<< the beatles: 1) produced about one
album a year for a decade, 2) had top 10 songs from virtually every album,
3) basically set the direction for popular music through its most varied and
productive decade, 4) pioneered new recording techniques (read "sessions"),
5) successfully introduced politics to top 40 radio, 6) are cited by the
vast majority of musicians as an influence, ....
>>
There was nothing really incredible about the early music of the Beetles.
Even they admit that their early stuff was pretty basic and quite often their
version of other artists' music. Consequently, the ability to put out a
record every years for ten years is not that much of a feat. After all, let's
look at the great jazz musicians and singers. They often put out 2 or 3
records in any given year, each with different arrangements AND had time to do
continuous touring and live shows. The fact that each album had top 10 songs,
does not necessarily attest to their level of talent, only to their ability to
become popular (again, I'm not saying that they didn't have any talent) after
all, the Back Street Boys are very popular right now, but I doubt many people
on this list would give them much credit for having much talent.
I'm not sure of your definition of the term "sessions", so I can't comment on
that.
As far as introducing politics to top 40 radio, their songs weren't really
political until the late 60s, after they had established their teeny bopper
following, and after they had reached the status of being able to get just
about anything played on the radio. Black artists did not have that luxury.
If they weren't singing happy, feel good music and dancing and smiling on
stage, then they were NOT going to get airtime from anybody. Top 40 radio
STILL is weary of playing politically charged music by black musicians, just
look at how marginalized Public Enemy was after people actually listened to
what they were saying and realized that they weren't just a bunch of black
ghetto kids rapping about partying and drinking 40s.
As far as being sighted as an influence....its hard not to influence people if
your music is played everywhere you go and is shown on TV day after day. If
you lived during that time, you were influenced by them. But people who say
they were influenced by the Beetles were most likely indirectly influenced by
the pioneers of rock and roll, people like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and
Chubby Checker. I would actually give the Rolling Stones more credit than the
Beetles.
And for the record, I never stated or meant to imply that the Beastie Boys
created rap....just that they adapted it to their own style and did something
original with it. Does that make them better than the many who went before
them? NO. Does it make them the best rap group ever? NO (but that's what
many people would argue, simply because of the number of top 10 hits or
records sold).
Well, that's 2 more cents for everybody...
Greg