Are The Beatles and Queen overrated?

CTID1988 said:
Agree about Brian Mays guitar. I think his tone is horrible too, something about it really irritates me.

I think the main reason I don't like them is because my dad used to play them all the time in the car ha, I associate long boring drives during the summer holidays with them
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Im not sure Queen is the kind of band you can fully enjoy when you’re just sat in the house listening to them on your own.
I’ve had shares in bars most of my adult life, mostly in Spain which could be classed as party/Caberet and without fail the music that got people giddy up and enjoying themselves were from Queen and the like.
 
GoatersLeftShin said:
Genuine question this: have you ever listened to much Beatles music? The variety of styles is something that defined them, they were able to move from pop songs like She Loves You to ballads like Yesterday and Here, There and Everywhere to proto-hard-rock like Helter Skelter to psychedelic classics like Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, Lucy In The Sky, A Day In Thel Life and Tomorrow Never Knows through to Victorian kitsch on For The Benefit. Songs like She's Leaving Home and Eleanor Rugby sound nothing like anything anyone was doing. I pretty much could go on but they were able to do pretty much any style better than their peers as the link I posted showed. I forgot about songs like Within which is the first time Western artists had written an Indian piece of music.

As for just having 4 chords, you're plain wrong on that. They broke boundaries by basically taking influences from classical music, the tape looping of Avant Garde classical music, Indian music, folk music etc. They were superb musicians and have a listen to what composer Howard Goodall says about them - basically it's very complex music and they knew more about melody than a lot of classical composers. You simply cannot do this if all you know is 3 chords.

I totally understand how people might not like certain musicians - I don't like Bob Dylan particularly - but I am able to recognise his genius. I do think if you listened to Revolver, Abbey Road, Sgt Pepper and The White Album you should be able to recognise more than 3 chords and a complexity, as well as melody, that few have ever matched.

I do think that somehow it's become cool to dislike them and that's fine. However you simply cannot say they are overrated, wrote simple songs and knew little about music. It's like saying my mate Dave draws an apple better than Picasso so he is shite.
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Genuine answer, I tried to listen to it in my early 20s (around 1990) to see what all the fuss was about, and then as now, i think the same, some catchy tunes in a sea of shite.

I do get how peoples favourite bands mean something to them and how someone not liking them feels like a personal assault. For example, during the 80s I thought Simple Minds were the Bee's Knees, I fingered banged my first girlfriend whilst it played in the background. The music said something to me...Adult me realises Jim Kerr was smoking a lot of shit whilst writing non sensical faux philosophical nonsense...I still like the songs though as they remind me of a time finger bangin my first girlfriend despite knowing that AI can write sudo philosophical bollox with the same degree of skill.

The Beatles were the Taylor Swift to todays masses, A Justin Bieber to the first less sexually repressed Britons, 4 talented boys marketed to millions of people that had lapped up songs Like Billy Don't be a Hero previously.

The lyrics to the Beatles best selling single ever below...Without fear of persecution, prostitution and perspiration I can tell you Robbie Williams wrote better shit than than garbage Take That's "I want you Back" is more sophisticated

She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
You think you've lost your love
Well, I saw her yesterday
It's you she's thinkin' of
And she told me what to say
She says she loves you
And you know that can't be bad
Yes, she loves you
And you know you should be glad
She said you hurt her so
She almost lost her mind
But now she says she knows
You're not the hurtin' kind
She says she loves you
And you know that can't be bad
Yes, she loves you
And you know you should be glad, ooh
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
With a love like that
You know you should be glad
You know it's up to you
I think it's only fair
Pride can hurt you, too
Apologize to her
Because she loves you
And you know that can't be bad
Yes, she loves you
And you know you should be glad, ooh
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
With a love like that
You know you should be glad
With a love like that
You know you should be glad
With a love like that
You know you should be glad
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
 
talkativesprout said:
Genuine answer, I tried to listen to it in my early 20s (around 1990) to see what all the fuss was about, and then as now, i think the same, some catchy tunes in a sea of shite.

I do get how peoples favourite bands mean something to them and how someone not liking them feels like a personal assault. For example, during the 80s I thought Simple Minds were the Bee's Knees, I fingered banged my first girlfriend whilst it played in the background. The music said something to me...Adult me realises Jim Kerr was smoking a lot of shit whilst writing non sensical faux philosophical nonsense...I still like the songs though as they remind me of a time finger bangin my first girlfriend despite knowing that AI can write sudo philosophical bollox with the same degree of skill.

The Beatles were the Taylor Swift to todays masses, A Justin Bieber to the first less sexually repressed Britons, 4 talented boys marketed to millions of people that had lapped up songs Like Billy Don't be a Hero previously.

The lyrics to the Beatles best selling single ever below...Without fear of persecution, prostitution and perspiration I can tell you Robbie Williams wrote better shit than than garbage Take That's "I want you Back" is more sophisticated

She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
You think you've lost your love
Well, I saw her yesterday
It's you she's thinkin' of
And she told me what to say
She says she loves you
And you know that can't be bad
Yes, she loves you
And you know you should be glad
She said you hurt her so
She almost lost her mind
But now she says she knows
You're not the hurtin' kind
She says she loves you
And you know that can't be bad
Yes, she loves you
And you know you should be glad, ooh
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
With a love like that
You know you should be glad
You know it's up to you
I think it's only fair
Pride can hurt you, too
Apologize to her
Because she loves you
And you know that can't be bad
Yes, she loves you
And you know you should be glad, ooh
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
With a love like that
You know you should be glad
With a love like that
You know you should be glad
With a love like that
You know you should be glad
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
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Haha! I love that Simple Minds story :D

Anyway, they definitely weren't comparable to the likes of Bieber or Swift.

It's hard to listen from the past and hear it today as if it's written today. She Loves You is about 60 years old which is a relic in terms of pop/rock music. There's a couple of things about the song to bear in mind.

Firstly, they are at the start of their careers and are putting their take on US rock n roll. Psychedelia hasn't been invented yet and pop music is very much a teen thing and by no means anything to be taken seriously. In this song though the harmonies are very good and sound different to other rollers at the time. It's also got a type of energy that sounds like it's a bit "punky" and again sounded different. Finally they aren't writing about "I love you", it's written from the perspective of a friend who's telling his mate that She Loves You and this wasn't something you heard at the time. It might not be groundbreaking to us, but back then people sat up and took notice of them for it . Also they were pretty young when they wrote this.

I think the fact "they wrote this" also highlights a massive impact they had on other people: The Beatles wrote their own songs and made it the norm that an artist wrote and sang their own songs. At the time many artists like the Stones etc recorded songs by other people. That was normal.

Nowadays we absolutely take it for granted that - say - Radiohead right their own music. If they didn't they wouldn't be regarded as a serious artist. The fact we can speak of sat Radiohead as a serious artistt highlights the fact that pop and rock are now regarded as valid art forms - it just wasn't the case in the early 60s. They pretty much singlehandedly made it a fact you HAD to write and perform your own music.

Whilst I think they are a great band, if you just take them at a catchy tune level, you're ignoring the impact they had on music both in the 60s and beyond. It's like me saying Beethoven's symphonies aren't as catch as a Michael Jackson song.

By taking influences from classical composers like Stockhausen they brought tape looping into pop music. Nowadays we would call this sampling and can be heard on Tomorrow Never Knows. Taking influence from Indian classical music they brought in the drone and the concept of other cultures music. I could go on but what they said to everyone was that pop music wasn't about simple chords, lyrics and playing live. Sgt Pepper is arguably the first modern album in that it was made in a studio and demonstrated just how wide pop music could be. When the album was released it was apparently jaw dropping as you'd never heard anything like it.

Every album they made was an "event" in that they broke new ground with every release. Other artists were on their trails and in the link I posted you get a flavour for how far ahead they were, constantly pushing boundaries and taking pop to places thought impossible just 3 years before. Again, I can't think of any modern band who have done anything like this.

Nowadays we take albums in the studio for granted and that we could happily sample an Indian guy playing a sitar but in the 60s it had never been done before. The range of influences they brought together just changed music in ways we still live today. Maybe the only "modern" music which had such a profound effect would be the synth becoming cheap and maybe rap music but no artist in either field has anything as good as The Beatles created.

As I've said they turned pop music from a teen thing I to a serious art form. You cannot compare them to any modern day artist.

They changed how music was recorded, the sounds you hear on their albums were meticulously created. The techniques they pioneered in the studio are still in use today.

They pretty much influenced every artsis who came after them as the list of quotes I posted shows. You won't be able to find a similar list for ANY other great band let alone Bieber etc.

Their songwriting is right up there with any other great songwriters on the 20th Century. The Americans have The Great American Song Book but The Beatles could make The Great British Song Book themselves, and in multiple volumes. The quality and quantity of songwriting, not to mention the complexity of their music in them later years again is unmatched by any other band. This did it all in about 7 years too.

What I guess I am trying to explain is the context of why they are highly regarded. To sum it up, you won't find anyother pop, tock band with the level of influence they have. Whilst it's perfectly fine to say you don't like them, to say the are overrated is difficult to justify by any measure. We can happily debate whether Queen are overrated but The Beatles weren't and it's not just a personal opinion.

One way to think of it is nowadays saying Cruyff is overrated. His Cruyff turn is easy and even Anthony at United does it better. He was slow so would be ok at Forest maybe so he's not good really. City would thrash his Barcelona team and he won very little and no way compares to Michael Carrick. His Ajax team were average and didn't win many CLs. I hope you get where I am coming from!

You could argue that but you'd be ignoring the fact he did the turn first, in a World Cup against a fine Italy team. You'd ignore the impact of seeing that live in every kid watching it. His ideas on possession football inspired Masia, Pep Guardiola and even Spain to become the finest academies, teams and managers of their generation and beyond. The concept of possession football looks totally alien to the way English teams playing in the 60s, 70s and 80s. His impact in football is colossal really.

The Beatles are similar - their impact is so large and taken for granted we just don't see it now and we have little to compare them too.

You still might not like their music, that's absolutely fine but I do think you should reconsider their place in history and consider what it was like when they arrived and what it was like just after. The music in 1962 sounds completely historical to music in 1972 for example and The Beatles were absolutely one of the major reasons for that.
 
Beatles - Massively overrated imo. They broke a mould in the early 60s and ran out out of credible ideas after four or five years. Important because of the time they 'hit the scene', but in reality, Lennon and McCartney were no better than Difford and Tilbrook in Squeeze.

Queen - Again, massively overrated as a group. A few memorable songs, pretty much all the work of one of the world's genuine music talents, Freddie Mercury. The rest of the band could have been made up of any available session musicians hanging around the studios.

It's all subjective.
 
Uncle Wally One Ball said:
Thats all it is, musical taste and opinion. I love all music and those who make it and play it. In answer to the OP, personally I like morw Beatles music than I do Queen's music, but I respect them both for being world changing bands which is what they are. As are the Stones and The Who. Its not a competition. All musos play on eachothers songs and makings, they dont see it as ranking or competing and neither should the listener. Music people and instrumentalists share and help eachother and contribute to one another. We should embrace it like they do, not grade them
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The bit in bold is the important bit for me (unless it's Oasis & Blur ;-) ).

Are The Beatles overrated - yes, in my humble opinion but they are still brilliant and some of their better stuff will be remembered forever (how many artists can you say that about)?

Queen - similar to the Beatles in that their highs are brilliant but too many songs for me to ignore..........
 
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