A few months ago the BBC had a piece about those apparently few eccentrics in the world who dislike the music of John, Paul, George and Ringo. After some exhaustive research it was concluded that to say that you liked pop music but disliked the pop music of the Beatles was an incoherent and untenable position. It was ok to dislike pop music in general, preferring classical, but, according to the Beeb, it didn't make any sense to doubt the genius of the Beatles if you were a fan of the pop music genre. ...
Well maybe I'm philosophically unsound but I hate the bloody Beatles. I hate their sound, their harmonies, their lyrics, everything about them. I find their music insipid, dull, bland, so bad in fact that it's almost torture to listen to. I hate the McCartney songs most of all, but the entire oeuvre pains my ears. And it's not as if I'm prejudiced against that era. Quite the reverse in fact. Among my favourite bands are Led Zep, Pink Floyd, The Who, The Stones, The Kinks, The Animals, Cream, but not the frickin Beatles. I hate the early mop top Beatles, I'm a little more tolerant of the middle period stuff in Revolver and Rubber Soul, but then it really gets bad with the late psychedelic albums. Everything about those records makes me irritated and I defy the most ardent Beatles fan to watch the whole of Magical Mystery Tour without wincing in pain and agony. Apart from the two Harrison tracks on Abbey Road I'd be happy never to hear any of those songs ever again as long as I live. (Harrison is my favourite Beatle not just because of his music, but also because he mortgaged his house so that Monty Python could make Life of Brian.)*
...
I know most people won't understand me when I confess to these feelings, but there they are, the cat's out of the bag and I feel better.The BBC may disagree with me but some influential people are also jumping on the Beatles hating bandwagon. Anyway I'll stop now before someone gets me started on The Beach Boys or The Eagles or the abomination that was known as Wings.
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*Here's a fact for trivia fans: George Harrison and Elvis both shared a favourite film: Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
69 comments:
Hurrah, that makes two of us! I love pop and rock music, from the sixties to the present day, but the Beatles? Pah!
Not a great fan, myself. The odd song now and again. Always preferred The Monkeys... Not a big Clash fan either. Alright, the odd song. Quite good when I saw them but The Slits were much better.
Not much of a pop music fan, but I can appreciate a good band. The Who are far and away my favorite, and I appreciate The Stones, Springsteen, and other groups that would come to mind if I took a minute.
The Beatles? Bubble gum. There were a few nice songs from the period you mentioned, but generally, bleah. Ringo is the worst drummer who ever collected a royalty check. Sounds like he has arthritis AND dyslexia.
I have discovered a new respect for George Harrison.
Just for Dana!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRHhrmGiHrs
Not like The Beatles but you like all those other groups? I suspect that without the former, you would not have had the latter. Without the former, you might well have been stuck with the Beach Boys and Connie Francis (at least in the USA). It took a transitional group like the Fabs to make the popularity of those other groups possible here. Wasn't it Keith Richard who said something to the effect that any modern rock/pop musician who said he wasn't influenced by The Beatles is either ignorant or lying?
My relation to the Beatles has always felt a little out of kilter. My best friends in grade school fell under the spell, but they had older siblings who were at the perfect age to be swept by Beatlemania. I remember having to decide which was my favorite Beatle in the lunch room without really even being able to distinguish them. And then there was that odd bit where we had to run around the school yard pretending to smash albums of Beethoven. My friends were at least musically literate. I couldn't have picked poor Beethoven out of a crowd back then.
I just never turned out to be the kind of person who really invested a lot in pop groups. But I don't have a rabid hatred for the Beatles. The Beach Boys seem much more insipid to me. I like the early tunes, but really not much after that. I saw that movie Across the Universe that was made a couple of years ago with the Beatles tunes in it, and though it wasn't actually very good, it kind of revived my interest in the songs themselves.
As you might imagine, reverence in Santa Cruz is high. They've even done a couple of shows of The White Album, where these sound alikes do a complete concert.
I didn't go.
I appreciate your candor, Adrian, though I'm with Corey on this subject. Music is such a subjective and personal understanding for each of us. How we feel toward one style or genre of music (or group), positively or negatively, does frame the argument for our individual tastes (I'm not into Death Metal). And it'd be a pretty bland world if we all had the same likes/dislikes, especially in music, don't you think? Anyway... your post had passion, which I'm always grateful for (I guess that labels me as intolerant of indifference). Thanks.
Thanks, Paul. That was fun , and a reminder the early Who did sound a lot like the Beatles. I tend to forget that and focus on the more R&B influenced songs.
I love pop and rock music, from the sixties to the present day, but the Beatles?
All you Stones claim to dislike the Beatles. It's a clannish thing.
Ps Adrian, you should read Josh Bazell's Beat The Reaper. At some point the protagonist hears a U2 song and disses them, then thinks to himself that at least they aren't Coldplay.
Michael
Confess to not liking Cadbury and you'll have to leave England or something.
Paul
I always liked Day Dream Believer myself. Its a pretty good song.
Dana
My favourite Who song is probably Teenage Wasteland especially when it gets all crazy at the end.
Corey
Keith probably said something more like "if uhh waahna faaa Beaat maate we'd ahhh be like ahhh ya know, listnan skiffle, sooo yeahhh, ah"
Leopard13
It wouldn't be a bland world it would be an impossible world. Whenever two people are gathered together they are going to disagree about music.
Seana
You were in the prime location to be carried on on a Beach Boys wave. I dislike the Boys even, even the so called genius of Pet Sounds. Ok there are a few tracks here and there (Sloop John B is ok) but basically I'm not a fan.
Marco
That sounds like a good novel. A protagonist hears U2 is thrown into agony and then cheers himself up by thinking, well at least it aint Coldplay. Good stuff.
I should do that everytime I encounter one of Bono's editorials for the New York Times - my God that was horrible, but at least it wasn't by Chris Martin. It might work.
Well, I'm a dissenter by nature. But I think to fall in love with the Beach Boys, you kind of had to be, well, a guy. Or at least that should be true if you listen to the lyrics of the most famous songs--I don't know their whole repetoire by heart. At least with the Beatles lyrics, you think they might actually believe that women have souls.
What I like about the early Beatles, having heard them fairly recently is that George was a bit of crooner. He could sing something into the lyrics that was not just inherently in the words themselves. I actually kind of wish he'd stayed in that vein.
Lots of people have recommended Beat the Reaper to me. All men, I think--it's a bit of a guy book, is my guess. I have it, but like so much else, haven't gotten to it.
I didn't know till recently that Bono wrote Mystery Girl for Roy Orbison. That seems like a felicitous collaboration. Too bad it was short-lived.
Pink Floyd played at an indoor amusement park called Old Chicago in, perhaps, the late 1970s.
I was just old enough/ tall enough to really love the roller coasters (I believe they had 2). Pink Floyd played all throughout my day there, with the speakers strategically located right at all of the good parts of the park including the larger roller coaster. They played so loud that it hurt my head. There was no deviation of sound blast except for the rides I took that were strategically next to the big speakers. But there was no place to get away from any of it. When I went on the roller coaster with the great drop, I was blasted into seeing and hearing stars. My ears rang so much when they took a break that I was afraid to talk.
If I weren't anti-smoking as a 'tween, I would have certainly had a lighter, and would have therefore set fire to everything I could get my hands on when Pink Floyd stopped dropping acid and snorting pcp to pick up their electronic buzzsaws and pull out more salt from the mines.
Yes, it would have created a fire that would have forced us to evacuate, but at least Pink Floyd would have had to stop playing, the bastids.
That time of my life involved life on food stamps. Going to Old Chicago required great efforts of begging, saving, praying and clapping. I made it there once a year.
Therefore I frigging hate those hapless fecks.
I hate the Rolling Stones because
a) Mick Jagger spat on the floor while doing a live show on Saturday Night Live (well, it was an evening show).
ai) he looked like a chicken doing it.
aii) he looked like a chicken dancing.
aiii) he sounded like those idiot boys on the back of my schoolbus bus who harrassed some girl named Andrea whose lips were a little thick.
aiv) OK. Waiting on a Friend. But otherwise? Where is the beauty? Why suffer such hideousness if there is no payoff? There is no payoff.
b) to those of you who like the raw anger emotion cynical wastedness of those dudes, just keep in mind that Nina Simone didn't *have* to spit on any floor. All the energy and rage and all of the talent.
I think I will sit quietly in the corner now and eat a donut.
Cathartic, though, wasn't it?
I don't have much to say about either of those bands as bands, as I wasn't ever really much of a rocker, but I do have very low tolerance for the infliction of sound that you don't want to hear and can't get away from. It doesn't have to be amped up stereos and heavy metal. I lived across a fence from a sauna place here, and they had this Japanese flute music on tape which they played all the time. It sounds innocuous enough, very zen and all that, but there was one of those tapes that used to hit the upper levels of that flute's range in an piercing way. It used to drive me absolutely bonkers. If I'd had access to their sound system...but never mind.
I don’t hate the Beatles. I have to give credit where credit is due – they changed the world. And you have to admit, there are some Beatle songs that you just can’t help tapping your foot to.
Although, Ringo really is the worst drummer ever. And Wings was horrid. And the Beatle movies are just hideous.
Among my very favorite bands are Pink Floyd (sorry, Sheiler) and The Who. LOVE those bands, but I agree with Corey – without the Beatles, I don’t think Pink Floyd or The Who would have been what they turned out to be.
Regarding that Bono editorial you linked to: WTF???
Seana
I think George might have been the best singer. McCartney had the greatest range, for sure, (Hey Jude and Yesterday prove that) but I think Harrison had the sweetest voice.
Sheiler
Well we cant tar all Rolling Stones fans with the same brush. Although I'm surprised you didnt mention Altamont Speedway...
I like a lot of RS material and Pink Floyd stuff, especially the Wish You Were Here album. Never quite got into Dark Side of the Moon like many of my contemporaries.
Holden
When asked if he was the best drummer in the world, didnt Lennon reply "He's not even the best drummer in the Beatles." If I remember correctly McCartney drummed Ringo's bits on much of the White Album.
Bono has been doing crazy editorials like this all year. That one wasnt the worst by a long way. The New York Times for some reason has decided that the model of journalism it feels it should follow is The Huffington Post.
Oh tempora oh mores as they say.
The S.F. Chronicle has lately unveiled their great visionary plan, which is to use a new technology to make their paper shinier. That's it--the whole game plan. I think this might be supposed to disguise the fact that it has shrunk considerably over the last couple of years. Bono editorials are just another sign that the newspaper owners are all at the end of their tethers. One thing about Bono--he does pad out that column space.
It was extremely interesting for me to read this blog. Thank you for it. I like such topics and anything connected to this matter. I would like to read a bit more on that blog soon.
Seana, your zen experience reminds me of when we first moved into our house. My partner and I played some Chinese music on a record album that was left behind by the former owners. We were into the first song only when our dog, who is normally stealthily silent (Malamutes do not bark), howled and cried. We stopped the turntable; he stopped crying. It's the only time he objected to any music.
I don't get why Bono has such sway. Is it because his band U2 has managed to stay together? I really liked their ear candy album 'The Unforgettable Fire'. But they never hooked me.
Bono's writing in the NYT is like listening to his lyrics for the Unforgettable Fire. Total nonsense. But at least there's the vocal expression (hightwire faulty pleading) and the atmospheric music with U2. But he has no one but the white page to back him when he writes.
I saw U2 in Leeds in 1980 at the second Futurama festival. They were quite good in a Television-lite way. However, me and my mate Ronny Burke spent most of the gig shouting 'nanu nanu' at Bonio becuase we'd decided he was a REPLICA of Robin Williams ...couldn't take my drink then, either!
Seana,
Yes oddly unwittingly cathartic but now I think I have an actual earache.
Does this make me a hypochondriac?
Thanks, Adrian, you chicken-loving Stones fan.
Seana
The paper I read in Melbourne, the Herald Sun, has a circulation of 700,000 and its going up. Sensational crime, lots of sport, celeb news, gossip, strong local news, a TV guide - that must be the answer.
Sheiler
And thats not his worst screenplay either. He wrote a script called Million Dollar Hotel.
I think Bono thinks that he's a poet who has to occasionally condescend to write prose. Thats what it feels like. Crap poetry of course.
Paul
I had a friend called Michael who worked with me at Barnes and Noble in New York. One day Robin Williams was in the store and we were all told to keep away from him, so Michael marched up to him, saluted and said in a loud voice: "Nanu nanu, do you have a message for Orson?" in that Mork and Mindy voice.
Teenage Wasteland is actually called Baba O'Reilly - but you knew that, right?
For me it's punk. I remember vividly standing in my favourite record store (Dutchy's Record Cave - Peter will know it) in 1977 looking at the Genesis, Pink Floyd, Supertramp, Gentle Giant and Wishbone Ash albums when the old hippie behind the counter put on the Sex Pistols album he'd just received.
Okay, energetic. And they're mad about something, or someone and even I could play it, but really?
Couple of weeks ago I saw the new Tom Stoppard play Rock and Roll which has plenty of Pink Floyd and Stones but you know, I don't remember if there were any Beatles songs. Good play, by the way, well worth seeing if you get a chance.
John
Yeah Baba O'Reilly of course. Good song but I do wish Pete Townsend wasnt singing on it.
Last year I saw his play about AE Housman. That was pretty good. Pretty surprised they havent given Tom Stoppard a Nobel Prize or something.
I liked the Pistols but I preferred the Ramones and the Clash.
I can't stop cracking up at the image of people yelling 'nanu nanu' at a U2 concert. That's the most hilarious thing I've heard of ... in a few days.
Adrian, you are giving Anonymous short shrift here. How can you let someone--or something--with such interest in the topics at hand go without a hearty "hail spammer, well met" sort of greeting?
Sheiler, I am not against even the highest notes of the Japanese flute-- the first fifty or sixty times. I'm sure if I was sitting in that communal hot tub, it would have given a new depth of meaning to the experience. But probably not one I'd wish to repeat. My condolences to your dog, though. Sometimes being canine must suck.
Seana
Anon has been spaming me a lot lately. I thought that I had outgeneralled him by establishing comment moderation for posts olders than 21 days but ocasionally one of his interesting comments or offers slips through the net.
Sheiler
Alas for my friend Mike it wasnt so funny.
He was fired.
Another of the many crimes Robin Williams will have to answer for when the Revolution comes.
Like so much spam on the internet, it's kind of a weak pitch and you really have to wonder where the gain is for the spammer.
As for Bono, columns aside, and I do really think we should put them aside as fast as we can, I do like Mystery Girl.
Also, poor Ringo.
Adrian, any job openings on that paper?
Bono's op-ed pieces began at a new low and have got steadily worse. He's crap.
In re all those bands that John named, Montreal was, to my embarrassment, ahead of much of the rest of the world when it came to liking "progressive" rock. To this day, the term "concept album" makes me shudder with mortification for having grown up when and where I did,
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Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I believe anything Adrian says about Barnes & Noble. Did he ever tell you about the time he squeezed lemon on— Oh, you mean he only wishes he had? Never mind, then. Jai guru de va om!
================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Peter
In Barnes and Noble I could have been a contender...
I dont know if the Herald Sun model would translate to America, but they are doing really well. They have figured out the market and starting to get a little ambitious: they had an article about and interview with Peter Temple last month.
Ah, you would've fit right in with The Sex Pistols, which I believed tossed Glen Matlock out in part because he professed a love for the Fab Four.
Of course, Matlock also came up with most of their songs. (Rotten was the lyric man.)
His replacement, of course, was Mr. Vicious.
Adrian,
I did not know of such crimes by Robin Williams! I am really shocked that he could get someone fired at a bookstore. He was my idol when I was a kid.
OK so now I must tell youse a story about Steven Tyler from Aerosmith. I co-managed a candy store in the one mall, very high end, in Boston. Some little kids were in the shop, stealing everything they could get their hands on. My friend and co-worker caught them and gave them a stern lecture about stealing and then kicked them out, saying that if we saw them come in again we would call the cops.
Less than half an hour later, Steven Tyler comes walking in to the shop with ... the three kids we'd just kicked out. Tyler is talking to the kids in a trumpety voice, "You kids pick out anything you like, whatever you want...if your mother asks, tell her 'Steven Tyler from Aerosmith did Walk This Way with Run DMC. He bought the candy.' You know Run DMC? You know Walk this Way? That's me. That's my song."
Meanwhile we're glaring at the kids. And they're doing nervous double-takes because they didn't want to come back into the shop but Steven Tyler grabbed them and forced them to go into the shop with him.
He piled up gift baskets on them. Jelly beans and chocolates for days. Gummi worms. As soon as they had a chance they were going to make a break and get out. But they never could because Steven Tyler was giving all of us his life story and needed these little black kids as props.
And then? When he's finally finished talking? And the cash register reads something like $290? He pulls out a credit card that reads Steven Tallerico. I say to him, "I thought your name was Steven Tyler. From Aerosmith."
But I didn't get fired.
He did not complain because he had just scored some coke at another store in the mall, according to the friend who managed it.
So maybe your friend Michael caught Robin Williams at a bad time?
Sheiler
No, no, I should make clear, Williams complained but he did NOT ask anyone to fire Mike.
Williams will have to answer for his joke thievery, for Patch Adams, and that gay Castroite hispanic voice he does.
Mal
Never understood the point of Sid Vicious. He couldnt play bass or guitar, he couldnt sing, he couldnt handle himself in a fight and he was deeply stupid. Was it all about the looks? What am I missing here?
I think a lot of rock historians say it was that all of the above (regarding Sid Vicious) fit in perfectly with the Sex Pistol stance against the super-produced, super-commercial, super-professional, super-styled and often overly self-important turn that pop rock had taken at the time.
Sheiler, was that the mall at Copley Place?
Peter,
Mais oui. Copley.
Adrian,
joke thievery? Is RW notorious for this?
Sheiler
infamous.
Almost up to Dane Cook levels apparently.
I almost always find time for of fish chowder at the Copley Legal Seafood when I take the train to and from Boston to visit friends. The (relatively) new Back Bay train stop was a boon to me.
==============
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
I just heard Al Gore enjoin us on 30 Rock to recycle everything--including jokes. I feel sure that this is what Mr. Williams is really doing, but he's just a bit too far ahead of us mere earthlings for us to really understand.
As I've said here somewhere before, I think, I brushed paths with Robin behind the scenes at an SF Comedy Club, and he didn't steal any of my jokes, mainly because I didn't have any. It might have paid off a karmic debt or two if he'd passed on a couple before I was thrust upon the stage with nothing to say, but that didn't happen.
Seana
I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly. You were a standup comic who was on the same bill as Robin Williams once?
Ooops, that was me BTW, not Arwynn.
No, Arwynn, or Adrian, or whoever you are, I was not actually on the bill. I had gone with my friends to see a comedian named Jane Dornacher at a comedy club in San Francisco. It might actually have been The Boarding House, I know it was some famous one. She was playing the basement room and a bigger act called Rick and Ruby were playing upstairs. Robin Williams did come in at some point and sit at the bar, though in a very low key way, though of course we all murmured among ourselves.
Anyway, we liked Jane's show so much that we decided to stay and watch it again. However, the second act was kind of dead audience wise, there were only eight or so of us. Jane grew restive. She could hear the livelier show going on upstairs. Suddenly she said, hey, I've got a crazy idea, how about if we all go upstairs and wish Ruby a happy birthday? So we all said yeah, okay, and she led us backstage and we followed her upstairs to that backstage. When we got there, we could hear Robin Williams out on stage, saying happy birthday to Ruby and wowing the crowd of course, stolen jokes or no. Then he came running back stage, high on applause and I remember he touched me on the sleeve, giving off that energy. (This is where it would have been kind of him to loan me a few jokes.) Out on the main stage, Jane Dornacher was saying, Ruby, we've got a special surprise for you tonight. So the audience is thinking, first Robin Williams, who could it possibly be?
Well, the answer is, it was me. And the eight other people who'd come with me of course, but I was the first one out into the spotlights. Wearing my coat, as I believe. I knew people were thinking who the hell is this? Or maybe they thought I was Robin Williams, returning in drag. But I think this was before Mrs. Doubtfire, so I can't be sure.
We all dutifully sang Happy Birthday to Ruby, possibly the biggest birthday anti-climax she ever experienced. Although birthdays being tricky things, probably not.
In re the energy Robin Williams gave off when he touched your sleeve, I had a friend who worked in Hollywood who knew Williams. He said he had two personalities: one precisely like the manic image he shows on screen, the other that of a sluggardly bore.
==============
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Yes, you could tell he got some kind of charge from being in front of an audience, and he seemed pretty human in the moment. Of course, it was a long time ago, and fame and power may have done something to him.
Seana
That story is funnier than any Robin Williams bit I've seen in decades.
Nanu Nanu Nanu Nanu!! (where the streets have no name...)
There were actually a couple of sad elements to that story that I left out. When we finally left the theater that night, we discovered that my friend's camera equipment that night had been stolen from her trunk, and as she was a student--studying photography,this was a loss she could ill afford.
And Jane Dornacher, who was actually a weather reporter in her day job, died in a helicopter accident not too long after that night.
Seana
I remember her. She played the nurse in the Right Stuff. Good performance in a good film.
I saw that movie, but I had no idea. Thanks for that.
Don't know much about thieving jokes but I work in advertising by day and have worked in it long enough to have grown pretty skeptical about almost any and all claims of "ownership" so... but I did produce a theatre show in San Francisco in the late 90s and one of our actors knew Williams and invited him to catch the night. It was a series of shorts consisting of everything from David Ives plays to a silent clown piece directed by a member of the SF Mime Troupe. The theatre was a concrete shoe box that held about 45 people on a makeshift set of low risers. Williams came, watched the show from backstage and then came out and did an hour set for our small audience. His energy was so big, the walls began to perspire. It was a generous thing to do. I'm sure he had a lot of better things to do than work a crowd in a bunker for free.
Malachy,
You've also got to remember that the joke thievery allegations are coming from stand up comedians who might not be the most reliable witnesses in the world.
I think on balance Williams has done much more good than harm although I wouldnt want to be trapped in an elevator with him.
Actually I'm hard pressed to think who I would want to be trapped in an elevator with. McGyver maybe...
I think from anecdotal evidence on this blog we could all come up with a few ideas of who you might rather be trapped in an elevator with.
Malachy, thanks for mentioning David Ives, because I read a book of his short plays awhile ago and liked them. but could not come up with his name or the name of the book when I tried to recently. It's probably some sort of bookseller's karmic justice because we all groan a bit at customers who come to the counter with that kind of vague info, and forget we could just as easily be guilty of it ourselves.
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