Songs Written by the Beatles that Predicts and/or Predates the Formation of Various Musical Genres’ I am not saying they invent these genres but they were pioneers or big influences.
Day Tripper, Ticket To Ride(Power Pop)
This one is fairly easy, but the precise use of harmony, chiming guitars and a soaring, easy to understand chorus about love is basically the blueprint of every power-pop band to ever exist, from the Raspberries and Big Star to Sloan and Superdrag. This song might not be the first to combine all these factors, but it was the first time anybody did it better than anybody else.
I’m a Loser, I’m Only Sleeping (Slack/Indie Rock/Emo)
Before Beck, Radiohead and Sunny Day Real Estate came along and snivelled about their own self loathing, the Beatles showed that you could be self-deprecating way back in the early ’60s.
Tomorrow Never Knows (Techno/Electronica/Kraut Rock)
Combining swirling psychedelia with a repetitive melody and wicked sound effects,“Tomorrow Never Knows” could possibly be the first and only Beatles song that could put you in a trance and make you shake that thang simultaneously. The Chemical Brothers didn’t sample and loop the drum track and bass line from this song for nothing.
A Day in the Life Strawberry Fields Forever (Prog Rock)
Yes, King Crimson, and even later, the Mars Volta, wouldn’t exist without the Beatles taking the dive into complicated composition first.
Helter Skelter( Heavy Metal/ Noise Rock
This proto metal song with its screaming vocals and loud distorted guitar without heavy blues is one of the first of it’s kind.
I Don’t Want To Spoil the Party ( Country Rock )
When asked Gram Parsons if he started country rock he said the Beatles were purposely doing it in in 1964 and he cited this song.
Hard Day's Night ( Jangle Pop )
This song with its jangle fade out influenced the Byrds to get the twelve string guitar.
Plus they popularized intentional feedback as recording effect, backward guitar, backward vocals, Automatic Double Tracking, Indian Instruments, sampling and extreme distortion. They are the most covered musicians ever and sold one billion records compared to Led Zeppelin and Queen at around 300 million
Country rock is rooted in Bob Dylan, Elvis, and Johnny Cash, not The Beatles and Helter Skelter was a response to The Who who were setting the standard for heaviness. Extreme distortion comes from The Yardbirds. Other than those, I'd say you have a strong argument. Radiohead, the entire Britpop movement etc. were influenced by the Beatles.
Extreme Distortion was done on Paperback Writer and Revolution. The Yardbirds used distortion and so did the Kinks. They did not use extreme distortion their distortion sound was not fat enough to be considered extreme distortion. Helter Skelter is one of the first songs of Heavy Metal the Beatles were influenced by the Who to do something louder and it turned into Helter Skelter.I Want You (She's So Heavy) has the satanic chord progression that bands like Black Sabbath built their careers around! And Helter Skelter is protype Slayer down to the screaming vocals. As for country rock I never said the Beatles invented it but they purposefully used country with a rock beat before it became the big thing by the Band, Dylan and Byrds.
Jeff Beck era Yardbirds? Jeff Beck is single-handedly the most influential artist in the area of distortion. Also, distorted riff based rock was really conceptualized by Chuck Berry and Cream on Disraeli Gears in 1967, Helter Skelter was 1968. The Who, Cream, etc. have had way more influence in terms of guitar. Plus, extreme distortion of the type you see on Helter Skelter and Hey Hey My My by Neil Young is almost never used, it never caught on. Tony Iommi's influences come primarily from the blues. Have you heard his stuff from before he lost his fingers? The Shadows are probably his biggest influence. His sound comes from his own innovations. Downtuning his guitar to C# and non-blues based slow single string riffing that came from his limitations. Iommi invented his own style, it did not come from the Beatles. The other most influential band on heavy metal is Deep Purple. Their sound is based off of classical music and blues. The classical sound brought in by Deep Purple combined with the single string riffing and heaviness of Black Sabbath style riffs is what made heavy metal. It would easily have happened without the Beatles. The Beatles are far more influential in pop rock than hard rock and metal.
The Beatles influence on country rock is nearly non-existent, which is my point. It had been done nearly a decade before them. It was already popular at the time of The Beatles.
Also, looking back, the idea that prog rock comes from the Beatles is slightly off. Prog rock comes from bands like Pink Floyd, not pop music. It comes from classical and jazz, not The Beatles. The Beatles were amongst the first, but they were not the first and their influence on the genre is minimal. Pink Floyd was up and making progressive psychedelic music well before The Beatles put anything of the sort on record.
The Beatles influence on instigating folk rock is very key it was because of them that the Byrds went electric. Roger McGuinn credits them for inventing folk rock.
They instigated progressive rock and they were already doing proto-progressive stuff on Revolver and Strawberry Fields Forever which influenced Syd Barrett. Pink Floyd first record was in 1967. Arnold Layne sounds so poppish compared to Tomorrow Never Knows. Yes, Pipers at the Gates of Dawn was released after Sgt Peppers is a great record. The Beatles recorded psychedelic stuff was April of 1966 way before most bands were even recording psychedelic rock. They were already traces of psychedelic rock on Rubber Soul.
Phil Collins on the Beatles as Phil Collins once said (and I paraphrase) the Beatles opened doors to rooms in the musical mansion that many artists didn't know existed and said "it's okay to go in here, too." I consider the fab four to be the instigators of progressive rock.
Last edited by Kingcrimson on Dec 22nd, 2007 at 06:06 PM
Nellinator, The Beatles were doing distorted rock riffs on Paperback Writer, Taxman and And Your Bird Can Sing in 1966 before Cream. The guitar sound is much dirtier than I hear from the Yardbirds in 1966. I am not taking nothing away from Jeff Beck but the Beatles played a part. Don't forget Sgt Pepper and the Reprise the Who never got that guitar sound or The Stones. Nirvana was influenced by the Beatles Revolution guitar tone as was the Stone Temple Pilots. The tone in
Revolution sounds very grungy. The Beatles played a major part in these areas also.
The Beatles, helped turned rock ’n’ roll from merely “kid stuff” to high art, ushering in such genres as power pop (“Meet the Beatles”) folk rock (“Beatles For Sale" )and orchestral psychedelic rock (“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”), all with brilliant sense of melody and thoughtful lyrics.
The Beatles’ “Revolver” (1966) Traditional Indian music with rock music
I was talking true progressive music, which comes straight out of jazz movements, not pop movements. But since we are now talking psychedelic music we can go to its roots as well. The Holy Modal Rounders, The Deep, The Yardbirds, The 13th Floor Elevators and The Quicksilver Messenger Service are all much more influential in that area. Psychedelic music was already very popular before Beatles delved into it. Look at the Doors, the precursor band The Psychedelic Rangers are from 1964 at the latest. Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, etc. Psychedelic music was a boom, not started by anyone band and certainly not the Beatles.
Also, note that Phil Collins opinion of progressive rock means little to me considering he ruined one of the better ones. Peter Gabriel era Genesis was mint. Phil Collins era was awful.
I wasn't saying that Cream was the first ones doing distorted riffs, but they set the standard for it. Disraeli Gears set the tone for riff oriented rock that was to follow in the 70s. The Beatles were good, but not a riff oriented band. Distortion was revolutionized by Les Paul long before the Beatles, so that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not saying that their work with distortion wasn't somewhat influential because they definitely influenced the Stone Temple Pilots, but it is far the greatest and isn't very far reaching. Actually, I would argue that most influence on distortion comes from the experiments of engineers.
It's an image worth pondering for a moment. Maybe, when you cut past the instrumental and songwriting virtuosity, the funny voices and characters, what is left is a man alone in his recording studio for days at a time.
Take That.... probably the most influential boy band of the nineties... most of the other boy bands of that era and today took their lead from take that... and still do....they were also a great influence on bands like McFly who attempted to change the formula towards a more rock oriented sound, and even more importantly they inspired rock bands such as Travis, Oasis, Franz Ferdinand, White Stripes et al to start making music in order to stop the charts being filled with boy band dross... plus kudos to TT for managing to change with the times, slap Robbie Williams and semi-reinvent themselves as a pop band for today....
KMC Community Forums
Dec 4th, 2007 01:27 AM
