2014-02-17

Deep analysis of the Beatles

Just going through some of my music bookmarks today... Here's a scathing takedown of the Beatles by Piero Scaruffi.

It's an interesting read because a lot of what he writes about isn't ever discussed. It's especially interesting in the context of the anniversary of the Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan show... that this particular milestone is celebrated proves the notion that the group was style and marketing over substance.

The Beatles sold a lot of records not because they were the greatest musicians but simply because their music was easy to sell to the masses: it had no difficult content, it had no technical innovations, it had no creative depth. They wrote a bunch of catchy 3-minute ditties and they were photogenic. If somebody had not invented "beatlemania" in 1963, you would not have wasted five minutes of your time to read a page about such a trivial band.

I don't entirely agree with the analysis, but it is refreshing to read a piece that isn't anything but glowing about the Beatles. It's an example the worst kind of critical elitism - that the group has no merit because objective truth about what is 'good music' has no room for this pre-fab construction of a group.

He doesn't care much for Bowie either.

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