Musiikkihistorioitsija Piero Scaruffi palauttaa Beatlesin oikealle paikalleen populaarimusiikin kokonaisuudessa:
The fact that so many books still name the Beatles "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 worth of being saved.
In a sense the Beatles are emblematic of the status of rock criticism as a whole: too much attention to commercial phenomena (be it grunge or U2) and too little attention to the merits of real musicians. If somebody composes the most divine music but no major label picks him up and sells him around the world, a lot of rock critics will ignore him. If a major label picks up a musician who is as stereotyped as one can be but launches her or him worldwide, your average critic will waste rivers of ink on her or him. This is the sad status of rock criticism: rock critics are basically publicists working for free for major labels, distributors and record stores. They simply publicize what the music business wants to make money with.
Hopefully, one not-too-distant day, there will be a clear demarcation between a great musician like Tim Buckley, who never sold much, and commercial products like the Beatles. And rock critics will study more of rock history and realize who invented what and who simply exploited it commercially.
Beatles' "aryan" music removed any trace of black music from rock and roll: it replaced syncopated african rhythm with linear western melody, and lusty negro attitudes with cute white-kid smiles.
Contemporary musicians never spoke highly of the Beatles, and for a good reason. They could not figure out why the Beatles' songs should be regarded more highly than their own. They knew that the Beatles were simply lucky to become a folk phenomenon (thanks to "Beatlemania", which had nothing to do with their musical merits). THat phenomenon kept alive interest in their (mediocre) musical endeavours to this day. Nothing else grants the Beatles more attention than, say, the Kinks or the Rolling Stones. There was nothing intrinsically better in the Beatles' music. Ray Davies of the Kinks was certainly a far better songwriter than Lennon & McCartney. The Stones were certainly much more skilled musicians than the 'Fab Fours'. And Pete Townshend was a far more accomplished composer, capable of "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia". Not to mention later and far greater British musicians. Not to mention the American musicians who created what the Beatles later sold to the masses.
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.
http://www.scaruffi.com/vol1/beatles.html
Asiantuntijan arvio Beatlesista
11
771
Vastaukset
- EtovaKala
Osan tuosta tekstistä voi melkein allekirjoittaa, mutta ainakin oma hymyni hyytyi viimeistään siinä vaiheessa, kun kirjoittaja alkoi syyttelemään rasismista.
Lisäksi kyseinen itseään selvästi suuressa arvossa pitävä heppu sivuuttaa bändin myöhemmät tuotokset täysin ja keskittyy alkuaikojen kolmen minuutin rämpytyksiin.- Captain Beefheart
Piero Scaruffi kiteyttää tässä mielestäni hyvin Beatlesien aseman 1960-luvun musiikkikentässä:
"The Beatles made history for their melodies and their arrangements. Beatlemania was created, justifiably, in response to the exuberant rock and roll they played in 1963 with electrical instruments and drums, that managed to revitalize a genre drowned in sugar coated orchestrations supporting teen idols. Revolver must definitely be credited with having created a new sophisticated living room pop art. However, Sgt. Pepper, their most famous album, is nothing more than a hypocritically commercial album, a collection of traditional pop songs masked as psychedelic avant garde music. It nevertheless served as a prelude to the baroque suite Abbey Road, the apex of their formality. Similar parallels can be found in almost every band of those times, but few listeners know the records of those bands.
Even at their best the Beatles didn't represent the spirit of their generation. When they tried they were late, or even against the mainstream. At best they expressed the values of the generation that preceded theirs, the 40s. Those values were moral, musical, and social order, and respect, the very values attacked in the 50s by rock and roll. Thus the fact that the songs of the Beatles were similar in lyrics, music and arrangements to those of Tin Pan Alley shouldn't surprise anyone. Some of those songs will forever be listed in the annals of melodic music: Love Me Do, Hard Day's Night, I Feel Fine, We Can Work It Out, Penny Lane, Hello Goodbye, A Little Help From My Friends, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. For what it's worth, the everlasting refrains of those songs took rock and roll all the way down to a level of silliness and childish humor, separating it from its violent rebellious roots.
With out a shadow of a doubt, the Beatles were great melodists, but at a time when melody was considered a reductive factor. As a matter of fact their melodies marked a regression to the 50s, to the type of singer the recording industry was desperately trying to push on the audience and against whom rock sought to rebel.
The Beatles tried every fashion exported by the US: Chuck Berry's rock and roll, the vocal harmonies of the Beach Boys, the romantic melody of Tin Pan Alley, the baroque sound of Pet Sounds (Beach Boys), the rock opera Absolutely Free (Frank Zappa), the psychedelic arrangements of the Electric Prunes and the like, the hard riffs of the blues-rock jams (Cream), the synthesis of folk-rock (launched by Dylan and the Dead), and so forth. Yet the audience credited these innovations - brought about by others - to the Beatles. All things considered, their success is one of greatest paradoxes of the century. They Beatles understood absolutely nothing of what was happening around them, but the success of anything they copied was guaranteed. By buying their records, one bought a shortcut to the music of those times.
The influence of the Beatles cannot be considered musical. Music, especially in those days, was something else: experimental, instrumental, improvised, political. The Beatles played pop ditties. Rock musicians of the time played everything but pop ditties, because rock was conceived as an alternative to ditties. FM radio was created to play rock music, not pop ditties. Music magazines were born to review rock music, not pop songs. Evidently, to the kids (mostly girls) who listened to the Beatles, rock music had nothing to say that they were willing to listen to.
They were influential, yes, but on the customs - in the strictest sense of the word. Their influence, for better or for worse, on the great phenomena of the 60s doesn't amount to much. Unlike Bob Dylan, they didn't stir social revolts; unlike the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead they didn't foster the hippie movement; unlike Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix they didn't further the myth of LSD; unlike Jagger and Zappa they had no impact on the sexual revolution. Indeed the Beatles were icons of the customs that embodied the opposite: the desire to contain all that was happening. In their songs there is no Vietnam, there is no politics, there are no kids rioting in the streets, there is no sexual promiscuity, there are no drugs, there is no violence. In the world of the Beatles the social order of the 40s and the 50s still reigns. At best they were influential on the secret dreams of young girls, and on the haircuts of young nerdy boys.
The Beatles had the historical function to serve as champions of the reaction. Their smiles and their choruses hid the revolution: they concealed the restlessness of an underground movement ready to explode, for a bourgeoisie who wanted to hear nothing about it.
They had nothing to say and that's why they didn't say it." - huono lontoo
Captain Beefheart kirjoitti:
Piero Scaruffi kiteyttää tässä mielestäni hyvin Beatlesien aseman 1960-luvun musiikkikentässä:
"The Beatles made history for their melodies and their arrangements. Beatlemania was created, justifiably, in response to the exuberant rock and roll they played in 1963 with electrical instruments and drums, that managed to revitalize a genre drowned in sugar coated orchestrations supporting teen idols. Revolver must definitely be credited with having created a new sophisticated living room pop art. However, Sgt. Pepper, their most famous album, is nothing more than a hypocritically commercial album, a collection of traditional pop songs masked as psychedelic avant garde music. It nevertheless served as a prelude to the baroque suite Abbey Road, the apex of their formality. Similar parallels can be found in almost every band of those times, but few listeners know the records of those bands.
Even at their best the Beatles didn't represent the spirit of their generation. When they tried they were late, or even against the mainstream. At best they expressed the values of the generation that preceded theirs, the 40s. Those values were moral, musical, and social order, and respect, the very values attacked in the 50s by rock and roll. Thus the fact that the songs of the Beatles were similar in lyrics, music and arrangements to those of Tin Pan Alley shouldn't surprise anyone. Some of those songs will forever be listed in the annals of melodic music: Love Me Do, Hard Day's Night, I Feel Fine, We Can Work It Out, Penny Lane, Hello Goodbye, A Little Help From My Friends, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. For what it's worth, the everlasting refrains of those songs took rock and roll all the way down to a level of silliness and childish humor, separating it from its violent rebellious roots.
With out a shadow of a doubt, the Beatles were great melodists, but at a time when melody was considered a reductive factor. As a matter of fact their melodies marked a regression to the 50s, to the type of singer the recording industry was desperately trying to push on the audience and against whom rock sought to rebel.
The Beatles tried every fashion exported by the US: Chuck Berry's rock and roll, the vocal harmonies of the Beach Boys, the romantic melody of Tin Pan Alley, the baroque sound of Pet Sounds (Beach Boys), the rock opera Absolutely Free (Frank Zappa), the psychedelic arrangements of the Electric Prunes and the like, the hard riffs of the blues-rock jams (Cream), the synthesis of folk-rock (launched by Dylan and the Dead), and so forth. Yet the audience credited these innovations - brought about by others - to the Beatles. All things considered, their success is one of greatest paradoxes of the century. They Beatles understood absolutely nothing of what was happening around them, but the success of anything they copied was guaranteed. By buying their records, one bought a shortcut to the music of those times.
The influence of the Beatles cannot be considered musical. Music, especially in those days, was something else: experimental, instrumental, improvised, political. The Beatles played pop ditties. Rock musicians of the time played everything but pop ditties, because rock was conceived as an alternative to ditties. FM radio was created to play rock music, not pop ditties. Music magazines were born to review rock music, not pop songs. Evidently, to the kids (mostly girls) who listened to the Beatles, rock music had nothing to say that they were willing to listen to.
They were influential, yes, but on the customs - in the strictest sense of the word. Their influence, for better or for worse, on the great phenomena of the 60s doesn't amount to much. Unlike Bob Dylan, they didn't stir social revolts; unlike the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead they didn't foster the hippie movement; unlike Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix they didn't further the myth of LSD; unlike Jagger and Zappa they had no impact on the sexual revolution. Indeed the Beatles were icons of the customs that embodied the opposite: the desire to contain all that was happening. In their songs there is no Vietnam, there is no politics, there are no kids rioting in the streets, there is no sexual promiscuity, there are no drugs, there is no violence. In the world of the Beatles the social order of the 40s and the 50s still reigns. At best they were influential on the secret dreams of young girls, and on the haircuts of young nerdy boys.
The Beatles had the historical function to serve as champions of the reaction. Their smiles and their choruses hid the revolution: they concealed the restlessness of an underground movement ready to explode, for a bourgeoisie who wanted to hear nothing about it.
They had nothing to say and that's why they didn't say it."Kun olet noin kielinero,niin pistä vielä ko.tekstin suomennos tänne.Ei viittis plarata sanakirjaa koko ajan tänk juu!!
- HAUUUKOOOTUS
huono lontoo kirjoitti:
Kun olet noin kielinero,niin pistä vielä ko.tekstin suomennos tänne.Ei viittis plarata sanakirjaa koko ajan tänk juu!!
Jopas väsyttää...niin piti sanua,notta tässä maailmassa on niin monenlaista "asiantuntijaa" ! Mä oon päättänyt etten paljon tuollaasista sepustuksista perusta vaan päätän ihan itte miten asiat on ;D
Nyt mä meen tiputtamaan kannullisen MAAILMAN PARASTA kahvia,notta heräis tähänkin päivään...
Menkää uimaan,näillä keleillä se on mukavaa hommelia !! - on matala
huono lontoo kirjoitti:
Kun olet noin kielinero,niin pistä vielä ko.tekstin suomennos tänne.Ei viittis plarata sanakirjaa koko ajan tänk juu!!
Eivät osaa edes englantia vaikka melkein jokainen nykyään käy jopa lukion.
- censurerat..
on matala kirjoitti:
Eivät osaa edes englantia vaikka melkein jokainen nykyään käy jopa lukion.
-ole sinä ameeba,matalaotsainen simpanssi hiljaa..-et osaa edes suomea,pökiö..
- Dakota
ja sitäpaitsi vuodesta 65 alkaen Beatlesin musiikki suorastaan tihkui sekä teknisiä että musiikillisia innovaatioita, joita ties kuinka monet bändit sittemmin kopioivat ja/tai muuntelivat. Tuo kyseinen Scaruffi "asiantuntija" ei selkeästi edes tiedä mistä puhuu. Beatles oli tietysti aikansa lapsi, mutta eivät ne alkuvaiheenkaan 3-minuuttiset mitään tusinamusiikkia olleet erityisesti sen aikaisten standardien mukaan.
- gimmegimme
Dakota kirjoitti:
ja sitäpaitsi vuodesta 65 alkaen Beatlesin musiikki suorastaan tihkui sekä teknisiä että musiikillisia innovaatioita, joita ties kuinka monet bändit sittemmin kopioivat ja/tai muuntelivat. Tuo kyseinen Scaruffi "asiantuntija" ei selkeästi edes tiedä mistä puhuu. Beatles oli tietysti aikansa lapsi, mutta eivät ne alkuvaiheenkaan 3-minuuttiset mitään tusinamusiikkia olleet erityisesti sen aikaisten standardien mukaan.
The Queen, ABBA, U2, ja Rolling Stones ovat kaikki Beatlejä suurempia, ainakin nämä.
- nr yksi.
gimmegimme kirjoitti:
The Queen, ABBA, U2, ja Rolling Stones ovat kaikki Beatlejä suurempia, ainakin nämä.
-ei noista voi edes puhua samana päivänä Beatlesien kanssa....
- ....
Dakota kirjoitti:
ja sitäpaitsi vuodesta 65 alkaen Beatlesin musiikki suorastaan tihkui sekä teknisiä että musiikillisia innovaatioita, joita ties kuinka monet bändit sittemmin kopioivat ja/tai muuntelivat. Tuo kyseinen Scaruffi "asiantuntija" ei selkeästi edes tiedä mistä puhuu. Beatles oli tietysti aikansa lapsi, mutta eivät ne alkuvaiheenkaan 3-minuuttiset mitään tusinamusiikkia olleet erityisesti sen aikaisten standardien mukaan.
Vituttaa tollanen vähättely.
Vittu mikä pelle, sillä ei taida olla tunteita. Musiikki on sille puhtaasti tekninen asia ilmeisesti.
- right....
"it had no creative depth"
Eipä kuulosta hirveän asiantuntevalta asiantuntijalta.
"and too little attention to the merits of real musicians."
Musiikissa ei ole kyse siitä kuka on kykenevin teknisesti vaan kyse siitä että saako hyvän fiiliksen luotua musiikin avulla.
Mikä on "real musician"?
-Joka osaa soittaa kaikkein vaikeimpia ja ihmeellisimpiä juttuja, joita kukaan ei kuitenkaan jaksa kuunnella muun kuin teknisen taituruuden takia?
"THat phenomenon kept alive interest in their (mediocre) musical endeavours to this day. "
Miljoonat ihmiset ovat tästä kyllä eri mieltä kirjoittajan kanssa, siis muutkin kuin kriitikot.
No joo asiantuntija vaikuttaa täydeltä pelleltä :), sori vaan....
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