The Beatles & Hustler Magazine
Oct. 19th, 2005 07:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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technoshaman complained about radio stations "playing the snot out of the Beatles" and says, "Heck, it wasn't even good."
I simply have to disagree. Scott McCloud in his Understanding Comics explains that once an artist reaches a certain stage of his art, he must make a decision: is he there to say something with his art, or about his art? Is his goal in reaching these heights of professional skill to produce moving works that are familiar to consumers, or to take the art and push it to its limit, to create new tropes that future generations of artists will exploit?
Listening to the earliest Beatles, albums such as Rubber Soul or Meet The Beatles, I remain startled by just how new and fresh the Beatles sounded. It may not be "new" in the sense that there were academic experiments that the Beatles co-opted later, but I cannot help but have the impression that Lennon and McCartney had their ears open to very new and fresh ideas in music and were ruthless in synthesizing those ideas into their music. Every album, they wanted to go someplace different, and they did. They managed to do this while churning out radio-worthy pieces that, yes, deserve a listen even today.
I had a similar reaction recently to a stash of Hustler magazines I stumbled across a few weeks ago. These were a box of the years 1977 through 1979, missing two issues I think, but almost intact. What struck me most about the series was the way everything in porn that we take for granted today Hustler did in the 1970s and mostly did it better. I can't think of many common tropes in modern porn that Hustler didn't cover in that three-year period: goth, loli, voluptua, post-menopausal, shaved heads, far-out locales, far-our costumery, messy scenes, various combinations of couplings. Hell, Hustler did a few things I've never seen in a magazine or photo-shoot since. Larry Flynt's photographers pushed the limits of what could be done within the censorious rules of the time by exploiting things outside the rules: oiling their models, or creating absurd scenarios, or using lighting that made the shoot seem explicit. These days, the models have better personal trainers and plastic surgeons (and thank the Gods hairstyles have improved!), but the layouts haven't changed a bit.
Neither The Beatles nor Larry Flynt may be considered the last word in the creation of rock'n' roll or pornography, but in their respective fields each made such an enormous leap forward in the production of their respective crafts that the world has changed because of them.
technoshaman complained about radio stations "playing the snot out of the Beatles" and says, "Heck, it wasn't even good."I simply have to disagree. Scott McCloud in his Understanding Comics explains that once an artist reaches a certain stage of his art, he must make a decision: is he there to say something with his art, or about his art? Is his goal in reaching these heights of professional skill to produce moving works that are familiar to consumers, or to take the art and push it to its limit, to create new tropes that future generations of artists will exploit?
Listening to the earliest Beatles, albums such as Rubber Soul or Meet The Beatles, I remain startled by just how new and fresh the Beatles sounded. It may not be "new" in the sense that there were academic experiments that the Beatles co-opted later, but I cannot help but have the impression that Lennon and McCartney had their ears open to very new and fresh ideas in music and were ruthless in synthesizing those ideas into their music. Every album, they wanted to go someplace different, and they did. They managed to do this while churning out radio-worthy pieces that, yes, deserve a listen even today.
I had a similar reaction recently to a stash of Hustler magazines I stumbled across a few weeks ago. These were a box of the years 1977 through 1979, missing two issues I think, but almost intact. What struck me most about the series was the way everything in porn that we take for granted today Hustler did in the 1970s and mostly did it better. I can't think of many common tropes in modern porn that Hustler didn't cover in that three-year period: goth, loli, voluptua, post-menopausal, shaved heads, far-out locales, far-our costumery, messy scenes, various combinations of couplings. Hell, Hustler did a few things I've never seen in a magazine or photo-shoot since. Larry Flynt's photographers pushed the limits of what could be done within the censorious rules of the time by exploiting things outside the rules: oiling their models, or creating absurd scenarios, or using lighting that made the shoot seem explicit. These days, the models have better personal trainers and plastic surgeons (and thank the Gods hairstyles have improved!), but the layouts haven't changed a bit.
Neither The Beatles nor Larry Flynt may be considered the last word in the creation of rock'n' roll or pornography, but in their respective fields each made such an enormous leap forward in the production of their respective crafts that the world has changed because of them.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-20 04:06 am (UTC)The Beatles pioneered a lot of stuff, sure. Orchestral moves, the precursors to the rock opera, heck, just the idea of British rockers on American soil. Stuff that outfits like Queen and the Who took and ran with, which eventually led to The Wall and the Symbols album (does Led Zep IV have an official name?) But when a station in Atlanta ups and changes format to All Beatles, All The Time, you know damn well it's gone way over the top and a long way down the other side. (That tidbit off Wikipedia within the last week.) It hasn't gotten that bad here yet, but I seriously think it was in danger of doing so.
As for quality. De gustibus non est disputandum, but I'll put Night at the Opera or Days of Future Passed up against anything out of Liverpool, and "Bohemian Rhapsody" in particular. And there's staying power; Brian May and Justin Heyward are still poking about, and Sir Michael and Sir Elton are still bringing down houses from here to Hong Kong. Admittedly classical isn't a field where one exactly makes a splash, Sir Paul, but.... and then there's Fleetwood Mac, who even managed to hang on to all their members. Admittedly two-fifth Yank, but...
Yes. The Fab Four irrevocably changed the landscape of rock and roll as we know it. But there were so many bands piled up there that one of them would have been the breakout act: Rolling Stones, The Who, The Animals, The Kinks, Manfred Mann, The Yardbirds, etc.... and my money is on Sir Michael, the man with the bloody MBA from Oxford... (This is why the Stones are, ahh, rolling in it after forty-one years of rocking it night after night... Jagger's got the noodle for numbers and the sheepskin to prove it. But I digress.) That and the Yardbirds... no way the Brits could keep a monopoly on God, it's just Not Done.
But if you look at that list and consider their various specialities (straight-ahead rock, rock opera, edgy bubblegum, psychadelic, pop, and blues)... I'm not saying the Beatles were irrelevant; you simply can't sell that many albums and not be... but I think the honor of being first is, at least in this case, more than just a little overrated.
(Oh, and let's not forget that "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" needed Clapton on the Les Paul to make it complete.)
But that's just me. If you want to throw the entire discography on shuffle, be my guest; just don't tie me up and make me listen.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-20 12:04 pm (UTC)Never 'got' it somewhow, but yes, sometimes someone will show me a connection between current music and the Beatles, and I'll be amazed.