Evolution of Music | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

In a sense it’s almost too big a question to ask. The Beatles disrupted the culture and the music industry on a massive scale. Perhaps the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones might have lifted the lid a bit. Perhaps RnB might have been even bigger. I’m not that sure the spirit of experimentation and diversity would have been such to encourage so many diverse genres. How do we know James Brown or Joni MItchell or even Dylan would got where they did, to say nothing of the Byrds or Pink Floyd or The Who? If the Yardbirds didn’t get anywhere, there’s a whole slab of British blues, Clapton included that might never have seen the light of day. Would fusion, prog rock or heavy rock come about? If the industry had been able to keep the game to themselves without a torrent of new people encouraged by the possibilities the Beatles suggested, I really doubt that. The Beatles initial success encouraged the industry, their artistic movement encouraged other musicians, and these things fed upon each other in a way you couldn’t predict.

There are some who say it was inevitable, but no one can prove it. Musically, there’s a nice series that Howard Goodall made about the Beatles you can watch on youtube, which makes a persuasive case. I”m not sure they were the only ones in revitalizing older forms in a pop format, but then the definition of pop was expanding rapidly in the era anyway.

Finally I don’t know what defines a “contemporary sound”. It’s a good question though

If you look at what was happening in the early 60’s, in America you had the Beach Boys and a folky movement on the West Coast, and RnB and a different folky movement on the East Coast, a lot of country music in between and jazz was still very big, and the popular charts were still very dominated by standards and crooners. In England Cliff Richard and the Shadows could do no wrong, and there was a great deal of horrible twee stuff on the charts, and garbled versions of whatever was going on from across the Atlantic. From all accounts, it might have been expected that any movements would have originated in the US and filtered over to the UK; the miracle is that that got changed. So when I say RnB might have been the big hope and the Stones may have been part of that, I’m talking about an alternative world history we can only guess at.

As Goodall says, classical music was nowhere in sight of any of this, nor was avant-garde and electronic composition, and certainly not jazz. Indeed, the biggest casualty of all this change might have been jazzl while it did try to take advantage of the 60’s and spawned a few interesting genres, it is a very different story now: there’s no unity to it, and it’s hopelessly split. On the contrary, classical music, avant-garde and electronic music have flourished. Leaving the fringe genres aside, what classical and jazz had in common was the problem of popular support, and while jazz still had that going, it was beginning to dwindle in the face of rocknroll, and classical music was in a massive hole of its own digging.

But classical had the benefit of state support, which is something jazz too has had to lean on, in a few places. I really don’t know if it would have risen to the challenge and reinvented itself for new audiences the way it did; classical materially benefited from the increased interest and recording opportunities afforded it by the 60’s music culture, but that’s become an enduring niche and together with much better recordings that sell well, people are still writing classical music and that is being supported.

KaleidoscopeMusic said

Is electronic music used in the way the Beatles intended?

I don’t think the Beatles were any better than anyone else at predicting the direction of electronic music. They dabbled with it and tried a few styles with it, in the sense that it was a new kind of noise rather than creating a new genre, and I think it’s fairly obvious to Beatles fans where the bulk of Beatle genre preferences are. Having said that, Paul has successfully experimented in a number of electronic genres and it’s an interesting match.

KaleidoscopeMusic said
I don’t know any actual electronic music. I guess I’m referring to is the tracking for pop music. Primitive would be just bass beats in the background with minimum instruments and more concentration on synthesizers and vocals. I suppose I’m trying to make the connection between that and what the Beatles did. Who knows, now they seem completely different.

Ok, I figured that’s maybe what you meant. I just went overboard in my answer to illustrate that it’s not all about just that, nor that it’s necessarily primitive to do so. Like I said, Paul has done some of this, and that’s the strongest connection between the Beatles and electronic music we’re likely to get. The Fireman albums go from very strict “primitive” dance instrumentals through to more ambient and experimental music through to recognizable songs with some electronica.

KaleidoscopeMusic said

Were the Beatles interested in doing any particular music genre after 1970? Where would music be now if they had continued? I also wonder if it would have been better for us and worse for them in the sense that they wouldn’t have as much quality music if they weren’t committed but we would have better music now because they would have stuck around longer.

Why do I keep asking impossible questions

No no they’re good questions! They’re worth exploring, even if they can never have answers. For instance, I think Lennon said at one point during the 70’s that ELO was close to the kind of stuff they might have done if they’d continued, and I always assume he meant (at least partly) that they would have used more synthesisers, and perhaps written more instrumental music than simple pop songs.