I don't like The Beatles, am I the only one?

[xanalog]

Thanks for the thread, @Pearljam5000,
Beatles never pushed-my-buttons or hit the right notes for me, either.

Never cared one way or the other. Have got several Beatles albums just because "everyone should have some Beatles in their collection", but to be honest, I never listen to them.

I had to have one in my LP library, for similar reasons and chicks dug 'em!
I had settled on the "White Album", so that I never had to stare at their faces!

 

[Robin L]

Like food, one's taste in music is entirely correlated to one's exposure and environment. This means the surrounding macro and micro culture and era are largely the contributing factors.

For instance, I grew up in the 90's in NYC, therefore, I love hip hop, R&B and Reggae (amongst many other genres). But if you ask the stereotypical demographic of this hobby in the Western world, it is largely white men between ages 50's to 80's, and boy they may even get mad at you for even mentioning Hip Hop. So I personally don't try to diminish the music other people listen to, unless it's Bob Dylan or some punk and metal

Anyway, because one's taste in music is nearly entirely shaped by their surrounding macro and micro culture and the era they grow up in, by definition, no music will stand the test of time, if the time is long enough.

I'm 71. I first heard the Beatles when I was just about to turn 9. My generation was the perfect demo for the Fab Four. The folks promoting this Really Big Show knew that; Saturday morning Beatles cartoons arrived 19 months after the Group had their U. S. debut on Ed Sullivan, the American Pre-Fab Four the Monkees arrived a year after that. There were Beatle boots and wigs and magazines, not to mention unprecedented sales of LPs and 45s along with unprecedented radio play. I was mad for the group and top 40 and all that went with it back then. One would swear the fix was in, if they were noticing. The hype in their time was inescapable; it was as if a super-powered industrial level of hype emerged for the first time, the first demo of Joni Mitchell's star-making machinery. My generation was sold on the concept that these four lads were anointed by the gods as the artistic voice of the 20th century. That was never true, but that became the consensus opinion thanks to an endless media echo chamber, one still resonating.

There were other musicians between 1962 to 1970. Some, on certain days, were better at doing what the Beatles did than the Beatles. And for others, the Beatles were entirely beside the point. It's true that the Beatles made the transition from Rock 'n' Roll to Rock. However, I have every good reason to suspect it would have happened anyway.

FWIW, I got the soundtrack to the movie "Performance" around 1974, found the Last Poets" track on it the most interesting item on a very interesting compilation. This led to me getting the Last Poets Douglas 3 LP. I guess I'm not tracking hip-hop these days, but those early Last Poets records pointed me in the direction of other Rap/Hip Hop music that I found very interesting.

And Bob Dylan is just as good a singer as Caruso, he'd be the first to tell you.

 

[wadude]

One of the best things about streaming music is that you don’t have to hold an album cover in your hands let alone look at it!

Also: Why would anyone buy an album of a band they actively dislike out of some sort of obligation? It simply doesn’t make sense.

 

[101geo]

Revolver was a seminal album, so was Led Zeppelin I they were both watershed moments in modern music. Very little of what we hear today isn't influenced by those albums and to a lesser extent stuff from The Stones, Pink Floyd, The Who etc. To me they were the first signs of modern music growing up.

 

[PristineSound]

To me Nirvana are much better than The Beatles

I can almost guess your age

Personally, I am not a fan of music before my era (typically one's "era" is their teenage years to their mid twenties). With the exception of Jazz, Bossa Nova and more broadly Latin jazz, Fleetwood Mac, Jimi Hendrix and Dire Strait.

All other music before the 90's is just before my time, and I don't care for it. In fact, some music before my era just sound terrible to me, and I am sure people from that era would say the same thing about the music from my era.

 

[EJ3]

Generally the work of Capitol Records producer Dave Dexter, Jr is trashed, but it’s hard to fault Meet the Beatles and The Beatles Second Album. His editing of the Help! soundtrack makes it a personal favorite.

But it’s totally fine to not like the Beatles.

I got the first 2 when I was 6, maybe 8. Still have them, Magical Mystery tour and Revolver.

 

[theREALdotnet]

Like food, one's taste in music is entirely correlated to one's exposure and environment.

Also, at what age one had a chip installed on one's shoulder. If done at an early age it can really become part of one's personality.

 

[concorde1]

Beatles sound like nursery rhymes to me as do most pop songs from the 50's - 60s

Interesting, this is my experience of most Beatles tracks, but certainly not most pop from 50s-60s.

 

[wadude]

Except Louie, Louie.

Man, are you familiar with Richard Berry’s original version? It’s slick and elegant doo wop with great session players on it. Turned my mind around on that song!

Edit: I love music from before my time. One of my great pleasures is reading about the artists I like and learning about the music that influenced them.

 

[EJ3]

I'm a late gen-xer, Beatles is way before my time, the style and music wasn't what I was conditioned for growing up. As such, I too don't think much of the Beatles, there may be one or two songs that's aren't too repulsive for me.

Often times when I tell people I don't care for the Beatles, they have this shock like I am from out of space, I look at them and I just it again: I don't care for the Beatles, it is what is it.

The truth is, every single song that was ever created will inevitably go out of style and die off with enough time passes.

I think that The Beatles are more important for what they and their team brought to innovation of production in the studio than for their actual music (which was also important as most of it could be sung, whistled, hummed and otherwise vocalized by most folks), so it introduced many, many people of the world to the consumption of and sharing of music due to that.
It's not so much that any individual likes or does not like certain era's of their music but the effect that they had on the worlds desire for, distribution of and production of music.

 

[EJ3]

Thanks for the thread, @Pearljam5000,
Beatles never pushed-my-buttons or hit the right notes for me, either.

I had to have one in my LP library, for similar reasons and chicks dug 'em!
I had settled on the "White Album", so that I never had to stare at their faces!

That is the last Beatle Album that I have obtained, given to me as a gift from an old high school friend a few years ago. I have yet to open it.

 

[concorde1]

Like food, one's taste in music is entirely correlated to one's exposure and environment. [. . . .]

My apologies, I was quite abrupt. I just found this too much of a generalisation.

 

[EJ3]

One of the best things about streaming music is that you don’t have to hold an album cover in your hands let alone look at it!

Also: Why would anyone buy an album of a band they actively dislike out of some sort of obligation? It simply doesn’t make sense.

To your first statement: for me: I need something to do with my hands. At one time, it was smoking.
A screen to look at something without other phisical interactions is as useless to me as teats on a boar hog.

As to your second: I fully agree.

 

[EJ3]

And Bob Dylan is just as good a singer as Caruso, he'd be the first to tell you.

I like some of Bob Dylan's songs. But only when Bob Dylan is NOT the singer.

 

[DavidEdwinAston]

I'm a late gen-xer, Beatles is way before my time, the style and music wasn't what I was conditioned for growing up. As such, I too don't think much of the Beatles, there may be one or two songs that's aren't too repulsive for me.

Often times when I tell people I don't care for the Beatles, they have this shock like I am from out of space, I look at them and I just it again: I don't care for the Beatles, it is what is it.

The truth is, every single song that was ever created will inevitably go out of style and die off with enough time passes.

I am depressed that you can find any song "repulsive"! Some politicians, on the other hand!

 

[wadude]

Music is strong stuff!

 

[mhardy6647]

Except Louie, Louie.

 

[Robin L]

Man, are you familiar with Richard Berry’s original version? It’s slick and elegant doo wop with great session players on it. Turned my mind around on that song!

Edit: I love music from before my time. One of my great pleasures is reading about the artists I like and learning about the music that influenced them.

I think that is the most magical aspect of recordings, how we continue to be entertained by ghosts. One of my favorite recordings is Artur Schnabel's set, the very first, of all of Beethoven's piano sonatas. Mid 1930s. The pianist was dead before I was born, the composer was dead long before the pianist, but the music recorded is very alive. Of course, this applies to so many recordings, like Richard Berry's original version of Louie Louie, or the long, tall shadow of Little Richard's.

 

[Robin L]

That is the last Beatle Album that I have obtained, given to me as a gift from an old high school friend a few years ago. I have yet to open it.

That was the first Beatle record I obtained, way back in 1968. It cut a deep groove through my consciousness. #9 in particular led to a life-long fascination with Music Concrete. I've got three copies on CD, the original 1987 stereo (which I understand is a flat transfer), the 2009 mono that escaped from a box set, and the 2018 re-mix, where I can hear things I don't recall from the other two copies I've got. If it sounds as if I was obsessive about all this at one time, you might be on to something.

 

[Redacted]

If you make music/play an instrument, you can't argue that the Beatles did not come up with with a few great chord progressions and chord-making melody lines, many of which were unique. There was cleverness there, irrespective of whether you like their (very varied) music or not.