Could we talk in detail about what exactly made them so good ?

Could we talk in detail about what exactly made them so good ?

no, not for another 30 min when somebody posts something similar

They were good singers, musicians and songwriters, plus they had good producers and arrangers. They had eclectic (for the time) music tastes, enabling them to incorporate different elements into their music and start trends.

yup

the most accurate thing ive seen posted about the beatles on this board desu

The

fact

of

Stop making fucking Beatles threads. They are shit and you know it.

Stop ruining this board with this shit and all the fucking rap threads

>incorporate different elements into their music
>take vague ideas from other bands and do them shitty and for 5 seconds at a time

lol wtf you talkin about. "Within You, Without You" isn't exactly vague, and it's a lot longer than 5 seconds. Get out of here fuckboy.

This. They were unique for the time when they started changing up their sound and experimenting with different styles. When they stopped playing live and became an all studio band their results helped change the way Rock music was both recorded and released. They helped make the album an artform and not just a collection of songs that weren't good enough to be singles.

their music was handcrafted by George Martin, the best Beatle

Also the fact that they figured out how to make *every* song its own microgenre by the end. The psychedelic years & The White Album are great examples - no songs on those releases sound anything like any other songs available. To this day, even!

He wouldn't have been able to "handcraft" them into what they became if it wasn't for the fact that the songs themselves were well written. Yes George Martin's arrangements went a long way into making the Beatles great, but you can't make a good arrangement without a good song, and John, Paul and George knew how the write good songs.

>2 master songwriters
>10/10 production
>very skilled musicianship on ryhthm section
>vocal harmonies
>universal appeal, friendly demeanor, and witty
>an orchestra and infinite record label money at their disposal
>beautiful lyrics
>great album art

This. Atleast from the Big 4 of famous music artists, The Beatles standout compared to Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Michael Jackson.

they stole whatever was the current American sound.
folkmusic dylan to psychedelia they stole the lot

starting with Rubber Soul they embraced studio experimentation and successfully took avant-garde ideas and integrated them into pop music

>use of non-standard harmony and melody notions
This isn't obvious; but The Beatles have songs riddled with non-standard harmony notions, even at a very basic level. The melody doesn't fall too far behind - it often straddles the line between major and minor. In some cases, the songs may be borderline stupid simple - Paperback Writer is based around one chord with an I-V cadence at the "-ter" of "Writer". The bass is in myxolydian, however, and it's going pretty nuts.
>good control of compositional techniques
This is a bit odd to explain but taking Please Please Me as an example - that song uses non-diatonic chords, non-linear chord sequences, repeating motifs straddling instruments, hell, the chorus even breaks with the ten bar system. For a pop song, it's quite out there in terms of composition.
>ability to gather things from outside their musical zone of comfort
The Beatles were very unique in their ability to draw from pretty much anywhere. By Rubber Soul, George Harrison is implementing drones very subtly into his music - very common in Indian music; this is just an example, but they could draw out specific elements and mix them with their "base" so to speak quite easily.
>pop sensibilities
For a band that did all this, they're still ridiculously poppy... without necessarily pigeonholing themselves into pop. This is extremely difficult to do, actually.
>studio mastery
The Beatles needed help, mostly from George Martin but also from plenty of engineers, but the innovations that group led are still being used to this day, especially how we record bass and drums.
>above average musicianship
They weren't the most technical, but they knew how to play in a band setting and more importantly how to play off eachother. This is notable with Ringo but applies to pretty much everyone. Especially when it comes to rhythm, some of the rhythms on guitar can be punishingly hard to play.

they are called influences

While that is true, I hate it when people say "Beatles; so original."

those are just normies though

the beatles are pretty open about how they've been influenced by particular artists on their songs

even helter skelter was influenced by the who and that's considered one of the biggest influences of heavy metal

The fact that so many books still name the Beatles as "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success. The Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worthy of being saved.
In a sense, the Beatles are emblematic of the status of rock criticism as a whole: too much attention paid to commercial phenomena (be it grunge or U2) and too little to the merits of real musicians. If somebody composes the most divine music but no major label picks him up and sells him around the world, a lot of rock critics will ignore him. If a major label picks up a musician who is as stereotyped as can be but launches her or him worldwide, your average critic will waste rivers of ink on her or him. This is the sad status of rock criticism: rock critics are basically publicists working for major labels, distributors and record stores. They simply highlight what product the music business wants to make money from.

How are Beatles threads ruining this board? The ones that don't get derailed by trolls like yourself are among the highest quality of discussion on this trash board.

They combined a motown/soul-influenced rhythm section with rock guitars and traditional european melodies.

I mean, that's the basic formula for pop/power pop music as we know it:

1) a simple drum pattern that hits the downbeats hard
2) a walking, often syncopated bassline
3) prominent rock guitar that provides a countermelody
4) a vocal melody based on traditional usually major-key scales a la "Happy Birthday"

I mean, at this time, we had blues. We had rhythm and blues. We had jazz. We had soul and motown. We had rock n' roll. But we didn't really have pop rock the way we know it today.

And of course, as you know, after that, they became studio wizards.

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