someone else' line of thought.

The promo men back then were just as smart as they are now.

And I now think hank Marvin should be knighted.

....and those old codgers should now gracefully step aside and give way to little mix and cheryl cole?

or muse and coldplay? those pioneers of music.....?

i like some dadrock dont get me wrong, but there has been nothing since the beatles and the sex pistols that changed anything.

the sex pistols did the exact same thing as the beatles - they then spawned The Clash and The Jam to name a few, and again made music accessible and open to anyone - if you could play 3 chords you could form a band, i think the pistols are massively underated too.....they could play, they could sing and they could write, contrary to the belief at the time of most people!

i just think, that the achievments of the beatles must have been forgotten for people to be so vitriolic about macca these days? or if not, then how intolerant people are! he was great. he did great things. he is/was a british icon, he was part of something magical, and great, and i love british music, but all anyone is bothered about it now seems is that he looks his age and that he hit a bum note when singing live......

i just find it sad.

Bowie was a bit shit to start with: The Laughing Gnome and Space Oddity. Where you start is not where you end up.

Space Oddity "a bit shit"??!! Fuck me, have you even heard it?

OP, YANBU.

the promo men????

what promo men? do some research on the beatles - they were the first to do it for themselves - they wrote their own songs, changed how songs were recorded, they were the first to take control and start their own label......they were not puppets for the promo men - they were and are the best selling band in history.

there is a reason for that and it wasnt the promo men! seriously.

Space Oddity a bit shit? Bit of an oddity that, surely??

Macca? Well outstayed a welcome. Jagger and the boys doing "Start Me Up" would have been a much better note to start the Games.

Oh really? So no one was pulling the strings, creating the squeaky clean yeah yeah yeah image and promoting them?

I think you need to go back to google.

no i do not think so when you hear people talking who know anything about music. listen to how many good bands, writers and musicians are still influenced by them. revolver is an album full of fantastic simple pop songs then came along sargent pepper and that changed the music industry just the cover alone is iconic amazing that was how influential they were

McCartney gets a lot of slating but he and Lennon wrote some of the best pop music ever, Lennon was the better writer but McCartney wrote some great songs and was later more involved with production (abbey road b side) than Lennon was. just without Lennon?s influence something was lost in his music though i think Lennon wrote much of his best music while he was in the Beatles

George Harrison wrote some great songs nowhere near as many, along with McCartney some pretty crappy ones too

i love the rolling stones great rock songs but once they went a little progressive it didn't work and some albums are dire

i sometimes find it hard to separate the artist and the person, but to judge them on that sadly i would be judging many great artists and musicians

i dont need to go back to google. i think pretty quickly they became their own band, doing things the way they wanted to. The only influuence i can see on those very early days was Epstein who took them professional.

they were extremely influencial and ground breaking. i dont love them, im not a raging fan, but i can appreciate what they did.

i like tons and tons of other music, and i could sit and wax lyrical in the same way about Elvis or The Sex Pistols and The Clash in the same way.
or even Abba.
i think there are alot of snobs who bemoan anything that isnt seen as "cool" or "trendy", and undoubtedly PM is none of those anymore at 70 years old.

id doesnt takeaway what the beatles did.

• im not anti any good music, i love the stones, they are a great band, but the beatles were something special, the first of their genre, influencial, innovative, and produced some bloody brilliant music, and they did change the face of british music in the 60's. they changed things. they opened the doors to all those other fantastic groups of that era.

I'm not dissenting from the Beatles' achievements, which (as I see it) were writing some memorable songs and popularising British pop culture and breaking into the American market. But, for me, it's too much of a leap to say that things that happened in the 60s were caused by or due to the Beatles. In some cases, sure, but in many others, no, because wider cultural forces were at work, from which the Beatles and others benefitted.

my op, was to say the revolutionised music.....and i think, on that score, they did.

im not saying the 60s happened because of them.....im sure that no where have i said that - but they revolutionised the british music scene.

Anyone who seriously thinks that wife-beating junkie twat Lennon was a better songwriter than McCartney has been drinking far too much of the NME's Kool Aid. The quality of their respective solo stuff in the 70s speaks for itself.

For the 60s I'd still say the Stones were MUCH more influential and musically talented. Beatles were quite Marks and Spencer, and well, dull. The Stones hit a black cross-over with rock and R&B from America. Beatles were easy-listening pop and then self-indulgent druggie stuff in comparison.
Start Me Up was about 1981/2? and would have served the Ceremony purpose in spirit. Not feckin' Hey Jude yawn.

Have to disagree that there has been no one since the Beatles that changed anything, Black Sabbath invented heavy metal!

But I must say that the Beatles changed everything for Music in Britain, my mother was banned from listening to them!

They were encouraged into clean suits and all that by Brian, he got them a record deal and promoted them. Before they were discovered they were playing clubs. Brian got rid of Pete so you could even say they were manufactured, or at least tweaked! They ditched a mate on a managers say so. No band does it all alone. I've never heard anyone claim the Beatles did until now.

The record labels always have and always will have the control and influence.

And I was in The Stones camp too (far more edgy than the Beatles).

Yes I have heard Space Oddity. It's gimmicky and dull. But then lots of things written to cash in on news events are.

I said it was a bit shit. I didn't say Bowie was a bit shit. What I said was that good people do things that sometimes aren't very good but that it shouldn't reflect on the whole of their work.

BTW do you think A Space Oddity is as good as Bowie's other compositions - like The Man Who Sold The World which came just a year afterwards? Or the songs that surpassed that?

And you haven't said what do you think of The Laughing Gnome. Please tell.

Sorry, I said Bowie was a bit shit to start with. What I meant was we all have to start somewhere and he swiftly made up for it.

I maintain that A Space Oddity is more than a bit shit.

Laughing Gnome MUST have been acid-fuelled.

Here's a couple of nice comparisons:

Elvis - Cliff Richards
Stones - Beatles

Works quite a bit.

Also longevity. Beatles lasted about 9 years. Stones just don't stop.

why do people keep mis reading what im saying.?

i have not said that nothing else changed anything ginger - if you read up a bit you will see i said that Elvis, The sex pistols, all changed things and all opened doors for new and brilliant acts.

and keith - ive not said they did it alone. it feels like im actually bloody arguing with keithrichards here.....you sure your the mrs?

i liked the stones. love them in fact.
but the beatles changed music in the 60's and paved the way for those other acts, including the stones, to break through and get into the charts - incidentally how many other northern working class british bands were having any success? none. the stones, the yardbirds, the kinks, all london based.

the beatles were the first, and no matter how much you love the stones more, or love the faces more, or love creme more, i still think you have to give the beatles credit where credits due.

i dont think macca deserves the slating. not by a long shot. and while id love to stay and argue engage in debate ive some stuff to go do....

off to watch the painted veil. now theres a good film....

ThePan' you can go further than that, Elvis was working up to
He died, Cliff doesn't know he should have stopped years ago!

if Paul Mcartney were your grandad, would you be embarrassed?

Oh The Painted Veil? Shit film. Not as good as......

I'm kidding.