Prepare to join the ranks of those who hold me in their disdain.
I'm so tired of hearing about how The Beatles are "far and away" the greatest band of all time. I'm sick of being told I should bow down to the altar our parents built for us to worship in memory of the group.
It's the 40th anniversary of the British Invasion, and I don't care.
My whole life it seems that I've known how much I should love The Beatles. Thanks to the heavy rotation they received on my father's oldies station, they were the first band I ever called my favorite. The fact is, I wasn't even in kindergarten and they were the only group I could name.
I think it's the same for most people today. Ask any so-called informed listener who the greatest and most influential band of all time was, and the odds are embarrassingly high they'll say The Beatles without even thinking of another contender.
I've sat through far too many rants about how everything we know would be different today if it weren't for the Fab Four. When I would try to speak up in protest, I felt much like I would assume it felt to be a Protestant at the time of the Spanish Inquisition.
Want to start a quick heated debate in a college lecture hall? Forget about abortion, affirmative action and the upcoming election. Just announce that The Beatles are the most overrated band ever.
You'll be called an ignorant fool before their defender's jaws hit the desks in front of them. It's like a gag reflex for some of these people. After all, how dare you question what you've been told for coming up on two decades?
I'll admit they were an incredible band, worthy of a lot of praise. They were a fantastic melody generating machine for 10 solid years. Their stuff is some of the most influential stuff ever, to be certain. It might even be fair to say that music wouldn't be the same at this point if The Beatles hadn't come along when they did.
But there are factors that need to be considered when talking about this group, aside from their music.
They came along in the '60s, one of the most turbulent and revolutionary decades of the 20th century. Just like people are dying for fresh air now, people needed someone deliver them from reality. And nothing works quite like a pop culture sensation to take people's minds off things, (just ask Janet and Justin).
Everything just fell in place for The Beatles when they came to the United States. After the screaming throngs of teen girls subsided, they were allowed to do as they pleased. They got funky with acid and kept cranking out killer melodies.
They then disbanded after a relatively short career, leaving people so hungry for more that they just couldn't help but refuse to believe anyone would ever be as good. This is the doctrine that is being passed down to our generation.
I don't think John Lennon, writer of "Revolution," would have much agreed with accepting force-fed ideas.
They are presently revered in a way I can only compare to the reverence granted to centuries-old authors and religious figures, like Martin Luther. People tell me that literally nothing would be the same today if it were not for this group of four musicians. That's simply going too far.
I'm tempted to proclaim that someone else would have been this driving musical force of change if The Beatles hadn't, but then I'd be just as guilty of making unsupportable and unarguable statements.
Surely Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys (particularly Brian Wilson), Elvis Presley, Duke Ellington, Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin deserve some of the credit for what music is today.
The Beatles were great, no question, but keep it in perspective. They wrote pop-songs better than anyone ever had. They didn't revolutionize or recreate music as an art form. They still mainly adhered to the chorus-verse song structure, and didn't stray far from the use of conventional guitars and drums. Despite the unique instrumentation used on the late albums, groups today are using the guitars and drums just like Buddy Holly. (And you're Mary Tyler Moore.)
It's really sad that I have to make this argument, because there will be those who will believe that I just don't appreciate their music. I enjoy plenty of their material and hold it in very high regard.
But their influence has been recognized, their songs appreciated. It's time to move on and consider what's happening in music today. Do you think the teen-agers of the '60s were all tied up about what had been happening in music in the '20s? They were living in the moment, even looking to the future.
Just as students of the 21st century should be.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
