Why John Lennon initially hated "Twist and Shout"

Originally published at: Why John Lennon initially hated "Twist and Shout" | Boing Boing

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By the time they recorded this the Beatles had done hundreds, maybe thousands, of live shows going back to their days in Liverpool clubs. Lennon was a perfectionist, who at that time probably didn’t understand the importance of “slight imperfection” in a performance. The imperfection gives it a kind of vulnerability.

Here’s one take on that:

And another:

It’s why we instinctively “know” that an autotuned voice isn’t the best.

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…but then he saw the dramatic increase in his bank account from the singles sales and thought the better of it.

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I will say that it depends on how autotune is being used for my tastes? I like it when it shows up as an effect on the vocals rather than a means of perfecting the pitch. Although, even that is getting a bit over used lately. But still…

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I’d agree with this, yes. When it’s not the central feature–being used to “fix” someone’s bad vocals. In that sense it’s a background instrument?

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I don’t know if I’d call it that? Maybe? Part of the overall use of synthesis in popular music maybe? I’m not sure how you’d classify effects on vocals and/or more “traditional” (traditional since the 40s, at least) instruments like guitars, etc. It’s also part of the larger shift to making the production studio just as important a location for the process of making a song or an album as the song-writing process. There are so many things an individual can do even with just a nice laptop and the right kind of software to make some high quality music now. It’s kind of mind-boggling how far things have come even since multitracking first started to become standard for the production of popular music.

Lennon being unable to empathize with someone isn’t news

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Oh those crazy moptops from Liverpool, singing for 12 hours and then drinking pints of milk!

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Same way some of us can’t listen to music with machine-made percussion: it’s too “perfect.”

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Which is why everyone always remembers the bridge of “In the Air Tonight” and not the autodrums leading up to it.

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She could have helped:

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You forgot the original:

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Excellent find. I was curious about the songwriters and found this:

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I thought I read somewhere that John already had laryngitis when he sung this, and he was struggling, which gave it the somewhat “raw” vocal, rather than the song itself wrecking his voice. Seems his voice was already rasping and he was a tad hoarse before recording it.

That’s stupid but interesting that he didn’t like it, because that rasp sounds incredible. It also juxtaposes so well against their clean cut presentation otherwise. So shut the fuck up John Lennon, you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about.

Who else literally remembers watching and listening to this on TV when it happened? I remember being very annoyed that the camera kept cutting to the screaming girls when I just wanted to see the Beatles.

When she started describing the band her friend was trying to record for as not ‘punk’ but ‘hardcore’ and ‘it was metal’, I chuckled knowingly to myself and began to wonder which band it was. I’ve known garage level guys in that genre and they did often blow their voices out.

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