The Beatles Destroyed Rock and Roll!!!!

[Jackwc]

The Beatles killed rockabilly. I don't really miss it. It was a horribly stagnant, derivative genre.

"Rock" as we know it today was invented by them. And it's good. So... yeah, thank god for the Beatles.
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A dick that's bigger than the sun.

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[weedygonsalez]

[Mr. Shankly]

I guess it all depends on how one defines "rock n roll." If you define it as incredibly narrowly as the author of the article does than I suppose you could come to that conclusion. But it's stupid because the author is ignoring the natural progression of history. The only absolute in the universe is change. Deal with it. The Beatles didn't destroy rock n roll, they changed it., along with many other artists. There's a big difference. Rock n Roll simply evolved, just like everything does.

[Kiki]

[nrs182]

Just..

[monosyllables]

I agree with what he's saying, for the most part, that what happened to rock music was tragic, and that we might have an incredibly innovative, genre-bending music scene today if not for how completely the Beatles dominated the music scene in the 60's, BUT!
But, you can hardly fault them for that, can you?
I don't know if the Beatles realized how much influence they were wielding over the future of music, and maybe if they did, they wouldn't have been as hardline against playing live shows (a lot of that, though, stemmed from the limitations of 1960's PA equipment in the face of unprecedented crowds of manic teenage girls. No, seriously, sometimes Ringo would find he had been playing a different song than everyone else the whole time because they couldn't hear each other on stage)
Also, while I certainly side, if the choice need be made, with listeners rather than dancers, I think the Beatles may be partly to blame for why we need to make that decision in the first place. Then again, aren't we (weren't they--I know I wasn't buying many records in the 60s) as much to blame? For idolizing the Beatles so completely, to the exclusion of literally almost everything that didn't sound similar, such that innovative acts were pushed into the periphery.
I dunno, it's a complex issue, I guess! And that's probably where this article fails: It simplifies things way too readily. Shouldn't some of the blame rest on the shoulders of the people who gave up on trying to integrate their sounds?

[Mother Nature's Son]

The first thing i read was that the beatles destroyed rock n roll, like the beatles killed good music. Well, that didn't make any sense, until i read further. I agree with Mr. Shankly that they didn't destroy rock n roll, only changed it.

[monosyllables]

It's easy to see all the doors that close as music changes without thinking of what we've gained. Just imagine how livid this writer would be if in the 70's the Ramones had become so hugely successful that nobody wanted to make carefully crafted pop records like the Beatles anymore!
It's not about lamenting what you've lost, but eagerly participating in what you could discover.

[alelsupreme]

The Beatles didn't snub live shows because they didn't like the oncept of concerts, the music they were preforming was too sophisticated to be done properly on stage, that and they could barely hear themelves over the teenage girl crowd's screaming.

[Robert Anton Wilson]

Nah, this guy's description of what happened is right on but his interpretation of it is irrelevant. He gave this title to his article probably only for shock value in order to draw people to read his article. Most of his interpretations is fallacious at best. He forgets to address the "how come" things happened. He writes as if the Beatles had purposefully decided to have crowds of screaming young teens as fans.

The debate of music as a listening art or as entertainment is nothing new and probably goes back to the first cavemen howls. Even classical composers as Mozart and Liszt have been accused of killing the music scene in their days by writing music for the masses ... No one in their right mind now studies music history and says of Mozart that he killed the music scene of his day ... or do they?