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ronrat
Joined: 22 May 2006
Location: Thailand
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| stui magpie wrote: | | The Beatles were over rated. |
Just as well Magpie greg doesn;t post here anymore or you who have to circle the wagons.
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Annoying opposition supporters since 1967. |
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Mountains Magpie
Joined: 01 Mar 2005
Location: Somewhere between now and then
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Yep, the Stones music from the second half of the '60s has aged very well. It's of it's time and it's timeless - a bloody hard thing to do. I'm amazed they lived long enough to do Exile On Main Street 
On McCartney, while it's debatable that there would be no Beatles music after 1966 without Paul, John contributed his share: Strawberry Fields (Penny Lane's twin), Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite, Good Morning Good Morning (early use of 5/4 in pop) just on Peppers. Plus A Day In The Life of course. A masterpiece in every respect, even with Paul's bit in the middle.
Most folks cite Revolver as the Beatles best work (Tomorrow Never Knows last track but She Said She Said is a jaw dropper. Not to forget I'm Only Sleeping - chordally just outrageous and largely 'borrowed' for Split Enz' Message To My Girl) I personally love the White Album. John's songs on this record are just excellent. Dear Prudence, I'm So Tired and Julia are top shelf.
By Abbey Road John is virtually unsighted. Come Together and I Want You only jump out IMHO.
I don't find anything on Pepper 'dire', care to expand Mugwump? I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.
MM
PS: There's a live version of She Loves You (used on the mid '90s anthology but on youtube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoF-7VMMihA) that I find so exhilarating. I have no superlatives for this recording.
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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^ taste is a funny thing, MM. None of the songs you mentioned do much for me, though I admire the soundscape of Strawberry Fields. I find almost all of Lennon's singing through this period a waste of the one genuine great talent he had - a wonderful rock and roll voice. This is submerged under layers of drippy trippy hippy sludge - reverb, delay, melisma. Ugh.
On Sergeant Peppers, I struggle to think of one great song apart from Lucy in the Sky, which is excellent. A Day in the Life is ok if you like hallucinatory and incoherent lyrics and sleepy singing, and why anyone who is not stoned would consider a long orchestral crescendo on Em a sigificant cultural event is beyond me. The best thing about Mr Kite is the orchestration, credit to George M. Good Morning Good morning seems like a mess with no melodic structure and fittingly, an ending of animal babblings. George's Indian witterings are a waste of time. Fortunately he found his bearings again on
Abbey Rd. She's Leaving Home is McCartney at his sugary worst, Fixing a Hole is tedious, and Ringo's song is a curiosity item as usual.
Honestly ? I reckon it's a record made before people discovered that drugs make you more interesting to yourself, but incredibly boring to others. Oddly, the Fool on the Hill, made around the same time, was one of their finest melodies, as was the incomparable Penny Lane. Strange that these did not make it onto the record.
As to the Stones, Exile on Main Street sounds like a record made by tax exiles on heroin, which it was. Mick Taylor's guitar saves bits of it, because he was young enough to care.
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Mountains Magpie
Joined: 01 Mar 2005
Location: Somewhere between now and then
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Cheers Mugwump - always good to read someone else's perspective. 
Can't believe I forgot Lucy 
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Spiral progress, unstoppable,
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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^ you too, MM. we don't have to agree, and I hadn't realised that parts of good morning were in 5/4 so thanks for that very interesting snippet.
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Some of the Beatles best work was after they broke up.
George was great in The Travelling Wilburies
Ringo in Thomas the Tank Engine
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| ronrat wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | The Beatles were over rated. |
Just as well Magpie greg doesn;t post here anymore or you who have to circle the wagons. |
I thought they might let him back in for this one, like they did when Greening was inducted into the HoF. That might have been hilarious. I look forward to Greg joining us again. Just in case: "Easy Money is a much, much better song than Let It Be - consider and discuss".
Anyway, has anyone else got the special 16-disc 40th anniversary edition of Lark's Tongues in Aspic?
And meanwhile, has anyone actually listened to any Rolling Stones album made before Beggar's Banquet? Apart from Big Hits: High Tide and Green Grass (which is, of course, a compilation of hit singles), most of those records have a fair song or two on them at best but some don't have any. |
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thesoretoothsayer
Joined: 26 Apr 2017
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I compare Sgt. Peppers to the Orson Welle's film "Citizen Kane".
All the ground-breaking, innovative stuff in Citizen Kane has been so incorporated into modern movies that when you watch it these days you think "what's all the fuss about".
Sgt. Peppers is the same.
Listen to it now and you think "what's all the fuss about" but back in 67 it must've been mind-blowing. |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| thesoretoothsayer wrote: | I compare Sgt. Peppers to the Orson Welle's film "Citizen Kane".
All the ground-breaking, innovative stuff in Citizen Kane has been so incorporated into modern movies that when you watch it these days you think "what's all the fuss about".
Sgt. Peppers is the same.
Listen to it now and you think "what's all the fuss about" but back in 67 it must've been mind-blowing. |
maybe they were at the time, but growing up in the 70's their songs weren't on high rotation on the jukebox.
Most of their stuff just doesn't stand up to the test of time, whereas the Stones songs do.
Paint it black and Sympathy for the devil are much covered and still get airplay today, just for 2.
Innovators
Flash in the pan
Over rated
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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thesoretoothsayer
Joined: 26 Apr 2017
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Stui,
good point.
Love the Stones and if I had to pick a few singles to listen to I'd take the Stones ahead of the Fabs any day.
However, when it comes to albums the Fabs tended to produce less filler (they had 3 songwriters).
The unfortunate thing about the Stones is that they didn't split up in 1975. |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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^ they all have their charms, and I don't think there is really any strong point of comparison. But for pure craft, Something, Let it Be and Here .Comes the Sun have a delicacy and sophistication that far outstrips the Stones. The Stones sound great doing what they do, and that is pretty satisfying. But their range is far less. They are a bit like a Peter McKenna (Stones) vs a Peter Daicos (Beatles).
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Two more flags before I die! |
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Pies4shaw
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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Yes, sorry, Stui - I went back to add the link to the article from Rolling Stone and must have hit quote, instead of edit. Ooops.
Last edited by Pies4shaw on Sun Jun 04, 2017 11:06 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Pies4shaw
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| stui magpie wrote: | | thesoretoothsayer wrote: | I compare Sgt. Peppers to the Orson Welle's film "Citizen Kane".
All the ground-breaking, innovative stuff in Citizen Kane has been so incorporated into modern movies that when you watch it these days you think "what's all the fuss about".
Sgt. Peppers is the same.
Listen to it now and you think "what's all the fuss about" but back in 67 it must've been mind-blowing. |
maybe they were at the time, but growing up in the 70's their songs weren't on high rotation on the jukebox.
Most of their stuff just doesn't stand up to the test of time, whereas the Stones songs do.
Paint it black and Sympathy for the devil are much covered and still get airplay today, just for 2.
Innovators
Flash in the pan
Over rated |
Sgt Pepper isn't anywhere near my favourite album. Of The Beatles' output, I prefer Rubber Soul, The White Album and Abbey Road and the singles collections (on CD, the two "Past Masters" volumes). Nor do any of their albums rank amongst my top favourites. So, putting aside the stuff that no-one much here is going to be interested in (eg, "Jorge Bolet plays Liszt Volume 2: the Schubert Song Transcriptions", Dave Burland, Tony Capstick and Dick Gaughan:"The Songs of Ewan MacColl", Pentangle: "Basket of Light", Dick Gaughan: "Handful of Earth", The Steve Miller Band's Greatest Hits etc), I like "Let it Bleed" (which has only one track on it I don't listen to - "Monkey Man") and "Beggar's Banquet" and my favourite 1967 albums are possibly (as I write - I reserve the right to reconsider in 5 minutes, since I think rankings of the kind are of limited value) Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and The Doors' The Doors.
However, I think it's useful to be open to reconsidering these things. So, when I turned 50 a few years back, my mother and father gave me a small sum of money to buy something I'd like to mark the occasion. I put it towards purchasing the albums in the Rolling Stone top 50 (of the top 500 - Mum and Dad aren't wealthy) that I didn't already own (well, all except for Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" which I can't abide and think no-one should own, save as punishment).
In many cases, listening to the records I bought merely served to confirm for me why I'd never owned them (the only thing I like about Thriller is Van Halen's guitar solo; Marvin Gaye bores me with everything he did after "I Heard it Through the Grapevine", Elton John cannot play the piano - he thumps and lacks any basic technique, etc). Nevertheless, I listened with as open a mind as I could manage and concluded that I do not entirely hate Bruce Springsteen and that there are a couple of things The Eagles did that are not just easy-listening sludge.
Anyway, it's all very well to have opinions but it's probably useful for us not to embarrass ourselves completely in public.
Thus, Rolling Stone's list has 10 albums by the Stones in the top 500 and one in the top 10 (Exile on Main Street, which is, in my view, the last album the Stones should have made - after the absolutely magnificent "Sweet Virginia", there was nothing more for them to add), whereas The White Album, Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt Pepper are all there. From time to time, Rolling Stone seems to have waivered between Revolver and Pepper - and there is some possibility that Highway 61 Revisited may have been "on top", albeit briefly (why is, of course, a quite different question).
Of Pepper, it says:
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the most important rock & roll album ever made, an unsurpassed adventure in concept, sound, songwriting, cover art and studio technology by the greatest rock & roll group of all time. From the title song's regal blasts of brass and fuzz guitar to the orchestral seizure and long, dying piano chord at the end of "A Day in the Life," the 13 tracks on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band are the pinnacle of the Beatles' eight years as recording artists. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were never more fearless and unified in their pursuit of magic and transcendence.
Issued in Britain on June 1st, 1967, and a day later in America, Sgt. Pepper is also rock's ultimate declaration of change. For the Beatles, it was a decisive goodbye to matching suits, world tours and assembly-line record-making. "We were fed up with being Beatles," McCartney said decades later, in Many Years From Now, Barry Miles' McCartney biography. "We were not boys, we were men... artists rather than performers.
At the same time, Sgt. Pepper formally ushered in an unforgettable season of hope, upheaval and achievement: the late 1960s and, in particular, 1967's Summer of Love. In its iridescent instrumentation, lyric fantasias and eye-popping packaging, Sgt. Pepper defined the opulent revolutionary optimism of psychedelia and instantly spread the gospel of love, acid, Eastern spirituality and electric guitars around the globe. No other pop record of that era, or since, has had such an immediate, titanic impact. This music documents the world's biggest rock band at the very height of its influence and ambition.
"It was a peak," Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970, describing both the album and his collaborative relationship with McCartney. "Paul and I were definitely working together," Lennon said, and Sgt. Pepper is rich with proof: McCartney's burst of hot piano and school-days memoir ("Woke up, fell out of bed...") in Lennon's "A Day in the Life," a reverie on mortality and infinity; Lennon's impish rejoinder to McCartney's chorus in "Getting Better" ("It can't get no worse").
"Sgt. Pepper was our grandest endeavor," Starr said, looking back, in the band's 2000 autobiography, The Beatles Anthology. "The greatest thing about the band was that whoever had the best idea – it didn't matter who – that was the one we'd use." It was Neil Aspinall, the Beatles' longtime assistant, who suggested they reprise the title track, just before the finale of "A Day in the Life," to complete Sgt. Pepper's theatrical conceit: an imaginary concert by a fictional band, played by the Beatles.
The first notes went to tape on December 6th, 1966: two takes of McCartney's music-hall confection "When I'm Sixty-Four." (Lennon's lysergic reflection on his Liverpool childhood, "Strawberry Fields Forever," was started two weeks earlier but issued in February 1967 as a stand-alone single.) But Sgt. Pepper's real birthday is August 29th, 1966, when the Beatles played their last live concert, in San Francisco. Until then, they had made history in the studio between punishing tours. Off the road for good, the Beatles were free to be a band away from the hysteria of Beatlemania.
McCartney went a step further. On a plane to London in November '66, as he returned from a vacation in Kenya, he came up with the idea of an album by the Beatles in disguise, an alter-ego group that he subsequently dubbed Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. "We'd pretend to be someone else," McCartney explained in Anthology. "It liberated you – you could do anything when you got to the mic or on your guitar, because it wasn't you."
Only two songs on the final LP, both McCartney's, had anything to do with the Pepper characters: the title track and Starr's jaunty vocal showcase, "With a Little Help From My Friends," introduced as a number by Sgt. Pepper's star crooner, Billy Shears. "Every other song could have been on any other album," Lennon insisted later. Yet it is hard to imagine a more perfect setting for the Victorian jollity of Lennon's "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" (inspired by an 1843 circus poster) or the sumptuous melancholy of McCartney's "Fixing a Hole," with its blend of antique shadows (a harpsichord played by the Beatles' producer, George Martin) and modern sunshine (double-tracked lead guitar executed with ringing precision by Harrison). The Pepper premise was a license to thrill.
It also underscored the real-life cohesion of the music and the group that made it. Of the 700 hours the Beatles spent making Sgt. Pepper from the end of 1966 until April 1967, the group needed only three days' worth to complete Lennon's lavish daydream "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds." "A Day in the Life," the most complex song on the album, was done in just five days. (The oceanic piano chord was three pianos hit simultaneously by 10 hands belonging to Lennon, McCartney, Starr, Martin and Beatles roadie Mal Evans.) No other Beatles appear with Harrison on his sitar-perfumed sermon on materialism and fidelity, "Within You Without You," but the band wisely placed the track at the halfway point of the original vinyl LP, at the beginning of Side Two: a vital meditation break in the middle of the jubilant indulgence.
The Beatles' exploitation of multitracking transformed the very act of studio recording (the orchestral overdubs on "A Day in the Life" marked the debut of eight-track recording in Britain: two four-track machines used in sync). And Sgt. Pepper's visual extravagance officially elevated the album cover to a work of art. Michael Cooper's photo of the Beat¬les in satin marching-band outfits, in front of a cardboard-cutout audience of historical figures, created by artist Peter Blake, is the most enduring image of the psychedelic era. Sgt. Pepper was also the first rock album to incorporate complete lyrics to the songs in its design.
Yet Sgt. Pepper is the Number One album of the RS 500 not just because of its firsts – it is simply the best of everything the Beatles ever did as musicians, pioneers and pop stars, all in one place. A 1967 British print ad for the album declared, "Remember, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Is the Beatles." As McCartney put it, the album was "just us doing a good show."
The show goes on forever.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-20120531/the-beatles-sgt-peppers-lonely-hearts-club-band-20120531?
I think, at this late date, we're all entitled to our views about what we like and don't like but I don't think there's much merit in pretending that Sgt Pepper isn't a very great work of art. There are many albums I like more but, musically, it's difficult to argue (at least, cogently) that anything more important happened in the last third of the 20th century. |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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^
good points well made, but I got it the first time.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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piedys 
Heeeeeeere's Dyso!!!
Joined: 04 Sep 2003
Location: Resident Forum Psychopath since 2003
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| stui magpie wrote: | | The Beatles were over rated. |
Be still you heathen, whilst I wash your filthy mouth out with a cake of Dove soap; and stop biting my fingers already! 
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