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How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll

Das — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:59:25 +0000

Book Review: How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll

An Alternative History of American Popular Music

HTBDR&R is an exhaustively researched history of popular music, analyzed in excruciating detail from its rural African-American songbook, through jazz, swing, and R&B, all the way up to relatively modern times.

Unfortunately for readers, it’s also an exhausting read (as 75 pages of footnotes attests to), appearing in the form of a thesis written for undergraduates to wade through, quote from, and pretend to agree with before racing home and crankin’ up ‘She Loves You’ on their laptops and ipod docks, dancing their bespectacled tushies around dorm rooms until the last of the Red Bull wears off. Afterwards they remove the elbow padded tweed jackets and enter the land of golden slumbers where Blue Meanies sing duets with bands named after wolves and bears. I digress.

The book never quite lives up the potential of its fantastic title, which the publisher warned us before mailing out a copy, “is meant to attract attention, debate and controversy.”

Nor does the promise ever realize the heights touched upon in the brilliant opening remarks by the author,

The idea of a steady progression from ragtime to rap is tempting to a historian because it shows a clear live of development over an extended period of time. And if one accepts that continuum, then the Whiteman orchestra and the beatles played very similar roles: not as innovators but as rear guarding holding actions, attempting to maintain older, European standards as the streamlining force of rhythm rolled over them. Within the small world of music nuts, there have always been some who regard the beatles in just this way. In their view, rock is rooted in African-American music, and it’s evolution was from blues and R&B through Little Richard, Ruth Brown, and Rat Charles toward James Brown and Aretha Franklin, and on to Parliament/Funkadelic and Grandmaster Flash.

By the time the beatles hit, still playing the rhythms of Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins, that style was already archaic and their contributions were to resegregate the pop charts by distracting white kids from the innovations of the soul masters, to diffuse rock’s energy with effetely sentimental ballads like “Yesterday” – paving the way for Simon and Garfunkel, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Elton John, and Billy Joel – and then to drape it in a robe of arty mystification, opening the way for the Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, Yes, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. In other words, rather than being a high point of rock, the beatles destroyed rock‘n’roll, turning it from a vibrant black (or integrated) dance music into a vehicle for white pap and pretension.

The incredible scope of this tome can’t help but draw the author in meandering circles, distracting his focus and causing him never quite hit the mark, instead he only glances a few limp wristed blows against the broad side of the creaking old plastic surgery enhanced, steroid impregnated barn we call the FF.

Nevertheless, books on subjects as important as this are rare. These pages contain a wealth of interesting material, and some strong points are touched upon. It happily reinforces the fact that the FF whitewashed rock music by sweetening it with an unthreatening candy coating, causing white America to listen to the same songs which had been shunned when performed by the original artists with energy, emotion, inspiration and real danger, all of which horrified and repulsed them.

It’s hard to say anything negative about a book which Tom Waits claims, “nailed me to the wall,” and is “suave, soulful, ebullient and will blow out your speakers.” Then again, Tom Waits also once said, “The stories behind most songs are less interesting than the songs themselves,” and this may be the story of this book.

If you’d like to read more about the beatles and learn how to distinguish between articulate, cutting edge rock ‘n’ roll and bombastic, bubblegum claptrap, I heartily recommend our dear friend Gary Hall’s insightful treatise on the subject:

Living Life without Loving the Beatles – A survivors guide.

If you order directly from Gary your copy will be lovingly signed by the author.

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When the Beatles roamed the earth

Das — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:01:24 +0000

A History Channel Documentary

1000 years ago today, the Beatles roamed the earth.

This video is not meant to be a joke, but a warning. The beatle-blind masses have already begun re-writing history to deify not only the music and lives of the Fab Four, but every fuzzy dinky drizzle of banality as well. Each doodle and every shopping list ever jotted down by a Moptop is in the process of being bronzed, framed or sold on the black market to mongoloid billionaires and helpless, brainwashed addicts.

Click here to watch the horror unfold: A History Channel Documentary from the Future: Beatles 3000

Enjoy!
Thanks to our friend Bobby for the link.

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Reason #263- Perspectives

Das — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:17:55 +0000

John Lennon's Stigmata

One of the main goals of this site has been to put the music of the beatles into perspective. We wish to staunch the flow of blood from the eyes of St. John’s statue, to bring St. Paul down from the mount. It worries us when we overhear people in the street saying things like, “I bear on my body the stígmata of the moptops.”

Admittedly, we continue to fall short of our goals. Some might even say we’ve failed miserably. According to the gospel of St. George, ‘Life goes on within and without you,’ so we’ve decided to give voice to two some visitors to this site. Please allow them to whisper words of wisdom into your ear. Carefully consider both sides of their arguments, try and understand where the speakers are coming from. Step outside of the beatle regime, or step inside, and please listen to both perspectives with an open mind.

First we’ll hear Alissa’s incisive thoughts:

k so fuck you. the beatles are the best thing music has ever seen. fuck everyone who disagrees. and fuck this page.

you gotta have no life to accually start a page on anti beatles. come on, get a life.

And secondly, Peter’s argument:

A lot of music has been made since the beatles heyday. music that is far more harmonically refined and melodically intricate. as far as i can tell beatles fans are desperately hanging onto some banal musical ideal that has more to do with a cultural (not musical) phenomenon and the cult of personality. most of the people i know who are beatles fans are the following -

middle aged men who have not applied themselves to any form of musical training (formal or otherwise) who spew out crazy statements to make them feel they have some authority.

people who have taken WAY TOO MANY drugs in the past(and present).

when pressed, people who have little to no opinion about other musics. or opinions with any kind of musical depth.

people who still buy paul mc cartney solo albums and say they are garbage but cannot get past their obsessive compulsive disorder with everything that is the beatles.

music is not merely a treat for a gourmet. it is an art form and at the heart of that form are ideas. the ideas behind the beatles are pretty simple – it is pop music. music that was made for a short time in the history of music a long time ago. stop being myopic and go listen to A LOT of different music. ALL music will be better for it.

As you can see, we’re faced with two side of the same coin. Consider these arguments carefully and make an informed decision.

Suck my beatles would like to thank Alissa and Peter for participating.

SuckMyBeatles evaluates and guarantees the accuracy of all content. For more information, read the Full Disclaimer. Opinions expressed by the Advisors are their own and usually reflect the views of SMB. SMB receives a large compensation from many manufacturers and distributors, and compensates all advisors for the coverage of any product or service in any advisor’s content.

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Reason # 510 – Ringo is busy…being delusional

Das — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 03:19:26 +0000

Please, everyone, stop sending Ringo fan mail. The man is very busy with his…well, thats irrelevant. Lets just say Ringo hates you. So please, just leave the man alone. Continue to buy his merchandise, but leave him in peace with your money.

Incidentally, it makes you wonder what’s worse – sending fan mail to the drummer of a pop band that broke up nearly forty years ago, sending fan mail to Ringo Starr in 2008, or Ringo actually answering it?

Click here to view the embedded video.

In other words,

Peace, love, and piss off.
Ringo.

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Reason # 846 – Texans rejoice as McCartney’s face smashed in

Das — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 12:55:54 +0000

Hats off to the Lone Star State!

For over a year brave Texans were forced to suffer under the terrible shadow of the FF regime (details here). Now, finally, one of the darkest chapters in Texas history can be closed.

It began innocently enough, MopTop saturation was little more than an irritation. A pimple on the ass of a thriving music scene. Slowly it began to grow more pervasive, trickling into their culture like hazardous waste seeping from a landfill. Soon it was tainting and watering down vital and innovative music, driving a stake through the heart of the community. Finally, the oppressive beatlemart went too far and decided it was time to destroy and defile the beautiful Texan landscape, completely wiping out any semblance of original or independent thought in the fine people who reside there. Four colossal idols were erected. A testament to the reign of fanatical nostalgia. They towered over the land, shadows spreading fear and bad music across the state.

Angry Texans had reached their breaking point. Annoying honest citizens with limp-wristed musical soda pop is one thing, but to take away freedom, country, and music – beatlemart messed with the wrong people this time. Battle-cries of ‘Remember the Alamo’ rallied citizens and the battle of Summer Street (next to the Target) began and ended in less than 8 minutes, securing Texas independence from FF fascism. The toppled statue of McCartney sent a clear message to the rodents at beatlemart, hopefully one that will deter similar ventures not only in the US, but thoughout the world – Don’t Tread On Us.

Unfortunately there is no footage of the battle, but we suspect it looked something like this:

Click for full sized image

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Reason # 668 – Buy a Beatle Album for Christ

Das — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 19:30:59 +0000

Following the plummeting sales of FF albums in the United States, Beatlemart has decided to search for revenue in one of its biggest untapped markets, the Christians. Obviously there are a few existing Christian beatle fans already, but real god fearing Christians would just as soon allow a lesbian priest to perform an abortion.

You’ve probably seen the headlines screaming across the globe like Ono looking for her glove in the snow, The Beatles: A Christian Band?, The Ballad of John and Jesus. Its an inspired new campaign thats taking the world by storm. The sudden backpedaling claim that not only was John Lennon not Jesus, he was actually his biggest fan!

Believe it or not, the ploy is working. This story has already graced Christianity Today and Belief.net. The next step is to justify the beatles and Lennon in the eyes of the lord. Imagine there’s no Heaven? Bigger than Jesus? Compared with the scandals the church has been whitewashing for the past fifty years, let alone historically, the FF were a couple of choirboys. Hell, if the church could convince Catholic priests to remain celibate for their entire lives for the sole reason of avoiding offspring who might make claims on its property, selling the beatles to a bunch of kids already warped and scarred by Christian Rock will be a piece of cake.

It won’t be long before sermons begin incorporating beatleitudes and the Gospel according to John: Part deux, in the same way that U2charist has beatified Bono and the lads…which brings to mind a joke:

A musician dies and goes to heaven. St. Peter meets him at the pearly gates and leads him towards the sound of some incredible music off in the distance. They soon reach the source and discover Jimi Hendrix jamming with Miles Davis. Keith Moon is on drums. Jaco Pastorius on bass, Art Tatum on keys. Amazed, the man looks around and sees famous musicians everywhere. All of his musical idols are there.
‘Is that Charlie Patton?’ He asks.
‘Yes, of course it is.’ Replies St. Peter.
Alone in a corner he spots another unmistakable figure.
‘Is that…Bono over there? I didn’t even know he was dead!’
St. Peter sighed.
‘Thats not Bono, its God. He thinks he’s Bono.”

You might be wondering what exactly is in it for the Christians. We’ll leave the theological issues for somebody else to deal with and simply sum it up with:

To end this properly, here’s an illustrated reenactment originally found in a passage from the gospel according to Ringo 20:1-6, the Ballad of John and Jesus:

The Ballad of John and Jesus (.pdf, 222kb) To Save Right Click and ‘Save As’

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buy beatles albums

100 Reasons Why The Beatles Suck

Das — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 13:26:57 +0000

We received this fantastic list in the mail and decided it deserves to be shared.

The sender has no clue where it originated, if you have any idea please drop us a line.

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Reason #930 – I Heal Fine

Das — Sat, 10 May 2008 21:54:20 +0000

By the height of beatlemania many fans had completely lost their minds. A combination of bad music played at mind-numbing volumes, media manipulation, and complete global saturation resulted in a state of what could only be called ‘forced retardation.’

The average beatle fan suffered not only a loss of intelligence, but a loss of reality. Beatle blind pilgrims searched desperately for secret messages and salvation on album covers and cereal boxes. A few even went so far as to try finding meaning in their music. Delirium raged and the moptops were suddenly elevated to the status of prophets and snake handlers.

Fans began bringing disabled children to their concerts, convinced that with a word or a gesture the four wise men from Liverpool would heal them. It didn’t end there, mentally and physically handicapped people of all ages were wheeled backstage for a shot at salvation. Thalomide kids with deformed and missing limbs, the blind, people with crutches, canes, wheelchairs, and oxygen tents. Understandably, the only people who didn’t want to be healed by the beatles were the deaf.

These poor misguided people, or spastics as Lennon commonly referred to them, may have pinned their hopes of salvation on the wrong lads.

Ringo: “people would bring in these terrible cases and leave them in our dressing room. They’d go off for tea or whatever, and they would leave them behind. If it got very heavy we would shout, “Mal, cripples!” and that became a saying, even when there were no handicapped people present. If there were any people around we didn’t like, we’d should, “Mal, cripples!” and they’d be escorted out.”

George: “John was allergic to cripples. You could see he had a thing about them; I think it was a fear or something. …We’d come out of the band room to go to the stage and we’d be fighting our way through all these poor unfortunate people.”

John: “When we would open up, every night, instead of seeing kids there, we would see a row full of cripples along the front. When we’d be running through, people would be lying around. It seemed that we were just surrounded by cripples and blind people all the time, and when we would go through corridors they would all be touching us … They’d line them up, and I got the impression The Beatles were being treated as bloody faith healers …”

-source: The Beatles Anthology, pages 142-143

Honestly, it would be really uncomfortable for anyone suddenly thrust in that position. Regardless of what they may have said or thought, you can be sure they held only the utmost respect and compassion for those unfortunate people who not only had to overcome incredibly debilitating, life shattering obstacles; they also had to sit through beatles concerts.

Lets end this on a brighter note. Here’s a clip of some of that respect and compassion in action:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Reason # 141 – The Beatles Sucked, claims another former Beatle

Das — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:34:23 +0000

Hot on the heels of our Liverpool Ache and other turd related exposés, Ringo Starr has finally relented his stance.

Stepping down from his throne on Mount OhLoveUs in order to grant the mortals of Ireland Online an interview, for the first time he delivered a testament of truth. Basking in the awe of his godlike status, fans of this formidable skin tapper were moved to tears of joy as he entered the hallowed halls of…well, thats not important. It’s rumored that a reporter in attendance accidentally touched his cloak, and began singing in tongues before scribbling words of wisdom in his gilded Sgt Pepper’s notebook.

Ringo stood before the congregation, slowly raising his magical scepter. He opened his mouth to speak, and the words he uttered fell upon the terrified audience like a plague of flying dung beetles, ‘The beatles turned into an awful band.’ Tears of joy turned into tears of horror and blind rage. Lives were shattered, reduced to a meaningless confetti of memorabilia and warped 45s. A billion empty beatleheads squinted blindly in the harsh light of reality, and wriggled vainly to find cover in their malodorous piles of nostalgia.

Although Ringo finally admitted to the world the truth about the money grubbing fab four’s fraudulent claims to rock pedagogy, he quickly weakened and began to backpedal so quickly that he careened recklessly into the trusty old fall-back, “…because we literally couldn’t hear ourselves over the screaming from the audience.”

Ah, so close. For a brief moment the world made sense. At least Lennon had the balls to stand behind what he said:

Lets end on a note from happier times, here is a rare 1972 image of Ringo granting wishes via Ringovision:

Source: Ireland Online

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Reason #357 – The Beatles will Rot Your Teeth

Das — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 18:48:07 +0000

Everyone has experienced this familiar scenario:

You see an ad for food that looks so great that next time you go out you make it a point to pick up some of that delicious looking delicacy. When you sit down to feast, you discover it only vaguely resembles what you saw in the photo or the commercial, and it tastes like the ass end of a mule on laxatives.

Why does this slop look so good in ads, but not when you get it? Its possible you’re a crummy cook or you’ve encountered an unstable fast food worker, but realistically the most likely reason is that the food you see isn’t meant to be eaten, its created by ‘food stylists’ to look good. Its poisonous and it will kill you.

Why do those Corn Flakes Lennon loved to sing about so much look so nice sitting in a bowl of milk? Its not milk, its white glue. Burgers are sprayed with glycerin and painted to make them look moist and juicy, as well as cut up and shaped from behind to fill out the bun. That beautiful roast turkey has been washed in dish detergent, cooked briefly, painted with ten coats of food colouring, and blow torched to give it that roasted look. The syrup being poured over pancakes? Motor oil. The secret to juicy, delectable BBQ ribs? Half-cook them and paint with wood stain and BBQ sauce. That cold, refreshing bottle of beer with beads of condensation clinging to it? A thick, clear gelatin product called Ice powder. Cake? Styrofoam with icing. Ice Cream? Mashed potatoes and food colouring. Hot steam rising from this fresh from the oven creation? Cigarette smoke blown through a straw.

This deception isn’t considered lying, its considered a good sales strategy. Most people know that the food they see on TV is fake, but they buy it anyway. They don’t care its a two-dimensional fraud, backed up by a snappy jingle which is replayed hundreds of times a day so the name becomes impossible to forget. They don’t care that it actually has very little nutritional value and the labels are completely misleading (MSG is still used in foods that proclaim that they’re MSG FREE, they simply either change the name to a variation of ‘hydrolyzed soy protein,’ or flat out lie), the ingredients cheap, the flavor created in a laboratory (what the hell is ‘natural flavor’ anyway?).

People still buy this stuff because they don’t care. Its easy, they’re conditioned to like fake food, and they have no taste. These are the beatle fans of food.

Its the same illusion that allows FF fans to pretend this music is good, healthy, or worth digesting. They don’t like to think about it. They prefer music presented as sugar coated, mass marketed, pre-digested bite-sized lumps, repackaged in shiny wrappers and served on a platter of psychedelic swirls and mundane mediocrity. The beatles are the Pizza Pops of music. How else can you explain something like this:

We hope this whirly mixture of toffee cookies and fudge peace signs enlightens your bellies and souls and makes you ask what you can do to promote peace in your lives. -Ben & Jerry

Or this?

Its now very obvious that John Lennon was talking about fudge peace signs and toffee cookies when he wrote Imagine, not some stupid message of world peace…duh! Finally fans can rot their teeth while they rot their minds.

When you compare the mass marketed bubble gum claptrap* that creates the bulk of the beatles easy-to-swallow repertoire to actual bubble gum, the similarities are uncanny. The simple, inoffensive, safe melodies and lyrics perpetrated by this overblown boyband and the unholy following Madison Avenue has created behind them becomes nothing more than a bunch of lazy lab rats, too stupid to leave their wide open cages, opting instead to sit in the darkness on their overgrown haunches and chew on grease stains clinging to the discarded wrappers of yesterdays swindle.

Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game.
It’s easy!

*Thanks to Gary Hall for this expression.