Love this song. I first heard about Big Star when Elliott Smith covered this song. Beautiful.
“I’ve never been fond of The Beatles” - I’m sorry, I don’t usually say this but your opinion is dead wrong. It borders on stupidity. The Beatles are, objectively, great. Listen again, and feel shame at the blasphemy you have posted.
I can sort of understand where you’re coming from, my dad loves Tom Waits and I never really ‘got it’ until I was older. I was like “I get it dad, he’s big in Japan” but then I actually put some headphones on and listened to a full album and I was transported. Put some headphones on, Amy.
If you like that, you should also check out Chris Bell’s You and Your Sister.
Oh, boy. Every once in a while you run into somebody who doesn’t like the Beatles. Which is totally okay by the way. I’m not the biggest Mick Jagger fan, and people look at me cross-eyed when I say that. But the phrase “trite and clunky” is going to draw some ire.
i am not a huge beatles fan (and don’t get me started on the rolling stones) – but i can’t deny either of the bands their influence, and i can definitely admit to liking some of their stuff. but “trite” and “clunky” only apply to the beatles if you ignore the context their appearance and rise, and the fact they did a TON of things first. they seem quaint now, but they were amazing and groundbreaking in so many ways… and that’s not even touching on the lennon/mccartney songwriting team, and those harmonies!
Dude, LATE Beatles are trite and clunky. The LATE Beatles that did songs like Rocky Raccoon and shit, that stuff is lame. The early Beatles were tight, and smart and were sorta the blueprint for a lot of the other british invasion bands. If you don’t like the Beatles pre-1965 I don’t see how you could like ANY British invasion music from the same time… everyone gets a pass on I Wanna Hold Your Hand and all the really really really huge hits, but songs like All I’ve Got To Do, Not a Second Time, I’m a Loser, those songs are classic and they are NOT clunky, they’re sharp, and smart, and quick.
Also, the Beatles invented the trick of recording your drums, bass and guitars faster than you wanted, then slowing down the tape to the tempo you wanted, makes em sound bigger. Chris Bell used that trick on the song I Am the Cosmos.
I felt in necessary to provide kudos for the “Big in Japan” joke.
Never owned a Beatles album, but I never go far without a little Big Star
Garbage. Or should I say Garbage did a cover version aswell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYAn6bMgqVs
OK - I see now that it was a bit much to say the Beatles are “trite and clunky” to me. I should have just left it at them not doing it for me. But, if you had been in the car with your 11 year-old boyfriend on the way to the roller rink and your dad was singing along with “Love Me Do” and flapping his arms in the driver’s seat, you might be similarly scarred.
Now that I’m oversharing, my boyfriend’s name was Lance and my dad liked to ask “Do you like Lance a lot?”
Sorry to “yuck” your “yum”.
ok, now i understand the scarring. but i’m also wondering just what the arm flapping was about. i can’t imagine where that fits in the song, haha.
Hey, there’s no accounting for taste. (I’m a lifelong science fiction fan who doesn’t particularly like Dune, Ender’s Game or Starship Troopers.) But there likely wouldn’t have been a Big Star–or they wouldn’t have been the band that people love–without the Beatles; you could say the same thing about the Beatles and their numerous influences (Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Elvis, etc.) And that’s for the Beatles either early or late; “Rocky Raccoon” works not only as a sly satire on folk rock, but also as part of the White Album, which proved that the Beatles could take on virtually any musical genre or subgenre that they cared to and master it.
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