If The Beatles are the best rock and roll band then I’m not here. No way. Rock and Roll is about fear, it’s about straddling the border between sanity and insanity. It’s lucidity or total annihalation. The Beatles were never any of it, and only realized how far off the mark they were upon hearing Dylan’s mind blowing brilliance. Lennon himself admitted they weren’t even in the same league after hearing ‘Bringing It All Back Home’. Dylan wasn’t even that rock and roll himself yet he still put them to shame. I’m tired of hearing about how great The Beatles were and this new song is just boring sorry…

thats crazy i hadnt heard about this, back when free as a bird came out it had so much hype behind it .glad to see a bill hicks joke in there too travis

Everyone takes from rock and roll what they will commodore, there are many ways to look at it. I suppose thousands of screaming girls can’t all be wrong so it looks like I’m a stark raving lunatic on a hillside then..

“All of your musical credibility is gone when you rag on the Beatles”

Just how self serving is that comment? You like, I don’t. That’s really all there is to it. Oh, and Jordan was no Spud Webb…

I don’t think its self serving, as I was not in The Beatles. Detlef Schrempf was no Kurt Rambis.

Ohh Tolstoy,
To echo Joe’s comments a bit, go back and give a listen to REVOLVER. Yeah, Lennon himself would rag on the Beatles in Dylan’s name; but he was one of those artists with an ego matched step for step by an insecure sense of what, at times, bordered on self-loathing….

Much as I love Dylan’s awesome mid-60’s period (like many others, I consider it to have been his heyday) and revere him for the way he could twist the fuck out of words, my take on it is this: Dylan had a hand in inventing folk rock; but he wasn’t alone in doing it, as the Byrds (doing Dylan songs, yes…) were fairly instrumental in the birth of that genre, as were a number of other entities.

Great and all; but, aside from moving away from atraditional, almost straight up folky dust bowl sound, and adding electric instruments, what have we got there? Yes, the continued evolution of a great artist (before you come back half-cocked with a “hey, you don’t like Dylan?” blast,I thought I’d cut you off, so try another tack); but, not all that much in the way of invention as I see it.

On the other hand, when the Beatles came along, EVERYTHING about the world changed :Music (obviously), along with perceptions of everything from art in general to the role of youth and it’s burgeoning power in a society that changed almost daily after their arrival, to….

Well, name it.

On top of that, had it not been for the Beatles, it could well be said that Dylan may not have gained the audience he eventually did. How dare I say such a thing?

Read on.

While already well accomplished, the Dylan that entered 1964 wasn’t remotely considered a household name and, therefore, at the time had little or no great influence in terms of his words reaching the masses. Then, McGuinn and Crosby (by his own admission) heard the Beatles, loved their sound and wanted in on it for themselves. Thus, the Byrds; who, being from folk backgrounds and roughly in the same circle as Dylan, knew his stuff, liked it, and covered it.

With their new sound they freely admit was directly influenced by the Beatles. See where I’m heading here, Tolstoy?

That Beatles sound you seem so quick to dismiss Herr Tolstoy suddenly beams Dylan’s words straight into the heart of leafy, tree-lined Beaver Cleaver America– with the Beatles being the template, the Byrds the escorts and Dylan the passenger. And, yes, when he arrives without traveling he delivers in spades– so no one’s knocking Bob here.

But, if there’s no Byrds jangle taken from the Beatles to help deliver Dylan’s message, we can pretty well assume that most of the rest of the story would be radically different than it has been.

And while, yes, Dylan himself was also an influence on the Beatles, isn’t that kinda what great artists do, consciously or otherwise– give and take inspiration and/or influence from one another?

Dylan and the Beatles were BOTH influential, upon not only one another; but also the world, musical and otherwise as a whole. However, of the two, only the Beatles can be considered true inventors and innovators.

Like freaky-assed shapeshifters, they evolved with every single fucking LP they released! The progressions were at once subtle and radical; and the passage of time has proven that NONE of their LPs was a stretch or a false pandering note in hopes of currying favor with the changing tastes of the time; and for one very simple reason:

They themselves dictated each new direction at their whim.

Yes, Tolstoy, the times they were a-changin’; but it was the Beatles calling out the changes to everyone else. So don’t be one of these mopes who falls back on the baseless “they were boring…” argument everyone with nothing to say tries to say anyway. That kind of inarticulate contrarian stuff is better left to the actual fourth graders out there, not someone with a screen name implying a certain knowledge of language and expression.

Then again….

What the fuck was up with, “rock and roll is about fear, it’s about straddling the border between sanity and insanity. It’s lucidity or total annhilation.”? Did you crib that from some rejected Onion article on how to self-consciously write like the worst Lester Bangs impersonator on the planet, or just lift it whole from long-lost Lou Reed interview circa METAL MACHINE MUSIC?

I feel it only fair to warn you that credits earned in any Fundamentals Of Music Criticism course offered on suicidegirls.com are most likely not transferable, so put whatever damaged you so back in Mommy’s medicine cabinet before you do yourself further harm…

thanks for playing,
chris