Chart of the day (#2017): By AfterHours - Music

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Antonio-Pedro wrote:

Ctrl + F: Beatles
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of course, because the fact that so many books still name the Beatles as "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success. The Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worthy of being saved.

jokes aside, pretty cool avant-garde chart, will surely steal some reccomendations from it (like that popol vuh record I've been delaying to listen until today).

Haha, even Scaruffi himself finds the parodies of his Beatles critique pretty funny.

I do agree with his general, qualitative view of them as musicians/composers/artists in relation to those who mastered the art and produced staggering, historical masterpieces -- and I do feel The Beatles merits tend to be quite exaggerated by fans/media. However, Scaruffi does generalize various claims he makes about them. Additionally, I don't expect Beatles fans to agree with me or him, especially if they haven't charted a similar course through Rock, Jazz and Classical music history, or Film and Visual Art for extra measure.
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Norman Bates

Gender: Male
Age: 51
Location: Paris, France

AfterHours wrote:

Haha, even Scaruffi himself finds the parodies of his Beatles critique pretty funny.

Wow you went that far. Mad respect.

glynspsa

Gender: Male
Age: 52

Even you admit your whole argument is based on a flawed premise. You claim they are considered the best because they sold the most then go on to point out that this is not true. There by in my opinion completely destroying your argument. I am for the record a fan and supporter of the Beatles records particularly Rubber Soul thru Abbey Road.

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

glynspsa wrote:

Even you admit your whole argument is based on a flawed premise. You claim they are considered the best because they sold the most then go on to point out that this is not true. There by in my opinion completely destroying your argument. I am for the record a fan and supporter of the Beatles records particularly Rubber Soul thru Abbey Road.

Is this an incorrectly placed email to Scaruffi?
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AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Norman Bates wrote:

AfterHours wrote:

Haha, even Scaruffi himself finds the parodies of his Beatles critique pretty funny.

Wow you went that far. Mad respect.

I don't think people who argue endlessly and slam each other over his critique of the Beatles actually realize how little Scaruffi himself ponders over them. Historically, outside of a limited pop spectrum, they were not elite at any aspect of their music, vocals or composition. Most of their music is relatively superficial compared to not just many of their contemporaries but to even composer's hundreds of years before them. Scaruffi is much more concerned with elite artists of their mediums such as the Beethoven's, Shakespeare's, Coltrane's, Orson Welles', Dali's, of the world. He probably doesn't even think about The Beatles, except on the occasion of writing that review, or when one of their fans sends him an email, or the like. It would be analogous to clamoring for the take of a renowned film critic about how significant he finds superhero movies and wanting him to spend his time on multiple viewings and going into great detail about them, while he is busy evaluating and determining the merits of Tarkovsky's or Tarr's or Angelopoulos' or Welles' films.
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TheHutts

Gender: Male

In terms of chord structure, The Beatles (particularly McCartney's songs) are a lot more ornate than, for example, The Velvet Underground. Here's an excerpt from each.

HEROIN
D G D G D G D
I have made a big decision
D G D G D
I'm gonna try to nullify my life
G D
Cos when the blood begins to flow
G D
And it shoots up the dropper's neck
G D
When I'm closing in on death

PENNY LANE
B Abm7 Dbm7 Gb7
Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs
B Abm Bm7
Of every head he's had the pleasure to know
Abm7-5 Gmaj7
And all the people that come and go
Gb7sus4 Gb7 Gb7sus4 Gb7
Stop and say hello

(I just picked a favourite song from each of the two bands - I know that The Beatles have plenty of songs that are less complex.)

How does The Beatles' harmonic sophistication (compared to a lot of other pop/rock music) fit into your view of them as non-elite composers. I think there's considerable talent required to fit interesting harmonic ideas into accessible pop songs.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

TheHutts wrote:

In terms of chord structure, The Beatles (particularly McCartney's songs) are a lot more ornate than, for example, The Velvet Underground. Here's an excerpt from each.

HEROIN
D G D G D G D
I have made a big decision
D G D G D
I'm gonna try to nullify my life
G D
Cos when the blood begins to flow
G D
And it shoots up the dropper's neck
G D
When I'm closing in on death

PENNY LANE
B Abm7 Dbm7 Gb7
Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs
B Abm Bm7
Of every head he's had the pleasure to know
Abm7-5 Gmaj7
And all the people that come and go
Gb7sus4 Gb7 Gb7sus4 Gb7
Stop and say hello

(I just picked a favourite song from each of the two bands - I know that The Beatles have plenty of songs that are less complex.)

How does The Beatles' harmonic sophistication (compared to a lot of other pop/rock music) fit into your view of them as non-elite composers. I think there's considerable talent required to fit interesting harmonic ideas into accessible pop songs.

I've had this exact discussion with after hours, not only is the song structure well beyond typical pop music, but also that song is laced with surrealism and interesting philosophical ideas.

And that Karlheinz Stockhausen wanted to work with them or that they are studied at USC school of music as elite musicians doesn't phase him. Leonard Bernstein gave them praise.

They are alas a pop group.

Also if you know what movie this comes from you win the internet.

Last edited by RoundTheBend on 04/28/2017 02:03; edited 1 time in total

bobbyb5

Gender: Male
Location: New York

The Beatles were the originators of a certain TYPE of rock that we're now used to. So they may not seem as spectacular today ad then. And sometimes the most commercially successful things ARE the best. It happens often. Even tho no Beatles album was a Thriller or Tapestry sales wise anyway.

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

TheHutts wrote:

In terms of chord structure, The Beatles (particularly McCartney's songs) are a lot more ornate than, for example, The Velvet Underground. Here's an excerpt from each.

HEROIN
D G D G D G D
I have made a big decision
D G D G D
I'm gonna try to nullify my life
G D
Cos when the blood begins to flow
G D
And it shoots up the dropper's neck
G D
When I'm closing in on death

PENNY LANE
B Abm7 Dbm7 Gb7
Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs
B Abm Bm7
Of every head he's had the pleasure to know
Abm7-5 Gmaj7
And all the people that come and go
Gb7sus4 Gb7 Gb7sus4 Gb7
Stop and say hello

(I just picked a favourite song from each of the two bands - I know that The Beatles have plenty of songs that are less complex.)

How does The Beatles' harmonic sophistication (compared to a lot of other pop/rock music) fit into your view of them as non-elite composers. I think there's considerable talent required to fit interesting harmonic ideas into accessible pop songs.

It's not really about which chords were used so much as to what result? To what sensation and degree is the composition producing emotional/conceptual content? For any Beatles song, one can find a much more incredible example of the same (or very similar) emotional/conceptual result as what they produced.

Penny Lane is, as you alluded to, among their finest examples of creative composition in the pop format. And it's quite an effective song, perhaps McCartney's greatest moment.

However, if we're comparing harmony, any of the Beatles songs are a far cry from Bach, or Mozart, or many great composer's.

Listen to, say, Haydn's or Mozart's late symphonies and you will find much more impressive and exhilarating rhythmic changes, much more emotionally resonant, ingenious melodies and crescendos, compositional prowess, with fugues/counterpoint, multi-layered harmonic progressions, multi-dimensional lines of action interweaving between the foreground and background among each other, etc.

The Velvet Underground borrowed very little from Rock music of the time and were certainly not trying to compose harmonies. Their "music" is more a "documentary" of hyper-realism, immersed in expressionist theater than songs with catchy melodies. It is oppressed, deaf toned noise, repetitively tribal, contemplative and poetic, ritualistic and majestic, minimalist, atonal, chaotic/free-jazz, darkly expressionist, harrowing and nightmarish, claustrophobic, oppressive and bludgeoning.

The Beatles are probably among the better pop bands of all time, but this is also a very under-developed genre of music with few truly amazing works to its credit. To borrow an idea from Scaruffi, it would be similar to comparing the "best composer of minuets (not-named Mozart/Haydn)" to the great composer's of history and considering them in the same class as those composing and building off of Beethoven's symphonies. Anyway, more impressive examples of pop music (and its advancements) would be, for instance: Skylarking - XTC; Return To Cookie Mountain - TV On The Radio; Song Cycle - Van Dyke Parks...

If one were to listen to Beatles songs and simply note the emotional and conceptual significance of what he was experiencing and how much depth, immersion, experiential detail was being relayed in their songs -- with only a handful of exceptions -- one would find that there isn't that much there, particularly. Their enthusiastic songs are usually just one-dimensional songs about the state of enthusiasm (compare to Haydn, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven ... or, say, Arcade Fire, TV on the Radio, Dan Deacon ... ). Their sad love songs are usually just one-dimensional songs about losing love (compare to Beethoven's or Mozart's slow movements, Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, Tim Buckley, Nick Drake, Neutral Milk Hotel...). Their experimental songs tend to be "dilettante-ish" novelties instead of full immersions and ambitions into the experiment. They are usually quite good, but tend to be less extensive/powerful/impactful/overwhelming versions of much greater masterpieces that, in most cases pre-date their own, or were surpassed later (as but one example, compare A Day in the Life [which might be their greatest work] to 1967's Parable of Arable Land, which is a 40-min, overwhelmingly powerful version of a similar concept).
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RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Regardless of the conversation, I actually really like this list.

There's about 10 albums I haven't heard/know anything about, but those listed are those that that pushed the envelope/are great artistic endeavors. There's no room for garbage on this list and I really like that. All the albums I am familiar with stretch the listener and discover a unique human experience.