I’m thinking along the lines of people that self-consciously think they are going to change music by making The Next Sgt. Peppers, which is a pretentious and unmusical goal, and almost all of which no one hears of because they failed. Because of course, it was of its moment. A while ago I was strolling through some old record reviews from the late 60s/early 70s and whenever there was a band I hadn’t heard of, I’d look it up on youtube and half the time it sounded like they were trying to make sgt. peppers again.
While if a band aspires to imitate the Stones, you might get… a decent rock and roll band that won’t change the world, as you say might even be forgettable, but will entertain and keep people dancing at the local watering hole, without getting all mopey that no one understands their genius.
I’m with you to the extent that I can’t think of any deliberate attempts to have a “Pepper moment” that worked out. But I can think of some that succeeded at least partly because they weren’t deliberately aiming for that.
If you’re not familiar with XTC’s Skylarking, give it a spin. For my money, that’s 1986’s answer to Sgt. Pepper, and a very good one.
But maybe it succeeds because they were not consciously trying to change music or make another Sgt. Pepper. By most accounts they were at loggerheads with the producer (Todd Rundgren) throughout the sessions and were dragged kicking and screaming into making the album they made, hated it, and only came to like it years later.
Fast forward a decade and you have OK Computer. I consider this a spiritual successor to Sgt. Pepper. Not so much musically (though there are a few parallels) but as the work of an already excellent band achieving greatness. And like Sgt. Pepper, it didn’t remain Radiohead’s best album for very long. (I’ll take Abbey Road over Sgt. Pepper almost every time… fight me.)
Mostly agree with this, although I don’t really hold the Stones in particularly high regard. I mean, they were fine. They did some good tunes and definitely had a POV that was new, exciting, and accessible to a large group of people (never mind it was largely on the backs of far superior soul and blues artists – but at least the Stones were honest about this). They had a few good albums, and a few great songs, but good god they should have packed it in decades ago. (And I’m probably the biggest Beach Boys fan here, but they probably should have packed it in decades ago as well – or at least after Carl Wilson died.)
I think The Beatles and The Beach Boys have a lot more in common than they get credit for, and for a period of several years the work of one band directly influenced the other. Rubber Soul incorporated Beach Boys-style harmonies. Pet Sounds was influenced by Rubber Soul’s artistry and cohesion. Sgt Pepper’s was influenced by Pet Sounds’ introspective songwriting and production. Smile was influenced by Sgt Pepper’s balls to the wall studio fuckery. If Brian hadn’t had his meltdown, and the Beatles hadn’t self destructed who knows what kind of amazing stuff could have happened.
As for your second paragraph, I disagree with pretty much everything said there. Comparing Lennon to Cobain and Nowell? I don’t see how these comparisons make sense. Yeah, they all died unexpectedly but that is where the similarities end for me.
Lennon was murdered over a decade after the Beatles had broken up and had fallen out of relevance. He was incredibly self-absorbed, a crappy husband and father, a womanizer, and just generally insufferable by many accounts. He was also an incredibly talented singer, songwriter, and musician and the world is a better place for him having lived in it. Kurt Cobain was pretty much the polar opposite from Lennon – he was an extremely introverted person who didn’t seek the limelight and shied away from fame. When he killed himself he was at the top of his game professionally having recently released a #1 studio album (In Utero) and the airing of the highly acclaimed MTV Unplugged in New York performance.
As for Bradley Nowell, while his death was tragic I would hardly place Sublime anywhere close to Nirvana or The Beatles for importance or influence. Sublime released a couple of albums that were hardly known outside of alt rock circles before Nowell’s death, and he was already dead when their most successful third album came out. Maybe they could have broke out and been incredibly successful, but we’ll never know – and sadly this is a story that has happened so many times in the world of entertainment that it’s basically cliché at this point.
As for the Beatles reuniting, that’s a really cool fantasy but thinking practically, what would have been the point? Even had they had the chance to reunite before John and/or George died – as cool as it would have been – what would have really been the point other than to print money. I’m actually kind of glad they didn’t reunite and risk retroactively ruining their legacy like so many other bands have done over the years.
Paul McCartney is wrong. He was an OK Bassist, once he finally got around to learning to play the thing. Every single song by Wings sucks.
Lyrically, the Beatles are overrated. The Rolling Stones are FAR superior. In reality, the Beatles are just a prototype boy/skiffle band with delusions of grandeur. Honestly, the Monkees are far more enjoyable to listen to.
John Lennon was a schmuck, and his bad attitude and narcissism would have sunk the band even without Yoko Ono’s help.
George Harrison, however was one of the finest musicians and people that this world could create, and was sullied by proximity to the Beatles.
So true, it hurts. The 1980s and 1990s were really rock bottom for the group. Dennis died in 1983, Brian was literally being held hostage by quack psychiatrist Eugene Landy, and Mike was basically running the band producing exactly the kind of low effort formulaic material you would expect of him. They were mostly playing sad little shows at sad little venues - reminiscent of the scene where a puppet show is getting top billing over Spinal Tap at the county fair. Then Mike sues Brian over songwriter credits, and Carl died of lung cancer in 1998 to cap things off. In Carl’s final shows he could barely stand and was on oxygen in between songs. (What a trooper he was.)
Spoken just like someone who doesn’t have a proper reverent appreciation for the absolute superiority of Color of the Year 2020 Pantone 19-4052 Classic Blue.
You and your mom probably love Pantone 19-4051.5, loser!
While posting earlier (re “favorite color”) I starting thinking about my own particular life-long strong psychological reaction to ‘dark cobalt blue’. My mind just melts into it. There are theories floating around about that (reminds us of a blue sky, etc.) but I don’t buy it, especially since I don’t react to seeing a blue sky (which almost never looks like ‘cobalt blue’) as I do when seeing true cobalt blue, which stops me every time. I think that psychological reaction has very little to do with what I associate visually with, than with how my mind reacts to the color. That all said, I don’t blame anyone for liking purple or yellow, as long as they’re happy and don’t try to mess with me.
They never really reunited, but in later years they did do little projects with one another.
John and Paul played a couple of songs together at a widely bootlegged jam session
Paul McCartney appears on Ringo Starr’s “Stop and Take the Time to Smell the Roses”, George Harrison wrote a few songs for it.
Ringo popped up in George Harrison’s video for “When we was Fab”
Little things like that started happening as the acrimony between them faded with time.
Of course than there was
Watching the Beatles shoot up the charts during Anthology was really nice.
As for a real reunion, despite there having been rumor of them reuniting for Live Aid, I think it best that they didn’t. Any reunion that survived the warring personalities still would have been likely only diminish their legacy, not grow it.
Although, in fairness, I think that it helped that nobody in the band was angry with Ringo…that is where most of the post Beatles collabs are…Ringo albums.
