On 10/12/2010 1:06 AM, Bryan wrote:
> On Dec 9, 2:43 pm, Doug > wrote:
>> Dave Smith wrote:
>>
>>> Poppycock. The Beatles are the exception. While their music may have
>>> been rejected by the older generation at the time, it was later embraced
>>> by people of all ages.
>>
>> It will take over a century before they can be compared to Beethoven,
>> Mozart, Bach and Wagner. Until then they are the most popular musicians
>> of the last century almost without peer (showing my puzzlement over why
>> anyone is impressed with Elvis).
>>
>>> I was first exposed to the Beatles in 1964, 46
>>> years ago. Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear Beatle music played on
>>> the radio or in malls and restaurants. I was a teen when they were in
>>> their heyday.
>>
>> I was in elementary school for most of their time releasing new songs
>> and doing concerts. I remember that it was a common topic of
>> conversation that someone had figured out the words to another line of
>> the latest Beatles song. It was almost invariably wrong. This gave me
>> a long term impression that rock songs aren't intended to have words.
>> There are some bands and singers with good clear diction. Some of the
>> most popular, including the Rolling Stones and Beatles, have many songs
>> that can only be understood by reading the written lyrics. In many
>> songs the actual phonetics in the recorded song are defintely not what
>> is written.
>
> I'm glad you mentioned the Stones because I'd say that more truly
> great songs came from Jagger/Richards than Lennon/McCartney, but
> whereas Lennon and McCartney were more coequal in the process, I think
> that Keith was the bigger genius in the Stones' songwriting duo.
>>
>> In a way it was a part of the jazz singing tradition - The human voice
>> as a musical instrument.
>
> Jagger took Keith's vocal lines and transformed them into beautiful
> music, and the vocals on Sticky Fingers were sublime. In fact,
> everything about that album other than the first song was stunning.
> Brown Sugar was a nice pop song, but would have fit in much better on
> the earlier, Beggar's Banquet. Keith and Mick Taylor were magic
> together on Sticky Fingers, and the fact that both Jagger and Richards
> were less than hospitable to Taylor ended up breaking up the finest
> guitar duo of all time (sorry Johnny Thunders and Sylvain Sylvain).
>>
>>> My son was born more than a decade after they broke up,
>>> and he likes their music. Unlike most other performers, the Beatles
>>> have endured, and is the majority of the body of their work that has
>>> survived, not just one or two hit singles.
>>
>> They stand out like Michelangelo in carving. I remember a few of their
>> songs that were flops. In comparison I have had plenty of albums by
>> other bands where only one song was good enough to recognize a decade
>> later.
>
> There were bands who put out whole albums that were without a weak
> song. One that comes to mind is Steely Dan's Can't Buy a Thrill.
> Then there's Yes: Fragile; Ian Dury: New Boots and Panties; Mott the
> Hoople: All the Young Dudes; David Bowie: both Ziggy and Diamond
> Dogs. My gosh, Diamond Dogs was a great record. The Velvet
> Underground's "banana record" was another. Both NY Dolls records
> worked (back to Thunders-Sylvain). Oh, and while I mentioned the VU,
> I should have called attention to Transformer. Many folks would call
> attention to Are You Experienced?, but IMO, the pick Hendrix album is
> Axis: Bold As Love. The Crosby, Stills and Nash album was good all
> the way through, which reminds m e of Neil Young. Harvest, Everybody
> Knows This is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, and then there's Stills
> and Young's stuff with Buffalo Springfield.
> OK, I'll shut up now.
>


Those are all post Beatles albums. I had to agree about the Beatles
being the first group that produced albums on which there were multiple
hit songs. Before they came along it was typical for groups to have one
major hit on an album and the rest of the tracks were just cheap filler.

I don't know how much of that can be attributed to the group members and
how much should be blamed on the record companies and their producers.
There is no doubt that Lennon and MacCartney were a prolific song
writers while other groups of the time were singing songs written by
others and doing a lot of cover songs.