In Search of Beatles Rock but not Pop

Thank you everyone for so many thoughtful replies. Zaikesman -- superb post!

Your point about every song being an uncontestable masterpiece is exactly what I was talking about and why I was wondering if I was missing something, so your comments were a bit of a relief. Perhaps some people take Beatlemania a bit too far which I am sure was also fueled by John Lennons death.

But like your nod to Mozart, I am happy to "acknowledge (their) genius" and do want to spend more time with them and will try to take all of these comments on board.

FYI, I was born in 1964, high school 82, college 86, which ,to my mind, makes me somewhat musically homeless. The Beatles, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin were a bit before my time.

I thought I was pretty cool listening to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin in 3rd grade on my Soundesign "stereo" with plastic speakers but probably didn't get it as much as I thought I did at the time.

In Junior High and High school, "new wave" was gaining in popularity -- bands like Devo, the B-52s, Talking Heads, Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello were popular where I grew up in Virginia Beach -- a wannabe California with a strong surfing pop cultural vibe despite the tiny waves and with suburban "old school" skateboard ramps made with stolen plywood.

Further to musical homelessness, my taste seemed to be stuck in between these two genres of pop/rock. I wasn't quite old enough to be versed in Hendrix, but a lot of the pop/new wave stuff that was considered so cool by my peers I found pretentious and lacking in legs.

So I was also listening to a bit of jazz, a bit of classical and curiously exploring some dreadful "audiophile" recordings and performances which I nonetheless loved for their "ear candy" qualities. (By that time, I had upgraded the Soundesign system -- a Technics receiver with Infinity Qa's was quickly replaced with Hafler amps and Maggie MG-1b's.) I also really loved Stevie Wonder who was certainly on the pop charts but by no means considered "cool" at the time.

If anyone has any opinions on the darker, more psychadelic Beatles albums/songs to focus on, I will continue my tour there. I would also be curious -- with no disrespect to the songwriting genius that was involved, what songs/albums would Beatles fans agree are the sappiest/poppiest?

To Cwlondon's original request ... the understanding of the Beales' music & evolution ...

Some good insight can be found in two books written by Walter Everett ... "The Beatles as Musicians." These two volumes are not always as easy read, but they help put the music into perspective.

You could just pick up any Oasis LPs who for the past 6 years have been trying to replicate/honour their love of the Beatles. They just released a record on 07/02/2002 called "Heathen Chemistry". I would rate "Whats the Story Morning Glory" and their 1st LP "Definately Maybe" and "the Masterplan" which compiles some of their very good B Sides as good places to start.

Swaggering, pompous and in your face modern renditions of Beatles inspired tunes which ROK.

Cw-you were born the same year as me,I can understand your comments totally,I didn't really seriously listen to the Beatles till about 6 years ago.......................

Some superb posts here, particularly Zaikesman, and a great thread. One aspect of the evolution of the Beatles' music which doesn't seem to be mentioned above is the emergence of "Album Rock" from the top 40 AM-based radio that took place starting in 1967-68 or so. Remember, most songs, to get any airplay on AM, had to be 3 minutes long or less, and the Beatles' earlier work was tailored to meet that restriction. It wasn't till Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" (which initially was played without the last two verses) that some of the longer, more complex work came to be played on AM radio, and then FM album rock stations started to spring up (WNEW FM here in NY, for example) which would play full album cuts, thereby freeing up the artists from the restrictions pop radio put on them. The Beatles' earliest work was geared for airplay; their later work was not all masterworks by any means, but clearly involved more complex music and lyrics and longer cuts. To some extent, I think you can probably attribute album rock and FM stations to the emerging maturity of the Beatles and their progeny; who knows, maybe you can draw an analogy to classical music, with the evolution from the Classical to the Romantic periods, as composers broke from the strictures of form to put more and more emotion into their music. Food for thought, anyway.