Why is it so hard to get away with hating the Beatles?

[Andy03]

I have nothing against the Beatles. I actually like their music quite a bit. But when a guy from school keeps bugging everyone about how awesome the Beatles are, it's hard not to hate them. Then you end up saying "I hate the Beatles" just to get him to walk away with his jaw dragging on the ground.

 

[Purple Shrimp]

I have no problem with people disliking the Beatles in theory, but most of the time people who express a hatred of the Beatles have little knowledge of their music. if they want to dislike the Beatles, that's fine, but they should at least listen to more than just Yellow Submarine and Hey Jude before making up their mind!

They were immune from criticism for one period of time between the late 60's and the early 70's when they put out four of the best albums ever in a row, after that you could (and can) find a critic just about anywhere.

I hope you mean Their Satanic Majesties Request and not Exile on Main Street. agree on Let It Bleed though, that's my all-time favourite album

I hope you're not one of those people that complains about Exile on Main Street but claims to like Their Satanic Majesties Request, because then we would have a problem.

it's their second-best album, you can't deny it baby

I do like Exile though

 

[General Vagueness]

First you should decide if you don't like The Beatles or if you hate them, and if you hate them there's a lot I could say but I tend to not defend any kind of hate. The different strokes factor is part of it-- they made a lot of different kinds of songs and a lot of people would find it difficult you don't like any of them for reasonable reasons, and in fact unless you make it clear you've listened to them all I'd say you haven't put in the effort that should be expected for such a broad statement. Nostalgia is also clearly part of it, as is respect, as shown in the appeals to their influence.

 

[Serge A. Storms]

I have no problem with people disliking the Beatles in theory, but most of the time people who express a hatred of the Beatles have little knowledge of their music. if they want to dislike the Beatles, that's fine, but they should at least listen to more than just Yellow Submarine and Hey Jude before making up their mind!

They were immune from criticism for one period of time between the late 60's and the early 70's when they put out four of the best albums ever in a row, after that you could (and can) find a critic just about anywhere.

I hope you mean Their Satanic Majesties Request and not Exile on Main Street. agree on Let It Bleed though, that's my all-time favourite album

I hope you're not one of those people that complains about Exile on Main Street but claims to like Their Satanic Majesties Request, because then we would have a problem.

it's their second-best album, you can't deny it baby

I do like Exile though

The fuck I can't, the golden age of the Stones started with Beggars Banquet, Majesties was the thing before they found their true identity.

 

[bushwhacker2k]

Well, I think it's hard to fight against a belief that's been handed down for generations. For example people claiming Hitler wasn't evil and Christianity is a load of crap have trouble getting any following against certain groups.

For example, in 10 years will anyone remember Justin Bieber? I know I won't. But it's amazingly popular to hate him atm.

Also, why don't you like Beatles? (Not jumping on the Y00R WR0NG! bandwagon, but they seem good at such a basic level that it's hard to find things bad about them except that they're somewhat simple or you have specific tastes)

 

[Purple Shrimp]

I have no problem with people disliking the Beatles in theory, but most of the time people who express a hatred of the Beatles have little knowledge of their music. if they want to dislike the Beatles, that's fine, but they should at least listen to more than just Yellow Submarine and Hey Jude before making up their mind!

They were immune from criticism for one period of time between the late 60's and the early 70's when they put out four of the best albums ever in a row, after that you could (and can) find a critic just about anywhere.

I hope you mean Their Satanic Majesties Request and not Exile on Main Street. agree on Let It Bleed though, that's my all-time favourite album

I hope you're not one of those people that complains about Exile on Main Street but claims to like Their Satanic Majesties Request, because then we would have a problem.

it's their second-best album, you can't deny it baby

I do like Exile though

The fuck I can't, the golden age of the Stones started with Beggars Banquet, Majesties was the thing before they found their true identity.

I agree with the second statement, but personally I just think the songs on Majesties are better.
i pretty much love every Stones album though

 

[Serge A. Storms]

I have no problem with people disliking the Beatles in theory, but most of the time people who express a hatred of the Beatles have little knowledge of their music. if they want to dislike the Beatles, that's fine, but they should at least listen to more than just Yellow Submarine and Hey Jude before making up their mind!

They were immune from criticism for one period of time between the late 60's and the early 70's when they put out four of the best albums ever in a row, after that you could (and can) find a critic just about anywhere.

I hope you mean Their Satanic Majesties Request and not Exile on Main Street. agree on Let It Bleed though, that's my all-time favourite album

I hope you're not one of those people that complains about Exile on Main Street but claims to like Their Satanic Majesties Request, because then we would have a problem.

it's their second-best album, you can't deny it baby

I do like Exile though

The fuck I can't, the golden age of the Stones started with Beggars Banquet, Majesties was the thing before they found their true identity.

I agree with the second statement, but personally I just think the songs on Majesties are better.
i pretty much love every Stones album though

I think that's more of a statement on your general genre preferences, I lean specifically towards the R&B the Stones produced and R&B's manifestations and mutations over the years.

 

[trooper6]

God damn that was an informative post. Still, I disagree with your general assessment that the Beatles basically just completely fucked with traditional harmony and are remembered just because they were something new and unexpected. More than just random harmonies, they managed to make random harmonies WORK, like you said. This is what gives them staying power, more than just their historical prevelance, that there is a cleverness to their music very able to catch and captivate ears.

Well yeah, I wasn't trying to imply that their choices were "random". There's obviously a system to it, it's just not the system everyone else was using.

Hmm, you almost seem to imply that the system was preexisting. Would you say the Beatles had any distinct influences for their use of harmony? It's my understanding that whatever pop music does as far as theory goes, its typically ground thats been broken by "serious" music before it.

Edit: And as for objectivity/subjectivity in music, I hope I can get that long post sometime. I'll pose the question on your "ask a music insider" thread.

I'm unwilling to buy the 100% subjective argument just on the basis that you've studied it in depth, not when everything I've studied about music suggests at least basic trends of what is considered beautiful, what is dissonant.

The Pythagorean ratios? The rhythmic figures in Bach's music? You've got your work cut out for you if you want to say that's all completely subjective.

BonsaiK:
Well, I want to point out that a lot of what the Beatles were doing harmonically wasn't actually new in popular music either. One of the things they were doing was going back to Tin Pan Alley structure and harmony a la Gershwin, Berlin, and Porter. And that music was still being played on the radio. So, that new? No. But they did do it in a new context.

ChefofDeath:
Yes it is 100% subjective/culturally dependent.

What is considered beautiful/dissonant changes over time and is different in different places. In the early medieval time period, thirds and sixths were considered dissonant and unpleasant. Then they weren't. But 7ths were considered unbeautiful. But after the blues which uses dominant seventh chords for everything, people no longer find them all that dissonent. The line from noise to dissonant to beautiful is one that is always shifting.

Also, as for Pythagorean ratios--we don't even ever hear them. Ever since the 18th Century we've been using the equal temperament system...which involves not having pure pythagorean ratios. And of course other countries use completely different tuning systems and find them beautiful.

Does Bach have fugues that he made up with math? Sure. But just because he used math to create a fugue doesn't mean the fugue is some objective thing. Palestrina thought the use of fugue and polyphony in religious music was a terrible thing. Actually, the whole idea of creating fugues at all is historically and culturally dependent...they don't exist in nature, they were created by subjects in a time and place. Heck, the idea that a fugue would be interesting at all is culturally dependent. Gamelan music doesn't care about a Bach fugue, instead they work on a whole different system.

Whatever "objective" systems we make up...*we* make up. People. Who are always within a cultural context.

 

[Purple Shrimp]

I have no problem with people disliking the Beatles in theory, but most of the time people who express a hatred of the Beatles have little knowledge of their music. if they want to dislike the Beatles, that's fine, but they should at least listen to more than just Yellow Submarine and Hey Jude before making up their mind!

They were immune from criticism for one period of time between the late 60's and the early 70's when they put out four of the best albums ever in a row, after that you could (and can) find a critic just about anywhere.

I hope you mean Their Satanic Majesties Request and not Exile on Main Street. agree on Let It Bleed though, that's my all-time favourite album

I hope you're not one of those people that complains about Exile on Main Street but claims to like Their Satanic Majesties Request, because then we would have a problem.

it's their second-best album, you can't deny it baby

I do like Exile though

The fuck I can't, the golden age of the Stones started with Beggars Banquet, Majesties was the thing before they found their true identity.

I agree with the second statement, but personally I just think the songs on Majesties are better.
i pretty much love every Stones album though

I think that's more of a statement on your general genre preferences, I lean specifically towards the R&B the Stones produced and R&B's manifestations and mutations over the years.

definitely, psychedelic rock is probably my favourite genre

 

[trooper6]

As a note. I don't hate the Beatles. I quite like quite a bit of their music.

However, I don't like the discourse around the Beatles.

I don't like how Rolling Stone et al treat them like they are the most important popular music in the entire world--though not the early years when girls liked them, mostly the later years when boys liked them.

I don't like how Rolling Stone at al like black music when it is performed by white foreigners...but not so much when black people perform it...so they put the Beatles and the Stones at the top of their lists, but they ignore the people the Beatles and the Stones are copying/covering...like Muddy Waters, Little Richard, and the The Crystals.

I don't like how in the realm of Popular Music Studies, way too many people justify studying popular music by pointing to the Beatles and then saying--popular music is good because the Beatles are just like Beethoven. The Beatles are not just like Beethoven. The Beatles can be great, without being anything like Beethoven. There is no need to try and justify liking the Beatles by comparing them to Beethoven...especially because it isn't fair to the coolness of the Beatles...and also because there is a lot of great music that doesn't have complex harmony, but rather has complex rhythm or complex timbre (see for example, the Blues).

The Beatles are a great band. They also are historically important. But let's keep them in perspective. Motown was pumping put complicated and popular hits, too. And Motown is also historically and musically important.

Actually here's a story!

The Supremes and the Beatles met one time. Both groups were really excited to meet each other (being fans of each other's music), and both were terribly disappointed. The Beatles imagined black people were all poor and overly sexual and dirty and raw and all of that crap. And they were presented with three women who had gone to charm school and were very poised and classy. That's not what they wanted out of there black people. The Supremes, on the other hand, imagined the Beatles, being British, would be all classy...with the imaginations of royalty and Jane Austin and all of that set of stereotypes. Instead they got 4 rough working class Liverpudlians who drank and cursed.

Both groups didn't get their imaginations confirmed...and both were disappointed.

But both groups were doing really important cultural work through their music.

 

[Lord Legion]

I agree actually. There were much better bands around that were overshadowed by the "beetlemania" Especially Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR for short). Those guys were sheer awesomensess in their day, a shame they aren't more well known.

I'm sure we could draw easy parallels in today's music industry...
just sayin'.

 

[elvor0]

I use to hate them, but there are some Beatles songs I like. My problem is that The Beatles are so overwhelmingly adored yet better bands imo like Led Zeppelin get ignored.

Hardly, Led Zeppelin hold in part the monkier of one of the most influential rock bands out there, EVERYBODY knows who Zeppelin are, and are just one of those bands that's universily remembered from that period.

 

[lacktheknack]

But screw the Beatles. Especially the fact that typing "beatles" in Wikipedia directs you to their band page. As opposed to a page about BEATLES.

The name of the insect is spelled "Beetles." The name of the band is a pun.

It should regardless lead to a disambiguation page. If Google recognizes I may have misspelled something, so too should Wikipedia.

People don't generally make that mistake.

OT: They're nothing especially special -

 

[spartan231490]

It seems that with almost every band in the world, there is a clearly labelled large group of people who like them, and a large group of people who don't. And this has been accepted for ages.

But the Beatles seems to break this. Apparently, from my experience, admitting to disliking the Beatles is like a social death sentence. Why? I get and respect that the Beatles managed to find some kind of 'timeless' quality market in their music.

And yet it seems people who hate the Beatles are treated as outcasts quite badly because of it. I've asked people why it's so hard for Beatles fans to accept people not liking them, and the response I got was "because those people are obviously ignorant to the history of music".

This utterly fucking baffles me. No other band in the world needs fucking CONTEXT to find them appealing, so why is that the Beatles seem to be this isolated, protected entity when if you don't like them you must be an ignorant beast with no knowledge of music?

It seems they are absolutely immune to the whole 'different strokes for different folks' thing, as if you don't like them, your opinion must mean nothing due to your apparently ignorance.

Personal story time: My dad recently got himself that new-fangled re-release of all the Beatles' stuff in the big box set. My mum went out and he was sat downstairs blasting that shit so loud that I could hear it over my own music upstairs (oddly I was listening to the Rolling Stones at the time, which is another band that seems to sometimes have this 'immune to critique' thing going on) so I went and told him to turn it down...at which point he refuses, because "it's the Beatles. it's better than any shit you listen to, so i aint turning it down".

My dad's normally a nice guy, so him turning into a dick when asked to turn down the Beatles was shocking. I'm not using this to say all Beatles fans are cunts, cause I know they aren't. But it was weird to think people hold that high a view of the band.

Erm...I don't really have any discussion-type questions here...this was mostly just a rant, so I dunno how exactly to round this off...

...erm...I like bacon? I dunno...

First note: If someone said that to me when I was being polite to begin with, I would offer them the choice of turning it down themselves, or me turning it off with a baseball bat.
OT: I don't like the beatles either, never have. I know many people who share this opinion to no social consequences. I suspect that the beatles have this immunity because people who don't like them just do so quietly. Also, Star Wars and LoTR have a similar immunity in the fantasy world, and duck hunt, mario brothers, and maybe mario cart have a similar immunity in the gaming community. when people grew up listening to it, being indoctrinated that it is good music, it's hard to get them to accept that others choose not to like it because they received no such choice. If I have to like it, you have to like it, sort of thing.

Edit: forgot to sum up. Everyone likes music of some kind, so the idea of disliking the iconic musical performers is alien to many people. Just like the idea of hating Star Wars, or the original Mario Brothers is probably alien to many people on the escapist. Just wait a few decades and i suspect that these type of intolerant fans will mostly die off. I hope.

 

[Ladette]

They're one of those sacred cows that people get really antsy about. Sort of like Half Life 1&2 in gamming. Personally I think their music sucks, John Lennon was pretty good though.

 

[Haydyn]

I use to hate them, but there are some Beatles songs I like. My problem is that The Beatles are so overwhelmingly adored yet better bands imo like Led Zeppelin get ignored.

Hardly, Led Zeppelin hold in part the monkier of one of the most influential rock bands out there, EVERYBODY knows who Zeppelin are, and are just one of those bands that's universily remembered from that period.

Maybe to people who know something about music, but the average person? Almost everyone I've talked to about Zeppelin couldn't name one of their songs, not even the overrated Stairway to Heaven. They can reconize the name, but that's about it. Actually the people who did say they liked Led Zeppelin when they were younger were women. Really makes one think.

Pretty much anyone can name at least 3 Beatles songs though, despite the fact that as far as Rock goes, the Beatles didn't really influence Rock itself. They have referred to as the first Boy Band.

 

[Nouw]

But screw the Beatles. Especially the fact that typing "beatles" in Wikipedia directs you to their band page. As opposed to a page about BEATLES.

The name of the insect is spelled "Beetles." The name of the band is a pun.

It should regardless lead to a disambiguation page. If Google recognizes I may have misspelled something, so too should Wikipedia.

But doesn't everyone know the Beetles? I understand your concern but it'd be much simpler if it led straight to their page.

And by everyone I mean everyone who uses a computer. Besides, they'd know them now and avoid making the mistake!

 

[Daveman]

Well I think if you flat out "dislike" the Beatles then you probably haven't listened to it all. There's a lot of almost progressive stuff later on and the classic rock and roll tuneage of their earlier material, they're just one of those bands that push all the buttons. Kind of like a cross between Take That and Radiohead. That said I hate both those bands. But together they make this freakish hybrid that is just epicly intelligent and catchy.

I'm also not gonna say they're the best band ever because personally I still listen to more Tenacious D than the Beatles. But I do think the whole "I hate the Beatles" attitude is a bit silly and I couldn't comprehend how you could feel that way after listening to all their material.

I dislike the Beatles. I don't think this, I know this to be a fact. The Beatles song that comes closest to me liking it is Octopuses Garden and even then I can only barely, barely tolerate it.

I've listened to every single Beatles song. I was forced to sit and listen while the entire rest of my family sang along to the complete discography. I don't know more than a few lines from a few of their most popular songs. I just don't like them. Not one bit.

The problem is, most people, you included, think that there has to be one song that people love by the Beatles. Everyone has their "one Beatles song" no matter what they think of the band. That is completely wrong and that gets on my nerves so much. The constant "There has to be one song! You can't just not like them! They're the Beatles!!" aggravates me so much.

I believe that I quoted you, merely to point out that you're wrong in your assumption that someone who doesn't like them hasn't heard everything. Well, I have, and I still despise this band.

Despise is a strong word. Any particular reason for the hate other than "I don't like their songs" because that's not a reason to hate, that's just a reason not to like them.

I do think you are a rare case. I refuse to believe that everyone who says they don't like the Beatles has done as you have and in fact it's much more likely that they haven't. If you still don't like them then that's fine, it doesn't affect me so why would I be bothered?

Also, one song that you like doesn't mean you like a band. I like There she goes by the La's but that was their one hit, I don't like the band. So I'd disagree with you saying "most people, you included, think that there has to be one song that people love". All I'd expect is that people appreciate that they are quite good. Then if it's not your thing it doesn't matter.

 

[filonafee]

I read it and loved it.

 

[filonafee]

If you don't like The Beatles, then you clearly worship Satan.

Are you suggesting that we tolerate Satan Worshipers?

There is something demonic and ritualistic about Beatles fans actually, the way you all bleat out the same answers as soon as a NON BELIEVER is unearthed, it is not unhealthy, ignorant, satanic or in any way wrong to dislike or even HATE The Beatles.
It is however reprehensible that ANYONE should not accept or respect anothers preferances.
You Beatles fans have NO right to tell ANYONE that they MUST respect what you do, and belittle their opinion.
You are the ones at fault. People died fighting in TWO WORLD WARS to give people the right to like whoever they damn well please without being vilified by others.
You are also refusing to read two very well written replies, explaining EXACTLY why you all need to SHUT UP with this The Beatles changed music forever and if it wasn't for them we'd all be hitting tin cups off rocks to make a tune. They DID NOTHING to change music there music is NOTHING better than a cereal commercial that gets stuck in your head because of it's repetitiveness.
How dare you tell the OP he is wrong to have his opinion, at least he has one and isn't scared to voice it.
You are also part of the reason i dislike them and everything to do with them, it sickens me, your behaviour. You have absolutely NO WAY of proving any of the garbage you spout there were a whole lot of bands making similar music at the time and there is no way of knowing who did what first.
They were popular mainly because of HORMONES. Bored teenagers looking for a way to piss off their parents. So you like them BULLY FOR YOU!!! Some people don't get flamin well over it.