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| McCartney (Left), Lennon (Mid-left), Starr (Mid-right), Harrison (Right) |
The Beatles: Shaping America, and Even the world.
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" By: The Beatles
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| The Beatles on the cover of LIFE Magazine |
I Wanna hold Your Hand” would become the first #1 hit on American charts. The Beatles had 2 performances on The Ed Sullivan show and were successfully booked for 2 Carnegie Hall Performances. The Beatles were even on a cover story for LIFE Magazine, which was America’s most popular magazine at that time. And on Feb. 7, 1964, on Pan Am flight 101, at 1:30 in the afternoon, in New York City, The Beatles would land in America and set the new Paradigm for musical artists throughout history. Before The Beatles, the old paradigm was this: Song writing teams were the norm (except the Beach Boys), Black male voices were dominant, the record producer had complete control, and it was a "people's music". But now the old American Paradigm would be shattered. The Beatles were the ones who set the standard for writing your own music, they put into place the self-contained, white electric guitar quartet became the new model, and The Beatles had total control over their own creative destinies. The record would be in the hands of the recording artists themselves from now on.
The Beatles vs. The Psychedelic Era
"Tomorrow never knows" By: The Beatles
"Another Brick In The Wall" By: Pink Floyd
"Tomorrow Never Knows" from the "Revolver" Album (which will be used many times throughout this blog because of it's influence) is one of the greatest Psychedelic Era songs by the Beatles ever written. The Beatles used The Tibetan Book of The Dead as the core influence. Because they did this, MANY artists in the Psychedelic Era would follow and use this exact same influence. One of these bands was Pink Floyd. Starting in the Psychedelic Era, Syd Barret, lead singer and artsitic visionary for Pink Floyd would get one of his direct influences from the Beatles. Many artists followed such as Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, and even Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys reacted to The Beatles British invasion and created the "Pet Sounds" album. LSD also played a huge role in the Beatles' lives, and in turn, every one's lives in the Psychedelic Era.
The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones
"Love You To" By:The Beatles
"Paint It Black" By: The Rolling Stones
Stephen Thomas Erlewine’s review:
The biggest miracle of Revolver may be that the Beatles covered so much new stylistic ground and executed it perfectly on one record, or it may be that all of it holds together perfectly. Either way, its daring sonic adventures and consistently stunning songcraft set the standard for what pop/rock could achieve. Even after Sgt. Pepper, Revolver stands as the ultimate modern pop album and it’s still as emulated as it was upon its original release.
The Rolling
stones, another one of the world’s biggest and most influential bands were
influenced and brought about by the Beatles. Andrew Oldham, a talent scout who
became manager for The Rolling Stones, would start their career by becoming the
“Anti-Beatles” and the “Bad-Boy” alternative of them. Their albums
“Aftermath” and “Their Satanic Majesty’s Request” were created and written in
response to The Beatles “Revolver” and “Sgt. Peppers” albums. After the Rolling
Stones copied The Beatles, many bands started to do the same thing, which is,
copying another band and doing the opposite of them. If the Beatles influenced The Rolling Stones,
who haven’t they influenced?
The Beatles vs. Carly Rae Jepsen
"Call Me Maybe" By: Carly Rae Jepsen
The next song was influential in both lyrics and Music, “Eleanor Rigby”. The lyrics are designed and written from a poet’s point of view. It’s a story about 2 people living adjacent to each other but never making a connection. It makes you think below the surface, for a deeper meaning, which many artists do today in their lyrics. Musically, “Eleanor Rigby” features a string quartet first implemented by the music producers Lieber and Stoller. It features spiking attacks from the string section in unison inspired by film composer Bernard Hermann for Alfred Hitchcock films. This string arrangement and musical writing by The Beatles would inspire any artist who used orchestral strings in their music. "Call Me Maybe" fit the bill, with it's sounds of orchestral spiking strings (Although the sound comes form a keyboard, it's still the same sound) as well as the lyrics being very similar with the female character trying to make a connection to the boy.
The Beatles vs. fun
"Hey Jude" By: The Beatles
"Some Nights" By: fun
Here we see the new paradigm of the Beatles making the white quartet band a standard. Although fun only has 3 members, (Ruess, Dost, and Antonoff ) The Beatles have influenced them in this way: their tight, harmony based vocalization. As The Beatles' Lennon, Harrison, and McCartney sing their harmonies, it is fun that does the same (Ringo Starr didn't sing much, a couple of solo songs such as Yellow Submarine and Octopus's Garden, but not much harmony. Those songs just mentioned also have vocal harmonization's by The Beatles as well). This standard of the White quartet, or any number of members for that matter, has gone on to influence all artists and bands just like the Beatles.
The Beatles vs. Justin Bieber
"Run For Your Life" By: The Beatles
"Boyfriend" By: Justin Bieber
Many are probably thinking, "The influence is that Justin Beiber is a girl?!" Well, no, but it has to do with the lyrics.
“Rubber
Soul” was another Beatles' album that not only marked the release of eastern Indian
influences with the song “Norwegian Wood”, but a mark in a different direction
of lyrics as well. They are now more persuasive, permanent and focused on
eclectic expansions of subject matter because of this album. If you hear a song about Jealousy,
those roots are coming from “Run for your life”. If there are lyrics of conflict, you can trace it back to “I’m looking through you”. And ever since Bob Dylan gave up his “finger-pointing songs” and his title of “spokesman for a generation”, the song “The Word” took over that role for generations to come. This, in turn, influenced an infinite amount of band’s lyrics today. As in the song "Boyfriend" by Justin Bieber, he wishes he was this girl's boyfriend, which would explain Jealousy. "Rubber Soul" was groundbreaking in the fact that it inspired so many people's lyrics. The real influence on Bieber was the influence of writing your own songs. If the Beatles never made that change, Justin Bieber would never be writing his own songs, and would have never become famous.
Conclusion
The Beatles were
not only an influence to others, but they themselves were influenced by so many
just the same. Because of this, there is one question left to be answered by
critics and people alike. Why didn’t the people who influenced
the Beatles get the credit? The Beatles were the ones who took the pieces of
all those artists’ elements, stuck them together, revised it under their own
imaginations, and caused the world of music to split into literally infinite
directions.
Name a band that came about during or after the time of The Beatles; you will
find a legacy within each and every one of those bands. These few examples are just a small portion of who The Beatles influenced, but with these artists being so popular and mainstream, I thought it would be a good idea to use them. It’s no coincidence
that The Beatles wrote a song that went a little something like this…
Apple Corps Ltd., .Logo of the Beatles. 2010. joystiq.comWeb. 30 Nov 2012. http://www.joystiq.com/2008/10/29/rumor-the-beatles-in-rock-band-mtv-and-apple-corps-tease-unpre/
Costa, John. A History of Rock and Roll. 7th. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2012. 615.
Print.
Leepson, Marc. "Rock Music Business." Editorial
Research Reports 1977. Vol. I. Washington:
CQ Press, 1977. 433-52. CQ
Researcher. Web. 22 Oct. 2012.
LIFE Magazine, . Beatles. 1964. pophistorydig.comWeb. 30 Nov 2012. http://www.pophistorydig.com/?tag=beatles-pop-culture.
The Beatles Appear on Ed Sullivan Show. N.d. Beatles-mania.comWeb. 30 Nov 2012 http://www.beatles-mania.com/bio.html.
The Beatles. N.d. telegraph.co.ukWeb. 30 Nov 2012. http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00789/beatles-460_789692c.jpg.
