I can understand someone who personally doesn't think The Beatles are the greatest band ever, but I'm struggling with the idea that music fans may not 'get' The Beatles at all.

It seems to me that, whatever your tastes, The Beatles will have something there for you. If you like raucous, there's Revolution and Helter Skelter. If you like edgy, Lennon has plenty of that. If you like great production, check out the remastered Abbey Road.

A possible reason is when I was at secondary school ('80-'85), a lot of kids my age took the piss out of me for liking The Beatles as square and old-fashioned.
I'm 43 now, and a lot of those kids now have kids of their own who probably don't know the music of The Beatles as their parents didn't have any of their music themselves.
On a wider issue, I don't think kids are into music the way I was during the ages of, say, 11 to 17-ish. Intricacies like "Are you a mod, punk, skin, ted, rocker, new romantic, casual?" Or, if you did one thing that deviated the "rules" of any of the above, you wern't a "proper one" Or, how can you like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, Duran Duran andSpandau, or Oasis andBlur?
Music has much more of a wall-papery existence now. Everyone accepts it exists, its sen more of a career-move now to be in a band rather than a radical action, and no-one is interested in looking under the skin.
So, I'm not surprised that people don't 'get' The Beatles, and I don't think there will be any more musical revolutions either.
So, its just us message-boarders left.
Merry Christmas!

No argument about great production, but they really weren't that edgy after 67, and they weren't very "raucous", most of their repertoire is fairly staid.

I definitely wouldn't put any of the Beatles albums in my top 50 from 1965-1970. Maybe not even in the top 100 (though half of those 100 albums would be from bands that had very limited or no commercial success).

"Backbeat" or, perhaps more specifically, the soundtrack made me realise, after years of being Beatles-agnostic, how exciting they must have been in their beginning. I think I mentioned a couple of months ago that a song started playing somewhere and I thought it was good and it was a new release by some new-ish band only to find out it was "Helter Skelter"

However, a bit like the Clash on the "Iggy Pop" thread, I reckon there are only an album's worth of tracks that I genuinely could listen to reasonably regularly. So, it is isn't that I don't 'get' them, they are just a reasonably good band to me.

I think that there is a lot of this though. Many people, having been weened on, say, Eddie Van Halen may be unimpressed by Jimi Hendrix without realising that he set the template that led to Van Halen (the person). Similarly, I love SLF and think they knock the Clash into a cocked hat but have to concede that the former were massively influenced by the latter.

Didn't we have a similar thread (w/ pretty much the exact same title) awhile back?

I think many people primarily into rock and all things louder don't feel they need the Beatles - for all the Hamburg rave ups and Helter Skelter they didn't really rock out in the Stooges or Sabbath sense.

However crap my parenting skills have been, one thing I'm proud of is that I introduced my three to The Beatles at an early age. I had a tape of the Blue Best Of, 1967-70 and they always asked for it in the car. My son turned out very musical (more so than his Mum or me), and now at 21 considers The Beatles second to none.

So do I.

Well, yeah, I'd disagree with satchmo and serge about the concept of the Beatles not being recognized enough, if anything, they're totally overrated.

You keep saying that, but how do yo apply the measures of your ratings? What's the context? Are you comparing their to how they sound against the body of music that came after (and, perhaps, before) them?

Are you comparing their music within the context of their time and everything that preceded it (in which case yourt suggestion of them not being "edgy" is self-evudent nonsense)?

In any case, that list of your top albums between 1965 and 1970 would be quite bizarre without even a nod to The Beatles.

I'd go with the poster who said its not heavy enough. As brilliant and innovative as they were I think their music is probably a little too middle of the road sounding when you play it all these years later. Thats not to say I don't like The Beatles, I'm a pretty big fan but I can see how kids weaned on Led Zep, The Sex Pistols, Prodigy or Jay Z fr'instance might be a little underwhelmed when listening to their back catalogue.

I grew up in the 60's & I "get" the Beatles. I get what they achieved & there massive cultural impact but I never particularly liked the music. Sorry. When it comes to the music of the 60's I much prefer The Who, The Stones or The Kinks.

A lot of people get The Beatles up to a point but don't get them quite as much as the heritage rock industry tells them that they ought to.

I like them in the sense that my mum used to play them in the car and they are nice to hear on the radio now and again. That very familiarity makes it hard to get too excited about them.

Oasis and their sundry plod rock followers rather brought getting The Beatles into disrepute in the 1990s. Hearing young bands who weren't born when The Beatles retired from live performance talk as if nothing good had happened since they split was very disconcerting.

I can't really see any of these as middle of the road:

Tomorrow Never Knows

Rain

I Am the Walrus

Sure, but those three songs only constitute a fraction of their entire body of work. Moreover, Joe Average would be more familiar with radio friendly tunes like "Hey Jude" or "Let it Be" since they get much more airtime and songs of that ilk don't really do The Beatles justice.

But the Joe Averages who have never heard I Am The Walrus are not likely to be the sorts to listen much to Led Plagiarist or The Who.

I’m not adding to the debate, just using it as an excuse to post this. And they say Ringo was the weak one.

Slightly Brown wrote:


They do, and it's an ongoing disgrace.

There's always going to be a danger of seeming middle-of-the-road when they did so much to build the road in the first place.

The one Beatles song that hits me in the heart is Eleanor Rigby. I find the rest of their stuff very admirable on dozens of levels, but haven't actively nor voluntarily listened to that much of it down the years, let alone gone out and purchased boxed sets etc.

However, that's my problem, not theirs nor their fans.

I get and like The Beatles but to play devil's advocate and answer the question posed to start the thread, perhaps some people (A) won't like the early stuff because it's too sweet (those lovable mop top lads really are quite irritating, not so lovable) and (B) the later stuff seemed to respond to what was going on rather than set the trend. The Beatles saw what was happening with psychedelic stuff (Sgt Peppers) or heavier stuff (some of the White Album, Let it Be) and because they were the Beatles were seen as setting the trend. People who get pissed about credit not being given where due (kind of like Manchester United or Bayern Munich always raiding the best players from mid-level teams in their leagues) would not "get" The Beatles or be upset about the band's success.

I could see (A) or (B) but I still dig 'em.