Mar 23 2009, 20h49
Piero Scaruffi main article on the Beatles.
This article purpose is to counteract Piero Scaruffi claims against the Beatles. It's not to say who invented what or who did what first. It's just to counteract Piero Scaruffi claims against the Beatles.
Section 1 Piero Scaruffi main article on the Beatles
Piero Scaruffi’s arguments are at best poorly-reasoned opinion, and at worst an uneducated diatribe. Dismissing the Beatles influence because of their affluence is ignorant and utterly ridiculous.
The Beatles were, as far as I'm concerned, complete geniuses. The best songwriters in history, amazing and exciting harmony for pop songs, best melodies ever written, end.
The modulations, line cliches, and occasional surprises are just great. I spent a lot of time a while ago really digging into some of their harmonic devices. They did some real quirky stuff, how about "Martha my Dear" or "Julia"...
Whatever anyone will say about The Beatles, you have to at least say this:
There's never been another rock band that covered so much ground and was so prolific in just a mere seven years. Undisputed.
Scaruffi claims, “The Beatles only are played in supermarkets and they have no musical influence”.
Ultimately Scaruffi really gets stuck on the early Beatles material, which stood out from other bands because Paul and John realized early on that a good middle eight could make or break a song, and they were right. Thousands of gigs at the Star Club in Hamburg (and countless treks across England in awful conditions later, the Beatles took their deserved spot in history.
Scaruffi claims, “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”.
Not true. To generalize a decade of music is easier to do with, say today’s crap- its all crap. The 60s had a whole lot more going on than just experimentation and jamming out. That was part of it, but the jam bands like Jefferson Airplane, Santana, and Credence all had their share of 2 minute pop songs. Likewise The Beatles didn’t just write pop songs. They jammed and experimented as well. Revolution 9"? I have arguments whether the latter is a song or not, but NO ONE, not even Andy Warhol’s Velvet Underground had a tune like that.... Plus, there are plenty of brisk, pop songs on Pillow- "My Best Friend," "DCBA", "How Do You Feel" and on Warhol- "Sun. Morning," "Run Run Run". Tracks like "Strawberry Fields Forever" and “A Day in the Life" both tracks hugely influential on Progressive Rock and Art-Rock. Tracks like "Love You To", "Within You Without You" and the "Inner Light" are full blown Indian songs are hugely influential to World Music.
Scaruffi claims, “The Beatles never had a song without a refrain before 1967"
Another myth that Mr.Scaruffi has made up or not looked into. Songs with no refrain, include such as "It Won't be Long," "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," "Drive My Car. Add There's a Place," "I Should Have Known Better," "If I Fell," "No Reply," and "Norwegian Wood," neither a refrain nor a chorus is heard t to Hide Your Love Away," "Drive My Car. Add There's a Place," "I Should Have Known Better," "If I Fell," "No Reply," and "Norwegian Wood," neither a refrain nor a chorus is heard.
Scaruffi, “The Beatles were writing simple 3 minute pop ditties".
The Beatles from the start were more complicated then their mentors Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and their friends the Rolling Stones. The Beatles would use Bridge: a song's contrasting section [sometimes called the ‘middle-eight', regardless of the number of actual bars], often beginning in an area other than tonic and usually leading to a dominant retransition. They incorporated classic and world music elements to their songs (which helped the development of prog-rock and baroque pop and art rock. They experimented in the use of rare metric patterns and song structures (which helped the development of prog-rock. Songs like "Norwegian Wood" would include modes like Mixolydiaon and Dorian Modes in one song.‘Love You To’is clearly based on Indian modal practice: the tamboura drones sa and pa (tonic and dominant notes of the mode), the tabla sets forth a sixteen-beat tala (rhythm), the introductory improvisation in the alap follows Indian melodic practice, and as Harrison stated, he was trying to express himself in Hindu terms. This was a new turn for the Beatles and for rock music in general
Scaruffi claims “The Beatles influence can not be considered musical”
The Beatles ability to marry studio experimentation with a strong pop song structure is such a profound influence that it's taken for granted. I'd say it's their most important contribution. It's the very foundation of how music is still made, so I'd say their influence is very much evident today, even if not everybody knows it. I still say to this day the most prophetic record of the Sixties wasn't "Yesterday" or "Satisfaction" but "Tomorrow Never Knows," which sums up most of where music has gone. Minus the vocals, it's virtually an big beat/techno and modern electronic record that's as much Public Enemy as it is Philip Glass. Today's music is mostly about sound texture and the group that got us thinking about it the most is the Beatles. Some love to dismiss "Sgt. Peppers," and especially "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite," but I'll be damned if all that random splicing up of tape and punching it into a song for sound effects can't be found in Kanye West or many hip-hop crews of the last 25 years or so.
Whether we're talking Radiohead, Coldplay, U2, L.A. Reid or Raphel Saadiq, to mention a few, they still mention or show the Beatles' influence. The Smithereens recently covered the entire "Meet the Beatles" album. Phish has performed all of the "White Album" in concert.
Scauffi writes, “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. Their smiles and their choruses hid the revolution: they concealed the restlessness of an underground movement ready to explode for a someone who wanted to hear nothing about it. They had nothing to say and that's why they didn't say it”.
The Beatles had many songs with a message. "The Word" and "All You Need Is Love" certainly have a strong message. You don't need riots, racism, LBJ, Vietnam, etc-just love. "Taxman" the Beatles are calling out the names of British politicians, and "Revolution" another song calling out politicians. The song "Blackbird" is about the civil rights movement. GET A CLUE a good song is not based on how radical the lyrics are but the Beatles did address some serious issues. Oh it's laughable the Beatles did not write about drugs "She Said She Said" is about an acid trip and "Tomorrow Never Knows" is about the concept of psychedelia.
Scaruffi claims, “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”.
Well, Beethoven is probably the most famous classical composer today; and even in his time, he was one of the most influential, successful, and well-known composers in the world.
Scaruffi writes, “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”.
That's not at all the reason why rock critics rank the Beatles as the best. They were very successful, but that's not why they were good, it's the other way around.
Scaruffi, “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”.
A contemporary rock critic who is reviewing the Beatles is reviewing the rock music of the past. And most rock critics tend to appreciate the 50s, 60s, and 70s as the best era for rock. Look at Rolling Stone's "500 greatest albums of all time" list: almost all the albums on the list were from the 60s and 70s. If the Beatles were a contemporary band that's successful, I could see this argument being made (those critics are just following success and don't know the classics of the past)... but the Beatles are the classics of the past.
Scaruffi, “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”.
Again, not true. Rock critics a) tend to prefer the classic stuff to modern music which they rightly deride as trash, and b) when it comes to modern music, they prefer obscure indie bands to the overproduced popular trash. Scaruffi might be looking more toward pop music critics, rather than rock critics... They're guilty of a lot of what he's saying.
The big difference between today and the 60's-70's era is that the bands that were good back then were also the successful bands. Some of the best rock music in history comes from very successful artists from the 60s and 70s: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Don McLean, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Eagles, Iron Butterfly, etc. Today, success and quality often seem to be inversely correlated, as can be seen by the success of Nickelback, Linkin Park, Green Day, and all their ilk.
Scaruffi, “Buddy Holly & The Cricketts invented the modern rock band”
"The Beatles were unique at the time as they were truly a "band." Unlike Buddy Holly "and" The Crickets or Bill Haley "and" His Comets, or Little Richard, Elvis, etc., etc. The Motown groups were singers, not musicians. They sang and danced to choreographed moves. The Beatles were "The Beatles." They wrote their songs (their best songs, IMO were better than their covers), they played their instruments. The Beach Boys had hired session players to play instruments they were supposed to play".
Scaruffi claims, "Love You To" as being vaguely Oriental"
"Nonsense in its application to pop music there was nothing like it. In "Love You To”, we find a genuinely Indian-styled usage of mode, melody, rhythm and instrumentation. Even the form, which otherwise maintains a "neo-classical" boxy rock form preserves the Indian convention of an out-of-tempo improvised slow intro".
Scaruffi claims "The Beatles lucked into folk rock".
The Beatles had a skiffle background which was very folk influenced. This was noticed by musicians like Roger McGuinn
"I had noticed that they were using folk-influenced chords in their music. They used passing chords that were not common in rock’n’roll and pop songs of that time. I remember listening to them, and thinking that the Beatles were using folding chord construction. That comes from their skiffle roots, they will have learned those chords in their skiffle days, and just brought them into their own writing.” Roger McGuinn
Scaruffi writes, "In 1968 Great Britain became infected by the concept album/rock opera bug, mostly realized by Beatles contemporaries: Tommy by the Who, The Village Green Preservation Society by the Kinks, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake by the Small Faces, Odyssey and Oracle by the Zombies, etc (albums that in turn owed something to the loosely-connected song cycles of pop albums such as Frank Sinatra's In The Wee Small Hours (1955), the Byrds' Fifth Dimension, the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and the Beatles' Sgt Pepper). So, with the usual delay, a year later the Beatles gave it a try".
The concept album bug was highly influenced by the Beatles own Sgt. Pepper of 1967 which was a concept album of tracks linked togehter with artificial sounds. Sgt Pepper structure was unlike Frank Zappa Freak Out or Brian Wilson Pet Sounds. It influenced future concept albums with it's overture, reprise, finale, and the hidden track tacked on the end of the album. The point is the Beatles already went down this road before 1967. Abbey Road is not the first Beatles album to use a song cycle that would be Sgt Pepper. Abbey Road is neither a Rock Opera nor a narrative concept album. What it is a long song cycle in medley form in which the songs are segued into each other? It was also planned also, it should be noted that "You Never Give Me Your Money" was looped with "Sun King" and "Mean Mr. Mustard" were recorded as one song; "Polythene Pam" and "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" were recorded as one song; and "Golden Slumbers" and "Carry That Weight" were recorded as one song.
Scaruffi writes, "Hey Jude (august 1968), a long (for the Beatles) jam of psychedelic blues-rock, in reality another historic slow song by McCartney, came out after Traffic's Dear Mr. Fantasy and also after Cream's lengthy live jams had reached peak popularity".
Of course this was not the Beatles first long song they recorded. "Hey Jude" is not even remotely psychedelic in it's sound. There are many other songs by contemporaneous artists which break the three-to-four minute length barrier, though the examples which come immediately to mind use a variety of techniques, none of which is used in "Hey Jude": an extended improvisational break in the middle ("Light My Fire"), the stringing together of several shorter songs, medley-style ("MacArthur Park"), or simply a long series of verse/refrain couples ("Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands").
The Beatles opt here instead for an unusual binary form that combines a fully developed, hymn-like song together with an extended, mantra-like jam on a simple chord progression, and extremely long fade-out. The track is known for it's
two different halves that complement each other,
.
Scaruffi writes, "Sgt. Pepper is the album of a band that sensed change in the making, and was adapting its style to the taste of the hippies. It came in last (in June), after Velvet Underground & NICO (January), The Doors (also January), the Byrds' Younger Than Yesterday (February), and the Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow (February) to signal the end of an era, after others had forever changed the history of rock music".
His statement totally ignores the Beatles albums that were before this like Rubber Soul and Revolver. It also ignores "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Rain" that was singles that were recorded in 1966. Also Sgt structure as a non-narrative concept album influenced many future concept albums. Sgt. Pepper structure with tracks linked togehter with artificial sounds. Sgt Pepper structure also was unlike Frank Zappa Freak Out or Brian Wilson Pet Sounds. It influenced future concept albums with it's overture, reprise, finale, and the hidden track tacked on the end of the album
The Beatles (Rubber Soul) 1965 Brian Wilson cited it as an inspiration for "Pet Sounds." This was where rock became a true art form. They incorporated different time signatures, new instruments, and other musical styles. This album also uses the studio as an instrument before Pet Sounds. "Think for Yourself" and "If I Needed Someone" has guitar tones and vocal harmonies closer to what would be the standard in the psychedelic movement.
The Beatles (Revolver) 1966 Revolutionary in early preoccupation with "psychedelic" effects as a studio instrument, including electronic/tape effects, sound distortion, influence of Indian music, and avant-garde.
The Beatles (Sgt Pepper) 1967 An album psychedelic classic with electronic music, avant music, world music, tape, Art SONG, reversed effects, varied time signatures with the songs that are in which the song are in either song cycle form or songs linked together.
Scaruffi claims, "1967 was the year that FM radio began to play long instrumentals. In Great Britain, it was the year of psychedelia, of the Technicolor Dream, of the UFO Club. The psychedelic singles of Pink Floyd were generating an uproar. Inevitably, the Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".
How ignorant is this comment. With the release of Revolver for example "Tomorrow Never Knows" in 1966 which pre-dates Pink Floyds singles by 9 months. Revolver was certainly important in opening up a commercial market for psychedelic music. It would have happened anyway, but that doesn't change history. Revolver was a very big record for psychedelic music in '66. Classic Rock Radio related to FM radio. The origins of the classic rock radio format can be traced back to The Beatles' groundbreaking album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which would forever change several courses of the rock and roll format, especially with the slow rise of FM broadcasting.
Scaruffi claims, “The Beatles had always been obsessed by the Beach Boys. They had copied their multi-part harmonies, their melodic style and their carefree attitude. Through their entire career, from 1963 to 1968, the Beatles actually followed the Beach Boys”
No one makes music without influence and while the Beatles were influenced by the Beach Boys it was the Beatles who influenced Brian Wilson to write a more serious album.
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys
"Upon first hearing Rubber Soul in December of 1965, Brian Wilson said, “I really wasn’t quite ready for the unity. It felt like it all belonged together. Rubber Soul was a collection of songs…that somehow went together like no album ever made before".
Piero Scaruffi claims, “The sitar was used somewhere else in rock music”.
I guess he must have meant the Yardbirds "Heart Full of Soul". The Yardbirds hired a sitar player but the track was never finished. George Harrison actually played one on "Norwegian Wood" becoming the first rock guitarist to actually play one a record. George Harrison also would play the tamboura and swarmandal clearly influencing Brian Jones and other to play Indian instruments.
Scaruffi claims, “The White album wraps up with a long jam, more or less avant garde, (Revolution No. 9, co-written by John Lennon and Yoko Ono) two years after everybody else, and three years after the eleven minutes of Goin' Home, by the Stones”.
The Rolling Stones track was recorded in 1966 and it's a blues jam. "Revolution No. 9” is a full blown avant track based on loops, sound samples, and unrelated voice clips. The track was not recorded in real time or nor does it have a melody or rhythm so it can't be considered a jam. The song “Revolution No. 9” was recorded two years later not three years as Scaruffi remarks. The Beatles did record a 14 minute avant track in January of 1967 “Carnival of Light”. Showing again Piero Scaruffi incompetence on the Beatles history. “ Revolution 9"? I have arguments whether the latter is a song or not, but NO ONE, not even Andy Warhol’s Velvet Underground had recorded anything like “Revolution No.9
I will add more to this in the future.
Section 2
Some of the musicians who were directly impacted by the Beatles and changed the course of music like Folk Rock, Psychedelic Rock to name a few.
John Lennon, the most outspoken Beatle, infamously proclaimed in a 1966 interview that the Fab Four was “more popular than Jesus.” While a predictable public backlash ensued, he wasn’t that far off the mark in gauging the band’s power, especially when it came to the scores of young musicians eagerly following in the group’s wake.
Among them was “Little” Steven Van Zandt, who later achieved fame in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and as Silvio Dante on “The Sopranos” TV series. He remembers the exact moment Beatlemania first struck him.
“Where do you think we started?” Van Zandt, 58, said, speaking from his New York office. “We didn’t start in Madison Square Garden. We started in a garage in New Jersey, along with probably 50,000 other bands in America that formed Feb. 10, 1964, the day after The Beatles played on (TV’s) ‘The Ed Sullivan Show.
The Beatles are the reason we started writing songs. Before that, it was mostly anonymous singer-songwriters writing for anonymous artists. Then, this group turns up — from Liverpool, England! — that plays and writes their own material, and Benny (Andersson) and I said: ‘We can do that.’” — Abba co-founder Bjorn Ulvaeus.
Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead
"The Beatles were why we turned from a jug band into a rock 'n' roll band," said Bob Weir. "What we saw them doing was impossibly attractive. I couldn't think of anything else more worth doing"
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys
"Upon first hearing Rubber Soul in December of 1965, Brian Wilson said, “I really wasn’t quite ready for the unity. It felt like it all belonged together. Rubber Soul was a collection of songs…that somehow went together like no album ever made before".
Roger McGuinn of the Byrds
"As I said, we were influenced by The Beatles, and we wanted to be a band like that, and when I was working with Bobby Darin, and then in the Brill Building, my job was to listen to the radio, and emulate the songs that were out there. I had already been working on mixing The Beatles’ music with folk music in Greenwich Village, and I had noticed that they were using folk-influenced chords in their music. They used passing chords that were not common in rock’n’roll and pop songs of that time. I remember listening to them, and thinking that the Beatles were using folding chord construction. That comes from their skiffle roots, they will have learned those chords in their skiffle days, and just brought them into their own writing.”
Pete Townshend of the Who
"In a 1967 interview Pete Townshend of the Who commented "I think "Eleanor Rigby" was a very important musical move forward. It certainly inspired me to write and listen to things in that vein"
Bob Dylan
"They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid. They were pointing the direction music had to go.
BARRY McGUIRE
What were the key motivations behind your switch from the commercial folk you were doing with the New Christy Minstrels to folk-rock?
"But times changed, and I changed, and I didn't feel that way anymore. The Beatles were happening. I think that was probably the main thing. The Beatles just changed the whole world of music".
Mic Jagger
"Keith liked the Beatles because he was quite interested in their chord sequences. He also liked their harmonies, which were always a slight problem to the Rolling Stones. Keith always tried to get the harmonies off the ground but they always seemed messy. What we never really got together were Keith and Brian singing backup vocals. It didn't work, because Keith was a better singer and had to keep going, oooh, ooh ooh (laughs). Brian liked all those oohs, which Keith had to put up with. Keith was always capable of much stronger vocals than ooh ooh ooh".
Keith Richards
"The Beatles) were perfect for opening doors... When they went to America they made it wide open for us. We could never have gone there without them. They're so fucking good at what they did. If they'd kept it together and realized what they were doing, instead of now doing Power to the People and disintegrating like that in such a tatty way. It's a shame. The Stones seem to have done much better in just handling success".
Bill Buford:
The Beatles. They broke down every barrier that ever existed. Suddenly you could do anything after The Beatles. You could write your own music, make it ninety yards long, put it in 7/4, whatever you wanted.
Karl Bartos of Kraftwerk
"Sampling has been around since the Beatles they did it all. There is no difference between using tapes and digital machinery." Yawn again
Robert Fripp on hearing the Beatles Sgt Pepper
Robert Fripp- "When I was 20, I worked at a hotel in a dance orchestra, playing weddings, bar-mitzvahs, dancing, cabaret. I drove home and I was also at college at the time. Then I put on the radio (Radio Luxemburg) and I heard this music. It was terrifying. I had no idea what it was. Then it kept going. Then there was this enormous whine note of strings. Then there was this colossal piano chord. I discovered later that I'd come in half-way through Sgt. Pepper, played continuously. My life was never the same again"
Guns ’N Roses guitarist Slash,
“Like everybody else from my generation, I was raised on The Beatles. To this day, it’s mind-blowing to think how important the music of The Beatles was, from their inception to the present, and how many of their songs are international standards. This was a band that changed the world completely"
Kiss co-founder Gene Simmons
"The four-wheel drive was the idea behind Kiss — and the only band I ever saw that did that was The Beatles. Everybody was a star, everybody sang and everybody wrote in The Beatles." —
Some of the reaction towards "Strawberry Fields Forever"
"Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys said that "Strawberry Fields Forever" was partially responsible for the shelving of his group's legendary unfinished album, Smile. Wilson first heard the song on his car radio whilst driving, and was so affected that he had to stop and listen to it all the way through. He then remarked to his passenger that The Beatles had already reached the sound The Beach Boys had wanted to achieve. Paul Revere & The Raiders were among the most successful US groups during 1966 and 1967, having their own Dick Clark-produced television show, Where the Action Is. Mark Lindsay (singer/saxophonist) heard the song on the radio, bought it, and then listened to it at home with his producer at the time, Terry Melcher. When the song ended Lindsay said, "Now what the fuck are we gonna do?" later saying, "With that single, The Beatles raised the ante as to what a pop record should be"
Section 3
Arguments against Piero Scaruffi A Chronology of Rock Music timeline.
In 1965-1966 as compared to Brian Jones- George Harrison played the tamboura, swarmandal, and recording the guitar backwards. Jeff Beck and Roger McGuinn were not playing Indian instruments and predated Brian Jones. The Beatles also plays clavichord, fuzz bass trough a fuzzbox as a lead guitar instrument, harmonium and the mellotron also predates Brian Jones.
Scaruffi, "In 1965 The Supremes have four number-one hits and the Four Tops have two, all of them written by Tamla's team of Brian Holland, Lamond Dozier and Eddie Holland".
Well in 1964 the Beatles wrote seven number one songs on the America Charts. Six for the Beatles themselves and one for Peter & Gordon. Never done in Rock and Roll by a recording group.
Scaruffi, "The "British Invasion" exports to the USA the enthusiasm created by Beatlesmania in the UK"
George Harrison's resonant 12-string electric guitar leads were hugely influential also on the Animals, Brian Jones and Pete Townshend purchase the instrument; helped persuade the Byrds, then folksingers, to plunge all out into rock & roll, and the Beatles (along with Bob Dylan) would be hugely influential on the folk-rock explosion of 1965. The Beatles' success, too, had begun to open the U.S. market for fellow Brits like the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the Kinks, and inspired young American groups like the Beau Brummels, Lovin' Spoonful, and others to mount a challenge of their own with self-penned material that owed a great debt to Lennon-McCartney. By the way Scaruffi it’s Beatlemania not Beatlesmania.
Scaruffi "The Beach Boys' Good Vibrations is the first pop hit to employ electronic sounds".
Well not true, The Tornadoes "Telstar" employs electronic instrumentation and the Beatles own "Ticket To Ride" uses a volume pedal.
Scaruffi, "The Byrds' Eight Miles High invents raga-rock".
Not really "If I Needed Someone" and "Norwegian Wood" both have strong raga and rock elements. Also not mentioned on Scaruffi time line. "Love You To" is considered to be the first pop song to emulate non-western form, in this case Indian music, in structure and instrumentation. The Dawn Of Indian Music In The West author Peter Lavezzoli
Scaruffi, "Eric Clapton of the Yardbirds uses the guitar to produce feedback and fuzz".
Well since Scaruffi is mentioning pop music charts.” I Feel Fine" 1964 is the first major pop hit with intentional guitar feedback. It also features a guitar riff driven riff. Both common elements in rock music.
Scaruffi, "June: the Byrds' version of Mr. Tambourine Man invents "folk-rock"
Well not true again the Byrds popularized folk-rock. In reality the Beatles were the band to influence the Byrds to go the folk rock route because of the Beatles chord progressions. Anyhow there were 1964 hits with a folk rock flavor by the Animal, The Beu Breummels and The Beatles.
Scaruffi, "Velvet Underground & Nico (January) introduces droning, cacophony and repetition (besides improvisation) to rock music, and connects rock music to the avant-garde"
Again who are you kidding 1966 "Tomorrow Never Knows" droning, cacophony and repetition are at its core elements on this track. Connects rock music to the avant-garde"
Scaruffi, "Millie Small's My Boy Lollipop is the first worldwide ska hit"
True but in Reggae [Relation to Rock & Roll] The early Beatles song 1964"I Call Your Name," for instance, has a ska break; a few years later, they would appropriate the reggae rhythm for "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da." Also in the 1967 recording "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) has a whole ska section
Scaruffi, "Red Crayola's Parable Of Arable Land (march) turns psychedelic rock into abstract sound-painting"
I guess he has not heard of tracks like "Tomorrow Never Knows" or "Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite". Both predate the Red Crayola.
Scaruffi, "The Silver Apples experiment with electronics in a rock and roll format"
Again, in 1966-1967 the Beatles experimented with electronic music and others in a rock and roll format.
Scaruffi, "The Doors (January 1967) fuses rock and roll, blues, psychedelic, Indian raga, free-form poetry and drama"
The Beatles (Revolver) 1966 Revolutionary in early preoccupation with "psychedelic" effects as a studio instrument, including electronic/tape effects and influence of Indian music avant-garde.
The Beatles release "Tomorrow Never Knows"- The Beatles, particularly McCartney, became heavily influenced by experimental German composer, Karlheinz Stockhausen. Beginning with Tomorrow Never Knows they began experimenting with tape loops, musique-concrète, backward music, repetition drum & bass sound, and effects which were crucial to the development of modern electronica.
Scaruffi, "Led Zeppelin's debut launches hard-rock and defines the LP as rock's medium of choice".
I don't get this one either. Hard Rock was well established before Led Zeppelin. Defines the LP as rock's medium of choice well the first year the rock album outsold the single format was 1968. The Beatles released no singles on Sgt Pepper 1967 and The White Album 1968 both outselling worldwide than Led Zeppelin debut album. Also Bob Dylan had a huge hand in this also.
Someone mentioned "Telstar" it went number one but it was written by someone else. They had the top five songs at the same time and all were self penned.
The Beatles truly revolutionized Rock & Roll.
Section 4
The Genres the Beatles helped influence or helped create.
Power-Pop
Writing for All music, John Dougan described the genre's origins:
"The musical source point for nearly all power-pop is The Beatles. Virtually all stylistic appropriations begin with them: distinctive harmony singing, strong melodic lines, unforgettable guitar riffs, lyrics about boys and girls in love; they created the model that other power-poppers copied for the next couple of decades. Other profound influences include The Who, The Kinks, and The Move, bands whose aggressive melodies and loud distorted guitars put the "power" in power-pop
Folk Rock
"But in my imagination this whole thing developed and I started mixing up old folk songs with the Beatles beat and taking them down to Greenwich Village and playing them for the people there".
Roger McGuinn
"The big turning point, really, was the Beatles' influence on American folk music, and then Roger took it to the next step, and then along came the Lovin' Spoonful and everybody else".
Barry McGuire
Jangle Pop
In 1964 The Beatles' use of the jangle sound in the songs "A Hard Day's Night" and "Words of Love" encouraged many artists to use the jangle sound or purchase a Rickenbacker twelve-string guitar. The Byrds began using similar guitars after seeing them played in the film A Hard Day's Night. Other groups such as The Who (in their early "Mod" years), The Beach Boys, The Hollies, and Paul Revere and the Raiders continued the use of twelve-string Rickenbackers. The Byrds, whose style was also referred to as folk rock, prominently featured Roger McGuinn's Rickenbacker electric twelve-string guitar in many of their recordings.
Progressive Rock
the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as showing the "earliest rumblings of progressive and art rock" while progressiverock.com cites the latter as its "starting point" although earlier albums such as Rubber Soul and Revolver had begun incorporating Eastern music and instruments not common in rock music. This would later be followed by progressive-rock acts such as Yes and King Crimson
Avant Pop
Avant-pop is a genre of pop music which uses conventional pop idioms like harmonic melodies, verse-chorus-verse structures in addition of little elements of experimentalism and avant garde music. The Beach Boys and The Beatles are the first pop music bands who began incorporating experimental instrumentation and sound recording techniques in their music on their albums Pet Sounds, Revolver and Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Also the psychedelic rock of Syd Barrett during his brief period in Pink Floyd with childlike songs like "Bike" and "See Emily Play" are early examples.
Psychedelic Rock
In late 1965, The Beatles unveiled their brand of psychedelia on the Rubber Soul album, which featured John Lennon's first paean to universal love ("The Word") and a sitar-laden tale of attempted hippy hedonism ("Norwegian Wood", written by John Lennon). Then it went to to more Psychedelic fusing of the genre with Revolver and Sgt Pepper.
Art-Rock- Starting with "Tomorrow Never Knows" maybe the first true Art-Rock. Music critic George Graham argues that "... the so-called Art Rock scene arose" in the 1960s, "when many artists were attempting to broaden the boundaries of rock." He claims that art rock "was inspired by the classically-influenced arrangements and the elaborate production of the Beatles Sgt. Peppers period" and states that the "style had its heyday in the 1970s with huge commercial success by Yes, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and later Genesis."
"Tomorrow Never Knows" had a big influence on (Techno/Electronica/Kraut Rock)
Combining swirling psychedelia with a repetitive melody and wicked sound effects, “Tomorrow Never Knows” could possibly be the first and only Beatles song that could put you in a trance and make you shake that thang simultaneously. The Chemical Brothers didn’t sample and loop the drum track and bassline from this song for nothing.
Are the Beatles the most influential rock act? Well that question has been debated for years and it would be idiotic to deny their influence.
Sure, Zep and Sabbath had a profound influence on rock; so did The Who, The Velvet Underground, and The Stones.
But The Beatles helped establish in rock music: concept albums, use of amp feedback in songs, electric 12 string, mixing world music (e.g., sitars and others) into traditional guitar 'n' drums rock, use of full orchestras in rock, backwards taping, pre-recorded loops, music videos, rock and roll movies, sampling, stadium venues, album-oriented rock, and more.
Stylistically, their music has been often imitated (but never duplicated) by anyone from The Monkees to Oasis to Panic at the Disco to Badfinger to Queen and many, many more.
Their fashion sense set the trend for bands (and pop culture junkies in general) throughout the 60s; and even afterwards, their fashions then are still copied today (the Sgt. Pepper baton jackets became a staple of rock fashion, especially with Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson).
There's simply no other band in history that had as much influence on rock as The Beatles did and still do.
Author Comments:
Piero Scaruffi’s arguments are at best poorly-reasoned opinion, and at worst an uneducated diatribe. Dismissing the Beatles influence because of their affluence is ignorant and utterly ridiculous
