Are the Beatles overrated? That's basically the argument being made in this article from the Guardian. (via Reenhead) Yeah, this should probably be posted in my music blog, but I'm not going to speak of the music so much as their seemingly untouchable status in popular culture.

For the most part, the article, though its arguments are not very original, is pretty spot on. The Beatles never rocked. Their songwriting was often simple and many times pretentiously obtuse (their psychedelic phase, basically). I think the writer underestimates their musical influence, especially when you look at some of the more recent indie psych-pop bands (take the former Elephant Six clique, for example), who minedthe psych-era Beatles catalogue every bit as much as they did Pet Sounds era Beach Boys or 70s Canterbury prog. But perhaps he was just being cheeky, trying to work in a Rutles reference. At any rate, musically speaking, while they might not have the enduring influence of Black Sabbath, for instance (possibly the most influential band in the last 30 years), it's certainly not a slim as suggested.

The preceding aside, though, the big problem isn't really with the music, but with the cult of Beatlemania. Their (pop) cultural impact has rendered all of their music bulletproof to criticism. More vexing is that nobody seems to question this. The closest any Beatle fan (both actual fans and the numerous people who believe they have to think the Beatles were the best ever, despite their actual exposure to the music, lest they be ridiculed for being a pop culture philistine) will ever admit to the Beatles being less than the rhetoric that surrounds them is when they speak of the early Beatles period. Their reasoning (or what they've been taught to believe) is that this period isn't particularly worthwhile because they had not developed their own sound yet, their music still owing too much to various rockabilly and blues artists. But that contingent is relatively small, and their rabid defense of the latter period's music (generally considered to be everything post, and sometimes including, Rubber Soul) is just as oblivious to actual musical quality as any hardcore Beatlemaniac.

Why is it like this? Well, the easy answer is that the people who came of age with the Beatles are/have been in charge of documenting that era and are doing their damnedest to make sure that history will look upon that era as being the pinnacle of culture. In short, it's shameless self-promotion. Not unique to their generation, or course, but their control of the history books comes at a time where it's easier to influence more people than ever before.

It goes beyond this, though. What about those who were born post-Beatles, who still hold the company line that the Beatles were the greatest ever? That's a tougher question to answer. Part of it, as I mentioned before, is the fear of being mocked for not agreeing with the findings of their elders. Another part, also previously stated, is that the chroniclers of that time pretty much control the media right now (not control in the conspiratorial sense; they just represent a signficant portion of the media). Therefore, even if you wanted to dig deeper than the rhetoric of "it's the Beatles, you're supposed to like them," much of the information you're going to find is going to be very favorable to maintaining that image of cultural ubersignificance.

Beyond that, there's a third reason why younger listeners are taking to the Beatles, and that's a need to feel like their part of something culturally significant. Let's face it, popular culture is letting down the youth they are allegedly serving. With less artist development than ever before, the cultural phenomenon of the Beatles could never happen today. They would have had to hit on one sound and stick with it; even if you question the quality of the music, there is no doubt that their music certainly evolved. Plus, because there is inevitable backlash against celebrities once they reach a level of media saturation (akin to Beatlemania), by the time they would have released Revolver in today's climate, they would have been pushed aside. It's a short attention span world we live in; we wouldn't have the patience for them to start taking LSD, let alone be impressed by the music they created once they were on a lysergic bend. Therefore, since today's culture is not conducive to creating any sustaining entertainment juggernaut, there isn't much for today's music fan to cling to that will match the impact (good or bad) of The Beatles. U2? REM? Pah. The early part of U2's career was way too "earnest" to appeal to the youth (not to mention that, in my own not-so-humble opinion, U2 sucks), while REM has something of a cerebral edge (they are pretty much the godfathers of that insidious genre known as "college rock") that will immediately turn away mass culture. Nirvana came closest, and could possibly followed the same evolutionary path (in pop culture terms) as The Beatles, had Kurt not eaten that shotgun. And believe me, the media tried their damnedest to make it happen. Ultimately, I think it would have fallen short, because Kurt's music was too much of a downer to really ignite a mass youth movement.

So to what do the kids who desperately want to feel part of something culturally significant turn when their current generation gives them nothing? The past, the established phenomena. And the easiest (and most obvious) phenomenon upon which you can get your wagon hitched is The Beatles.

But, I've prattled on, giving a fairly obvious and unoriginal article (about an all to obvious and semi-unoriginal band) too much thought. The bottom line is this: The Beatles music does not live up to the heaps of praise it has received. Thirty years of that rhetoric going unquestioned has only made the disparity between quality and legend more glaring. This article won't be the last to try to slay the myths of the past (particularly the 60s). Sadly, the future chroniclers of popular culture will surely do it again. If music and art are eternal, so too is the mythmaking that seems to go hand-in-hand with it.