There would be no Elvis Beatles Stones nothing happens without the overwhelming influence of the The Blues (folk and Chicago) Jazz, Armstrong to Charlie Parker. Armstrong taught the world how to swing and without swing, nothing happens. Rock N Roll modern Jazz Hip Hop, nothing. So why don’t you make a movie about that.” They” are the innovators and don’t forget that it was Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino that made the Brits want to pick up and play their guitars. world without Louis Armstrong, world without BB King a world without Robert Johnson a world without Muddy Wolf Buddy Guy makes me cringe. Make a movie about that.
FB
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
It would take a book to refute this article, which is about a film written by Richard Curtis, the ‘Michelle’ of script writers. Instead I will merely point out that you can’t take the songs out of their time and context and to discuss whether or not they would be hits today is somewhat ridiculous. By the standards of their time, more or less everything the Beatles did was staggeringly innovative. Over the decades we have become inured to this and our senses don’t register the songs in that way.
I will also briefly take issue with the denigration of ‘Back In The USSR’ and ‘I Am The Walrus’. The former is a brilliant pastiche by McCartney, who from 1965 to 1969 was unsurpassed in the particular art. In fact, I don’t suppose any songwriter has ever surpassed his talent for pastiche.
As for ‘Walrus’, it was the track that inspired one of the key members of Can to form that group because it transformed his ideas of what could be created within the rock/pop idiom. In terms of its sonic and lyrical content it is probably the Beatles’ most complex piece of work – see Ian Macdonald’s analysis in ‘Revolutions In The Head’ – although ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ may have been more innovative.
JB
johnny7
3 years ago
“… remove the context of the 1960s, subtract John, Paul, George and Ringo, and there’s no chance that the songs alone would pull off that coup” Absolutely on the money. I remember thinking when Ed Sheeran (popular, but whose canon is a mystery to me) held up his hands in surrender on listening to Yesterday. Totally daft. Brilliant article.
EC
omegalo448
3 years ago
Richard Curtis has long made a virtue of lacking substance. He couldn’t possibly disappoint me due to my lack of expectations when approaching his lightweight work. As for The Beatles, I was a second generation fan and I’ve seen people much younger becoming fans of their music. There will probably be Beatles fans in every generation, much as Beethoven will continue to earn new admirers. This doesn’t guarantee that all of those songs would be hits now, though Beatles reissues and compilations always seem to fly right up the charts even in an age where their sense of melody is all but extinct.
IM
Ian McGregor
3 years ago
Boyle and Curtis, as could be expected, grotesquely woked Yesterday.
JS
James Sinclair
3 years ago
There was an unnecessary dig at Oasis, which sort of summed up the sentiment of the film in my opinion. If there’s one band that lovie/liberal-left types will never understand its Oasis.
Well I am not a left/liberal type and I don’t like Oasis, with the possible exception of the first album.
TF
tom.farrell
3 years ago
I think the author needs to watch Back To The Future again. Johnny B Goode goes down a storm – that’s the whole point of the scene. Marty only loses the audience when he improvises into Van Halen territory
Marty was doing Jimi Hendrix, or a white boys version of Hendrix which is what Butthead Van Halen did. Poor mans version of Hendrix
G
gerrysw11
3 years ago
From the other end of the telescope, a preparatory paper for a PhD thesis came to much the same conclusion about Jimi Hendrix. TL;DR whatever his talents if Chas Chandler hadn’t taken him to England nothing would have happened (indeed nothing was happening until then)
So that’s why I’m not rich and famous! Nobody wrote my songs 60 years ago. It’s got to work in reverse, right?
MG
matt.theloop
3 years ago
I not only did not care very much for this film, it really was disappointing because it def has an intriguing concept / trailer. As a working Script Doctor who also owns a nightclub, I feel I am uniquely capable of making this argument. Besides the rather surprisingly flat and very un-Boyle direction from Boyle, I never once thought the Lead Male was a struggling artist, someone really starving for work but loves the game so much, he’d play music for free. Never once. And the Hey Jude / Hey Dude bit is really bad sitcom level crap, not an interesting explanation of the creative struggle. Just really really bad
DG
Daniel Goldstein
3 years ago
“OK, I could imagine ‘Something’ or ‘Hey Jude’ being hits if Coldplay (who wouldn’t exist without the Beatles but let’s shelve that thought) released them tomorrow, but ‘Back in the USSR’? A Cold War Beach Boys pastiche about a country that no longer exists? Nyet. ‘I Am the Walrus’? Not a hope.” In chart terms, it’s debatable that the latter two were “hits” in the first place – certainly, they didn’t achieve significant success in their own right. They were originally album tracks, EP tracks or B-sides in the UK. ‘Eleanor Rigby’ or ‘Yellow Submarine’ might be better examples of Beatles hits which may not make the charts today, partly because musical genres are often specific to their era.
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There would be no Elvis Beatles Stones nothing happens without the overwhelming influence of the The Blues (folk and Chicago) Jazz, Armstrong to Charlie Parker. Armstrong taught the world how to swing and without swing, nothing happens. Rock N Roll modern Jazz Hip Hop, nothing. So why don’t you make a movie about that.” They” are the innovators and don’t forget that it was Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino that made the Brits want to pick up and play their guitars. world without Louis Armstrong, world without BB King a world without Robert Johnson a world without Muddy Wolf Buddy Guy makes me cringe. Make a movie about that.
It would take a book to refute this article, which is about a film written by Richard Curtis, the ‘Michelle’ of script writers. Instead I will merely point out that you can’t take the songs out of their time and context and to discuss whether or not they would be hits today is somewhat ridiculous. By the standards of their time, more or less everything the Beatles did was staggeringly innovative. Over the decades we have become inured to this and our senses don’t register the songs in that way.
I will also briefly take issue with the denigration of ‘Back In The USSR’ and ‘I Am The Walrus’. The former is a brilliant pastiche by McCartney, who from 1965 to 1969 was unsurpassed in the particular art. In fact, I don’t suppose any songwriter has ever surpassed his talent for pastiche.
As for ‘Walrus’, it was the track that inspired one of the key members of Can to form that group because it transformed his ideas of what could be created within the rock/pop idiom. In terms of its sonic and lyrical content it is probably the Beatles’ most complex piece of work – see Ian Macdonald’s analysis in ‘Revolutions In The Head’ – although ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ may have been more innovative.
“…
remove the context of the 1960s, subtract John, Paul, George and Ringo,
and there’s no chance that the songs alone would pull off that coup” Absolutely on the money. I remember thinking when Ed Sheeran (popular, but whose canon is a mystery to me) held up his hands in surrender on listening to Yesterday. Totally daft. Brilliant article.
Richard Curtis has long made a virtue of lacking substance. He couldn’t possibly disappoint me due to my lack of expectations when approaching his lightweight work.
As for The Beatles, I was a second generation fan and I’ve seen people much younger becoming fans of their music. There will probably be Beatles fans in every generation, much as Beethoven will continue to earn new admirers. This doesn’t guarantee that all of those songs would be hits now, though Beatles reissues and compilations always seem to fly right up the charts even in an age where their sense of melody is all but extinct.
Boyle and Curtis, as could be expected, grotesquely woked Yesterday.
There was an unnecessary dig at Oasis, which sort of summed up the sentiment of the film in my opinion. If there’s one band that lovie/liberal-left types will never understand its Oasis.
Well I am not a left/liberal type and I don’t like Oasis, with the possible exception of the first album.
I think the author needs to watch Back To The Future again. Johnny B Goode goes down a storm – that’s the whole point of the scene. Marty only loses the audience when he improvises into Van Halen territory
Marty was doing Jimi Hendrix, or a white boys version of Hendrix which is what Butthead Van Halen did. Poor mans version of Hendrix
From the other end of the telescope, a preparatory paper for a PhD thesis came to much the same conclusion about Jimi Hendrix. TL;DR whatever his talents if Chas Chandler hadn’t taken him to England nothing would have happened (indeed nothing was happening until then)
https://fortyninthparallelj…
So that’s why I’m not rich and famous! Nobody wrote my songs 60 years ago. It’s got to work in reverse, right?
I not only did not care very much for this film, it really was disappointing because it def has an intriguing concept / trailer.
As a working Script Doctor who also owns a nightclub, I feel I am uniquely capable of making this argument.
Besides the rather surprisingly flat and very un-Boyle direction from Boyle, I never once thought the Lead Male was a struggling artist, someone really starving for work but loves the game so much, he’d play music for free. Never once.
And the Hey Jude / Hey Dude bit is really bad sitcom level crap, not an interesting explanation of the creative struggle.
Just really really bad
“OK, I could imagine ‘Something’ or ‘Hey Jude’ being hits if Coldplay (who wouldn’t exist without the Beatles but let’s shelve that thought) released them tomorrow, but ‘Back in the USSR’? A Cold War Beach Boys pastiche about a country that no longer exists? Nyet. ‘I Am the Walrus’? Not a hope.”
In chart terms, it’s debatable that the latter two were “hits” in the first place – certainly, they didn’t achieve significant success in their own right. They were originally album tracks, EP tracks or B-sides in the UK. ‘Eleanor Rigby’ or ‘Yellow Submarine’ might be better examples of Beatles hits which may not make the charts today, partly because musical genres are often specific to their era.