OK so i'm not as old as Avguygeorge, but i've been performing really old music for forty years. IMO R&B was an electric version of what began 30 years before with artists like Skip James, Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson.... that music was the catalyst, R&B was a variation.
what happened with the Beatles was that music became a cultural power. people were fanatics, lots of people, and their lives to a large degree revolved around 'music', and that music wasn't just about someones lovelife.
walk on the street today and observe how many people are wearing headphones... someone from a hundred years ago would think we're all lunatics for the way we define our identities with music. Huxley would have pointed to it as the Soma of the 21st century. on the other hand, this music culture connects us all in some sense and cummunicates ideas.
oh yeah , and the Beatles wrote great songs! |
Perhaps it is due to a place instead. The juke joint, honky tonk, roadhouse, speakeasy, New Orleans brothel, jazz club and countless garages. Just a thought. |
Ok,so I'm reeeally old. (DOB'38.) No mater how many books you read on 'today's music' You're reading the author's opinion. I have my opinion as well. I think it started in the late '40's with what was called "rhythm and blues" By the mid '50's it had taken a good hold on what the kids wanted to hear or to buy. The Beatles were a band; Rhythm and blues was a "movement" At that time many white artists just jumped on the bandwagon with cover versions of the r&b hits.
I* think Elvis existed for the white folk,of that generation.( I don't think he ever wrote anything;nor was he much of a guitar player.)
Every generation MUST distance itself,musically speaking,that is the way it has always been,and will always be.
So, yes, everybody influences everybody, and the young have to be different/better.
While I love the guys from Liverpool I'm not a fanatic. I love the music,not the trivia.In 3 short years they evolved into so much more but it was the songwriting.
R&B was the catalyst that changed what direction music took.(With MANY offshoots,since)
IMO,today, music is much more diverse than it has ever been. While the Beatles were a 'spike' in the curve of the '60's,they are NOT the reason why modern music "is". |
We wouldn't be having this conversation if not for the Beatles. The Beatles changed not just the face of music but of culture as well. The simple act of growing ones hair was all it took to pick your side. The ripple affect of the four mop-tops from Liverpool can still be seen and heard in modern culture around the world. |
today's pop music owes everything to the bay city rollers. |
Dylan introduced The Beatles to marijuana which led to everything from LSd to heroin. I think because of that you would have to say that Dylan influenced their sound more than any one person. Running tape backwards to create certain passages in the Sargent Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour came about when one evening when John was tripping on LSD and listening to music he realized the tape on the reel to reel was being played backwards.
As John would go on to say
I don't believe in Elvis
I don't believe in Zimmerman
I don't believe in Beatles
I just believe in me
Yoko and Me
That's reality.
|
Buddy Holly influenced them along with Little Richard and many others. The Beatles took it to the next level with style. |
Bob Dylan influenced the Beatles. Look at how their music changed after meeting him. Not that his didn't change, but in a lot of ways I think Dylan influenced more musicians than the Beatles. BUT I'm usually wrong, or so it's been said... |
I'm still not sure what modern music is.
However, now that I think about it a little more, I think the biggest influence on modern music is Les Paul, who is attributed with inventing the solid bodied electric guitar.
Well, I'll bet nobody was expecting that for an answer. |
CMO,The Kid,Mmakshak,
I've gotta' say, it is hard to describe just how far off of the facts you are without coming off cruel, which I have no care and NO intention to do.
BUT ... YOU ARE WAY, WAY, WAY OFF OF THE MARK.
Markphd is so much closer as to how "it" happened to be. Today's music has been a long evolution in coming and many, many, many talented people are the reason. And,by the way,it goes beyond what the western world created.
Have you read anything on the topic? It's quite facinating and inspiring. Music is exciting in large part because it is a constantly evolving communication. It has life as its creators have life.
I am not minimizing the contribution The Beatles and The Stones made to "modern music". I am a huge fan and grew up with this music. But it is only a small fraction, albiet a larger small fraction, of what influenced "modern music".
Wait, what's that beat I hear in the distance? Are those tribal drums? |
Sorry for my somewhat flip first response, but "modern music" does mean something, and it ain't mainstream rock-n-roll. The Beatles were, in Sir Paul's words, "a great little band," but their artistic innovations were definitely at the margins. I'd give more credit to the generation that preceded them--the 50s artists who walked the distance from blues to pop. And Dylan, who in his own way expanded the boundaries of popular music.
As for Sgt. Pepper, it was indeed hugely influential in its time, though not necessarily for the better. (Think prog--and apologies to its surviving fans.) By 1980, however, the punk-New Wave axis was looking back to the Velvet Underground (Eno's famous quote: Almost nobody bought their albums, but everyone who did formed a band) and blues-rock innovators like Hendrix and the Yardbirds. In the 80s, people who thought Sgt. Pepper was the Beatles' best album were decidedly unhip.
The Beatles are probably more influential today than they were 20 years ago, but more credit probably goes to albums like Rubber Soul and Revolver than to their Mannerist period. |
I think what the poster is trying to express is not, "who invented R&R", or "what are it's origins", but rather "what made R&R what it is today?" (i.e. Modern Rock).... and no, it wasn't Debussy, Schoenberg, Stravinsky).
While it isn't as easily quantified as saying "Sargent Peppers" was/is the reason; you must give The Beatles (and for me Dylan) their due. They may not be THE reason, but they are pretty high up on the list........... Along with social, political, demographic, yada yada......
Chris |
Everything was influenced by the Beatles. Yes, everything..
Chris |
I'm not sure what you mean by "modern music", I wouldn't call something that's 40 years old "modern music", particularly having regard to what's developed since then. However, if you mean "rock and roll" in a generic sense, and its derivatives, offshoots, etc, then I disagree with your statement. It's been around a lot longer than the Beatles or Stones. I think that the end of the big band era after WWII and the early 50's was the period when a newly identifiable musical trend emerged from various sources and influences, and which coalesced into rock and roll, and subsequently, "modern music".
I think that people are imprinted with the music of their youth, particularly in their adolescent years. That is the time which is most important to them musically. My parents think rock and roll started with Elvis. People of my generation think it started with Beatles/Stones. I know a few "younger" people who think Deep Purples' "Smoke on the Water" started modern rock and roll, for no reason other than the fact that it was the first rock and roll they listened to. Ask the great rockers of the 60's what their influences are, and more often than not, the names will be Muddy Waters and other people in the American, black, blues tradition.
By the way, is it just me, or does Bill Haley and the Comet's "Rock around the Clock" from the 50's sound like the "Charleston" and other flapper era music from the 20's and 30's? |
Um, Debussy, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, etc.? |
You've only touched the surface with The Beatles. They were of course immensely influential but they were also influenced. And no, it wasn't The Rolling Stones either although they also influenced what has developed into today's "modern music".
You cannot come even close to adequately defining why modern music exists in such a limited context. It is a deeper study than that. A crash course in all this can be had via a visit to the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. There are also many fine books on the subject. |
