Post by Eva Yojimbo on Dec 4, 2019 17:32:22 GMT
To make this thread serious for a second, the genius of McCartney and The Beatles had nothing to do with how proficient they were as musicians (plenty of talented amateurs have more technical chops), nor how deep their lyrics were as poetry. The genius of them was in the songwriting, and how they completely and utterly transformed the genres of pop and rock music in a million different ways both great and small. Pretty much all 70s music is directly descended from the seeds of what The Beatles did. Elaborate, complex, progressive rock came from the psychedelic, conceptual experiments of Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and Abbey Road. Heavy metal and punk? Go listen to Helter Skelter and She's So Heavy. Power Pop? Go listen to the early Beatles albums. How about the notion of using the studio as an instrument? Yep, that's The Beatles (and George Martin).
But that's just talking influences, but listen to the actual songs: the variety of instrumentation, scoring and genres on, say, The White Album is astonishing. Every song sounds different, every song it's like its own unique entity. Even go back to before the revolutionary albums to Yesterday: note how the chords/melody starts on the tonic of F-major before the line "all my troubles seem so far away," which drifts up and away from "home" and traveling through the relative minor key (D-minor) in that ii-V7 progression? It's a cool little musical device that really seems to emphasize what the lyrics are saying about yesterday being so close, but the troubles seeming far away, with the underlying wistful realization (already happening emotionally in the music) that they're "here to stay."
People are, of course, free to dislike Paul and The Beatles, but you can't argue influence/importance, and it's hard to argue against such quality songwriting.
But that's just talking influences, but listen to the actual songs: the variety of instrumentation, scoring and genres on, say, The White Album is astonishing. Every song sounds different, every song it's like its own unique entity. Even go back to before the revolutionary albums to Yesterday: note how the chords/melody starts on the tonic of F-major before the line "all my troubles seem so far away," which drifts up and away from "home" and traveling through the relative minor key (D-minor) in that ii-V7 progression? It's a cool little musical device that really seems to emphasize what the lyrics are saying about yesterday being so close, but the troubles seeming far away, with the underlying wistful realization (already happening emotionally in the music) that they're "here to stay."
People are, of course, free to dislike Paul and The Beatles, but you can't argue influence/importance, and it's hard to argue against such quality songwriting.