in defense of the fab four

1. I admit it's a little cheap to post a 2-year-old rant on my brand-new blog, but hey, I needed something up here!
2. A bit of explanation, to put this into context. Why would anyone ever need to "defend" the Beatles? While lurking on the forums at comomusic.com (an excellent Columbia, MO music-centered site) a couple of years ago I encountered a thread vehemently questioning the relevance of the Beatles to today's 20-something music fan. I had to respond.

It is the responsibility of every generation to despise the music of the previous generation. I'm only half-serious on that point, and I realize this doesn't hold true for every member of a given generation. Much of the feeling I get from reading [the posts on the above-mentioned forum] reflects my own previously-held opinions, as a tail-end 'Boomer, towards, say, Frank Sinatra. To me, Frank Sinatra and his "overrated" contemporaries represented everything that sucked about music. (Later on, those feelings changed -- by realizing what great songwriters were supplying Frank with his tunes, not to mention his fine interpretive skills. But that's another story.)

I was not a Beatles fan in my late teens/early twenties. "Love Me Do" and songs of the like simply irritated me, as a rockin' Zeppelin kind of guy. Then "Abbey Road" and the White Album kicked in my door, and my ass with it. My appreciation grew as I traveled backwards along the Beatle album timeline over the course of a number of years, until I grew to love even those goofy earlier tunes, for one simple reason: the friggin' songcraft! Even the simplest songs usually had some "odd" bit to them, an unexpected chord change, a clever lyric, a strange harmony.

Those are things that may be taken for granted now, possibly because of the influence on so much of the music that followed (we've all heard that to death, but that's because it's true), but just listen to most of what you hear today, as well as most other music of their day -- that quality of songwriting is still damned rare. And no, I don't think they "invented" modern music, nor do I think innovation ended with them, but damned if they didn't combine the best parts of what came before them -- Cole Porter, Chuck Berry, Buck Owens, whatever -- and distill it into fucking brilliant songs and albums. Sure, the Stones were superior in the realm of blues and country. Did the Beatles "rock" harder than anybody before or since? Of course not. But they sure wrote circles around 'em. They were a rare combination: experimentalists with an almost unerring commercial instinct.

Why you "should" like the Beatles: uh, you shouldn't. You either do or you don't. And in the future, you either will or you won't. In the end it's pretty subjective. But (in my opinion, mind) they were the finest songwriters of their day, and that includes Mick & Keith, Pete Townshend, Ian Anderson, Page & Plant, Ray & Dave Davies, David Bowie and countless others whose music I still love dearly. Would I say they are my favorite all-time artists? Nah, I can't even begin to pick favorites anymore, there's too much good music out there. Will my favorite contemporary artists still move me 20, 30 years from now? Will yours? I sure hope so. I really do. End of rant. Music is the best.