All you need is the Beatles? Maybe not.

Saying you don’t like the Beatles is like making a face when someone carries a birthday cake into the room. Such aggressive contrarianism can make a stir at a party, but ultimately, it’s just hard to believe. So,  let me just assure you, though I am about to tell you why I have my worries about the imminent release of the Beatles: Rock Band, I respect and adore the Fab Four. I’m a pop lover who spent my formative years immersed in rock music, and I grew up in the 1970s. There wasn’t much choice but to be a late-adopting Beatlemaniac.

Paul McCartney was my first massive crush, cultivated through hours of listening at the houses of friends who had hipper parents than mine (and staring into those big brown eyes as pictured in the framable insert photo from the White Album). The throngs I heard squealing on the “The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl” album, released when I was 13, taught me how to be a teenybopper. “Yellow Submarine” turned me on to psychedelia, and "Revolution" did the same for social protest. As a grade-schooler, I didn't get John Lennon's sarcasm. But I did like to argue with my dad, which seemed related, and changing the world sounded cool.

The Beatles also taught me that pop could be a serious thing. Following the group's evolution across the tracks of the Red and Blue collections, I got an inkling of what artistic evolution sounded like. Little did I know that the story of the Beatles' transformation from a fun bunch of lads imitating Little Richard and Ronnie Spector to a serious quartet influenced by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Andy Warhol would become the foundation for a whole system of defining popular music's worth, which would become known as "rockism," and which favored the more "artistic" kind of rock on the second collection. Or that, decades later, a new gang of artists and thinkers, sometimes called "poptimists," would battle that legacy -- arguing for mop-top red over granny-glasses blue.

Poptimists (myself included) don't hate the Beatles -- how could anyone who loves a great radio-friendly dance hit reject "Drive My Car," or "Helter Skelter," for that matter? But that narrative, of a band's music becoming more meaningful as it becomes less obviously catchy and commercial, has done a lot of damage. It has caused some taste makers to favor album-oriented rock, which favors earphones and contemplation, over equally sophisticated but more socially friendly musical forms like disco and funk. It's also led to an emphasis on the mostly white, mostly male artists of the classic rock era over the often black and female stars of pop before and after that counter-cultural moment.

Elijah Wald's book "How the Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music" confronts how this happened, and it tells a different story: that of dance crazes and radio hits, teen idols and crooning heartthrobs and the Twist. The sassy title the prolific Wald adopted for his far-reaching account finally pays off at the book's conclusion, when he explains how the band's retirement from the stage and subsequent focus on studio experimentation contributed toward the privatization, and atomization, of pop.

"When the Beatles appeared on 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' it was the last time a live performance changed the course of American music, and when they became purely a recording group, they pointed the way toward a future in which there need be no unifying styles, as bands can play what they like in the privacy of the studio, and we can chose which to listen to in the privacy of our clubs, our homes, or, finally, our heads." Wald reserves judgment about "whether that was liberating or limiting," but he does point out that some splits -- including the one between rock and pop -- were directly related to the Beatles' journey.

That's why his argument came to mind when I started thinking about the imminent impact of the Beatles: Rock Band, timed to coincide with the release of the band's great catalog in remastered form. It seems inevitable that the game will have a major impact on younger generations who, until now, learned about pop in ways other than through the Beatles myth. By returning that story to the center of pop history, this latest Beatles push could undo some of the progress made during the poptimist era, toward a wider, more flexible idea of what (fill in loaded word here: great, important, serious) popular music can be.

The game's recently revealed story mode reinforces the classic Beatles myth: that the band started out as a bunch of cute bobble-heads and became smarter and somehow more human as their music evolved. (The trailer now available for viewing gives you a glimpse into the story.) Re-creating settings that help tell the group's history, from the Cavern Club of their rough-boy beginnings to dreamscapes that evoke the mind expansion of their studio-only period, the Beatles: Rock Band honors all of the band's music, but reinforces the idea that the later, more "mind-blowing" stuff somehow mattered more.

Will gamers absorb this narrative? It's unclear -- in articles like this long one from the New York Times Magazine, the designers who created the game stress that the songs were chosen mainly because they were fun to play. But the story mode and imagery does send a message. When earlier songs are featured, the avatars are cute bobble-heads. They grow less cartoonish when the music represents the band's studio-only period; a lock of hair wafts across John's face, and George casts his eyes downward introspectively. If I were a kid learning about the Beatles this way, I think I'd have an experience similar to the one I had perusing the Red and Blue collections: I'd consider the band's later material to be the real payoff.

Beyond the story mode, I wonder about the effect of the mere ubiquity of the Beatles: Rock Band. We're now a couple of generations past the band's total dominance. Today's teens, born in the '90s, barely care about that Beatles revisionist Kurt Cobain, much less the actual Fab Four. But under the tutelage of their parents, who now have a powerful new tool to trot out during family hour, they might be convinced that classic rock is the foundation of all things pop.

Though they obviously celebrate guitar-oriented rock, right down to their names, the Guitar Hero and Rock Band video games have contributed to a more expansive retelling of pop history. A look at the RBDLC database, a comprehensive review site for the game's downloadable content, shows no favoritism among gamers for the biggest names in rock's canon. "Quality" choices like the Band and Pearl Jam stand alongside more dubious favorites like REO Speedwagon; metal acts do well, unsurprisingly, but so do the relatively obscure Stone Roses.

Like karaoke, music-based gaming puts the focus on what used to be called the audience: the ordinary person responding to the music, either by singing or by "playing" via her console. It's an activity similar to dancing, a response to another person's artistic expression that is creative in its own right. Though the story mode and songs selected might elevate the band's later work above its earlier stuff, the act of playing the Beatles: Rock Band actually could more closely resemble the experience of hearing or seeing the Beatles at the beginning of their revolution, when their body-moving songs caused a physical reaction that startled the world. 

In the New York Times piece, McCartney suggested that he'd welcome such a response, saying that a game that helps fans feel as if they "possess or own the song, that they've been in it" is a natural extension of the intimate feeling the band's original recordings inspired.

So, maybe I'm wrong to worry, even a little bit, that the Beatles: Rock Band will somehow stop the happy march of poptimism toward a broader definition of great music. One person who isn't concerned is Wald. He is a friend, so I contacted him to ask what he thought the impact of the game might be. After reminding me that he is, indeed, a big Beatles fan, he said that as a guitarist himself, he's skeptical about kids playing music games instead of actual instruments, but he figures that, if they're going to do so, the Beatles are as good a conduit as any other.

He later sent me an e-mail elaborating on his thoughts. Noting that the game's immediate audience will likely be the same baby boomers who'll buy the remastered albums -- folks who still value music as a physical product, and who'll give the game to their kids and grandkids during the holidays -- Wald wrote:

"It's important to remember that this is pretty much the only music distribution system around these days that is safe from free on-line trading, which is why bands and record companies are so hot for it. But the jury is still very much out on how broad its effects will be, or what those effects will be, or even whether such games have much of a future or are just a passing fad. If there's one thing I've learned from studying the history and historiography of pop music, it's that people have constantly been predicting the future, and usually getting it wrong. And I see no reason to think they'll be more reliable this time around, especially since so many of the predictors are personally or financially invested in the technology."

Maybe, then, my doubts about the Beatles: Rock Band simply point to my own lingering belief in the power of the foursome that convinced me of pop music's power to define a life: my own. In the end, it's just another game. It will be up to the players to determine what it means.

-- Ann Powers

Related: Who cares about 'My Generation' anymore?

Photos: MTV Games / Harmonix

Comments

[Henry M]

The Beatles no more destroyed Rock and Roll than Hendrix destroyed the Blues. They just left those genre's behind. Hold the Roll... The Beatles practically invented the Rock, which only has a little to do with the R&R to which they kept returning.

[J_Is_Dismayed]

You know, if I was say..."King of all things music" and could make the decision as to whether or not the biggest musical band ever would become just more fodder for the dreaded "Rock Band" video games, I'd probably rule, "NO!"

Both of my nephews sit in front of the television set playing Rock Band and Guitar Hero for hours at a time. Like your friend, I ponder how proficient they would be at playing an actual instrument if they spent as much energy on one instead of those worthless games. But, there's been instruments in their house for years before those games came along and they never had an inclination to play them. When I ask the older one why he loves Guitar Hero so much, he'll say: "Because I feel like I can play guitar while it's on." It's not like he isn't an active kid...He plays two sports for his high school. The realization came to me that neither would have ever become musicians...So, I tend to now believe that there are worse things that either could be involved with, rather than a video game that celebrates the finest music ever created. They have me to thank for turning them on to the Beatles, as well as other great acts from my time (The Who, The Kinks, The Stones)...So they're excited it's coming out and I choose to never play it and remain a fan for the music only.

[Jeff Lorber]

it's boring to watch the Beatles as Rock Band amimes but the great thing is that right now MTV is playing old Beatles videos like Day in a Life and I am the Walrus. Those videos stand out as being so fresh and powerful - even 40 years old, next to our current crop of derivitative rock.

[Ryan D]

@Dismayed
Which would you rather have:
Kids sitting passively, vegging out listening to music, or somehow actively participating in it?
Not every kid is going to play a musical instrument (especially not the bass, guitar, or drums), but many of these kids end of playing music games, and gaining exposure to music they might not otherwise have.
I'm not a huge fan of music games, but I do honestly see the benefit in them, both for the users and for the music industry.

[j macbain]

Very good points, any exposure to the classics is good for every generation.
PS Paul has Green eyes.

[Joel]

Sorry to be a party pooper, but I have no love lost for The Beatles. They were well known, as a band, for just five years. FIVE years. That's no time at all.

Their music has not aged well. Even their "modern" stuff sounds quaint and old fashioned. That's the reason why you don't hear the Beatles on most radio stations. The same could be said for Elvis Presley. It's not that they weren't talented. They were and are. It was just this weird hero worship thing about The Beatles that rankles me and obscures what their music was.

What DOES one hear on the radio from the same time period? Motown. The Motown sound from the same period has, for the most part, remained fresh even four decades later. And my belief is that Motown has had much more influence on modern pop music than the Beatles could have ever hoped for.

There is one thing that The Beatles DID prove unequivocally and they did it internationally: They proved that one CAN be taking drugs (and, no, I'm not just talking marijuana) and still function enough to produce music people will buy. But it doesn't mean it's good just because people will buy it.
Peace

[Zaid Khalil]

I don't know what is worse the article or the comments. Rock Band has been an absolutely excellent way for people to begin learning how to control their pitch and how to begin playing drums. I know this because when I started playing the game 18 months ago, I had no drumming ability whatsoever. Now I can sit at an acoustic drum set and at least be comfortable maintaining a beat to many songs. I can also maintain playing 1/8 and 1/16th notes, and recognize the bass lines of songs. In terms of singing, my singing capabilities have improved substantially and I have seen people who couldn't carry a tune for the life of them, be able to sing modestly along with songs.
Its like somehow in all of this banter, people forget that Harmonix is a company made of musicians and incredible inventors. If I was a musician, I would give my arm to work for a company like that, are you kidding me. These guys are intentionally creating amazing learning tools for music.

But no, not to the purist, to the purist the masses must suffer needlessly. What is so shocking in all of this is that if you listened to the banter of the purists you would conclude that playing instruments is something that should be reserved for very few people. They think of themselves as String Theorists - no pun intended. The reality is that if there were a way to introduce Theoretical Physics to people in a way that was fun and not as much as a drag as laboring through decades of mathematics, the community of Physicists would be having collective orgasms.
As for the The Beatles: Rock Band, I can't wait. I love Ringo's drumming, the singing is going to be incredible. And I cant praise the genius of the developers of Harmonix enough. Its going to be awesome.

[Mike]

"Saying you don’t like the Beatles is like making a face when someone carries a birthday cake into the room. Such aggressive contrarianism can make a stir at a party, but ultimately, it’s just hard to believe."

It's not hard to believe at all. They lack the deep blues influence that many people like myself enjoy. Some people like the Rolling Stones way more than the Beatles because the music has much more feeling and blues sound is way better.

The Beatles took 5 or so years to actually play good music, where the Stones came out of the gate swinging. Liking the Beatles is a personal preference, not a right or wrong answer.

People also are drawn to the Beatles for the same reason that people are drawn to Religion: It is taught to them as children at a young age. The Beatles are pounded into kids heads and told the lie that the Beatles created Rock'n'Roll (which isn't true. If you believe it is, take a music history lesson. They made it popular, but didn't invent it).

The Stones will always be better because they didn't let a woman destroy band.

[Jack]

Dominic Priore, in his book Riot on Sunset Strip, makes a point similar to Wald.

http://tiny.cc/ON0Z4

But he marks the passage from "rock n' roll" to "rock" as the difference between L.A.'s raw yet musically ambitious garage punks (Love, the Seeds, etc.) who worked within the 45 rpm mode, and S.F.'s psyschedelic scene which begat all the jam bands.

[NSB John]

As a Beatles fan born 26 days before John Lennon's death, I find it silly that there's this need for divisiveness within the work of the Beatles. Sure, it's different, but it's the same four guys. To suggest that the Beatles and Motown were mutually exclusive is ridiculous, the Beatles wouldn't exist if they hadn't embraced Motown, and wouldn't have become a worldwide phenomenom if they hadn't brought the Rock AND the Roll back to the United States.

From what I gather from your article, "poptimists" dislike the elitism of those who prefer The Album and Classic Rock. But I find an inherent elitism in that attitude as well, I don't want to be told what era of the Beatles is "superior", I can make up my own mind, and think that the "superior" era was that from Please Please Me to Abbey Road.

The Beatles and the Stones were friends. The Beatles wrote music for the Stones, as well as gave them the rights to songs such as "I Wanna Be Your Man". They influenced each other.

In closing, I feel that the Beatles weren't the enemy of Motown, their love for it is part of what drove them to become a band that has thrived in the popular consciousness half a century after their formation. And people say the MP3 and the iPod killed The Album, but I find that I can fit a lot of albums on that tiny iPod, a place to keep them where they'll never warp, scratch or skip.

[Brian Quinn]

Personally, I have always considered The Beatles to be overrated. They could not reproduce their album sounds (with more than a Little help from their friends e.g. George Martin)on stage. Further, they did not really sing in many musical genres and only lasted 7 years. Their last No.1 hit in the UK was in 1969 with 'Get Back'and this is credited as being 'with Billy Preston'. They definately watered down 50's rock 'n' roll whcuh, by the way, they loved.

[Nelsontony]

Funny thing is the Beatles were using sampling and loops before Motown with an up-front drum and bass sound on "Tomorrow Never Knows" which many have called it the first electronic/trance dance song. Uh you hear that sound on many genres in music including hip-hop. The Beatles where never really a blues band anyway they were way more original than the copy-cat blues band the The Rolling Stones. So yeah let's insult the Beatles because they created a new sound that had nothing to do with blues music or 50's rock and roll. Have you heard of innovation and the book in a strange way is saying it anyway. It's that Elijah thinks it was bad for music

[Jude]

I just want to say that I'm 31 years old...I've loved The Beatles all my life. Even at 2 yrs old, my parents were trying to keep John Lennon's murder from me because they didn't want me to find out. I'm now a banker and I have photos I took of Paul and Ringo at my desk and people of all ages just look at them in awe and start singing Beatles songs. Everywhere I've gone to recently has promotional material available for the Rockband game and I've heard tons of positive things about it.
For anyone to say that these guys are overrated or that they aren't important is rediculous. These are global legends...even people in other countries learned english from listening to their records. Their message of peace and love is a lot more attractive than "Thug Life". And, you can look practically anywhere and see a Beatles reference (Lovelace is using "All You Need Is Love" now as a slogan). So, it just proves to me something I heard as a kid in their movie called "Yellow Submarine"..."Nothing Is Beatle Proof!"
George's son Dhani Harrison had a great idea when he decided to pitch the idea of The Beatles Rock Band. It was also a great idea of George's to make The Beatles "Love" in Las Vegas! I highly recommend that anyone who these guys to have a listen to their songs...Listen to "Revolver" check out Ringo's massive drumming on "She Said She Said", if Paul's in your town playing a concert - go see him! If you're in Las Vegas, check out "Love" instead of just getting drunk with your friends. If you're in NYC, check out the amazing exhibit Yoko Ono made for the creative genious known as John Lennon.
I'm a fellow musician and all I have to say is that these guys are AMAZING!!! There's a reason why they're the top selling artists of all time!

Thank you John, Paul, George and Ringo for everything!!!

With much respect...

Jude

[Bob]

Through listening to the Beatles, young people might learn that many of the songs they hold dear are ripping off the Beatles and other older groups. I hear these newer songs at my gym and play a game of "who/which song are they ripping off?".

[snaporaz]

there's a guy here who's saying that the beatles music has not aged well. ahahaha, that is the funniest statement i've heard in ages.

i don't get this article. to me it doesn't make any sense. is the journalist worried that kids will start playing beatles songs and be inspired and interested in improving their musical knowledge and getting into different kinds of music? what is the problem with songs getting a little bit weirder and more artsy?

why, because now we live in a highly intellectual world, where people listen to strawberry fields nonstop and keep quoting french thinkers to each other? uhmm.... maybe i live in another world, but here all i listen on the radio is bad hip hop and silly pop-y bands.

i also think saying that the beatles completely abandoned their pop roots later on shows that you don't know much about the beatles. how is "something", "here comes the sun", "hey jude", "let it be", be anything but pop? and simple, straightforward pop. john's work is a bit more strange, but anyone on this day and age would be far from being freaked out about it...

i love everything on the beatles catalog, and i think there's good fun for everyone. im pretty sure there will be kids who will be more interested in their earlier songs, as there will be kids who will love their later stuff.

there are also out there, in the world, very good bands that do great pop music, if the lyrics aren't simple as "i wanna hold your hand" is simply because the world has changed. so i don't get this, who are these "poptimists"?

again, as i said, i dont understand what harm can come out of this. i for sure, am very happy that my lil cousin, who's now 12, loves the beatles. because when he's not listening to the beatles, he listens to crappy stuff such as the black eyed peas, and all the other crap that is on the radio these days.

[snaporaz]

oh, and there's mike the guy who said
"The Stones will always be better because they didn't let a woman destroy band."
the comments here are hilarious.

i like the stones, but their relevance when compared to the beatles is laughable, their first hit was a lennon-mccartney song, so mike, get over it.

[Sam Lowry]

Not only shouldn't you worry about kids playing music games INSTEAD of real instruments, you should be pleased to know that many people (adults and kids) are motivated to learn to play real instruments after getting hooked on Rock Band and games of this sort. I know several adults who have signed up for guitar lessons, and my own kids and my nephews have also expressed interest in guitar after experiencing the games. So relax, and enjoy the music.

[NSBJohn]

One more note, for the commenter who thought that the Beatles didn't sing in many genres. The Beatles have done Motown, R&B, Rock, Hard Rock, Country, Western, Indian-influenced, experimental, Circus music, Blues, Orchestral... and many other I can't classify at the moment, though I'm usually not concerned with labels.

You don't have to like the Beatles, to each their own. But you don't have to make a false, uninformed statement about one of the most eclectic bands of the 20th Century.

[Shaun]

Ann Powers said: "It has caused some taste makers to favor album-oriented rock, which favors earphones and contemplation, over equally sophisticated but more socially friendly musical forms like disco and funk."

Um, sorry Ann, but disco SUCKS. I'm not a uge fan of funk either, but I suppose there's some decent stuff in that genre. Calling disco "sophisticated" is laughable though. Please explain this "more socially friendly" comment. What does that even mean?

The Beatles were the greatest band, and probably the most influential (realizing, of course, that they were heavily influenced by Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Carl Perkins and the like). They were the best, and few others have ever come close to matching their quality.

[Shaun]

Ann Powers said: "It's also led to an emphasis on the mostly white, mostly male artists of the classic rock era over the often black and female stars of pop before and after that counter-cultural moment"

And the Beatles are to blame for this? Whatever...

Ann also said: "Today's teens, born in the '90s, barely care about that Beatles revisionist Kurt Cobain, much less the actual Fab Four."

Ann, I think you'd be surprised to find out how many young people today have discovered, and love the Beatles. And Hendrix, and Dylan, the Doors, the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin and other icons of that time. I just read a report somewhere (don't recall where) about how the Beatles music has bridged generational gaps and how many parents and their teens have bonded on this one thing, a love for the Beatles and their music. If I come across this article again, I'll post a link for it.

[Shaun]

Some of the commnents here ae hilarious... So the Beatles were only together for 5 years? Or 7 years? Which one is it, people? They were together as early as 1960 or so, playing the Cavern Club not mention stints in Hamburg, etc. Their recording history together is less than a decade, it's true, but it's also the most compelling catalogue in pop/rock music history. The Stones and Beatles were friends. The Stones covered the Beatles song "I Wanna Be Your Man," and they hung out together. Mick was their when the Beatles performed "All You Need Is Love" for an international audience on TV, and Lennon performed on the Stones "Rock & Roll Circus" show.

As for the music supposedly "not aging well" that's a joke... SO why are we still talking about the Beatles nearly 40 years after they split up? Why is McCartney still selling out stadiums, and why have they sold something like 58 million CDs in the recent Sound-Scan era alone? Obviously, something about the music still endures.

As for Motown... Yeah, there was some great music on that label. But most of that 60's Motown stuff, catchy as it is, all sounds alike after awhile, and I think much of it hasn't aged all that well and the song lyrics were relatively simple, not unlike the early Beatles records. The Beatles got more sophisticated over time, and the same is true for Motown artists. Stevie Wonder (who covered "We Can Work It Out")and Marvin Gaye are two obvious examples of artists who had to fight with Berry Gordy to break out of the mold he'd put them into. Their later stuff, in the 70's that is, is far more compelling than their early records.

One more thing about the Beatles... Their short time together means they never faded into irrelevance. We can argue the ups and downs of their solo careers of course, but the Beatles never turned into a parody of themselves or kept churning out half-a**ed albums like the Stones or Stevie Wonder do now.

[Shaun]

To Brian Quinn: You don't know what you're talking about, do you? Not being able to reporduce the sound of their albums on the concert stage? Well, DUH! We're talking over 40 years ago. The technology wasn't there to reproduce the sounds of their more sophisticated songs on the concert stage. Heck, audiences could barely hear the music over the screaming girls and the band could barely hear themselves playing. What were they supposed to do? They'd become more sophisticated musicians, songwriters and have some wildly creative ideas, so better to channel that into the studio and give up touring.

George Martin was a big help, but don't pretend that he wrote the songs or did most of the playing. He did play some piano on a few songs, but his job was to help turn the Fab Four's ideas into reality. He knew the technology, and he helped them to stretch the limits of what could be done in the studio at that time. That hardly makes the Beatles an inferior band.

Oh, and what's your point about their last UK #1 being in 1969? That's when the band split up more or less (the Let It Be album was released in 1970, but the band truly had split up in '69) so what would you expect? The albums still sell, and all of those guys had huge solo careers too (even Ringo, for awhile). Yes, the song is credited "with Billy Preston." SO WHAT?? He guested on piano on that song and played on a few other tracks with them... Bands have other musicians guest with them all the time! Jimmy Page played on of The Who's biggest hits. Does this mean The Who suck?

Billy Preston's biggest career break was playing with the Beatles. Along with his own solo hits in the 70s, he went on to tour with George Harrison in the 70s, played on a Stones album and toured with them, and late in his life toured in both Ringo Starr's and Eric Clapton's band. This what musicians and friends do... They collaborate and play together.

[Harry R]

The Beatles are very overrated, and they did indeed hurt rock'n'roll. Actually they were pop, their music doesn't rock you the way the Stones did and still could. That they became a studio band and gave the reins to George Martin is anti rock....all these years later and we have poser bands like u2 still milknig the formula for the bucks.

[Shaun]

Go on believing that Harry... Even though both the Beatles and Stones were weaned on the same Chuck Berry licks, covered his songs (as well as both Buddy Holly and R&B singer Arthur Alexander) too.

The main difference, the Stones had more of a blues influence on them, and the Beatles had (probably) a wider range of influences. More of the R&B/soul side of the equation (Little Richard), rockabilly, and even English dancehall music too. But don't tell me the Beatles didn't rock. I'll see your "Satisfaction," "Jumping Jack Flash" or "Paint It, Black" and show you "Taxman," "Helter Skelter," and "Revolution". It's not like the Stones didn't have ballads like "As Tears Go By" or "Ruby Tuesday".

The other difference? The Beatles were "cute" and the Stones (aside from Brian Jones, perhaps) were decidely not cute. Big deal. The mop tops and matching suits quickly disappeared, and BOT bands were doing much more interesting things in short order.

Get over your conceit in calling their partnership with George Martin "anti-rock". So the Beatles, with Martin, elevated rock to something more than three-chord riffs and Bo Diddley beats. So what? After the Beatles didn't Sgt. Pepper, you had the Stones trying to ape that sound with the Satanic Majesties Request album and not doing it nearly as well. Even they followed what the Beatles were doing.

The Stones were great (though they haven't had a great studio album in 20 years in my opinion), but while they had some landmark albums (Beggar's Banquet, Let It Bleed, Exile On Main Street for instance) few of them are generally held in the same regard as the Beatles albums. What they did in less than a decade's time is astonishing, and the music continues to resonate. The Stones CDs have gone through several rounds of remasters, but have never had the same kind of anticipation that the upcoming Beatles remasters do.

[Harry R]

The beatles were a good pop band, nothing more. They are overrated. Hard for some to take, but that's the way it is.