The Beatles

PS: Especially for those of us of a "certain age", the Beatles were magic. Wonderful songwriters with something new and marvelous always up their collective recording sleeves. Joyous music makers, hip and witty commentators, they were the makers of the soundtrack of our lives. Like all great groups, they were greater than the sum of their individual parts, though they proved to be merely human in the end. If you are immune to the magic, fine. The Beatles really did change the world, if only the world of pop music. It's not required that one like them, but for anyone paying the slightest attention to popular culture, their importance should be self evident. I'm going to get off my soapbox now. Thank you. :-) Peace.

PPS: Tube groover, I'm *way* with you on Bruckner! Although I enjoyed singing the Te Deum, my classical collection goes from Brahms and Britten to Busoni, Buttersworth, Buxtehude, Byrd, Campra, et al. To each his own.

in his later years, beethoven wouldn't likely laugh 'cuz he couldn't much hear them. bet he could feel the soundwaves sweep over him, tho, as they do over me on every playing of the white album, sgt pepper, rubber soul and the rest. bet he would have smiled, as i smile when the first bars of "an die freude" are sung.

Hi Shubertmaniac, The Beatles as musicians is not what I find so very special. It was the music that the Beatles created that I find so very special. Hi Decay, wasn't it Clapton who made the guitar weep?

The quality of the Beatles' music was a secondary factor in their initial popularity. They were funny, cute (girls), loud (boys), and they hit an exploding demographic starved for something fresh. But their early albums were half covers. The amazing thing about them, as opposed to so many other pop-rock artists, is that they didn't coast on that. Their songwriting kept getting stronger, till their best work could stand with that of Berlin, Porter, and the great Tin Pan Alley songwriting teams (which is a much fairer comparison than Beethoven). Cute hooks? McCartney was the master, but hooks are essential to pop music of all ages. George Martin's skills as a producer didn't hurt, either. I still listen to them for the same reason I listen to renditions of Rogers & Hart (my parents' nostalgia fixation). However, one correction to Dekay: That's Clapton's guitar doing the weeping.