3 ms·

True, but there's also the tendency of people to look at a fairly rich period of change and wrongly attribute the new ideas to just one or two popular people/gr

by bnralt 5y ago

True, but there's also the tendency of people to look at a fairly rich period of change and wrongly attribute the new ideas to just one or two popular people/groups. This happens a lot with the Beatles (you even get extreme ideas like the Beatles creating the genre of rock) but it's not uncommon with other bands from the 60's either (Velvet Underground, to name one prominent example). If you listen to a lot of 60's music, you find a ton of interesting ideas coming from all over the place, and coming fast. It's interesting how something that sounds so out of place one year sounds pretty normal two or three years later. The Beatles did interesting stuff, but I haven't found a lot that seems ahead of it's time the way, say, the Kinks using power chords in '64 does.

JKCalhoun 5y ago
I don't know: fuzz bass, guitar feedback, orchestral pieces in a rock song, the "concept album", reverse guitars/vocals, countless other studio tricks. I read Geoff Emrick's book "Here, There and Everywhere" and he goes into great detail on the new ground the Beatles forged. Interesting to me too reading about it, they would create/introduce something new like a tape loop, use it on just one song, and then move on. Where other bands would define their entire sound by just such a novelty.
- bnralt 5y ago
  The thing is, people tend to exaggerate how many of these the Beatles actually were first with. For example, here's fuzz bass from 1961[1], and another instrumental from 1961 with a lot of fuzz[2]. Both by Grady Martin, who's hardly a household name. There was a lot of musical experimentation during this time period coming form all over. There's a tendency to collapse all of that to just a few popular bands, and then pretend they're the lone geniuses who invented everything. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2WBBcH6OPU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2WBBcH6OPU [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL6MNGHeEuI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL6MNGHeEuI
  - galaxyLogic 5y ago
    It is true but consider also that whoever made the first song with a new tech which became popular actually was the first to truly make it work well enough to make it popular.

by bnralt 5y ago

JKCalhoun 5y ago

I don't know: fuzz bass, guitar feedback, orchestral pieces in a rock song, the "concept album", reverse guitars/vocals, countless other studio tricks. I read Geoff Emrick's book "Here, There and Everywhere" and he goes into great detail on the new ground the Beatles forged. Interesting to me too reading about it, they would create/introduce something new like a tape loop, use it on just one song, and then move on. Where other bands would define their entire sound by just such a novelty.

bnralt 5y ago
The thing is, people tend to exaggerate how many of these the Beatles actually were first with. For example, here's fuzz bass from 1961[1], and another instrumental from 1961 with a lot of fuzz[2]. Both by Grady Martin, who's hardly a household name. There was a lot of musical experimentation during this time period coming form all over. There's a tendency to collapse all of that to just a few popular bands, and then pretend they're the lone geniuses who invented everything. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2WBBcH6OPU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2WBBcH6OPU [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL6MNGHeEuI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL6MNGHeEuI
- galaxyLogic 5y ago
  It is true but consider also that whoever made the first song with a new tech which became popular actually was the first to truly make it work well enough to make it popular.